JusticeZero

I dunno about that. In the end, lighting up smeone's eyes is a debuff, not an attack; it doesn't actually do anything 'real' on it's own, it just degrades their ability to fight as effectively. Mostly I think of things like that that can be carried without causing too much suspicion; any weapon that people notice and pay ttention to, likely asking you to remove as a result, is a weapon that you won't have available to use. One of the other things I saw when skimming for flashlights was a shoulder length chain with padlocks on the ends used for locking, striking, and chaining bicycles and such things to racks. Mind you you should never lock a bike with anything less than a U-lock - which I don't know if anyone has developed any real fighting techniques for using. A bit surprising given how heavy and solid the things are. In any case, i'd think that any weapon to be carried habitually should be one with a legitemate and justifiable utility use. Hence, flashlight, chain lock, U-lock, cane, shoe, and so on.

Doing a quick check, it seems that people have moved from the heavy barrel lights to smaller lights using hand stick techniques; possibly a smaller tool than you prefer, but definately practical. I'd been thinking back to when the preferred tool was a big four or five D cell steel flashlght.. I think they went up to six or seven.

Flashlight? Backhand baton technique with the restraints, plus a light to flash peoples eyes with, and very easy to justify carrying. iirc, I have a police manual for how to use one in storage somewhere or other; you might be able to find one used someplace.

As noted, i've been gaining respect for the roda as a training tool; it is a 'sparring' situation with many sparring stresses, but it is designed in a way alien enough to a fight that it is clear that it should not be transferred direct over, and a situation in a fight is not likely to look like a sitation in a roda. Furthermore, some of the bad sparring habits are punished far more severely; going out of bounds is almost as serious as a TKO. As the area to spar in is generally not very large, maybe 12-15' diameter or so, sometimes less for advanced students. I've seen one played on a 4' diameter space, all floor kicks, floor maneuvering, evasions and such - no grappling or punching permitted under the rules in place in that game. This makes things like 'Don't retreat' and 'control space' into exceedingly important matters. If you have to 'close the gap' with someone twice, you probably just won because they walked off the edge. Is it 'fighting'? No, but neither is sparring at long distances and reluctance to close, targeting hard targets at reduced power over a long duration of indecisive duelling and duel strategizing.

This may be true, but sparring isn't the -only- way to make training 'live'. You can accomplish it with two person form work, for instance, with attention paid to intensity. I often do two person drills with note to both that 'If you see the other person do the defense before you attack, do a different attack (that is chosen to absolutely foul up someone in the middle of the defense in question) instead' sometimes, as an example. Our 'sparring' is rather alien to an actual fight, and as such it changes the dynamics of the habits learned; I feel that that method has quite a bit of potential, personally, though it too has its own issues. Sparring teaches a lot of good things, but it is also one of the best ways to learn very bad habits in the martial arts world. As such, I am not terribly impressed by the common perception of sparring as the end-all of self defense training methods. If sparring advocates were more willing to be aware of it's limitations and shortcomings, I would be less concerned on that point; as it is, I find myself needing to stand up to deliver the other side of the story.

The teacher's goals affect what information the teacher has, and thus how the subject is taught. The teacher should teach to their own interests, but tey also should help their students achieve their personal goals with training, and should support them with the material they need to do that. IE, "I'm a big forms guy, so i'm going to be doing alot of detailed forms work. You're interested in self defense, so i'm going to make sure how to break that info out and teach you a few things to run with."

If a parent wants to bring their child (about 8-10ish) with them to a martial arts class that is geared at adults, what issues are there? Is this a workable thing?

Don't know,I don't currently have a punching bag. Someone once told me to fill one with beans though.

