JusticeZero

Many people in my family have injured themself. I have heard a lot of them say they have "no pain" because it doesn't HURT. Thus they think they can go back to doing whatever strenuous activity they do. But if you question them more, you find that there is some discomfort, some sensation, the nerves there are saying something, the nerves just aren't expressing loud pain about it now. When they do that, they usually injure themself again. Don't do that. You may be teaching. That doesn't obligate you personally to throw a lot of huge kicks that your ankle may not yet be able to handle safely.

I trained for several years too. Then I got to a new school and they were "Oh. Oh heck no. You're not representing our school until you actually represent our school!" There was a lot of little things that I had to adjust and a lot of other lessons I had to pick up before I was ready for primetime. Your teacher might feel that you simply haven't gotten all of the things he feels are important to be represented into you yet. Again remember that when you go out to compete or whatever, you are representing his "brand". Big name fast food restaurants (like the one I am sitting in at the moment) don't just let any old thing go out their door. They have a lot of standards that the stores have to meet as far as making a consistent product that everyone can count on to be safe, etc. and taste the same from one place to another. If one of their stores gets caught not meeting the standards, it reflects badly on the entire company; every store in the world is going to be hurt by the actions of that one flaky small business owner in nowheresburg. No, they don't care whether it was fine by the previous owners when the place was a "Bob's Eats". This is how "Burger McKing" rolls; meet standards with your product or you're out. It is the same in the martial arts.

You don't have to strain yourself just because "i'm teaching". And "no stabbing pains, just little twinges of sensation that aren't significant enough to call "pain"" like most people in my family refer to as "no pain" isn't "good".

Until your ankle is GOOD, not just "Good Enough", no kicking or you are risking a lot less Karate. Do forms that do not have kicks for awhile longer! Work on proper form and technique. Continue to stretch and work your upper body. A one mile walk and a one mile bike ride is by no means a "serious workout". Heck, i've done that today, just to get around to places that are close by, and i'm barely off of crutches! Two miles of walking/biking in a day is what I consider "not working out today". I don't even start the stretching and such part of my rehab till tomorrow. By no means is my ankle able to support the forces involved in kicking, even circular kicks through the air, at this time. You're luckier than I; I can't even do basic form work because your stances have your feet flat and mine don't. So do your flatfooted, non-kicking form practice and be glad of it.

Instructor may be holding you back from competing for other reasons that you aren't considering, possibly because you and/or others in your position who ask too soon are too bound in your own ego to consider the desires and positions of those around you. I know in my organization we ask students to not visit other schools until they have reached a certain basic level of skill. This is not because we don't want them to see other schools, but rather because we don't want representatives of our academia looking like fools, making oblivious etiquette breaches and pridefully showing cringeworthy lack of skill and understanding of basic concepts. What if you rush out to a competition, flail about because your level of skill is nowhere near where you thought it was (the students I worked with were shocked at how awful they actually were when I recorded them on camera), insult other instructors inadvertently, and generally make a fool of yourself, all while wearing the colors of your school organization? Your mestre's reputation would be damaged, they would have to spend a fair amount of time apologizing for you, and it is very possible that you would be asked not to train with your martial art school anymore. When you go out to compete or participate in the activities of other schools, you represent your school. If you do well and comport yourself well, it reflects well on your mestre and helps him or her to gather and keep good students, to have goodwill and be able to work with other schools in your area and abroad. If you do poorly and do things which you might later wince at, not so good. You might look back and laugh at the incidents where you did the equivalent of raising an outcry wanting your gazpacho soup served hot. Your teacher will likely be hearing about that incident for quite some time; months later, they will want to work with another school on setting up a tournament or bringing up a guest teacher or something only to hear "I don't know, the last time I heard about any of your students, they ________.. I only work with GOOD teachers.." And your teacher winces because they know that all the advanced students and teachers that were there, and all their teachers, heard about it, heard what school you were representing, and in their minds they were making the Golden Arches "M" sign.

Don't particularly want thug's hands. It's certainly not something to strive for specifically; it might be a consequence of a lot of closed hand striking training, but I wouldn't want to *try* to achieve them. Plus, I chose an art that doesn't expect me to disfigure my hands into a visible weapon. When i've been practicing a lot, I get a bit of a case of craftsman's hands, tough on the palm. Not nearly as important though. I suppose I might be less prone to scratching up my hands if I post or step on gravel.

Ow! I think I just did that too, but i'll find out when I get it looked at this afternoon. Lots of liquids, some Jello, and make sure to wiggle your ankle around a little bit gently when you can. By, you know, moving the foot, not from reaching down and pushing it around with your hands or anything like that. Nothing painful, just enough so it gets a little more circulation of body fluids and such, and so the joint isn't always in the exact same position. Seems to help it heal faster that way.

Right. Music is, among other harder to explain things, either a partial substitute for a training partner (often along with a folding chair) or a clock to keep people more honest in speed-controlled sparring. We have a much more refined theory of timing than the 'yay motorset' people like to fret about.

My personal thought on this, and this comes from the philosophy of an unrelated other martial art, is that that would be the best and most appropriate time for your opponent to do a roundhouse kick to your head possible, and he should be commended for his perceptiveness. Maybe next time you will be more careful not to get unbalanced like that, and you should know how to fall properly.

