lgm

I have a wire in my right knee and metal plate with screws on my left forearm since 25 years ago after a partial knee patellectomy and forearm bone operation, due to a near fatal car accident, which earned me the nickname of "bionic professor" with my Sensei and my cohorts in training. I never stopped practicing my karate, including makiwara and bag training as well as semi- and full-contact kumite. I functioned well and suffered no re-injury in these long years. But, a few years back my orthopedic surgeon whom I consulted for a knee problem told me I should not do karate because if my bones can break at the juncture of bone and metal in the implants and this could be more serious enough to require another surgical operation. I told him I'm a 3rd dan blackbelt in karate and that it was too late for him to warn me. He appeared taken aback, but simply shook his head in disbelief. Anyway, since then, I took his advice and lightened up my karate practice which I continue to do daily. I'm now 55 years old. Who knows the doctor could be right. So, my advice to you, FF, is consult your doctor first, ok? Don't believe what I just wrote, as I'm not an expert on this matter. I was perhaps just lucky to have escaped serious injuries despite my ignorance. But, now you know so act more prudently than I was.

Patches in karate or martial arts uniforms depict symbols of the karate or martial art school, organization or style. Try this link http://www.panlane.com/karate/hist/hist5.htm to check on our JKA inyo (symbol of shotokan karate) and others.

If "martial arts" is used as a generic term, then it is in the lower case and not capitalized. If it is used as a proper name, like part of a karate school's or organization's name. for example, "LGM Martial Arts", then it is capitalized. However, the pre-eminent rule is: if it is the first word in a sentence, whether used as a generic term or proper noun, it is always capitalized, otherwise the rule stated above holds.

martial comic? martial comedian? martial clown? most commercialized? moro-moro combat? mistaken corner? misplaced counter? mostly cartoon?... Probably, it was originally "mac", but the "a" was dropped in the course of faulty spelling. Who knows?

No offense meant, man, but the belts you plan to adorn your style seems to be all the colors of rainbow and their intermediate blends. Even HTML has given up on some of your color schemes and recognized only a few. Why so many belts, buddy? Anyway, will the color of your belt as grandmaster be white, exactly the same color like the one used by the beginner or newbie in karate? If so, then, you have earned my respects for your humility because white is the lowest ranked color in karate. As for me, only white and black really matters and in truth these are the only two colors that are universal in martial arts. All colors in between are insignificant or at the very least controversial.

It depends on how low the kick is. If the kick is directed below the knee, then you can either shift your leg/foot away (side step or move back your leg), and evade the kick, or you can block the low kick with your foot or lower leg. If the kick is to the groin area or inner thigh, then a downward block may also be used in addition to the defenses I suggested for below-the-knee kicks.

In as much as karate practice comes secondary to my gainful work, I could only practice after office hours in the dojo or late in the evening at home. Karate workout helps me relax more and sleep better so it is an important part of my daily routine for the past several decades.

It is not your decision, but your Sensei's. You can show him your certificate as blue belt in shotokan and probably he will assess your demonstrable skills, test you against the standards of his school for their blue belt rank, and if you pass, you can wear the blue belt in his school. If you don't meet the standards, you will have to start from whitebelt again as is the usual practice when learning closely related karate style and most especially a new and different one.

Taekwondo and karate have many marked similarities for the simple reason that the founder of Taekwondo was trained in Shotokan JKA karate. But, TKD distinguishes itself mainly from karate because of its predominant emphasis on kicks. So, the question is: are kicks more lethal than hand techniques? A kick and a punch/hand strike delivered by one and the same person will show that the former has a more destructive force. But, generally the punch/hand strike which has greater popularity in Shotokan karate than in TKD has the advantage of being delivered faster, easier and more accurately aimed to a target by one and the same individual. Furthermore, a kick needs greater distance to deliver and make it effective, so close-in fighting or fighting in tight spots would be disadvantageous to a TKD fighter. I can only consider TKD which depends mainly on kicks as more lethal than karate, when the test is merely damaging a non-responsive, totally immobilized or completely defenseless opponent. Otherwise, both TKD and karate will be lethal in the hands and feet of equally skilled experts who share equivalent physical attributes and characteristics. If exactly the original and a clone of the original would fight and one would be a TKD practitioner while the other is a karateka, my bet is that it will be a tie or a toss up.

