G95champ

Bruce may have done some grund work but as TJS and myself have talked many times no one was ready for the Gracie Ground Game in 93 when he came to the UFC to show off his style. The Gracie family changed the way we all think about MA's. Bruce believed in his side kick and backfist as I said even once he went away frok JKD.

Yeah we only have about 10 students now because its summer and they range from Brown to white. My Browns get a lot out of the class because they feel like they got to set the mark for the young kids add to that like you guys were saying it gives them the chance to teach a little.

The thing that makes them dangerous is SUPRISE... Anytime one person is ready and one is not. Attackers use surpise to get the upper hand. This is what MA teaches more than anything to keep your cool and react not think. That way you are not in awe of his attack on you. Thats why you do thousands of reps of the same move over and over and over each week. The other advantage they have is that you are not knowing. You don't know what they want, you don't know if they got a gun or knife, you don't know if they are going to fight to the death or just hit and run. One last thing is you have something to loose and they don't. If you have your hand full of bags after a shopping trip, You car, your loved one may be grabbed, others you care about who can't protect themselves may be caught in the line of fire and you have to control the situation in respect to them as well as to where the attacker don't care. So its not that the guy on the street is better but he gets to pick where you fight, how you fight, and when you fight. Sort of like going on the road for a playoff game. LOL...

But the best offense is also a good defense.

Speed will come as you get stronger and better techinque. The 3 are all related. Power is a result of speed and good techinque. Techinque has to be done slow and eaisy until you can get it right. To develope quick muscles however things like jumping rope, dot drills, box jumps will help.

Only prob. with working full contact is that you get guys hurt and frankly if you want to train you can't keep cracking shins. LOL Only prob. with light contact is that if you always pull you punches you will never know how to hit someone when you need to. Again we don't ever go full contact in class anyhow. But we do contact and I would not call it light. I would say 75% or 80% power. Now we do, do the light contact espically when breaking in new people and young kids and women.

BlackBelt Mag did a story on TKD vs Shotokan prob 10 years ago or so. It was very good but it was something like this. In a parking lot TKD wins In a elevator Shotokan wins In a dojo depends who is the home team In the street it depends who is mentally ready

Welcome

No its just a cool quote LOL... Patton has tons of them he was man. If you got some time search them and you will enjoy the read Im sure.

Differant time. Its like asking how Babe Ruth would do againt Randy Johnson. Sure the Babe was the Babe but guys did not throw 100 back in the day. Maybe high 80's. Anyone whos knows baseball thats a big differance. Could a pro bowl NFL plaer of 60's and 70's be a good player today as big and fast as guys are. Id be shocked if they could. The time you live makes a big differance. MA and espically MMA and NHB has grown so much in the last year I don't think Lee could have seen the extent the ground game would play. He taught to use your longest weapon the side kick and back fist. However at 128lbs yeah he would have had a hard time finding anyone on his leval. LOL...

I don't think it should be. Now with that said Browns and Blacks need a class of their own that is just for them but you can never get enough base work.

Its not let me down yet and I use it everyday.

Yeah I have made this point before that karate's focus is on not fighting this its unfair to say how would it do vs another art. But I do agree it can be used its just not what it teaches.

I have a student who fits the tall kicker profile. And I do agree once you get inside the kicking zone you can control them but they can be good at keeping you at your distance. Shooting and Trapping in a NHB situation is a good idea as well.

As you all know my first name is Gehrig. That is hard for a lot of people to say so I have been called G for a long time. My Dad whos name is Gary is about 6'4 350 and when he used to coach everyone called him BIG G. So the G sort of came about both ways. Add to that the HS I went to was Gilbert. So another G referance. In 1995 we won the WV Class A state Football Championship. This was about the same time people first started getting emails and I picked g95champ for that. I has just stuck with everything I do now.

Welcome

I agree Sho-ju. When people ask me whats the highest Dan I always say well that depends on the art and org. you are tied to.

I have been a Nidan sicne oct 17th 1997. I really have no plans of going any higher but to me Nidan was enough. I still train, I still teach, I still love karate as much as I did when I started. To me Nidan is the growing leval much as someone said above. Shodan is sort of ok Im here where is the magic??? Nidan you start to understand and develope that ability to teach the art I think. IMO Sandan is not much differant than Nidan but the grades on up go into deep understanding of the art.

A good TKD beats a bad Shotokan a good Shotokan beats a bad TKD. When both are equal the one who makes the fewest mistakes wins. Well maybe not the fewest but the most costly. But the rules always tell how the fight will go.

any reason??? but thanks for letting us in on that

Most Shotokan schools will add age limits to Dan's of 4th and higher. The 8th and up Dans are pretty much held for the old guys. In all reality we can only hope to get to say 4th-6th without have some higher up connections in the JKA, ISKA, FSKA, etc....

No read Funakoshi's 20 preceps one of them says it takes a life time to learn karate and then you are not done.

When you need creeds or saying to live by just look up Gereral George S. Patton. "The objuect of war is not to die for you country but to make some other poor dumb SOB die for his"

Sounds like a club soon to be going out of business. Only case would a person who has Dan status in another style is asked to teach some classes in a club that he holds no rank in. Sensei status I assume mean teaching? If so this is a bit differant in that I can take a 25 year old gold belt and ask him or her to help out with a sever year old beginner. However if you mean Sensei status as in Black Belt well thats just wrong. Uless its the situation like I said above he or she is teaching another art.

Differant ways of doing things. It dont make one right and the other wrong. It dont make both wrong either. It may not even make both right but differant people do things differant ways. Just explain that you are not used to that and see what their testing guidelines are. There may be a pre test or other outside the test requirments you did not see. Or it may be a short test maybe the teacher knew this person was good enough and just went thought the motions cause he was in a rush LOL.