drunken.master

I have heard of some Wu shu schools in Bejing that are like this. Actually looked into enrolling at one point. This one sounds pretty interesting as well.

Great link! I have been looking for more equipment to have in my home dojo...

Those sweeps are much harder with the higher ranks as they expect them all the time! The trick to sweeping someone in sparring is stepping past them (just slightly with your body like you are going to takel them) and hooking an iron leg behind both their feet. Natural instincts is to step back when someone is in your face, but there is no where to step with your foot there. As they start to stumble, a ridgehand to the chest will do the trick. But like you said, if you can get on the inside, the wrestling moves have a higher success rate.

Yeah, we have a black belt that is also a wrestler that has brought in some fantastic moves. I really like tossing those in too!

Ha ha ha! That'll teach him!

I whole-heartidly agree. At those advanced ranks, the student should be able to sweep, hock, iron broom, leg-hock from forward and back and many more!

Right! You need more take downs then that. Hock can't always work.

If it were *my* school, I would be much heavier on it. But I try my best not to step on toes too much.

OK, I wasn't sure if you were using karate as generic or as proper. So.... for a good karate movie... damn, I am sad to say I liked the original Karate Kid.

Hmmm, no, not a necessity. My wife would get angry!

Grappling is kind of a side-bar. It isn't something we heavily train on (well, us instructors do) but more of something different for the kids once in a while. We don't want them to freeze the first time they are taken to the ground in a headlock, so we prepare them for that. Now, for the instructors, we grapple pretty often. Usually, our sparring will degrade to that during black belt class. Quick foot sweep and then the grappling really begins. We go to submission.

Another approach is silent meditation and yoga. I have seen some people with built up anger let it all go with simple postures and breathing. I practice yoga twice a week and find it as a great balance to martial arts.

Absolutely. The length of time and number of students you allow to do this would be on a case-bycase, obviously. But the good student suddenly down on his luck... no need to make things worse by taking more away from him.

I now train with a makiwara fixed to the wall inside my basement dojo in conjunction with the heavy bag.

My favorite "martial arts" movie would be "Once Upon a Time in China part II" with Jet Li. And since I run a website that reviews karate movies, I'd have to say my favorite classic movie would be "Drunken Master (1978)" hence my forum name and website name.