For me, Muhammad Ali is the greatest fighter of all time. His boxing skills can only be matched by his articulate speech. Brains and brawn made him the most popular boxer in history. But, for all his great achievements in boxing, none is greater than his spirit to keep on fighting to stay alive and well, both in the ring and now in his losing fight with Parkinson's disease. Gene

Thank for citing the above references. But, while they attempt to explain how narcissistic personality disorder may develop out of insecurities and faulty ego development, I don't see any support for the argument that hard martial arts training can or do in fact preclude and prevent one from becoming narcisssistic. You have to point out what aspect of martial arts training will cause this and provide documentary evidence that it does in fact. Theories are fine but facts must support them, otherwise they are pretty useless explanations of phenomena. This was not clearly explained in your original post. But with your explanation here, requiring a student to perform beyond his present skill may serve as a humiliating but positive learning experience. However, it can also antagonize him against his teacher and discourage him from achieving further. This second method may result to positive or negative effects, depending on the student's personality, intelligence and other subjective as well as context and environmental factors. We cannot predict how it will exactly affect him. Many theories may seem at face value sound or logically correct based on what people may consider self-evident premises, but the soundness of a theory is dependent on how and to what extent it will satisfactorily explain a given reality or phenomena by way of empirical proofs derived through scientific investigations that are verifiable and replicable.

Our discussion is not being frustrated but progressing in view of what I think are valid points that I bring up as well as you do. No, I don't perceive three aspects or logical distinctions but only two, namely (1) Principles-which refer to general concepts, hypotheses, theories or laws, and (2)Techniques- which refer to specific applications of principles. Techniques are of two kinds: (a) basic (general)- applicable to a set or group of fight situations, and (b) specific (particular)- applicable to only one kind of fight situation. Nope, I'm presenting principles as different from techniques. As I have explained above, techniques are the same as applications (of principles), but of 2 kinds. Since our definitions and classifications differ, we don't expect to agree on our conclusions and deductions based on them, it appears that our discussion will lead nowhere to a resolution mutually agreeable.

Maybe what you mean is that by example being humble in manners and speech, the teacher hopes and I mean hopes his humility will rub on the student. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that this "teaching by example" will be reliably effective on his students and if so, whether it is extensive or general or limited only to exceptional cases. I'm sorry but I can't see how allowing a student to experience greater potential will result to his becoming humble. I have known many people who became succesful and great, i.e. having realized their greater potential, become prouder, more egoistic and some even turn megalomaniacs. The only exception are those whose religion compels them to be more humble the more rewards they get in life and they follow this call to humility. Is this a matter of faith or empirically established to be true or likely to happen among students who are subjected to "hard, earnest, and effective training" and that those who "train hard, become less defensive of inadequacies"? What scientific studies support this claim? I'm asking this question because in my own exhaustive research on the effects of martial arts training on personality, I have not found a shred of significant evidence to support this contention. Perhaps you have such data and can post it here. I would appreciate it so.

