monkeygirl

Get some books & videos on the style of your choice (also on general techniques, endurance & strength training, and self-defense) until maybe you find an underground dojo somewhere you didn't know about. Training in a good dojo (McDojo's never count) is really the best, but if you're only looking for those 4 benefits, training at-home can work well. Balance - Practice standing on one foot and holding kicks out...this will also build leg strength, as well as allowing you to work on foot & hip positioning. Make sure you pick a point on the wall that isn't moving, at first. Then, after you get good, try looking at YOUR OWN FOOT. I find that if you're standing still to begin with, it begins a cycle. You don't lose your balance, because you have a steady focus point! Sounds silly, but it works and is impressive. After you get good at this, close your eyes! Much harder. Another thing for balance: practice spinning kicks, many in a row while still focusing on good technique. These require you to stand on one foot for a bit while moving around, then trying to control your momentum and stop. This will also help you cope with dizziness!! Even harder: do spinning kicks in a row while NEVER SETTING YOUR FOOT DOWN!!! Speed - First, practice jabbing (straight-in punch) at something hard like a doorjamb or wall corner. You don't want to hit it, just barely miss it. Do this as fast as you can. This will allow you to develop speed as well as get a feel for your punching range and accuracy. By hitting something hard, you have extra incentive not to hit it. Your own personal drive should be enough to make you venture closer and closer. Do the same for kicks. If you've never had any training before, this is where books come in. They can show you a simple kick to practice so you can build speed and technique. However, without an experienced practitioner to help you and correct you, this is difficult. Also for speed: try coming up with a series of hand & feet techniques. Start out simple at first (jab, reverse punch, front kick, spinning backfist, in that order). Practice these until you feel you can do it well without thinking about it. Have a friend with a stopwatch time you, and try to beat your time! Make sure they also give you the thumbs up/thumbs down sign for technique. Speed is nothing without technique! For a series of about 10 moves (hands & feet, straight in & spinning combined), 4 seconds is a good goal to shoot for at first. After you feel you can go no faster, make the series more and more complicated. The hard part is finding a patient friend! If you let them try to beat your time, though, they might be a little more willing. Agility - Sprint-running and sprint-biking will help develop your fast-twitch muscles (I think that's right)...these muscles allow you to react quickly, whereas slow-twitch muscles are better for endurance. Having good, strong fast-twitch muscles will keep you quick on your feet during a fight. Shadow-boxing, as ridiculous as it may seem, is very good. Try to work on weaving and footwork as well as attacks. Make sure you stay up on the balls of your feet, rather than being flat-footed; you don't run quickly by stomping your feet flat, so why spar that way? Awareness - This is a toughy. You can try telling your friends that you want to build your awareness. Tell them it's OK if they sneak up on you, as long as they don't grab you...you don't want your warrior instincts kicking in... and kicking your friends! Also, just try to be street-smart. Go into crowded places and try to locate every person, and identify them in your mind (not by name, but like this: little girl in pink dress jumping rope, tall man in baseball cap listening to music, etc.). Look at dark areas and possible hiding places. Look at what people are doing and ask yourself how the situation at hand could turn bad. What would you do? As people walk by you, ask yourself what you would do if someone grabbed you from behind. From the front? From the side? However, this is just an exercise to make your mind automatically do this on a smaller level. You'll start to single out the creepy-looking guys and subconsciously log them into your brain's "note to self" file. Being an "aware" martial artist, you walk the fine line between being smart/savvy, and being paranoid/alarmist. Don't let it change your lifestyle completely; simply improve it and protect it. I hope this helps you and anyone else that may read this, whether they train only at home or they have the benefit of the dojo. Otherwise, I've posted YET ANOTHER long post and it's gone unnoticed

By the way, I'm 15 and 5'0" .... maybe 5'1"

This is entirely plausible! The hair on all parts of your body (including your head) actually has a limited amount that it can grow...why not your body itself? We need people of all sizes in society...tall people can reach high stuff and are good for fighting our wars with brute strength, while small people can fit easily into little areas and are good for sneaking around. We all fit in somewhere, believe it or not! All this aside, though...tall people freak me out. I don't like looking up your nostrils and trying to carry on a serious conversation!!! On a completely different subject...why don't emoticons have noses...? says: "I want a nose!!"

Also, "western boxing" has been around for much longer. Martial Arts really only became popular to Americans with Bruce Lee on the scene. Boxing, however, was popular through the jazz age...because of its popularity during this important age in American history, it's carried through to today, much like other things from the jazz age (say for instance, JAZZ)...except prohibition of course It's also a revolving cycle...because boxing is more popular, ESPN, HBO & PPV cover it more than MA matches...and boxing matches maintain their popularity because of their huge coverage! To quote a certain large character from Austin Powers 2: "It's a vicious cycle." Hope that answers your question

Who needs to grow when short people rock? It puts you so much closer to those more vulneralbe areas of your male target

Here's SaiFightMS's!! Wow this is strange seeing your intros....hard to imagine you guys as white belts on here

Since I dragged up Patrick's, here's KickChick's!!! More of the karateforums staff coming soon...

Wow.... this is kinda cool...I just thought you would all enjoy seeing this

Site is looking good!!

