danbong

Thanks Sohan and Aodhan.

An article in a running magazine stated that to reduce soreness in the hamstrings when using a treadmil, set it to a ten degree incline and reduce the speed to make an equivalent difficulty as when flaat - but they never said how to determine that (i.e. what percentage to reduce the speed by). Does anybody know a rule of thumb on how much to reduce the speed by for a ten degree incline?

I found that by using vertical punches I could workout on the heavy bag BN. Mayb the isshin ryu and wing chun guys are on to something

If you think that we shouldn't care about ranks and belts then why do young black belts bother you? This inconsistency has been pointed out in other threads.

I also think the BJJ would be excellent to learn for rape defense. In Sacramento some youngster tried to rape a PE teacher who did BJJ and he ended up running for his life.

Back in 1979, my roommate who was from Hong Kong (and who studied kung fu) told me that Bolo was a shotokan stylist.

What did you learn from when your buddy got stabbed?

True karate styles are not acrobatic at all. If you are intrested in scrobatic styles try wushu, kuk sool won/hwa rang do/some systems of hapkido, or better yet, schools that train for XMA competition.

I forgot to mention that cleaning up a torn meniscus is a fairly straight forward and non traumatic procedure. They "scope" your knee while you're still awake - you can even watch it on the monitor.

If it is a torn meniscus they can trim around the tear and clean it up. With a bit of rest it should be something you can live with and train with. If you don't have a torn ligament as well you are very lucky. But even with fairly severe knee injuries you should be able to eventually continue training, although possibly with some modifications/limitations needed. I tore my PCL, both MCL's and the each meniscus is my left knee some twenty years ago and was able to eventually train again, in kicking oriented styles no less. Good luck.

Take the one that interests you the most.

The small circle videos are way better than the book.

Martial Arts Family Fitness World Headquarters for Hapkido International 122 E Gutierrez St. Santa Barbara, CA 93101 USA Tel.: (805) 963-6233 Web: https://www.kickboxers.com Email: info@kickboxers.com The head instructor there was a classmate of my hapkido instructor back in Hawaii.

What style of karate are you taking and what kind of side kick was it. In most karate systems there are two kinds of side kicks, snap or thrust. In the snap side kick, the upper body is supposed to be kept vertical. Perhaps the best thing to do is ask the instructor to show you how it should be done and for him to also try to show you how he saw you doing it.

In the long run, you will gain more from your training than the guy who is a natural athlete. No just in your technique and martial arts knowledge, but where it counts - your character.

I think aikido is very good for those who also do shotokan because you from shotokan you are already used to seeing quick attacks that use jabs, feints, and combinations as opposed to slow lunge punches and haymakers.

I also think that you should work on one artfirst then train in others if you want later. I would say that when you try them out, the one that interests you the most is the one to take. The one that you most look forward to going to class and practicing at home is the one that you will progress the most in.

Since TKD essentially has no ground fighting at all and most "pure" TKD schools teach very little standup grappling, I think almost any style would fit well. The exception would be a hapkido school that also does a lot of kicks. The kicking is similar to TKD but different enough that you will feel like you are constantly having to think about how to do your kicks.

Sounds like you earned a big congradulations!

Besides taking advantage of angles and using fakes (excellent ideas!), you can also try to do more counters instead of initiating the exchanges.

Hopefully with the change to olympic TKD rules that allow punches to the head more TKD stylists will keep their guard up.

The problem with "memory aids" for froms is you have to think about them. But what counts is doing the form, not describing it. So knowing a bunch of tips for remembering the form actually hinders you because you have to think while you should just be doing the form without hesitation. The key to being able to do that is lots of repetitions. I would recommend at least 10 times per day for the form you are learning and at least 3 times per day for forms that you know. If you need asistance while doing forms at home there are sites that have the forms. One good one for ITF forms is http://www.utbtaekwondo.us/ - you should not try to learn a new form from these descriptions, but they are really nice for helping you to recall what you've been doing in class.

I think the first thing you should do is to enter TKD tournaments with olympic style rules.

You said that you would only be studying for a short period time before going away to college and that fitness was a high priority - with those two factors in mind, how about kickboxing (the contact type)? You might not get to be very good in a short period of time, but there's a good chance that you will learn enough to cotinue working out on your own if necessary.

If self defense is an interest I would recommend BJJ or JJJ. I would tend to say go with BJJ because in th long run you can rely on the shotokan for a lot of the standup self defense (although in most shotokan schools, teaching self defense early on is not a priority). On the other hand, if you are into Japanese tradition, obviously JJJ will have that in spades compared to BJJ.