Does it matter if I'm learning how to spar or are the techniques we learn from kihon or kata apply to sparring? Well, sparring is just another training method. It is no more 'realistic' than kata, etc; a real fight simply doesn't work like sparring. People who spar a lot focus on a lot of bits of form and such to achieve ends that are silly from a self defense viewpoint. 'here's how to move to close the gap!' if the other guy isn't plowing into you hard, you aren't in a fight, why tweak your techniques to learn how to chase someone who is running way from you? Stuff like that. Sparring works on different things tan forms, but the other stuff is important too. Don't obsess over which ones you use to much, since if you ever have to defend yourself outside of school, probably your first thought will be 'That wasn't anything like sparring!' Do Kumite and bunkai differ from school to school since it is up to the instructor to develop them? Probably to some degree... I pull things out of my techniques that had never occurred to my teacher. My students focus more on differen techniques than his students to some degree. Do all dojos in all forms of MA teach self-defense? Yes and no. Yes they do, but how effective, how much time they devote to it, and a lot of other factors will vary. I do a lot more self defense than my teacher does, and I study a lot more on the subject than him. On the other hand, there's a lot of things that he was never really able to explain to me well enough, or that I know he knows and hasn't yet taught me fo various reasons usually involving geography and distance. Is there a separation between the art of MA and the fighting...or is the art basically training for fighting? Yes and no; your art is training to fight, but since fighting is not the only thing but just one goal, if you really want to learn to fight you're going to need to go after that knowledge on your own. I personally recommend the book Meditations on Violence (Miller 2008) if you want to get some better ideas of what you'll need to do to prepare yourself mentally if that's your focus. It's the one source i've seen that really well defines what a 'street fight' that isn't a bar fight actually IS. (if the story starts 'I was at the bar..', it has NOTHING to do with 'self defense' unless you are actually being paid to be there, and not a bouncer.)

Hello Ashley! What sort of things would you say your class focuses on? Any particular reason you decided to start practcing?

Actually, I mean we don't do side kick, period; it violates several fundamental principles of form, alignment, and such. We occasionally do a back kick, but it's rare.

OK. I don't do side kick at all, so i'm hazy on that, and the roundhouse seems vaguely awkward eplained that way.. You'd lose a bit of power waiting until that late to swing the shin out, especially given that you are moving past the target all the time that you're doing it. I would think that your side kick would be limited by whatever power you had available after checking your own rotate. In both cases it seems like you're canceling out a lot of your force and alignment to put in a narrow stop in the motion, and then have to rely on the strength of the leg. We don't use leg strength if we can get away with it. So yes, dramatically diferent and it's going to be very idiosyncratic to arts - but your explanation still sounds like more of a sparring-tag technique than a fighting one. A real fight is nothing like sparring in those tactical senses. Mind you, if point sparring, not fighting, is your focus and goal to begin with, which is a perfectly valid goal though it is NOT actual combat application, then lots of things that limit power output start to be a good idea..

So far, I have seen little in the concept of chi that does not translate directly over to christian principles of prayer. The only part I see issue with is the MISunderstanding of Taoist philosophy where the duality concept is used to tie good and evil together - the yin/yang is not applied to good and evil; it is applied to strong/weak, fast/slow, hot/cold, and so on, but not to things so ephemeral and complex as 'good and evil'. What do we see of chi in technques? Clear your mind of doubt; anger, pride, and other sinful thoughts distract you from God. Breaking: Visualize your strike passing through the target, know in your heart that God's will shall be done through you, and strike at the point you have directed in your silent and wordless prayer. The unbendable arm: Meditate upon the image of God's will working through you, flowing through your body in place of your Earthly, imperfect muscle. Pray silently with the visualization of God's will flowing through your arm into forever. Breathe deeply, clearing yourself of doubt. I'm sure there is others, but all of what I have seen thus far sounds virtually identical to this: "Clear your mind of doubt and sin, relax and allow yourself to be a vessel for His power, sink and center yourself in confidence and peace, accepting you imperfection and humbling yourself to allow God to work through you, then visualize the way you need His will to work through you, praying not with words but with understanding and feeling for His strength to work through you." What is un-Christian about any of that? Most Christians I know even fall short of regularly praying for God to work His will through them, and strengthening themself to be a better and more capable tool for His plan, and here, martial arts seems like a perfect opportunity to bring these into one's daily practice. It seems more enlightend and Christian than the usual litany of "our holy father, I want this and this and this and this and this, gimme gimme, praise the lord amen"

If that's how power generation in your art can work with, that's fine. For me, power generation between martelo (roundhouse) and ponteira or bencão are radically different, and I can't picture any way to chamber them to look similar. For that matter, ponteira and bencão will look different, as the bencão needs a tight chamber so that the thrust can drop and extend, where the ponteira stops the chamber when it is pointed at the target.

