JusticeZero

This is the part I disagree with. I see lots of the same stuff Lee wrote about in the teachings, writings, etc. of martial artists preceding Lee; it's just that it's all stuff that you learn once you've built up your form enough to think of 'transcending' it without sounding ridiculous. Lee wasn't one to stick with a class long enough to get a solid foundation in the art, ergo, he didn't run into the teaching of what to do after one reached that level. Probably because those ideas tend to mislead and confuse students before that level.

Well, he did do a lot of research... it's just that when you read his work, he is talking mainly about concepts that were not new, and bragging about them as though he had first come up with them. Also, his huge disdain of spending time learning proper body structure, only to do essentially the same sort of thing himself. Natural talent and hard work are positives, yes; what annoys me is not that he had those attributes but that he was a poor student, and thus denied himself over and over chances to bypass a lot of the hard work and have someone just -teach- him the ideas he spent years working out.

Meh. A guy with horrible personality issues that made him a poor student who, through large amounts of work and natural talent, devised a number of principles of fighting which - had he actually tried learning from his teachers instead of bopping around looking for the next flash in the pan as soon as they asked him to put in a bit of work building a foundation on - he would have been taught.

Afraid I don't know anything about your area, but let us know if you have more questions about the art, things you see, or whatnot..

Keep digging until you find a really good place. Personally, I find my most effective methods to be... 1: Get off your duff and look for signs: Martial Art studios have a low return rate, so you usually find them in somewhat off the main drag spots. If you vary your trips as you travel the city, and keep your eyes out for things like hand painted signs on windows or whatnot, you often find a number of places that aren't in the phone book. 2: Look for art lists: When it's not something like TKD, there are often websites and lists that the community have put up that list some of the places to study. There's one of those for my art; most of the schools listed are defunct, but mine is on it. NONE of those appear on the phone book. 3: Play and ask: One scholar who studies martial arts stated that the technique they had found works best for them when entering a village where they suspected there was some exotic local martial art was to go into some open public place with moderate traffic and start doing forms and sparring. Sooner or later, someone would walk up to them saying "Hey, my uncle teaches some stuff kind've like that..." and a conversation or two later, they were off to talk to some key player in the local martial arts scene. I know that whenever -I- spend time practicing in, say, a park or a well trafficked parking lot or whatever, people walk up to me and start talking and I find out about any number of exotic martial art schools I wasn't aware of. Just be open minded and genuinely interested; sometimes your introduction will sound more like dismissiveness toward what you are practicing, such as a grappling artist sneering about how your stuff wouldn't work in a 'real fight' or whatever - but that might be because they know a really good Sombo school or something of the sort that you wouldn't have known of otherwise, and they just haven't learned enough to be open minded themselves, yet. If you don't find anything on a given day, at least you've gotten to work out some. I remember that once there was a poster on here from this tiny town in Alaska, out of commuting range of the bigger cities. Their town had -one- martial arts studio, and it wasn't TKD or Karate, but rather some rare Vietnamese style. You really never know what sort of mix is around.

Yeah. I got annoyed with some teachers for their "I'm the coolest tough guy in the galactic arm, more holy than any three major religion's founders put together, and if you want to train with me, you must change all my lightbulbs with your toes and pledge eternal fealty to me and grovel at my feet for whatever crumbs of knowledge I care to drop to you today - but I will always keep the good stuff for myself!" attitudes. I go to great lengths not to be that way.

Right.

Right, and i'm not exactly sure what you mean by "combat related" which did NOT describe the exercises listed. Could you please elaborate on the matter?

Modern grappling of the jiujutsu sort focuses on what happens *after* someone hits the ground to a much greater extent. Furthermore, in a throwing art, you learn how to lessen the impact you take with experience, so you take less of a beating as you progress; in many striking styles, as you progress, the seals get snapped off and the pounding you take increases.

All of the things I saw described had at least some combat relation; what did you mean by that last comment exactly?

Definitely expand your search, but not just because you think your body type might be whatever. Maybe there's a great Karate school in your area - or maybe all the Karate in your area is, because of random chance, horrible, but there's some amazingly capable Kung Fu teacher near you or something. Look into everything, you never know what sort of gems you might uncover.

Right now i'm thinking two Saturday classes - 2-4, 6-8. Then I can have dinner between the two. :? My only student at the moment can't do 12-2 anymore because of a family schedule conflict.

