McNerny

Very true. ^^^^^^^^ McNerny

Hello All, My family is considering taking a trip to Ireland next summer. I am Irish by descent and I have a good amount of Irish pride. I am interested in Ireland and I really want to go their and visit the areas where my ancestors came from as well as Dublin and other areas. I was just wondering who else is Irish and who if anyone has been there and what they did and where they went. McNerny PS. Erin go braugh!

Hey, They did the same thing to me when I took my permit test. All my friends were asking me how many I missed but they never showed me. They just said told me I passed and took my picture and my thumb print and stuff. Have you started behind the wheel training yet? Oh, and when you take the driver's test, everyone will tell you that it is hard and they failed their first time. When I took mine, I was really nervous before, but once I started driving it just seemed natural and the test went smoothly. So when you sit in the car to take your driver's test, just drive and you should pass. It's really not that bad. Congrats on the permit. McNerny

Hello All, I am curious as to how to get into the Thai clinch/neck clinch to begin with. I have a basic understanding of the mechanics of how to throw knees from this position and how to control your opponent once you have him in this position, but I'm not sure how to gain this clinch in the first place. Do you set it up with punches to close the distance and grab it, or do you start in a different clinch first and work for it? These are some of the tips I have heard. Any more tips or better explanation on the ones I have would be highly appreciated. Also, if you have any tips on holding the position and throwing knees, that would help too, because as I mentioned before I only have a basic understanding. Oh and also, do you recommend locking your hands when you hold the clinch or lacing your fingers? I have seen both of these used and I am unsure which is better to use. Thanks a bunch, McNerny

I wear a Kamikaze America gi. I believe it is 14 0z. and I purchased it at a tournament I went to from a vendor who was selling them there. I believe you can get them from AWMA though. McNerny

The two arts I practice are Shotokan karate and wrestling. My striking style is Shotokan karate. Shotokan obviously teaches striking principles, providing strikes, blocks, counters and footwork. Although our sparring is not as "hardcore" as kickboxers or kyokushin karateka, in the upper ranks pretty much full contact to the body is allowed as well as sweeps and striking to the downed opponent. Our techniques to the head are controlled, but our sparring gives us a sense of realism and builds a certain degree of toughness and helps the fighter deal with the stress involved in an actual street fight. Apart from the physical aspects of karate, it also focuses on character development and discipline. This can help the karateka in many aspects of life. The grappling style I do is wrestling. Wrestling provides good takedowns, and takedown defense, escapes and reversals. Wrestlers are good at controlling their opponent once a fight hits the ground. It also is great for conditioning. It is practiced full-on, and the wrestler soon is accustomed to the feel of such practice. The attitude and desire to win in a wrestling match can be transferred into a real fight. As it was mentioned before, a downfall is that it focuses on pins and points rather than submissions. This is true, and these are the type of matches that I train for in wrestling. But, I was lucky enough to have a wrestling coach who trained under the submission specialist, Gokor Chivichyan. My wrestling coach was versed in submissions, so I was instructed in this aspect of combat as well, creating a well-rounded grappling system for fighting. However, even without submissions, if you can keep from getting taken down, if you can escape postions once you are on the ground, if you can slam your opponent on the ground and control him there, you should have no problem either standing up if you are more comfortable there, or taking your opponent down, controlling him and finishing him with a ground and pound style attack. Shotokan karate and wrestling compliment each other well and give obvious benefit to the practioner. This combination works great for me. McNerny

That was a cool article. I wish there was a school in my area that taught bareknuckle boxing. It is interesting stuff and it shows that the West did have martial arts, and effective ones at that. Like it was mentioned before, the WMA are often underrated. McNerny

I use the jab more often then I use the backfist. It seems to flow in the combinations I use much more smoothly than the backfist can. However there are times during sparring when an opening for the backfist will arise and I can use it effectively. McNerny

Hey, Grappling will help you a lot. I would highly recommend studying it. Wrestling is a strong art, it will improve your conditioning and stamina, make you stonger, improve balance, ground awareness, and give you some takedowns and takedown defense. Dont worry about the lack of striking. If you can slam someone on the ground and control them, striking them wont be much of a problem. BJJ, sambo, judo, or whatever other grappling arts you can find would be great too. It will compliment your karate and make you more of a complete fighter. McNerny

I agree with the statement that MMA can be considered responsible for the increased interest and study of grappling in shotokan and other traditional arts. It can't be a coincidence that all of the sudden after grappling started dominating the MMA ring, all kinds of traditionalists were presenting grappling techniques in their art too. And that being said, I believe that just as people over-study books and literature to look for symbolism and allegory, martial artists sometimes do the same in their kata. I know that there has always been grappling in shotokan and we have studied it a little bit in class, but I do believe that the grappling explosion in the MMA world led people to discover "secret grappling techniques" in their kata, which were never meant to be a double leg takedown followed by some ground work ending with an armbar, but simply a series of basic movements. Who knows though, karate's original masters have since passed away, and only they know how much and what grappling existed in shotokan. McNerny

Your momma is so fat her belt size is equator. McNerny

I dont think that Diego could beat Karo either. I didn't know that fight was planned already. I'm guessing that the winner of that fight would get a title shot after St. Pierre does. I heard Karo was supposed to fight Hughes a while ago anyway. McNerny

Wow, there are a lot of them. That's a cool list. McNerny

Japanese is introduced in my dojo from day one. Then brown belt and on we are expected to know the names of our techniques in Japanese and English. The tests for 3rd kyu and up are in Japanese. It has already been said, but i think that it is important because it serves as a universal language where people from all nations and cultures and understand what is going on. This is applicable in traveling, but also in seminars. For example, I recently went to a seminar conducted by Nobuaki Kanazawa and he used Japanese when speaking of techniques. When he explained kata and when deeper into the movements he would use English though. I also had the honor of testing for my Shodan under Nobuaki-sensei and the test done in Japanese. It may be actual SKIF requirements, but I'm not sure. But to conclude, I believe learning the traditional language is important. McNerny

Whoa that's odd. I didn't know that. Maybe Chuck Norris is truly the Chosen One. McNerny