Nope! never heard of him...sorry

I train in TKD! However, TKD is a pretty varied sport. I don't know how Olympic TKD is, so I'll just tell you about my form. We mostly do floorwork (moves with count up and down the floor) and forms, one-steps (artistic self-defense: the attack is a single punch and has many different defenses), self-defense (much more realistic) and sparring. Not a lot of schools in my area do full-contact sparring, but we do!! I would say it's realistic enough. We fight like we mean it, and when it comes to upper belts, we don't beat around the bush. I've had the great fortune of never having to use my skills in a real-life situation. I love TKD, but then again I've never studied in anything else. As far as your liking to kick, I understand that COMPLETELY!!! Being short (and in the adult classes), I rely on my kicks almost entirely. While I do punch if someone happens to be in close range, I prefer to keep people in my kicking range, especially the 35-year-old men in my class that could easily wipe the floor with me. I find that while TKD encourages kickers to flourish, it works for punchers as well...it's pretty flexible.

I don't think I've even heard of it before... what's yours?

I cheated....I've seen this before

I love it!!!

I first started officially teaching a year ago in March. However, when I first started training, I started with my brother and father. I picked up things pretty quickly, but my dad had some problems here and there. I would teach him nearly every day in our kitchen, and I found lots of different ways of explaining things. I was kind of impatient at the time, though, so that wasn't nice. But technically, I've been teaching almost as long as I've been...learning! When I was promoted to teaching in my dojo, I was a blue belt, and I got promoted to the lowest level of teaching that a teenager can get. Unfortunately, at the time there were some dojo politics and many of the other team members believed that I shouldn't have been promoted. This went on from March until about August of the same year. They made life pretty difficult for me for a long time. People that I thought were my friends, turned out not to be. Strangely, I don't think I ever considered quitting...I loved teaching too much, and I still do. Those people are now gone, and I have since received two teaching promotions, putting me at Assistant Instructor. I have a class pretty much all to msyelf. Most of the students in that class have been with me since White belt, so whenever they get some sort of promotion, I feel immensely proud. Not that "I" did it...they all have their own talents, and the other team members help me get through the night. Heck, without them, I don't know where I'd be. But the simple fact that I didn't screw them up, that under my supervision they have managed to become "elite" students, and that I have once and for all SPITED those who tried to bring me down....all of this is very satisfying I accepted the challenge to teach because I love it, and I've kept on teaching because I haven't screwed anyone up yet

nice stories On Saturdays we have Lil Dragons class for 3 & 4-year olds. It's basically just play time. Well, we have this one little boy who just acts depressed all the time, and never wants to play. My brother (the Instructor for Lil Dragons) told me to try and cheer the little boy up while he kept the rest of the class going. I got down on my knees and very slowly started to walk towards the little boy...I stopped right in front of him and was getting ready to make a funny face or something, when he turned back around and started to get involved in class again. I hadn't even done anything yet!!! I guess my big ol' face just scared him Worst part is, everyone was still looking when it happened! The other Assistant Instructor and Leadership Team members all busted up, saying I must be evil...

LOL this is kinda off-subject, but nice avatar shaolinprincess! ....is that you...? j/k!!

Welcome to the forums!!! (oh yah and best of luck and least of injuries )

Welcome! As always, best of luck and least of injuries!!!

Welcome to the forums! Are you Authorita as in Eric Cartman's "respect my authorita"? Anyway best of luck and least of injuries (<---my newbie slogan)

welcome to the forums! Best of luck and least of injuries!!

Wow...I feel strangely sad. It just..... went on and on.....

What was the most embarassing thing to happen to you in the dojo? C'mon, you know something happened.... I'll start you off: Back when I was...oh, say an orange belt; there was this purple belt guy who was older and bigger than me. Well, he just thought it was hilarious that I wasn't even 5 feet tall and only weighed 85 lbs. He seemed to get great pleasure out of tossing me into the air like a rag doll. One night, after class, he picked me up again and turned me upside down. However, he had a grip on my pantlegs....and only my pantlegs! All fabric and no flesh!!! Needless to say, the pants slipped off (thankfully, the undies remained) and I was quite embarassed. Class had just let out, so not only did my entire class see it, but the next class, too! Mr. Purple Belt got in big trouble, but that did little to ease my red cheeks Luckily I'm able to laugh about it now Now that I've shared, it's your turn!!![/i]

I remember reading somewhere that Bill "superfoot" Wallace's left (?) foot was clocked at 60 miles per hour. Does anyone know of a way that I could clock the speed of my kicks? That would just be too cool... Oh and I don't think my hometown police officers would let me borrow their radar gun.

Well, my blackbelt test is now officially 35 days away! It turns out the structure of the test has changed. The test is now all week long. That way we can really focus on different aspects of the test. The main part of our test will be on Monday & Wednesday. Then on Saturday, teh test will be open to the public. On Mon. & Wed., we are pretty much qualifying for the Saturday portion of the test. Saturday will be kind of like a showoff time....those who make it there will have basically passed, but if they fall flat on their faces, they can still fail. Afterwards, all the testers (whether they've passed or not) are required to come to the banquet. Here the new blackbelts will receive their belts. There will be a slide show that shows each students' progression, through both martial arts and life. The testers will be able to sit with their friends and family and enjoy a meal and some conversation, trading stories of the test. (hopefully they'll be happy ones!) So that's how it's gonna be...I'm not as freaked out. Whether I pass or not, it will definitely be a week to remember! I have a lot more confidence in my sparring, and I don't think the running will be a problem. I've been working out at the gym, and I feel great!! I seem to be saying stupid things lately, though...I guess I'm so concerned about having a super good attitude this close to my test, that I'm doing the exact opposite. I actually threw a shoe at a parent in front of my instructor! Not purposefully, of course, but goodness gracious!!!!!! (ach I sound like an old lady)