Armbar

GnP, all the way. Something I heard that's always stuck with me is if you tap a guy out, he feels alright about it. But if you pound on them, its more tramatic and they won't forget it.

Armbar......one of my commonly applied submissions.

I agree that one should examine their kata on their own in order to better understand its concepts. A person should be encouraged to use their own mind and apply the principals they've learned in class in order to produce working, realistic bunkai based on what they see in the kata. This is what separates the 'I do it this way because my Sensei did' people, and the 'I do it this way because I find it works better' people. However, my post was not in reference to personal training. I'd like to know the average number of bunkai taught as your schools 'official' interpretation of the kata. I am aware that, in the majority of schools, there is never a set number of taught bunkai to be found in each kata ( i.e. One may have 10, while another has 7.) On a side note, I assume Goju teaches a higher number of bunkai per a kata based on a smaller pool of kata to focus on. Thank you for your reply

9.01........

Hi everyone: The thread about kata application got me thinking. On average, how many bunkai are taught with each kata? Do you Goju guys have more bunkai, as you have only twelve kata? Thanks in advance for responses.

Welcome sdargie! I was born in New England. I grew up just outside of portland, Maine. Good to have another New Englander on the boards. Go Patriots!

Welcome defendwithhonor! I'll be starting Judo later in the fall to better understand the throws in my current system of karate. See you on the boards!

I find the problem with training freinds lies in how they see you during class. If they see you as just another one of the guys when you're teaching them, the situation will break down fast. If they see you a Sensei when you're teaching, things are much improved. As all ready suggested, ground rules are the best way to do this. Also, these rules are no good if you don't enforce them.

Oh, I see now! Thank you Bleeding Lion! You've helped me reach the next level! lol....

Skull Crushers work mainly your triceps. Think bench press, but at the top of the lift, you bend your arms at the elbows, slowly dropping the bar towards your forehead and back up. Try with lighter weight at first to see how much you can do, or these might really become skull crushers...

I don't really eat anything during training, however I do pack a water bottle that holds half a gallon.... and its always empty at the end of the night. We have a strict no soda pop rule at our dojo. Those spotted with it will be given 25 push-ups on sight!

This reminds me of a "Flying Sidekick Encounter" I had in High school. There was this group of wrestlers that thought the martial arts is what they had seen in movies. One of them started running at me from maybe 12 feet out and jumped into the air, executing a sloppier version of what you see on page one. I took a step back as the kick came in and grabbed the ankle and knee of his kicking leg. Before he had a chance to put his other foot down, I stepped back again and pushed downward on his knee while lifting on his ankle. This sent him into a swinging motion, head first along the floor. Luckily, we were in a room covered in 5 inch wrestling mats, so he wasn't hurt. To this day, I still don't know were that came from.... I think I saw it on Batman or something

You don't know anything about martial arts if... You think Kata are an ancient collection of techniques from which short sections are used as a dramatic intro used to intimidate the enemy right before you enter into a stylized "wire fu" fight in which you must rely on subtitles for understanding, due to bad dubbing. You must avenge your master!

I train in Shudokan Karate, Not to be confused with Shotokan. I also plan on taking up Judo in the Fall.

I don't frequent tournaments to often, but I did go to one a few months back. It was an open tournament, with mostly Shudokan, TKD, and Kenpo guys competing. All were wearing full Gi, except for a few TKD guys while sparing. There were a few cases of small divisions where there were only two competitors. If there was only one, they were asked if they wanted to be given a trophy that wasn't really worth any thing or if the wanted to try and earn it. Those who wanted to earn it were placed in another division. Kata was relatively traditional, excluding one rather flashy Bo kata, complete with one of those nice graphite crome Bo's that flash when spun fast. They had an entertainment division where one or more people could show off the flashy stuff. Mostly group routines with lots of board breaking. There was one XMA kid who lost horribly. He mostly flipped around allot and then popped up in a Zenkutsu dachi every once and a while, threw a punch or front kick, and let out a Kiai. Sparring did get interesting, and there were a few points called that, in my opinion, shouldn't have scored. There was one guy who would jump in the air sideways and throw rapid fire punches to the top of his opponents head. If that failed, he wouldn't throw any other strikes. He'd just turn around and run out of the ring with his hands down, as his opponents chased him. This was allowed to happen far to often in my opinion. As far as XMA, it's great for entertainment but bad for basics, IMHO.

