elbows_and_knees

I believe it's excellent. it's not standalone though - you still have to put in the sparring time, forms training (if you do forms) and other hard work, but visualization is a great technique.

nah, you can't set a time limit on it.

exactly.

I think that kata practiced in the form they are at many places today is completely useless. I even think understanding the bunkai is useless, if you aren't doing it correctly. Once a form has been learned, you should be breaking each section of the form out into two person fighting drills. The drills should be modified slightly to reflect the way you want to move in a fight situation - narrower stance, etc.

I use them all the time in muay thi. when I trained karate, they were in the kata, but other than kata and self defense drills, we never trained them. back then, I would not have been able to use one in a fight, becuase we worked them so rarely.

We can't really tell you that - it's an individual thing. For me, it wasn't. I'm a laid back personality anyway, so I don't get stressed out, and don't have a problem focusing. Meditation in class never did much for me. the meditation we did at the end of yoga never did anything for me either, though I got a lot of benefit from the yoga itself.

boxing and muay thai can be great for shorter guys.

and rightfully so - TKD is a distance oriented sport. In muay thai, where the hands and elbows_and_knees are just as useful, angling and footwork kill the advantage of reach.

also, there is a style difference. the tkd butterfly kick looks like the tornado kick, as mentioned above. The chinese butterly kick looks like the pics that cathal posted.

with a chinese tornado kick, you land on the same foot you kicked with. Takes lots of hard work to get it that way. people who can't do it that way usually land with the opposite leg, and yeah, it can look like a butterfly kick.

Actually, that sounds A LOT like boxing...

Maybe it's just me, but I don't like think this is good either for the ring or the street. A. Analyzing is a good thing, but you are WAY overanalyzing anything that you will have time for in a fight. Fights start and end quickly. you don't have time to analyze stance - many times there will not even be a stance, just a sudden strike. I see / participate bar fights all the time. rarely does anyone assume any stance. I don't even assume a stance until after the fighting has begun, and while that is going on, things are too intense to be focusing on what stance a person is in. Also, by the way they are attacking, you cannot asset what intent they intend to do to you. I may only be punching you now because I don't see the bottle on the bar next to me. Once I see it, BAM! Also, with the high stress of the situation, you don't have time to think "Okay, I need to use lethal moves against this guy" you just use what comes out, which is going to be what is ingrained in you. From a sport fighting perspective, you are usually told what style the guy practices beforehand, and if you do your legwork, can probably get video of the guy fighting, unless it's a local event. In this case, you do all of your analysis before the fight and train accordingly. I think your A is valid, but not in the context you are trying to put it. C. you can strike and control a person. It's a boxing term called stalking. I keep you in the quadrant of the ring that I want you in by using aggressive footwork, making angles and cutting you off. From a street perspective, it's not necessarily relying on a lucky punch. It's doing as you are trained - punching in combination. one shot may not KO him, but three or four might. I do agree that the easiest method to control him is grappling. However, by grappling, you do have to be careful that there are no other attackers. doesn't always happen that way, but it can happen. D. Is the ultimate goal anyway... that's merely ending the confrontation and is not strategy related.

to go to the ground and submit them implies that they are not finished. Like I said before, with shuai chiao, the goal is to throw them hard onto their head. with judo, onto their back. Have you ever watched a person who doesn't know how to fall land flat on their back? what normall happens? their head impacts the ground. Naturally, this doesn't end all fights, but it can give you enough time to run away, which is really all that is needed, unless you are fighting multiple attackers. With judo, there is no follow up either, if the person lands squarely on his back.

No, it's not. sports are drastically different. soccer and volley ball are nothing alike. basketball and cricket are nothing alike. martial arts tend to at least share the same basics, given they have the same methodology (grappling or striking). you can't say basketball is better than cricket, but you can say rugby is better than football, for example. I can't say muay thai is better than judo, but I could say that muay thai is better than american karate. Note that I'm not saying muay thai is better than american karate, I'm just illustrating how you can make a difference if you want to.

I dunno... I don't think muay thai is the best out there, nor do I think capoeira and judo are the best out there. However, different people find different things to drive them. I like to compete. that is what drives me to give it my all. I have to make myself as good as I possibly can in order to maximize my chances of being victorious.

There is more to it because we added things to it. it wasn't always there, as I stated above. Heck, even in the case of the okinawans. they may have been peaceful, but they weren't all good, humble and passive. However, when they attacked, THEY FOUGHT BACK - that is martial. that has nothing to do with a peaceful nature. Also, I could be wrong, but wasn't te around before the 14th century?

The catch about those that I've italicized is that they have nothing to do with improving your fighting skill. To me, a true martial artist is someone who is refined in the area of fighting and bases their approach to it based on experience and logic- being a nice guy or helping others makes you a nice guy- it doesnt make you a martial artist. I firmly believe that if you dont like those who are arrogant or have a bullying personality, learn how to fight better than they do. I would respectfully disagree. I think being a good person is absolutely essential to being a true martial artist. Otherwise you are just a good fighter, but not a martial artst. I think ot all goes back to the philosophical roots of the arts. the term martial in itself dictates war. a martial art is an art of war, nothing more. What happens is people become caught up in the nostalgic view what a martial artist should and shouldn't be. the shaolin temple combined there arts with philosophical, spiritual and other aspects, because they were monks.... those are things inherent to them. However, those teachings made their ways into arts they influenced in other countries as well. the japanese did the same - the samurai incoporated such into their teachings. But many of the samurai also engaged in homosexual activity... that is among things that aren't known, because it doesn't fit into that over romanticized view. martial arts that pre-dated shaolin were about nothign other than learning how to fight. An excellent example of this is shuai chiao. In modern ages, MA that are not based on offshoots of anything shaolin influenced will not include these things either. boxing, wrestling - it's NOT becuase they are sports - they are very martial arts. Notice, you don't hear / learn about it in european arts, european sword arts included, AFAIK. krav maga would be another example. That's not to say that bettering oneself spiritually and learning more philosophically are not good things - they are. However, you can partake in a religion for spirituality and read about philosophy. They are not prerequisites for a martial artist.

The catch about those that I've italicized is that they have nothing to do with improving your fighting skill. To me, a true martial artist is someone who is refined in the area of fighting and bases their approach to it based on experience and logic- being a nice guy or helping others makes you a nice guy- it doesnt make you a martial artist. I firmly believe that if you dont like those who are arrogant or have a bullying personality, learn how to fight better than they do. NICE... usually I'm the only one here who feels this way.

check and see if you have an SCA branch near you.

I've never seen one, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. I've seen double broadsword, but never one of each, not even double jian.

considering the vast difference in technique, you'd likely have to be very coordinated to pull this off.

Do you believe in ghosts? the bible mentions, demons roaming, posessions, etc. These are supernatural.

"I don't hold a belt. A belt holds up my pants."

maybe you saw amateur fights?

san shou allows throws utilizes different strategies and prefers the sidekick to the front kick because throws are allowed, people tend to attempt throws from the clinch instead of elbows_and_knees derived from kung fu muay thai prefers elbows_and_knees from the clinch does not allow throws, however some takedowns are acceptable prefers the teep to the sidekick there are other differences, but this is a start.