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.

i agree. establish what genre your film is going to be and decide whether martial arts is going to be an accessory or the main focus to your film. Personally, i would love to see a suspense or mystery genred film using the martial arts get through the story. write a plot so solid and drenched in mystery & suspense and use martial arts to fill in the holes. just my opinion.

i completely agree on both sides of the coin as far as outakes on eastern & western martial arts films. i think movies have had a good & bad effect on the martial arts in general and not just karate. the bad reasons already previously stated by Conqueror. but, for martial arts schools everywhere, hollywood needs to keep producing martial arts films no matter how fake or cheesy they may be in order to inspire the next generation of fighters. i'm one of them. i never would've seen or heard of Bruce lee, the man who inspired me to study the martial arts, had his movements & philosiphy's not been captured on films & tv. exposure helps. unfortunately, we have to accept the good with the bad. the dim mak (death touch) really does exist. and people are able to harnes their ki and do what is called "point breaking" demonstrations like seen in Bloodsport. whether van damme really did it in the movie is debatable. personally, i think he's lucky god invented "movie special effects". but, the dim mak and training of the dim mak is not ludacris. extremely difficult, but not impossible to do.

Agreed. Lol. Kenpo_fighter , it's not only the case in Japan , it's all over the world , the last time i fought under kyokushin rules ( 3 weeks ago ) , I hit my opponent REAL hard on the stomach , he actually bended with the strike , i thought they will reward me an ipon ........... the ref continued the fight as nothing happened (but that was my opening , lol ..) hello, y2_sub. didn't know that. and now i know "and knowing is half the battle", so i'm told. lol. i've only fought in one tournament since my return to the U.S. and my return to the martial arts. good to hear that kyokushin rules still apply elsewhere in the world like back home. where did you fight your last kyokushin tournament? how did you do? would be intrested to know. do u know of any kyokushin tournaments in or around the Tennessee area? would love to start fighting in those tournaments again!

welcome, rorion. i must conccur with all the previous submissions. kyokushin karate is worldly known for producing some of the roughest & toughest martial artists in the world. wish i'd never given my studies at my old dojo. but, i believe oyama sensei's system to be a complete system. it is efficient and oddly enough, simple. techniques are practical and straight forward in my opinion. i'm very grateful to have begun my martial arts training in a kyokushin dojo.

i'm sorry. i may have missed that part in my submission. i also agree that Kata is VITAL to a martial artists' training. it is there where are all the "secrets" of martial arts are hidden. kumite & kata go hand in hand with each other. cannot have one without the other. i believe the one should know the proper application of a technique and not just keep doing it in the kata "because sensei said." my apologies if i didn't make that clear in my previous statment.

you fight how you practice. they only way i'd ever pull a punch is if i were training with a kohai (junior) and i'm talking about the first 3 ranks from starting. if you're training with someone who is at least of equal body size, you should not pull your punches. if a student doesn't know how a commited strike is supposed to feel, how are they supposed to handle it out on the street?

my best advice to a beginner is to learn all you can, train all you can, follow those who have gone before you, and remember to have fun.

Who are you to judge!? What makes you think a well worn obi is disrespectful? Some people get their obi to look like that by years of training, not by a key or a lawn mower. The obi contains the years of hard training that an individual has put in. Frankly, I don't care if it's new or if it's well worn. Worry about your own obi around your own waist. Martial arts isn't the military. if martial arts was not like or similar to the military, then I guess that every time my sensei told me to practice my punches, kicks, kata, etc., i really didn't have to because my white belt or any other color belt was just as good as his black belt and all the stripes on his belt, right? all those sparing sessions & body conditioning drills that sensei made me do turned out i could've said "no" & it would've been just acceptable? Martial Arts, done the right way is just like the military. a new recruit fresh out of bootcamp wouldn't be given the same respect as an admiral or general. why would they? who would u rather bow to? a white belt fresh in the dojo or a black belt & or sensei? The pyramid of rank & authority is just the same in the martial arts as it is in the military. the martial arts, like the military, is a dictatorship not a democracy. granted, one should not judge a book by its cover, but remember that we're in america, not japan. let's face it, america is not exactly and "honor society". not saying that japan is perfect. they have their own share of faults. having lived their for a majority of my life, i should know. not all, but a majority of, americans and american martial artists will take the easy road and do something like "key" or do something to their belt to make them appear better than they really are. and yes, you cannot judge a persons skill or rank just because of their age. i've seen adults well into their 30's just start to train in the martial arts. performance will be the overall judge and will expose the frauds for what they are.

having trained in kyokushin for 5 years and having fought in kyokushin tournaments in japan, if stamina & endurance is not a issue, then BODY CONDITIONING - BODY CONDITIONING. your sensei has already put you on the right path with sparing without pads. very good training. u may also, want to set up some 2X4 posts, wrap the top and middle of the post in rope and begin punching and kicking. also, if this kyokushin tournament is going to be done like japan, your technique must be clean. it does not matter if you make contact. the strike must be a clean hit. kyokushin judges are picky about that. i can't tell you how many times i "thought" i scored the point, but the ref never called it. good luck to you in your tournament!

nice to read a story about a martial artist who EARNED their rank instead of buying it. Congradulations, Solo! u make your fellow shodan's proud.