I'm glad you are enjoying your lessons. Karate is really fun when you first start, and it just keeps getting better the longer you train and the more you understand. The one thing I see, especially in fast learning beginning students, is the tendency not to practice and to assume they are performing every technique perfectly. I can point to Black Belts who have trained for half a decade or more who practice their lower belt stuff everyday, claiming its still not flawless. Find an instructor who will take one or two techniques and really break them down with you, and nit pick at every little detail. Then, once you know what that technique should feel like, practice it at home until you can perform it well without thinking about it. This is what I did and it worked great for me.

Wow...thanks for all the replies. He's low-level autistic, meaning he doesn’t really sound or appear autistic at all. When the parents are confronted about his behavior, they seem to believe that we should change the entire class in order to cater to him, even if it means hindering the progress of other students. We haven't had the option of expulsion until just last week. A community program that disallowed such action was funding us. Last week they dropped our funding, but we've found other means to keep teaching classes. This behavior has lasted for quite sometime; more or less as long has he's been attending classes. Having his parents there doesn’t work well. We've tried this and he became distracted allot, talking or looking over to them during bunkia and such. This posed a health risk, as he wasn't watching where his fists were being thrown and nearly took a student’s head off. We've tried the strict route, which worked for a little while. It slowed down class but got him in line. Every once and awhile, he’d refuse to do any pushups if he owed them, which was always troublesome. We might try the strict path again. His resource teachers use our karate program as discipline. If he doesn’t do what they want, they'll say, "You best behave or we'll tell Sensei”, and he'll stop what ever he's doing. I'll read up on such Low-level autistic behavior and see if I find anything that works. Sorry if this sounds like a rant…. We just really need a few good, well informed ideas…

We've got a predicament here on the coast. The students in our school all get along great. Over the years we've trained together, we've really been pulled together into a pretty close knit group. Every class is fun, exciting, and everyone simply can't get enough...that is until he shows up. He has a tendency to be rude to other students, talk out of turn (especially when Sensei is giving his belt level instructions), act inappropriately (we've been mooned....more then once), has trouble keeping his limbs to himself, and is sometimes aggressive toward other students, striking with kicks or pushing when their backs are turned. He's six foot four inches, 190 pounds, and 14 years old. He's been warned about his behavior several times before (not to mention has done quite a few push-ups) and his parents have been notified, although this had limited success. The normal solution to this problem: expulsion from the Dojo. Why that solution is just another problem: this kids autistic. Somehow throwing out an autistic kid seems wrong. What do we do?

We video tested for our schools first test, because the closest black belt to our school was five hundred miles away (we have to be tested by two black belts. Our sensei is the only one in this style around). Now he sends one of his high ranking black belts (who only lives an hour and a half away) to test us. To test for any grade beyond 5th dan, you have to be tested by the leader of our association, and NOT by video.

Yet another reason non-martial artist should not sell swords....... http://www.guzer.com/videos/shoppingnetworksword.php The funny thing is I purchased that same sword for under twenty dollars...

What kind of equipmnet can you find in the place you train? Heavy bags and focus mitts? Anything else?

You know you’re obsessed with Martial Arts when you begin to evaluate the techniques used in video games. Such as… "Did you see that hip rotation! That was awesome!" “There is no way he could have hit that hard. He was arm punching for pete’s sake!”

AnonymousOne: Wow.... Thanks for the link.... I’ve got my reading cutout for my for a few days. Goju_boi: The problem with the resistance cords are they generally require a second person. this doesn't work for my situation. Thanks for the suggestion though.

^^^ that right there....that was disgusting .........Ouch.......

I know what makes an exercise polymetric, and have researched its benefits, but I can't seem to find any decent exercises to increase punching power and movement speed. Does anybody have a few that can be done with either bodyweight or weights in a limited amount of space (I live in a small apartment)?