ps1

When you take away the armbar, kimura, and americana attacks, you are really limiting what you can do. Especially without the gi (which I know is what you do). You already mentioned the can opener, triangle and mataleao. There is also the baseball choke, but you need to go to the knee in belly and then to the side to get it. There's the head and arm choke (again, you will relinquish the mount to complete the submission). The ezequiel (sp?) also. That's alot of submissions. Instead of learning new ones, you may want to start learning how to set them up in combinations too. Hope this was somewhat helpful.

I asked about the gi because it's a much slower roll than no-gi. That allows for a more technical roll. With no-gi you have far fewer grips and the game moves much faster because of being more slippery (as you know). Don't worry so much about the explosion. Remember, power will not win in the long run. You need to set up your opponent to give you what you want. Just keep letting your moves flow together. If you get passed or miss the sweep, figure out why and do it differently next time. You'll never get better if you don't try. Give it another six months or a year...you'll be amazed how much better you get just by feeling the movements better and learning more set ups.

The same can be said of Traditional martial arts as well. One instructor of shotokan went to jail not too long ago. He was a pharmacist that was selling pharmaceuticals out the back door without a perscription. My point is that it's not a MMA vs. Traditional thing...it's a good person vs. bad person or good instructor vs. bad instructor thing.

Many beginners face the same problem you're having. Honestly, the best bet is to aviod grappling them until they learn to settle down a little bit. Grapple with the more experienced people in class. They will be more relaxed and you will have more chance to work technique instead of strength. You'll learn alot more that way. If that's not an option, keep the guys in your closed guard. It's kinda like taming a wild bronco. The first thing you need to do is get them in a corral. Then you can start working the techniques to tame them. It's the same with the guys your talking about. Keep them in closed guard and work your submission and sweep setups from there. Of course...that's always easier said than done. By the way, do you practice gi or no-gi?

What Dana did for UFC was make it more digestable by the general public. That is, take away some of the brutality (lack of gloves, groin strikes, add weight divisions, limit strikes allowed on the ground ect...) in order to make it so that the general public would accept it. At the time he took over the sport was banned in most of the United States. Now, as more MMA orgs follow his lead, the sport is well regulated and being performed in many states. Sure, we'll never see the classic 170lb guy take on the 250lb guy in a David v. Goliath match again. We won't see anyone stacking his opponent and punching repeatedly to the groin anymore either. Maybe you like that, maybe you don't. But there's no arguing that Dana White is the one who gave a new life to a sport that was about to be outlawed nearly everywhere. I mean...PPV wasn't even picking it up for a while. UFC and the many other state MMA competitions would not be what they are today without Dana White.

In general, any throw that requires you to be lower than your opponent will be more difficult for a tall person. You will just have to focus more on getting low by bending the knees on entry. It's a good technique to know but it may not end up being used alot by you. That's not a bad thing. Even the best Judoka use only a handful of techniques on a regular basis. They are able to preform them all, but certainly have their favorites.

congratulations!

In Shotokan, the average was about 4 to 8 months between ranks. From Purple to brown and brown to black the average wait was about 7 to 12 months. That's for 8 kyu ranks. (white orange yellow blue green purple brown and brown stripe) In Aiki Jujitsu, kobudo, and chuan fa it took about a year to a year and a half between ranks. 3 kyu ranks. (white green and brown) In BJJ it takes about two and a half to three years for each rank. (white blue purple brown)

Well said!

Welcome to the forum! I think someone answered the question about the white belt. As you post more often, the color of the avatar will change. 1000 posts will earn you the black belt.

Welcome to the forums. Cool idea with the cards.

Granted that not everyone is a trained fighter, but I've seen guys take some really devastating kicks to the body. The problem is that these kicks only tend to cause pain (save the solar plexus which will sap the wind). Pain can be ignored and, against an opponent who's on drugs, may not even be felt. Lots of people mention the kidney shots. Again, this is pain compliance. The person on the receiving end of the shot may be urinating blood tomorrow, but you're fighting them today! That means you need to beat them today. The low line kicks tend to cause biomechanical responses that prevent the opponent from standing to fight back. In the end, body shots are great as moves to open up more effective targets. In the ring, they will surely wear down the opponent, but on "the street" we don't have that kind of time.

It's a method of intercepting the opponent's strike and sucking them in with it. Most often a trap is followed up with multiple strikes to whatever sensitive areas are exposed at that moment. In Jujitsu, the trap is utilized but more often followed up by a joint attack of some sort. It's pretty effective, especially against an opponent who over commits to an attack. That's why many martial arts use trapping to some extent.

