Why_Worry

Escrima, kali and arnis are basically the same thing. At the karate dojo i go to we learn a few techniques with escrima sticks although alot of it is one stick techniques. Just to point out, there is such thing as Escrima/arnis/kali with ONE stick. It doesnt not neccesarily mean you use two sticks.

Awsome, i'm also an orange belt at the moment. I have been studying wado ryu for about a year, how long you been studying kenpo?

If it is the adult class then you have some good options . What i would do (provided everyone else doesnt care) is run it like a boot camp basically requiring everyone to work their hardest. Maybe do running for a warm up and run aorund the neighborhood. My sensei's when they were learning, they had to run barefoot through the neighborhood in nothing but their gi, even in the winter when there was 2 or 3 feet of snow on the ground. She has to try her hardest or else she going to fall behind. Now if she is trying you wait for her, but if she isnt, you just keep going and wait for her to catch up. Also jsut to other activities that require her to keep up and hopefully trying her hardest or at least hard will show in things like kata and blocking where she is by her self. There is also the old way of hitting them with a shinai if they dont work hard enough

Well just remember your instructor wouldnt have given you your yellow belt if you werent good enough. I got my orange belt a few months ago which is one above yellow and i dont really know how i felt if i was ready. But something i do is i do 100 of each kata before i can get the next belt and i also have to write an essay on my thoughts so i get to relfect too. You could do some of that just for the fun of it or to feel good about it.

You should not ever wash your belt. At least thats what i am told. In the old days everyone had a white belt and the dirt and grass stains and whatever else eventually built up to make a black belt. Be proud of the stains if you ask me. but if your instructor wants you to wash it, you should, i just have been taught the other way.

Oh also say something she has to respond to, if she sounds like a man...its probably a man so you knock them down and run.

If a woman attacked me i would stand my ground and if she charged me i would tep around and push her than run in the other direction. Otherwise i would jsut get her off me if she grabbed me and push her and run, or just push her and run if i couldnt back up.

I would recomend seeing a doctor just to be safe but from my point of view and what i have been told about chi (cause in my class the sensei's focuse alot on chi and utilizing it) when you punch you need to focuse and control your chi in the punch so it doesnt fly into your head/neck and out cause i dont knwo if it really effects your kneck but it can give you cramps from doing that when if you focuse and control it correctly you can do alot more with less effort and without getting a cramp.

We do no contact sparring without pads obviously and we also do complimentary sparring which is a little bit slower so you can just go at it however and the goal isnt as much to hit them as to just keep it going but every once in a while it does get quite rough but there isnt really much force put in the blows no matter how fast we get going.

Here is a good website, you can get pretty much every wieght gi up to 14oz and made of alot of different materials although you might still want a slightly heavier gi. http://www.kamikaze.com/securestore/c52661.2.html

You need to learn the releases and katas to be effect on the street. If all you do is spar you wont ever learn a release so what you gonna do if man does a bear hug on your from behind or starts choking you or knocks you down and jumps on you?

Something my sensei's did when they were training is that they would fill a bucket with water and through it over the shower curtain rail thingy and punch it. It wasnt so much for conditioning as for learning ot punch right. You can either punch it and push it or punch it and release your chi into it and the water will shoot up but the bucket wont go swinging. But they practiced at a community center where there were big shower areas, so i dont know how practical this really is in a house. Also, i saw the xma show and it was really cool and entertaining to watch but alot of it was real showy and flashy and they didnt really show much of the more direct martial arts making the stereotype that all martial arts are flashy. (not saying one is better than the other though, i like both the same).

I actually like Jackie Chan's old movie Dragonlord. The fighting is ok but the story is pretty entertaining but i dont know how good the plot actually was but those sports they play in it are really cool to watch.

I just recently taped the third but i havent watched it yet. I deffinitely gonna watch it soon now that you tell me its really good.

I think it sbecause either they arent skilled anough practitioners (I dont know how else to say it, but its deffinitely not your fualt if you arent, it just takes more time) or they have trained for something different (i.e. a street fight). As you repeat blocks and excersize eventually they become integrated into you. You have something called muscle memory and the more you do something it will eventually be ingrained in your muscle memory and you will react without thinking. As you practice more and more if someone throws a punch at you or tries to hit you you will automatically respond with somethign different than what you would have before. The longer you take karate (or any martial arts) the mroe will be engrained into your body and mind/spirit and it iwll become natural.

I practice Wado Ryu karate although there is a little bit of stuff from other styles mixed in that we learn once in a while.

thanks everyone for the links. Real useful. Also here is a link to basically a dictionary of japanese words cause its deffinitions bascially. ITs kinda confusing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Japanese_terms and here are a few phrases http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Japanese_phrases

YOu can just hem it up. THen when your bigger just remove the hemming. In other words just sew it so it folded inwards at the edges then remove the sewing once your bigger. It just makes it look like cuffs on the edges. My grandfather was a tailor so he did that for me but i am sure if you took some time you could do it yourself. It would be worth it if you dont have to keep on rolling it up.

My favorite kata is actually I-hon. I just love the breathing techniques and everyonce in a while i do it right and feel the chi flow through my body.

Hey and welcome. I study Wado Ryu Karate even though its only been a year. Although we also learn a little bit of other martial arts every once in a while and we do alot of tai chi excersizes.

Welcome to KF, i'm also new. Thats cool you do TaijiQuan. I have always though that was a cool and peaceful martial art but most people don realize how much it improve their self defense skills too but why do you need to fight when you can be peaceful instead. Well welcome anyway.

Hey everyone. I just joined yesterday. This is a great site and i have found many interesting and helpful articles. Also the jokes section is really entertaining and fun to just see everyone saying their own little joke and everyone sharing their ideas. I dont really have much of a martial arts background. I'm thirteen at the moment and have been taking Wado-Ryu karate for about a year and am currently an orange belt. I enjoy it very much and i like to think of it as a peaceful thing to do rather than self defense. Everyone at the dojo seems to be like one big family and I hope to continue martial arts for a long while if not the rest of my life. Well thats all so bye everyone and see you around the forums.

Very good article. It points out the fact that martial arts can be peaceful and doesnt need to be only in self defense. I think if you just follow your conscience you will do whats right msot of the time. What my sensei tells me is that if you ever get in a fight the goal is to escape and not to fight. Remember the goal is not to win, but rather not to loose.

Oh, sorry about that. Its not my fault though cause i dont know how to drive so you cant blame me. Also if that doesnt work, you can use one of the wrist grab from behind releases that seem to only exist to help you run away from cops.

lol, funny. Thanks for the funnyness.