They have a lot of kicks from a side-facing stance. From what I have been told by someone who has sparred a fair bit with some contact-loving ones, they are extremely vulnerable to takedowns and sweeps, as well as any sort of throw that involves stepping behind them. As far as he was concerned, rasteira and vingativa were so easy to use on them, that it was almost like sparring a non-martial artist. From my experience with one of "those people" who wanted to show us up in our own school, their lateral and turning mobility is pretty poor.. but then again, I consider boxers to have mediocre mobility, so take that for what it's worth. Once I started moving around the guy in our class, the attacks completely stopped and all he did was sidestep to try to track me.

yes, once again, the post appears deep, but it is unclear where the hook where we can respond is. It seems to distill down to "Kinetic energy is awesome, huh?" I don't really see any good way to respond to that. I can't really argue against it, even as a devils' advocate position. Like a question that never quite gets around to stating what is being asked. Is there some particular angle to this that you wanted to know about, contrast, or similar, s8?

Well, the fact of the matter is that the world we live in is very safe. It's been safe for a very long time. "Self defense" just has never been all that important; I don't live in fear of pirate ninjas leaping out at me from the bushes. On the other hand, there are entirely too many things where you can do whatever you want, it's your personal style and whatever people think is good goes... in battle, it's not about personal style, the rubber must hit the road. You can wander off into the depths of idiosyncrasy, but you must emerge with useful tools.

Sounds like you pretty much want a cardio boxing thing. Boxing was noted to work well with judo, as boxing clinch and judo's start position are apparently identical. Personally i'd just suggest putting the time in to find someone to teach you some boxing, so you can work the drills on your own.

Off the top of my head... Shoes, as shoes. shoes should always be considered for applications as a weapon.. Flashlight, large maglight (as small club) Flashlight, small maglight (as fist load/kubotan) Sling (for shooting rocks, of course) Bike lock, U (as tonfa type thingy) Bike lock, chain, with two padlocks Walking stick, as cane

Personally, I consider the car to be far too expensive, unhealthy, and likely to kill it's user.. does seem to be far more legally justifyable than other weapons though. "I didn't see him, and sh shouldn't have been on the sidewalk anyways.." "Okay, not guilty."

FAIRBANKS -- A Fairbanks woman nearly severed a man's hand with a sword early Saturday morning as he was trying to break into her bedroom, according to Fairbanks police. Read more: http://www.adn.com/2011/02/14/1702523/police-woman-nearly-severs-intruders.html#ixzz1E4jV6y3r Pretty unlikely incident, but I figured it might be of interest to some..

I can think of reasons to be out; you might be needing to get TO home, or bring family members home. Or you might be with the people providing assistance. Or home was already rendered unsafe in some fashion. In any case, how would you address wanting to have some weapon backup without being obviously armed?

I'm just going to post this for discussion. Not much I can say to it really.. http://consumerist.com/2011/02/walmart-employees-fired-for-stopping-armed-robber.html

I seem to recall hearing about such an effort that New York toyed with some years back. It would have effectively made chinese and non-asian martial arts illegal, due to poor definitions; if I recall correctly, it required certain dan rankings and belts, with no lenience to arts which had no recognized body to distribute said belts in the Japanese style.

Because things are bad for whatever reason right now, you bring a weapon with you. Maybe there's rioting, or a disaster, or some other generalized chaos. You go out into the night to deal with the problems at hand. On your way, a police officer stops you to warn you about the dangers and because of all of the troublesome activity. They look you over, talking to you. They look right at your weapon. Then they let you go, because "They aren't carrying any weapons or anything.." What do you have and have some idea how to use that would fit this description? What do you do to keep yourself up to date on these, if anything?

Capoeira was illegalized in Brazil for quite some time, since it was generally practiced by people who, due to institutional racism, were unemployable and thus prone to turn to crime. It was being used in combat by the wrong element too much, so it was banned. It was only made legal after Mestre Bimba sold the government on his repackaged, sanitized methodology and curriculum that was re-marketed for the upper class populace and police; after that form had gained acceptance, other practitioners were able to come out and be accepted within that framework.

Walk Barefoot. When walking barefoot (or in super-thin shoes that don't have heels or support) you naturally shift to a more digitigrade position and have to use a lot more and different muscles than usual. These muscles include the ones that you need to stabilize yourself with, and they will get quite the strengthening workout. Don't overdo it, but don't underdo it either.

We have some exercises that have some other use but really look like they are blatantly training the sprawl. If no-one around wrestles, they look a bit like those odd flourishes in forms, but they're sprawls. We have a number of throws, which do not end in submissions; the core dynamic of these throws generally is to prevent the feet from moving backward, then apply force to the kneecap, thigh, chest, or face to trip the target forcefully onto their back. We do a lot of acrobatic techniques which do strange things to stuff like wrist locks. We are also able to move very effectively out of or while laying on the ground.

Let me see if I am picturing the right kick. You spin around, shift your weight to your front foot, pick your back leg and hip up and swing the heel around into the target, yes? spinning hook kick? Isn't that what some of you folks call a dragon kick? We pretty much normally only do those with our hands on the floor, which obviously changes the dynamics a lot. Yes, your version is going to require a lot of flexibility. It's spinning, obviously, but it also picks up power from the act of straightening and extending your leg with the glutes. You will lose some power there. I suspect you will find that the fake is done with the leg forward, and the real kick is the one where the hips unfolded into the target. Lots of flexibility, lots of daredevil, lots of flash, not so much practicality. Treat it as a training goal to demonstrate and focus attributes you need for more useful techniques.

I don't know about this one. When I do forms, I max power each technique.... if your justified in striking someone, then strike them as hard as you can. No sense in playing patty-cake.I'm going to counter this one. In some places, I have techniques where while setting up, I have limbs moving toward choice targets essentially by accident. I didn't go there to do it, but while i'm there, it seems a shame to completely ignore that little elbow snap that would do a light stinging groin slap, even though it comes out of an intermediary position as part of a more decisive attack. In the other hand, I didn't go there for the slap. It's just a cutely wrapped package laying by the side of the road on my way to the technique i'm doing. Not going to compromise the main technique to abort to a strike.