ovine king

kinda..... i've never really differentiated between a japaneses kata, a chinese ying or an engish form/drill. to me, if it's a sequence of movements then it's teaching you how to move.

just in case you missed it, my post was in reference to the post above mine (shown below) i was in no way saying what i think jkd is or isn't

a kata/form is a sequence that allows you to practice how to move.

not really. i think we've established that looking at things in terms of block then strike is looking things wrongly.

complicating? well, like i asked before, when do you ONLY do a block and when is that block ONLY a block? if you are talking about a singular block THEN strike then yes, that doesn't tend to work because the other guy is hardly likely to only throw punches in any sort of rhythm but then, that's what in most martial arts you are taught to block AS you strike, block AND strike, block WITH your strike etc etc.

i'm surprised because goju is one of the more traditional karate styles and is one that doesn't partake in the modern point sparring where block THEN strike is a viable game tactic. i would've thought someone practising goju would be aware that each movement is at the same time a block, a strike, a lock, and a throw depending on the circumstance of exectution. in other words, the movement whilst being all of them is at the same time, none of them. it is 'just' an arm/hand movement. what you are saying is suggesting to me that a block movement is totally separate and different to a strike movement. not to mention that you are talking about blocking as a singular technique. what happened to block AND strike or block AS YOU strike or block WITH your strike?

jkd=jeet kuen do= intercept fist way. if you're going to take it literally as you did with the two examples you gave, then jkd is all/only about intercepting fist. in that repect, TKD and karate makes more sense.

that would be because the MA guys in this country are much better and would be much harder to fool..... as for the UK series, the DJ one was cool as was the fashion desinger one.

i'm kinda surprised that a goju ryu guy is talking about blocking THEN striking.

being the akward git that i am, i have one question to ask. what does it say about your ego when you feel the need to start a thread regarding other people's over inflated egos?

the most obvious thing to say is that within EVERY style, there aren't more than maybe 5 core techniques anyway. strip away all the faff and what you're left with are very simple movements. move arm out (with punch/palm/whatever) move arm in (grab/pull/whatever) kick with hip square kick with hip turned these are the most basic motions and really, they should be the first things you practice anyway. the thing is, i'm not entirely pleased that it takes an 'outside' organisation to promote this. at the end of the day, padded training is an aspect we should all have as part of our regime. i mean, what harm is there is getting some light padding and actually hitting each other? what's that about learning to swim without getting wet?

the odd thing is, it doesn't actually require much physical strength.

hang on, shouldn't you have figured this out during the course of training? i mean, isn't it hard NOT to know what sparring is after having done a sparring lesson?

i wouldn't say the front kick to the groin is going to beat the low thai kick. in pretty diagrams, it might be a shorter path but the thai kick is potentially quicker in it's execution and it has a bigger more general target. your kick has to hit a small target that is moving (the other guy is kicking remember) in order to get an effect. the other guy just has to connect to get an effect. don't just take my word for it. go to your local kick-boxing place (doesn't have to be thai boxing) and ask them to low kick you as you try to do a front kick to stop them. of course, this is to be done in a sparring/fighting situation where he isn't just going to be doing low kicks at you. pak sau to the leg/low level is more accurately described as a gum sau. gan sau to receive kicks would be the 'correct' gan sau from bil gee+dummy form, not the singular gan sau as done in the first form. put it this way, when you spar, you don't just gan sau by itself do you? in anycase, to use or not depends solely on what is coming at you. in most cases, i wouldn't recommend using arms to take the kick when you can just lift your knee. lifting your knee gives you something better to recieve with, frees your hand and allows to step in straight away to break balance. to the argument about having to block at some time. the way i was taught is that the things i do are both blocks and attacks..... kinda. let's say i have a guard up as you punch. your punch meets my guard/arms. if my arms are stonger then my arm movement is an attack. if my arms are weaker then my arm movement is a block. this is just going on about the initial pre-contack stage. what we do first isn't a block or attack, it is seen as an interception that might be biased towards being a fixed block or it might be biased towards being an attack but it's main priority is to be able to contain whatever is coming towards me. if that makes any sense at all... heck, this is something i'd have to show you. or i guess i could just say "bil gee" and hope you get what i mean.

yes...... but the links i gave have verifiable evidence. your little quote from the book doesn't provide anything similar apart from "the author says". being able to argue for something doesn't mean anything. in this case, given the evidence, it looks looks like jujutsu has no link to chinese arts. no arguing needed, unless of course you like to argue.

just trying to get a good picture of what you're talking about, that's all. i keep bringing it back to chin-na because that group of techniques are the main ways to take down/throw/lock etc etc. it's just me being general in an attempt to minimise confusion.

