Meguro

If you've been training since six years of age with live blades and un-padded weapons, and have accumulated all those injuries including the loss of an eye, I must ask you where was the parental supervision? Further, what kind of teacher allows children to maim themselves? Please, reconsider the risks inherent in your style of training. What more are you prepared to give up in exchange for the perceived gain?

Not really, as far as Kyokushinkai goes as long as you belong to an official branch of IKO 1, 2, 3 you can be sure that your instructor has gone through the knock-down tournament training and competition. It's a weeding out process. First you have to be skilled and tough enough to go through the gauntlet, then you must have the interest and ability to teach. The tournaments are also a way of testing and disseminating new technique. The tough international competitions keep the instruction uniform and up to date. You can walk into a Kyokushinkai dojo in Russia, Canada, Brazil, Poland, and learn the same knock-down karate that they teach in Honbu. Shotokan tries to be too many things and seems to be pulled in so many directions. I heard a Shotokan karateka recently lament that if you feed six marines a case of beer they can walk into the headquarters of any karate system and beat the pants off everyone. Maybe this is true for the JKA or ISKA honbu. What was his beef? That Shotokan doesn't prepare you to fight? From my understanding of Shotokan, and reading of many Shotokan karateka's posts there seems to be some confusion within the ranks. People who make kata and kihon and end rather than a means to an end cannot expect to have expertise in fighting. The Shotokan people who like to fight are limited by pads and point rules. You fight as you train, isn't that so? Nice kihon and quick tags probably won't mean much to a drunk marine, but is that the point of Shotokan?

That's fair enough, though as Menjo points out, the original holds up pretty well against other movies of the time. Clearly the story did get to audiences in a way that is rare for movies that deal with martial arts. But you're right, everybody views it differently. I will say that 2nd and 3rd movies did fall victim to the cliches and stereotypes you mentioned, and in a progressively worse manner. The second was still good, imho, and had some different aspects than the first. The third was simply horrible, again, imho. I thought the fourth was actually a significant improvement over the third, but still nothing to really brag about. I would like to compare Karate Kid to Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby as they have similar themes: unlikely hero overcomes tremendous odd and triumphs through determination, hard work and good coaching. The Miyagi character, is the ultimate short-cut in that it depends on racial stereotypes instead of good writing for character development.

So, eating, drinking and breathing karate for a short period of time is balanced and tsuru ashi dachi-mae geri, magical healing are not short cuts? I found the movies cliche and stereotype ridden. That's just me. If people derive something affirmative from them that's a good thing.

I'm not knocking the Hawaian martial arts community. It's just that whenever I go to Hawaii, it's not for martial arts. If I were to settle down in Hawaii, the fact that there is an active martial arts scene is a plus.

I heard that Shihan Lowe complained to my buddy that the problem with doing Martial Arts in Hawaii, and particularly Kyokushin, is that the weather is so fine, the scenery is so beautiful, and life is so easy that nobody trains hard enough. Seriously, wouldn't you rather be on the beach with your gf than inside a sweaty dojo getting bruised-up?

Try looking for spin-offs of Kyokushin (World Oyama, Enshin, Ashihara, Kudo, Miura dojo) if you can't find the real thing. These spin-offs were founded by former Kyokushin champs, and are as hard-core as the original.

Can we please let these comparisons betweeen Kyokushin Karate and everything else die. These topics are so boring. If the Chinese are promoting Kung Fu, their best practitioners will be on the card. Anybody of any merit from Kyokushin would probably not participate in this event. Kyokushin, in all of it's forms, is too busy fighting itself. All Kyokushin karateka train and aspire to win in a Kyokushin sanctioned event. For example, if you're IKO 1, you want to win the IKO 1 World Championships. IKO 2, IKO 3, same thing. There are instances when top Kyokushin Karateka fight in other events, K-1, for example. This is usually after they've peaked in Kyokushin.

Will the following biochemistry exam be multiple choice? The use of creatine allows the user to work-out beyond what would normally be failure. Overtime this results in strength and or endurance depending on the type of exercise. Or perhaps not. Are you saying there is no strength gain that goes along with an increase in muscle size?

Best weapon?? For what application? Are you talking about home invasion? Walking a dark alley? The gadget freak in me would like to have your basic pump action shotgun for home defense applications. I'd also probably go for a high capacity revolver with compensated barrel from Smith & Wesson or Taurus in .357. In reality, I have no such firearms at home. I do have a nice big Maglite for things that go bump in the night. Ancient martial arts weapons are interesting to me from a collector's perspective and not so much for practical use.

You can do this stretch any day, any time. It's recommended to stretch after exercise and a warm-up. You can do this stretch while reading a book, listening to music, reading the paper. I'm sure you can fit it into your schedule more times than you originally thought.

Interesting. If you kept most of the strength while losing the weight, you must have kept all the lean muslce and lost fat. I wonder if it's like bulking up on creatine. If you stop takig creatine, do you keep the strength while losing all the water weight? I'm not advocating taking drugs, just wondering.

Why just Monday and Thursday?

If you have the dvd, play the special features. Watch it with the Quentin over-dub. He talks about the sound track and also the song you mention, if I recall correctly. Sorry I can't give you the short answer.

Cheer up. It may be too early to tell what your surgery will prevent you from doing down the road. Concentrate on recovery and rehab first. Good luck.

I never bought into the karate kid-mythology: dweeby-kid overcomes loneliness and victimhood by mastering a magic-no-defense technique. It insults winners and also-rans by discounting the hard work required by all who want to participate in competition and in life. Nope, there are no short cuts, even for dweebs with no talent but a heart in the right place. I suppose my view is a little too harsh for Hollywood fantasy. My bad. I'm only on my first cup of coffee.

I've read very little about Bruce Lee's one-inch punch. I've never seen a video of it either. Of course he's no longer around to demonstrate, so let me ask those who know, how much power can a 130 lbs guy put into a one inch punch? Wasn't it more of Lee putting his hip into it? If so, isn't it more a matter torque than hand speed over a distance of one inch?

When you gained the 15 lbs. did you feel like it slowed you down? When you slimmed down, did you feel weaker but faster, just as strong and as fast, any change at all?

Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Bastille Day, just about anyday is a good day to get together with friends and family. As a kid obviously it was fun to miss school and get stuff. As an adult, I guess it's a chance to be a kid again for a short while. Merry Christmas and season's greetings to all.

Bwahaha. Actually, I'm one of those skinny, tall, old farts (42). No matter what category I'm in, there are a lot of hard hitting old dudes in knock-down karate. I'm just after whatever edge I can get.

I'm with you, Just. I've got about 5lbs margin in my current weight category. If I go over, I may as well go over by 30 lbs. At the gym, I'm happy to go up in 2.5 lbs increments, and even just adding extra collars for small increases. The hard part won't be the training. It'll be controlling the appetite.

Why not spar with some TKD fighters? Some of their techniques and strategies might be applicable to the WKF format.

I've never trained in Aikido either. I'd like to learn more about it someday. From the looks of it, the training intensity of aikido probably wouldn't satisfy a judoka.

I haven't forgotten about the speed aspect of the power equation. I suppose this thread is really about fighting ageing. I'm light and fast, but won't be for long. If I stay light and slow down, (I think I read that fast twitch muscle fibers deteriorate faster than slow-twitch in the ageing body), I'll lose whatever edge I had in being light: speed and the power derived from speed. The alternative is to bulk-up and move up a weight category. Of course this does nothing to stop the ageing process.

I missed a workout too, but not due to bad weather. For a change of pace I stayed home and had pizza with the wife and kiddies and watched Madagascar on dvd. Might do this more often.