kenpo_fighter

OMG!!! i love yanstu. learned it as a 3rd kyu. never forgot it. used it to win the local open karate tournament in '91 in japan. was 1st kyu when i won. love that yanstu!!

Congradulations, my friend! My best wishes to you on your journey.

Actually, I read in Black Belt Magazine a couple months ago, think it was like April, May, or June edition, that said Karate, before it had come to Okinawa, had come from Korea & had flourished there 90 years prior to. Don't know if there's any real validity to it. But, don't think Black Belt would publish an article like that at risk to the repuation. Anyway, something to think about & research.

though, i do not shotokan karate, i can relate and identify with your style of training, as, i, too train in the traditional ways of the fighting arts. unfortunately, todays american society feels that everything should come easily with very little or without any effort at all. turning our beloved real, fighting arts into the sorry, watered down, american versions of themselves which has brain-washed america's society thinking they have real martial artists instead of martial actors. not saying that all, but a majority of todays american society, especially the younger generation, is a "right now" society and cannot even take one punch. they want everything, including rank, right then and there. and with your stereotypical "soccer mom" controlling the majority of america's "middle class" dollars, she'll go to the "mcdojo" that matches every dollar with rank. and expecting that the local dojo is a daycare center instead of a training facility geared to training real fighters like yourself. then the "soccer mom" complains that her child is getting "abused" and start a whole commotion saying that the dojo is ridiculous and excessively & uneccessarily violent. my comeback is "if you want your child to participate in something easy, let them go out for football, basketball, or even baseball." i've seen this happen in my own dojo as a child coming up in the ranks in japan. a bunch of american mothers got together and complained to my japanese sensei saying that his training methods were too brutal and needed to change his methods. i thank god sensei didn't change.

thats what i'm talking about! that's how it should be done. too bad the average american martial artist wouldn't last a week. lol!!

the foundation of all my martial arts training is from kyokushin. started training till i was about 8, stopped when i was about 13. was a shodan before i had left. after 3 tests for shodan. now at 26, have been studying kenpo karate for the past year & a half and became shodan in that this past febuary.

its as sad a fact as tournaments where punching to the head (with sparring gear) is prohibited & yet they claim "A full Contact tournament" on the flyer.

But I thought you said it doesnt belong to a nation? yeah. what's up with that? anyway, i don't believe europeans can do karate any better than an american or japanese for that matter as far as kata, kumite, & spirit are concerned. that has nothing to do with ones background. it has to do with a persons heart & honor. having trained in japan & grew up in a multicultural environment all my life, i speak from experience. there is no & should not be "europeans are better / asians are better / americans are better, etc." anybody who thinks that has leraned absolutely nothing from the martial arts. and they are simply wrong for thinking that. and there are no bad students, just bad teachers. you cannot define a warrior by the path from which he walks, but how it is he treads that path.

i agree. though, it looks real good, in all my years of training & sparring & real fights, never once have i pulled this on anybody nor has it been done with me. double maie geri seems like a more practical choice. in a fight, my objective is to be the one standing at the end regardless of how "pretty" i look.

my father is one who turned my on to the martial arts. having studied judo all the way to his brown belt before he joined the navy, he'd been a fan of the martial arts long before i was even a twinkle in his eye. fortunately, my mother was on board with the whole martial arts deal but with different reason. though, my father knew from first hand account that the martial arts promoted and taught dicipline, dedication, integrity, & a sense of honor. my mother how ever thought that it be a good idea o learn how to defend myself since i was smaller than alot of my peers. and watching the artistry & athletisism of bruce lee as a child, he captured my imagination & inspired me to walk the path of the warrior.

yes. it was called "only the strong" starring Mark Dacascos. decent plot. he comes back to his old high school where it is now over run with gangs & drugs. he becomes a school counselor working with the worst juvenille delinquents in the school & uses capoeira as a form of rehabilitation. not a bad martial arts flick.

dude, if only that were true. i'm half filipino & half white american. i eat fish as often as i can. i actually prefer it to beef. but, i've been doing a lot of my training outdoors lately & i've got misquito bites up the ying yang! totally kills when i'm trying to run kata and i can't think of nothing but scratching. good thing sensei's not watching me. he'd turn to the darkside and blast a "dark hado" on me for losing focus. lol.

Cardio & Weight training 2x's a week (2 hrs.) Cardio & kenpo or aikido training 2x's a week (2 hrs.) Iiado or escrima training every other day. (1 hr.)

i originally started training in the martial arts at 8 yrs. old in japan. my father was in the navy and my family lived on the navy base where he was stationed at. i studied for about 5 years and got into high school. while there, of course being a teenager, i wanted to explore other athletic opportunities. so, i stopped studying and began playing american football, baseball, wrestling, & track & field all 4 years in high school. now, back in the states, living in tennesee to be near my family, there are no kyokushin dojos anywhere near where i live. but, there was a kenpo karate school that was part of the Tracy's Kenpo Karate organization. they teach in the original form kenpo. so, it was not really an option to continue my kyokushin training. cannot study what is not being offered locally. and i didn't want to study in a american taewando organization like ATA or something like that, where full contact is not permitted. Fortunately, my kenpo dojo where i currently study is run in the traditional fashion in which the martial arts was meant to be studied. we've the reputation of being the roughest martial arts school in the area, where bones are bruised, muscles are pulled, joints are sprained, eyes are black or have the possiblity of turning black, & holes in the walls. in order to give a whipping, one must be able to take one.