Finances are tight at the moment, and all the grappling schools i'm aware of in my area seemed a bit bling. I don't really need to reach the highest levels of skill, but I do need to get the basics. Does anyone know any ways to learn and practice fundamental ground grappling for less? (I don't need 'free', just 'inexpensive', and I don't have a training partner for it right now.)

ok, looking at the second picture, you look only a little less flexible in the ankle than I am, and i'm not exceptionally inflexible. I don't know that ankle flex is your problem by itself.

Looks a bit like cruz, which isn't obvious in dynamics from photoes.. in it, one dips and shifts, then brings the arm up to contact the kick along the forearm at an angle. The angle means that the kick loses energy sliding rather than discharging in a single impact. When it approaches the shoulder the energy is mostly gone and one can continue the upward swing with the arm to leave the only exit above the head. Once that is done, step in and do whatever you like with the base leg, being careful not to allow them to take you down by scissors.

Yeah, see this is the attitude I like to see! This is pretty much how women -should- be thinking if they want to get the most out of their training. It's when certain women come into a class expecting to be babied and given preferential and easy treatment that I become frustrated; I don't quite know how to respond to students who act like that.

That is shallow; I can get about two inches or so past my toe. It could be that you just aren't going to be able to do that specific lift; i'm sure there are others though that will work similar muscles and ranges unless your goal is specifically competition in venues that require that lift as part of your demonstration.

Last time I saw something of the sort, it was... infuriating, to say the least. Leaning back, lightly touching the opponent and trading more apologies than techniques.. ugh. Of course, others have encountered people of that variety who turned out to be hardcore avid groin shot hunters and dirty trick specialists.

'Fifty-yard stare'. Just watch their entire shape.

I agree that tallgeese has a different take. With two Japanese arts, TG is probably much more corect than I am; I am wary at best of cross-training, as my personal experience with crosstraining was to say the least horrifically ineffective, and essentially wasted two years of my time. Also, I have a different model of a fight; I avoid ground fighting like the plague, as in the SD models I have, if I go to grappling, I lose regardless of my skill level. I do want to get experience in grappling, but only to get better at getting out of it.

BJJ is a very different range from Goju, so I doubt much harm can come from it.. I would though make sure that you keep the two separate.

Maybe it's the academic in me, but I have no problem being asked questions. My instrutore was always enthusiastic about telling us some revelation he had had from training with wrestlers or boxers or whatever, and good questions were valuable to learning how the basic stuff worked. If I have someone come in from another background, I ask if they want to change styles, do my style for fun, or learn some of the things my art has to offer; i'm entirely satisfied with any of those answers, but it changes the material I teach. No point trying to break down the form of someone who wants to use Capoeira as a secondary; I gloss over the standing stuff briefly, show them the principles of floor work, the preferred stance and the variants, and focus them in on the do chao (floor) techniques right away and leave them to work out how to make them function. They'll have a thick accent from the other art that's not worth the time to correct. If they want to switch, then i'll start hammering form hard; a lot of stance work in other arts is a form error in mine and takes a lot of breaking down and rebuilding to really make a solid capoeira. If they just want to do for the heck of it, they just get the general purpose stuff, music, acrobacia, and jogo. Maybe they're burned out on their primary and they just need some respite, who knows. I think my stuff is worthwhile as a primary art, and I think I have some stuff that's good for people who are primarily studying something else. Both of those groups are coming to me to learn stuff, and i'm happy with that without having an ego fit and going all psychotic-hermit on them.

Against someone your size, every time i've had to deal with them I go in under the kick and start working the base leg and hips. You're going to need some deep, close in mayhem to fall back on, because your inside range is further out too.

If the guy who looks like the alpha is an available target, it works great. If the guy is leading from the back, you're going to have to settle for the closest and most eager combatant to use as an object lesson.

Sigh.. not quite what I was trying to say, which was that - I've only encountered a few groin-hunters before, but they were all female. Most women don't, but when you do find someone who does that, they seem to overwhelmingly be female. Still don't think groin shots are al that effective for self defence - it's a hit, sure, but there shouldn't be the expectation that it will 'put your attacker down'... If you're dealing with someone hyped up enough to be attacking you, they will likely shrug it off like it was nothing, at least until they've calmed down. Make sure that your strategy in your head doesn't end up being something like "And open, and kick right between the legs and step back while he crumples.. he's not crumpling, he's still attacking, what the..!?" with you standing helpless in confusion while your attacker retakes the upper hand.