taiji fajin

Taiji is very different from the other martial arts you have listed, but very useful, and I feel it complements any martial art well. It may be hard at first to switch gears, but once you get into taiji it is a great art to practice, and not just for the martial side. Enjoy and keep us updated on how its going.

The winner in a knife fight is the person who gets to die in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Police fear someone in close with a knife more than someone far away with a gun, and for good reason. That being said, I do know someone who has been attacked by a mugger with a knife and "won" the fight, without being injured. But defending against a knife is a LAST RESORT. Give the guy what he wants.

Depending on where you train, street fighting can be very similar or dissimlar to street fighting. It all depends on how you're trained and what you want out of it. AO - you had some interesting ideas, it'd be fun to train with you. Oh, and that part about "registering" yourself as a black belt is fake. There have been a few threads about it already, and you can just check with your local police (make sure they are actually looking up what they are talking about). Its an old urban legend

I can think of analogies for belts too. We can even start a thread (hmmm, I might do this when I get some time) about the merit of using belts. The idea that adding a belt that is camo (instead of adding one that is purple, blue, orange, silver, whatever you want) is good or bad is purely based on taste. Personally, I dislike it, but whatever floats your boat.

I like that, with the exception of black belt, our school doesn't make people pay to take the belt test.

2,103,840 minutes . Seriously, though, there isn't a timeline where a certain amount is too much, though I can see some being too little. I'm surprised at how quickly most people are saying, to be honest. I always thought our school (our old instructor recently left) rushed people so they could get one in four years, since we are made up of mostly college students, and that way if someone wanted to earn one in their undergrad they could. I was always under the impression four was too little, and that most other schools "out there" probably took between 6 and 8.

In Korean styles, my favorite form that I've seen is White Crane on Cloud. Lots of animal movements, breathing control, powerful strikes, etc. My favorite form that I know how to do myself is Back Pahl Ki Hyung (1st degree black belt form).

A couple of friends and I went through . . . . . a lot one year. Anyway, during it one of them made up a "ranking" system: 5 - run away at the start of a fight. 4 - try to avoid fights, or break up fights if they happen. 3 - if your friends get into a fight, join their side. 2 - join into any fight. 1 - look for any reason to start a fight. At the time, all 3 of us were 1's. Now that I practice martial arts a lot? I'm a 4. If martial arts make you a 1, you're not practicing correctly.

For those of you that teach martial arts for a living (don't have any other job) what do you do for health insurance? MA may be able to pay the bills, but an accident can run up gigantic medical bills. Dentist bills? Insurance for your family? How do you cover all of these things?

If its called Kuk Sool Won it (should be) the same organization. I don't know of any school where you said it was, but it might just not be listed on the website.

No, I haven't, and searching around didn't reveal anything either. My advice? Get out of there. This guy is full of it. There's no technique to knock someone out without touching them, and his art doesn't seem to exist anywhere outside of his own school.

Reminds me of some taiji "master" who came around here and could make people move by using his "energy". Guy was full of it. All he did was get people to relax, plant the idea that they were suppose to walk, then slowly change their visual reference (he slowly leaned back) so they slowly leaned forward and felt themselves being "pulled," then they had to walk to keep from falling over. People know some neat tricks. I've used it on my buddies when they're drunk to laugh at them.

A brick to the back of the head? (JOKE) It depends on what you want it for, your opponent, and yourself. Different people feel more comfortable using different techniques on different people. Sorry, I know that's not the answer you want. Learn a few different ones and see what works best for you.

Don't deal with him right after class. During a workout, your body releases chemicals to make you feel good. If you are with someone right at the tail end and after working out, you subconsciously attribute these good feelings to himm / her, and begin liking them. Find some other hot guy in the class and start talking to him at the end / after class, and who you like will change soon enough . (yeah, sometimes I take a too biological / technical approach to feelings and cut out all the romance. Sometimes.)

I wrestled before I got into martial arts. While it helped with a couple things (sense of balance, upsetting an opponents balance, no hesitation invading someone else's personal space), it hindered me in other ways. While overall I think it helped me learn how to grapple quicker, almost all my wrestling moves were detrimental and / or useless. Some put me at a serious disadvantage (tendency to go to the stomach, not to the back, if on bottom, or to try and make a person go to their back, instead of their stomach, if they're on bottom). Overall, I think it gave me an advantage with foundation (more important), and a disadvantage with technique (less important).

Raise the driving age, lower the drinking age, IMO (and yes, I am already old enough to drink, not just trying to do it sooner ). This gives kids a period to get over the excitement of beginning to drink, and takes away the excitement of legally drinking. They get the majority of it out of their system, and better, they have a couple years to learn their tolerances and how it affects them before they get behind the wheel of a car.

If you learn taiji correctly, there is no way to get one without the other (martial art and health, or the other way around).

http://www.kuksoolwon.com/results_2005_STL.htm Master Harvey got 1st (no surprise), and SBN Jan got 2nd (again, no surprise). Master Zefo came in 4th, behind JKN Gholston. Also of interest, Kevan Samiee, who I've worked with a good amount, took home the 1st dahn men's grand champion, for the 2nd year in a row. Go Kevan . Always knew he was awesome.

Well, I'm back from it. No competing, but it was fun to judge. The master's exhibition was short this year, much shorter than in previous years. I'd have to say my favorite part was Master Sim's demo, though it was pretty much him just beating someone up . Overall, not nearly as good as in the past, though. I did get to see master Zefo's demonstration. It mainly centered around rope and handcuff techniques. Kuk Sa Nim was fun to talk to. He was telling me about how he got a new uniform from some (national?) Korean television station.

Yeah, that was pretty gross (second movie) Still doubt the effectiveness of trying to punch someone in the foot? Stand still and I will punch the top of your foot and break the small bones on top of it. Then you will see that it is realistic to fight that way . Seriously, though, while kicking has its place, just because a kick hurts (did anyone actually doubt this?) when a guy just stands there and takes it doesn't prove that they are "effective." I can think of many, many things that would hurt if you just stood there and let me do it to you, doesn't mean I would try them in a fight.

Not that this is really relevant to this thread, but in 24 hours you managed to post 151 times. . . . . . . . . . . . I'm impressed. My hat is off to you.

Try to find one closer, even if it is not the exact same. If that isn't an option, find a different ma so you can still be learning ma's (it will help with your karate too), and keep practicing your karate at home until you are near a school again.

Go out to a bar and yell profanities about people's mothers. You'll get full contact no pad sparring . (for anyone out there who doesn't understand a joke, please, please don't do this. Or at least record it and put it up on the forum if you do )

Hmmm, thanks for the tip, I'll try to watch for them. I train with Master Harvey on occasion (mainly weapons), and even more with SBN Butler. Jan loves to grapple, and so do I, so we're always going at it. He's a fun instructor.

Welcome to KF . I love Chen style too. I might be driving close to you on my way to a chen style broadsword camp, if I'm close and have time, maybe I'll stop by and practice with your school.