The only thing I can think of in that regard is that a lady's chest is apparently rather sensitive - not so much as hanging another groin off of center body mass, but enough that light contact that a guy would barely notice is quite painful. As such, probably those practicing strikes to the upper torso should keep the mismatch in pain recieved in mind as an etiquete matter.

Sure. It's good stuff. But still in it's own way just as unrealistic as any of the other classic martial arts that MMA types like to sneer at. Going to the ground and staying there is only a good idea if everyone around you is your friend, for instance, and MMA is more designed for dueling than defense.

Posesses information, and passes it on to the student through correction, lesson planning, discussion, action, and the like.

Mostly i'm worried about new people being baffled by the variety of rather alien movements they are introduced to before the body of the class even starts.. not sure how intimidating and problematic that would actually be, or if people pretty much just pick up that stuff at some base level by following along.

I didn't say that ALL Karate and TKD schools were aimed at children. Only that MOST were. The median TKD student is a child.

I am starting a new class, and I was reviewing my schedule. It suddenly occurred to me that the sort of warmup I was taught was fine for the students where I studied, but might maul the students here; also, that it would likely take one or two classes just to introduce all the movements in the warmup! It really is a very important series of movements to be practiced with, however. I really can't teach many techniques to people who don't have some concept of the positions used in the warmup. How does anyone else deal with the problem?

I'm going to be rearranging my classes; I'm trying to decide if I should have three hour sessions rather than two. Before it was Theory, then Singing, then warmup (using stancework and breakfalls), two exercises (either paired or line), then if we had time, some sparring before cooldown stretches. I'd like more time to work on some of the exercises, though. Sometimes the drills are partner work, but sometimes they aren't. It really depends on what we have to work on that day. If we need to drill footwork and tumbling, it's most efficient to just get lines of people au-ing, stepping, role-ing, or whatever across the floor; if I want to do FORM on the kicks, I don't want to add the complexity of there being someone in the line of fire, because I need them blasting the kicks through loosely until the flow starts to click. And then the sparring environment is itself a bit different from anything relating to self defense. I don't want to skip some of the important stuff just for the sake of adding more partner work for the sake of partner work.

Well, quite frankly, the majority of Karate and Taekwondo schools ARE "a daycare center for moms to drop their kids at". To discover a Karate or TKD school that uses any sort of realistic training method and which aims it's membership at adults rather than small children is so rare as to be a shock and a surprise on the rare occasion that one discovers it. So, nobody expects much of anything from those schools.

If everyone in the area is your ally, grappling is good. If the people in the vicinity are neutral or worse, grappling is a foolish idea. It is nonetheless useful to know so that you will know how to counter it and escape from grappling attempts by people who DO have allies in the vicinity. The defense against grappling is "know grappling and use the skills to disarm and escape the grapple attacks".

I don't seek rank or a diploma for my own sake. I know what I know. That said, if I want my information to be able to be taken seriously by others, I have to have that piece of paper on it; the world is full of people who know their stuff back and forth, who don't get a chance because they don't have a sheet of paper to prove that they studied it.

I do see a lot of, in any given art, practitioners who take the "dull, classical" material that they are taught without any particular real combat emphasis, and work on bringing it back to life through more intense training methods. I personally would consider myself one, and i've certainly met a few people who do things like - train their taiji in boxing rings against resisting opponents in red man suits, or whatever. I'm sure you can also find boxing and kickboxing coaches who allow their methodology to get watered down and stale. My view is that the proportion of each seems to be important, likely moreso than the art itself. If Taiji attracted a *lot* of pragmatic, 'real combat' people, and Boxing let itself get bogged down in ritual, then soon, the newest "real combat" sports would be loosely based on push hands, with takedowns, throws, and strikes and the rest built around rules that allow the movements in Taiji to best be expressed; everyone would say "Everyone knows that if you really want to fight, you'd take Tai Chi, that boxing stuff is useless in the street!"