Goldtooth

shureido fit the best, however..and ironically, extremely cheap lightweight gis that breathe well are what keeps the florida and south carolina wet heat from killing me during prolonged training. shureido offers half sizes, and their material is substantial, clean, and simply look good. beater gis look like beaters. considering the proletarian roots of MA, i dont let this get in my head much. hence, i wear my 7 dollar gis 90 percent of the time, maybe my 200 dollar jobber a few times a year.

I tried the nw3, for a tidy 188 bucks. It was too hot, and i sent it back. Good fit, just too hot. Shureido USA was apparently offended by the return, and indicated that everything else that they might carry or sell was suddenly out of stock for me:) The search continues.

Im curious what the KF guys think is the most useful Wing Chun Wooden Dummy DvD around? Thats it. There are a lot of choices...and id prefer to make a well qualified decision before throwing down my 50 bucks:) thanks guys

I finally got my money back from GL. Mastercard actually credited my account...with 22 bucks interest. I made the rest of the dummy myself, and aside from getting a lathe, it was easy. Some companies on the web sorta exagerate the process, and make it sound like the guys who build jongs are master craftsmen. When properly tooled up, these operations could bang out a jong in under an hour. Anyhow....i built the thing in my garage, and the only time i used numbers or any math was to read the tape measure to determine the length of the arms and torso, and pulling from one hole to the next. 5-600 bucks would be a fair price if you have no skill or tools..or friends with skill and tools;) You can build your own for under 300 bucks, or less, depending on what is lying around the house and what you can get for free. Dont get hung up on 'traditional' materials. Yip Man may have used steel, or pvc, or poured a jong out of a sono tube if what we have now was available back then. Improvise. Innovate! Just wanted to touch bases with this group on Great Lyin, though. Dont give them your money! For sure dont buy any jong parts from anyone with a colored coating unless you want to pay a lot for low grade lumber.

Im almost done with my wooden dummy. The fabrication of the arms and legs were the only trouble, and that is because A) great lion sorta took my money and went out of business before making my parts, and B) i just needed to borrow a friends lathe to getmy arms turned. Dont waste money on plans. Everything is on the net, and you will liekly find almost all material local, cheep, unless you are bent on hardwood. Be creative with the leg, btw. "Traditional" jong parts are a bit defunct, and theres no magic or chi flow to a home made laminated leg, a welded steel pipe, or a piece of brazilian coocoobolo. Old school jongs are made out of what technology allowed, and what was widely available. My only suggestion is to stay within the ballpark on the arm/leg hole spaces from each other, but absolutely do adjust for body type if you feel that a 6 foot-four, long reaching american might require a slightly larger dummy than what 5 foot tall chinese guys use. I plan on making a writeup by end of month, but send me a pm if you have any questions and ill be happy to tell you how to source your gear and make your cuts/holes.

Havent seen anyone talk about the NW1. Our Fin friend made a good point about 'see through' gis that become transparent when you sweat, does the NW1 become clear? I didnt mention that i dont really care about snap. I like to be able to throw/grapple, but...the sound of me moving is not so important. Needs to fit right, have that long cut like my juka's, be effortlessly light, and wick water. Fantasy gi?

I sweat..a lot. I need the best, most sweat licking, drying, wicking away uniform. Im curious what suggestions yall from KF might have. Ive read about tokon, shureido, and even the bujin dogis with coolmax shoulders. I need to not carry a soggy gi for 2-3 hours sessions. I workout in the South, and my two Juka Ryoyos, while awesome, are like lead weights in this heat. I need to get a new gi asap.

I weigh two hundred pounds, so my sticks hit hard. I use stickman HITS plastic, which havent broken, and have so far only required a little athletic tape for grip. They swing extremely fast, and hit hard. They are also much better on my shoulder joints than heavy, thick sticks. When someone mentioned that theyd rather swing a light stick 100,000 times over the rest of their life than destroy their joints and back with a heavy...and be force to quit the martial arts; i converted on the spot. I plan on doing Cuong Nhu untill i drop dead, and i promise that if i hit someone with a plastic escrima, or a rolled up newspaper, its still going to hurt.

UPDATE: Great Lion told me my stuff was on the way. The ship date came...and went. By the looks of things, they have taken a huge amount of money from people from January to date, and we are all in the same boat. Im embarassed to be associated with them or this fiasco, but i feel compelled to provide this forum with the warning. GL has even updated their website and catalogue! They cant MAKE you anything, but they sure can TAKE MONEY from you. Current iteration of thier website now omits their 'home phone,' but handily forwards you to a machine that takes no message. Im taking Monday of to liase with the Valdosta local police, and the Georgia Bureau of investigation, because i am convinced that GL has thousands of dollars (20+ full hardwood dummy orders+!) in their pockets with no capacity to produce. The irony of this entire process is that i built my dummy already, except for the leg and arms. I have the entire aparatus mounted in my studio, and it is a real beauty, but i hang my gis on it because i cant use it. I even intend to do a writeup on how easy it is to make most of a mook jong, then sub the lathe work out to a company like this. My intention, aside from being a bit pedantic and helpful, was to actually generate more business for guys likes this so they could work with more do it yourselfers like me. Im afraid to infect my style's forum with the venom and vitriol that im currently eschewing, and i cant even finish my damned report because the jong's not done!

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I ordered some stuff from Great Lion, and talked to Joe Thornton. Joe took my money, then vanished. I hate to say this, but Great Lion folded last year, according to the Georgia Secretary of State. Clark Thornton, Great Lion's principle, is nowhere to be found, either. The reason i mention my sour experience is because Great Lion has the balls to maintain a website and take money from people still. Their phones 'dont take incoming calls' but you better bet you can send them an order, and give them your credit card. My next step is to contact the local police in GA, and whoever is responsible for wire fraud. Watch out for them. I dont understand why a company with such a good looking product and reputation could flake out like this:(

I have a judo instructor friend who teaches seminars and makes a big show of teaching and doing 'right and left sided judo'. The funny thing is that when he says 'ok do it left handed/left sided', that many people do very poorly if they are right side dominant because they have ingored their entire left sides out of convention. I have found that my personal experience as a lefty allow me to be more adroit with my left side altogether, and have noticed the same trend among my left handed peers. I am as confident with my right cross, or my right hook kick, or my right o goshi as i would be with my left.

Practice, get used to the situation, as posted above. When you can remove your emotion from a fight, it really turns into an enjoyable chess match. Enhanced comfort level can help you overcome adversity and force your opponents to deal with a variable that they may not have come armed to deal with: your brain.

Pros: you develop appealing kata (if you win) you become a good point sparrer (if you win) exposure Cons: Non flashy katas dont win, which devalues many simply yet integral kata of thier true value. Point sparring is not real life, and many effective point sparrers train to succede in an artifical MA environment. The overall image of a school or style might be hurt by poor tournement results, despite apractical, well thought out and established curriculum.

Rainy weather makes my joints ache horribly, and hence, i act miserable. I can actually predict stormfronts before the local news with the effect that the changes in pressure have on me. Cold, sunless periods make me depressed. Im pretty sure its because of the cold...and lack of sun. I may have been frozen in another life, also, and that could put a damper on my disposition during those settings.