Semantics may be creating a problem, but only because we don't share the same understanding of the same terms. I cannot disagree on the above. Here we have a different view on "techniques". For me, techniques are not "non-answer" but practical answer to given fighting situations. They are the concrete applications of core principles which are abstract and theoretical in nature. Effective techniques always presuppose the existence of a good principle or principles behind it. But correct principles don't always presuppose their correct application in techniques. I don't understand what "you can drill principles into your being" means. To me, this appears to be meaningless semantics, if any "tripping in semantics" here has occurred. You can only drill, practice and master particular techniques based on theoretical principles, never directly principles themselves. But, general principles are understood and learned through specific techniques (induction) and can be theoretically applied to the creation of specific practical techniques (deduction). In the physical fighting arts, it's mainly a matter of efficient muscle memory and instinctive motor learning in order to have actual fighting efficiency. Too often or too much conscious thinking and problem-solving in a fast-paced fight can result to slow reaction to attack and counter. You must react in an instinctive and automatic manner that is at the same time effective and efficient because these learned reactions are based on scientific fighting principles. Not only rigid, but dangerous and unreliable. All effective techniques must be based on correct and exact fighting principles. This may be true, but a good martial arts or fighting system should have an adequate repertoire of basic techniques that could apply to a larger class or group of fight settings. BTW, in most fighting arts what are directly taught are techniques and only indirectly principles. In traditional karate, these are the kihon and kata. What are understood are principles in techniques, but what are learned and mastered directly in the dojo, which are repeated indefinitely and drummed up into muscle memory, are basic techniques that have wide practical fight applications. Here we don't disagree at all. Principles must always govern effective techniques. But only techniques are motor learned, muscle-memorized and mastered through motor training such as done in all the martial arts. Principles are abstract and can only be understood through techniques.

As I have explained earlier, knowledge of principles is basic to learning techniques to efficient fighting skills and to any other physical or mental skills for that matter, because they provide the why and wherefor of these techniques. Knowing an endless combinations simply by understanding and applying certain principles will not automatically make one a good fighter. Physical fighting skills depend on masterfully learned reactions that should be done in instinctive, reflexive and automatic way. This is brought about by constant repetition and practice to the point where conscious thinking and reflection on the steps to be taken is not done anymore. So, while understanding of principles is critical in learning these skills, practicing repeatedly a generalized set of attack and defense techniques that can apply to multiple situations rather to a single or specific situation, to a reflexive, subconscious, automatic and instinctive level, will benefit more a fighter than just knowing principles and generalized applications in theory and being optimistic that one can handle any random fight situation that will confront him in the ring or in the streets.

Excuse me for pointing this out, but the plural form of kata is still "kata", not "katas". You might want to rectify this. Thanks!

What kind of training do you think will temper one's pride? Learning to punch, strike, kick, block and other physical skills involved in the art of defending and attacking doesn't seem to have anything to do with modulating one's pride. In fact, it may even bloat it when one has mastered the art of winning over or defeating another person. You are probably referring to the philosophical or ethical teachings that accompany most traditional arts as the critical factors that may induce one to be more humble. If so, that should be an encouraging angle to research on and test for validity in a scientific study.

This ratio may apply when one is just beginning to learn a particular martial art, but the ratio should gradually shift in favor of the physical until the latter is proportionately greater and ration goes the reverse, as one becomes an expert fighter. Martial art is a physical art and as such it involves more of physical activity than a conscious, deliberate and calculating mental activity. The objective in developing efficiency and mastery in a physical art, like martial arts, is to make your expert and acccurate reactions to an attack in an automatic, reflexive, second-nature, habitual, subconscious and instinctive fashion, without undergoing the hassle of too much conscious thought on when and how to make them and step-by-step reasoning. Mastering a martial art is very different from mastering a science or analyzing and solving an abstract problem.

When asked which martial arts is the best of all, an Aikido master once said something to this effect: "There are many paths leading to the top of the mountain. But on top of the mountain, we see the same moon." Gene

This is true. Nothing beats training in groups or with a partner and best of all under the direct supervision of a qualified instructor or sensei. However, unless martial arts is your profession, the realities of life will compel you to graduate from group or supervised training sometime. After a karateka has mastered the basics of his art and has been certified as such by a qualified expert in the art that he practices, self-training then becomes some form of maintenance of skills already acquired. Here, self-training finds its usefulness. But, one should not exclusively self-train unless he has reached that particular stage of martial arts development.