That's really odd!! Being a black belt within the Kwanmukan myself, I've never heard of a rule that a black belt can't be an uki. Additionally, we usually pair people who are testing together to be uki for each other. Logistically it's easier because this way people who arent testing don't have to show up just to be an uki. Your son should be old enough to be asking these questions on his own however. You said he's been training for 8 years. Even if he started at 5 years old, he'd be 13 years old. I say if he doesn't care enough to be asking these questions himself, he doesn't deserve to be testing anyway. I think Mr. Anderson and Mr. Caldwell would agree.

Poekoelan, which is very similar in many ways to silat, involves trapping. Not to the same extent as wing chun though. Same goes for Shotokan and, of course, most jujitsu styles use trapping.

Thanks Bushido!

I agree. I think the same can be said for many if not all of the great martial arts masters in history. They were/are just a step above and were able to understand and make inferences that the rest of us would likely never see without help and instruction. That's it!! YoungMan sealed it for me. I don't think the guy is a legitimate black belt! It's fake. He may be a decent fighter, but if he wants to wear a black belt, go earn one like everyone else.

We do not practice stances as static positions. They are just postures that occur through natural movement. So I guess they all feel pretty natural to me.

As a black belt in TKD, you're going to find many of the striking techniques are very much the same. Karate will put more emphasis in lacing combos of hand techniques together. I believe goju ryu practices alot of joint locking. You may also consider a jujitusu school. In Diato Ryu we learned all the same hand techniques, some of the kicking and lots of joint locking.

100% true. In fact, many MMA guys I've spoken with study in MMA only gyms because they don't want the philosophy and "extra techniques" taught in traditional schools. Sometimes I really wonder why everyone is so down on MMA but years have gone by and nothing negative was said about boxing. They teach the same way (boxing and MMA schools). Personally, I think it's because MMA actually has the words "martial arts" in it. Many "traditionalists" feel it should be taken out. Maybe just call it "mixed fighting" or something. However, I could make the same argument for any system that no longer teaches all martial elements (which is virtually all of them). I agree, that they do neglect the art in so much that they do not train all aspects relating to their art being martial. That's what the word "art" actually refers to. But when's the last time you went outside in rank and file and practiced your flanking maneuvers, or archery, or any of the other things that relate to war. Most of us actually study "martial ways" or "martial paths." As I mentioned above, they don't want the philosophy, boxing hadn't used it for years and no one ever expected them to do so. Why do we expect that to change all of the sudden? Now I'm not exceptionally old (28years), but in my life time, which includes 8 years in the service and 15 months in Iraq, I've never seen a fight of any kind that is not ugly. If by "ugly" you mean unskilled, you have never been in the ring with one of those fighters. Their timing, movements, and distancing are very precise. Yes, there are. They seem to be poping up like crazy, especially as MMA competitions become more prevalent (Most states have lifted the bans on them as they realize they can make money on them through regulations). I visit them when I can. Many, sadly, remind me of McDojos though. That is, the instructor may only really know one martial art/fighting system and makes the rest up (I think that's where some of the crappy competitors come in). Others are actually good with good instructors. I think the term MMA is used most often because it's recognized by the public.

This is similar to the point I was going to make!! In the end, if you're not comfortable with the demonstration than don't do it. I tend to feel the same as you about showing off in public. However, because it's good for the dojo and martial arts, and I feel I owe everything good in my life to what martial arts has done (and God), the least I can do is show off a little to help positively promote them both. (Sorry about the run-on sentence ) It's also a small thing you can do to counter the people that make martial arts look bad (fake masters, McDojos, famous martial artists doing drugs and so on). Hope this helps. Good luck.

Here's a couple of ideas. Tell him you're not allowed to teach him. ie: the instructor doesn't allow it. Tell him you're not good enough at the techniques to teach him. Tell him you don't remember the techniques. Teach them completely wrong, so he sees it doesn't work and stops asking. Start teaching a technique and act like you can't remember it properly. You know say things like, "no wait, it's like this, no...like this...I just can't seem to get it."

It's more likely that they were talking about their black belts being registered with a large certifying body. Not the local authorities.

Yup. People see them as different because, as a society, they tend to be ignorant of what we do. They assume that every single injury must have occured by getting punched or kicked somehow. I think I've had more injuries happen during drills than ever in actual sparring or rolling.

The most important thing you can do right now is to go to a doctor! Period. Lower back pain could be caused by something as easy to fix as an inbalance in muscle development or as serious as a sliped disc. Unchecked, you could lose the use of your legs. Get it checked out. As for the rest. I'm sorry to tell you that you are falling victim to politics within the martial arts. The question you should be asking isn't "does some guy in Japan think you're a black belt." It should be, "does your instructor consider you a black belt?" He's the one who knows what you can do. Good luck with the back and I hope you're able to fulfill your dreams.