....not to put a dampener on things but the biggest problem with forest gump is that it is a feel good hollywood movie..... noble intentions (maybe) but it is still limited by the need to be entertaining in an uplifting and amusing way. of mice and men, being a different medium and subject matter, is not restrained by the need to be 'cheerful'. anyway. forest is rather nerdy guy and far from the looming image of lennie. when forest hits someone, it is the small guy making a stand. when lennie hits someone, it is almost like a monster revealing himself. or is it lennie getting consumed by the monster that is anger and aggression? or is it lennie being a small man trapped inside this monster? eck... too much for my little mind to comprehend. just in case anyone's interested, i've recently been pointed towards gabriel garcia marquez. i've made an order for one hundred years of solitude, love in the time of cholera and chronicle of a death foretold.

well, if you look into the origins of san shou and then look at the rules, you'll see that to an extent, the thai boxers are limited (or is it that the rules favour the san shou guy?) in that environment whilst at the same time, introducing throws, which scores lots of points, that the thai boxer doesn't naturally have in their normal training. look at it this way. why did they need to make a new rule-set in order to beat the thai boxers? also, the san shou guys tend to win by points as well..... of course this is a very narrow-minded and suspicious line of thought but the point is still relevant; do san shou guys win consistantly in regular muay thai rules matches? anyway.... i digress. perhaps i am too suspicious. thing is, i see something on one source, fine, i'll keep it in mind. when i DON'T see that same thing anywhere else, i begin to wonder why. this is especially the case on the internet, which is why i really do not like people stating their opinions and suppositions as fact. anyone new coming into that post will probably take it as fact and then before you know, it has become 'fact'. oops, there i go again.

er.... i can do it no hands too but i wouldn't recommend using your head/neck as a leverage point. it doesn't take long to get right as once you do it right once, you'll know how it 'feels'. it took me one night with a few cushions layed down on the floor when i was about 12 (all them many years ago....) one more thing, if you're clonking your head on the floor after failing, you've got the movement wrong, hence the falling onto your head. you should be tucking legs under and pivoting, not 'jumping'. if you fail, you should be landing near the small of your back. edit.... y'know, after typing this originally, it occured to me that i hadn't played with this for ages and wasn't actually sure if i could still do it.......

what exactly is the question? how to do the step? first of all, i cn't see what you are doing so i cant really comment. how-ever, if you can't step properly, the first thing that always comes to mind is that your hip might not be in the right place. when in a fixed stance, can you lift a leg without having to shift your weight/hip? if the asnwer is 'no', then your hip position is wrong.

but it is also possible that the grappling aspect was added later. chin-na tends to look the same no matter which style you look at; the nature of how chin-na works means that there is very little room for personalistion. stance and guard have very little to do with how you would do a chin-na technique. anyway. when you say grappling, do you include the holds and throws that are more commonly seen in jujutsu and jiujitsu or are you only talking about the striking and locks?

http://www.furyu.com/archives/issue8/Chin.html http://www.big-planet.org/chapter_1jujitsu.htm

and if you read the first line you'll see that i was talking about "all the times i see people..." it was me explaining why i feel this way and wasn't addressing your post directly. i guess that's an example of you reading between my lines too much.

guys, don't you remember that thread he had about throwing sai? if he didn't listen to us then, why do you think he's going to listen this time?

well..... i guess it all boils down all of the times i see people talk about martial arts using words like 'combat', 'battle', 'warrior' and so on.... it's like they are trying to paint themselves as some kind of noble warrior, (i.e samurai) as if they're better than others. in my mind, it's not that much different to the guys who preach 'reality based self defence' as being better than 'martial art'.