There's no "one best" self-defence for everyone, but there can be "one best" for every martial arts enthusiast like you. What is best for you may not be best for others. Physical aptitudes, body type, interest inclination and other related subject variables will significantly and greatly determine which martial art is best for a particular individual. The context variable or setting where the person is likely to use his self-defense skill must also be factored in. In reality, there are so many factors one must consider and proportinately input into a predictive equation to be able to prescribe which type of self-defense will work in general, that we cannot hope to determine which self-defense art is best for everyone or even most people (and absolutely never for all people in any given time). In other words, there is no specific self-defense art yet devised that is best in general.

To kick stronger and higher, one must have marked dynamic flexibility This is not the same as static flexibility which are involved in doing splits. To increase dynamic flexibility, one must do dynamic stretches. Splits are static stretches and won't really help make a person kick higher or stronger unfortunately. But, dynamic stretches will and these stretches may just be simple leg raises done in all directions which one could do regularly. To improve one's kicks, he must strive to slowly reach his full range of motion in the joints and progressively increase the velocity of the kicking leg to maximum level.

No offense meant, but in those 10 years when you had only 1 gi, and if I had the honor to be your cohort at the time and we had to do kumite on Saturday, I would have defaulted and begged your indulgence for rematch the next Monday.

You signature quote is the one that really interests me, SM. How do you define or how can one qualify as a "great fighter" in your view? You mentioned that "as martial artists, we must stand ready to fight, even if hoping that such conflict never comes." Would this be then the one important trait, in your view, that distinguishes a great fighter from one who is not, namely "being ready to fight"? Or, would you like to re-formulate or re-state in view of my query? I would like to be clear on your point before I give my 2-cents opinion. ...But I think if more karate students trained in a way that resembled real fighting, then you'd see the style as more competitive in that arena. That's all I've been saying. I won't disagree with you on that particular point. But, going back to your signature quote, in addition to the mind set of being "ready to fight though hoping that such will never take place" and in addition to what your quote above saying that fighters should train in a way that resembled real fighting, what else would you say will make people real martial artists and great fighters?

I don't really get what you are disagreeing against. But, I would say rather that "block" doesn't necessarily mean "receive" and not the other way around. "Receive" as meaning given to "uke" is only its etymological or literal, not its conventional and contemporary lexical meaning in English (which means "block") Of course, the best defense is an almost simultaneous counter attack to an attack or if it were humanly possible to effectively pre-empt an attack by attacking split-second first before an opponent launches an actual attack. In comparison, blocking and then attacking is a 2-step action which is much slower and less efficient. I don't see where we disagree. I think the above statements are biased if not prejudiced somehow unless you can show convincing documentary evidence that any other nationality knew the original meaning of the kata in contrast to the Japanese. Are you referring to the Okinawans who taught the Japanese or the Chinese who taught them the genotype of karate or the Hindu who gave the Chinese the rudiments of the yet unnamed art in the time of Bodhidarma (only legend, of course). Who do you think holds the right to the original interpretation of a large number of these ancient kata? Shotokan karate is not all kumite-based. As far as I know, there are two main developments of shotokan karate: sports-oriented karate and SD-oriented karate. I practice now only SD-oriented karate, although I had had taste of sports karate in my younger years. But, although I'm not partial to sports karate, I believe it can train people regularly in terms of timing, tai sabaki, distancing and overall fighting fitness, but unfortunately it conditions fighters to control too much even in an actual streetfight or hit non-vital body targets which is a no-no in fighting thugs. On the other hand, SD karate aims to teach street fighting, but tends to spend too much intellectual bunkai-analyzing, trying out applications on cooperative partners rather uncooperative/freeely resistive ones, and make lots of presumptions or assumptions that their techniques will work in theory or in limited pre-arranged kata kumite tyrouts, rather than going out into the streets and put these to a field test (pun intended).