Sensei Rick

I've seen sime Dave Kovar tapes, good suff there. I recomend him if y9ou teach kids. how are the Krav maga tapes out there. I have a passing interest in the hype. is there one i should get.

Kata is our connection to our martial art ancestors. I find it humbling knowing that many others including Karate founders have placed their feet as I place mine now. I use it to develop character. I seek perfection in each stride and fall deeper and deeper into the trance heading toward mastery. When my efforts have been recognized in a tournament I feel as though I am almost there. One can never be perfect, but the path must be traveled with diligence. Each of my students are outstanding at kata, but when I do a form, the parents applaud and so do the students. I like to set a bar for them to achieve, and someday raise it above me. Therefore I use it as a yardstick to measure progress. I use it to study flaws in student’s technique. It has many other uses, but I’m too tired from doing kata to type anymore today. [/code]

Me too martial arthur!! i've posted about this before. please read!!!! http://www.karateforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=295103#295103

I just noticed this post. I have over 200 studen't at the B and g. I teach there only one day a week. allllllllllll day saturday. and no, I don't want to open a dojo, why would I. and yes you can pm me.

our orginization requires all the instructors to attend the tourney as judges. all the judges are black belts. at our last tourney we had 460 white belts alone. it was a two day event. we have always had them on sundays because three of us teach classes onsaturday. I teach for 12 hours on saturday. I lose a ton of money working at the tourney. We get paid 125 buck and are there about 10 hours. not a good deal. When I teach those twelve hours I make about 300 bucks, and it's bearly worth it. I hate working sundays. This year, we are having a tourney on saturday. it's about all i can do not to scream over the pay cut. I do have a great time tho, and love seeing my students win!!!!!

i think it's a problem. you need to align your first two knuckles with the bone in your arm. the ulna i think, the one that is closest to your index finger. and keep your wrist straight across the top too. tell your instructor and train your self to punch correctly.

I have seen too many people in my area wearing a black belt outside of their school. It gets pointed ouot to me and then I look, and what do I see. ATA. always! Not once was it from another orginization. The gi is easy to spot. They have those Big letters on the back. I was kinda glad to hear this idiot wasn't an ATA student................Oh, and i'm not in the ATA orginiation..... Aren't we kinda pointing the finger at the wrong person. Myagi say, " no such thing as bad student, only bad teacher. teacher say, student do". I wanna call this guys school and yell at the teacher. I wonder how this guy relayed the story in his dojo the next day.

Imitates nepolian dynomite "lucky!"

not if cage fighting is your goal.

a protein powder wont do either of those things. they wont make you huge, and they wont make you strong and explosive.

I've heard that you should take it every morning, right after waking. your body is basically starving, and whey is rapidly absorbed.

I was just wondering if you think wushu will gain in popularity after being in the 2008 olympics. Do you think It will be shown in the middle of the night or will it be seen during prime time like gymnastics. Do you know anything about the time slots for sure? Does anyone know what forms will be compulsury? Will it be divided by weapons.

The only problem is length of time you train tho. With a lightweight gi, you will have to replace about every 2 years, in fact, I would be surprisedif they lasted that long. They cost about 25 bucks a pop. after ten years you spend much more than a good quality heavy weight. All heavy's are good, but tokaido feel good on the inside, against your skin. So soft and comfy. I hope you stay in the art for a long time, and get into grappling too. take care.

I own the seven samuri, and have seen house of flying daggers, yeah they are great, but I still thin ong bak was great too. I love the motorcycle chase scene too.

I'm gonna try that, I want to compete in a tourney using my first kata, and keep doing it till I get first place, then Ill do the second kata.

Kicks to a heavy bag. First kick the surface, not really penetrating, to get the timing of your kick, and the swing of the bag. I prefer the standing wave master style bags. Then kick into the bag, moving it and kicking against the back swing as it comes toward you. What you need her is the fast twitch muscle training. So if you train with weights, use a lot of it, with reps in the 5 to 6 range. Be sure that you are putting your body motion into the kick too. Ask your sensei if that is right. Good luck[/i]

There, that is my original quote, if you interpret this, as calling it a fake art then so be it. That though was not my original intent. And now onto my other points. I am one who believes that the original form of JKD did die with Bruce. He was a good fighter, and in his day, very ahead of his time. There are much better now. He left us with a foundation and concepts that you can extrapolate from his writings and improve upon them and adapt them to fit your art. He himself said that his style is no style. JKD is a contadiction because it is the style with a style. (Bruce's words) He wasn’t the best in the world, just famous. Yes he had some fights and was undefeated or whatever, but he was just a man, like you and me. He won the fights in the movies because HE WROTE THE SCRIPT that way! You can bet that if I had the talent to be on TV and write even a mediocre chop saki movie, I’d win too! I have studied many arts and as I often say, I have a rainbow of belts in a variety of style. I also have two black belts. One in TKD and another in a Japanese hard style. I can tell you from very personal experience, that you can’t study a style very deep in just six years. Is it long enough to be a shodan? You bet. Is a shodan a master? Not even on his best day. Is a shodan qualified to take the life work of another persons complete system and teach it to the world with no further instruction? (Remember when your instructor dies, he can't hold classes any longer) I say no way. I would never trust someone with only six years of study to comprehend the intricacies of a martial art, even if he was Bruce lee himself. Insanto’s primary art as I know it is Kali, a stick fighting art. I would imagine at his seminars you would learn a lot about stick fighting and many good concepts about distancing and locking and disarming, and many other things. I would eagerly attend a seminar of his if the opportunity presents itself. I would not approach it though thinking that I am learning Bruce lee’s style. I would be learning Insanto’s style. Him being one of Bruce lee’s students would have many of those elements. I’ll bet he wonders where does Bruce lee end and where do I begin. He is a fine martial artist in his own right and should be recognized for that. The shadow of his one time instructor looms very large, but… it still is mearlly a shadow.

IMO you can't train part time to fight in the MMA competitions. those guys are brutal and they are trained to withstand punishment. If you are going once a week to a college class you are going to be taught a lot of history along with basic principle of jujitsu. You need to be seriously conditioned for competition, because your opponent will be. He may not know who invented his art or who put on his last tattoo, but he will be able to take punishment. Unless you are at a hard core MMA conpetion school, you will not likely be trained that way. For an instructor to be able to teach at a college they have to have a cirriculum that includes history and oher things i have mentioned before, and the student's there are just there with a "passive" interest in the art. Not competition fighting. Heed these warnings and take to heart what I'm saying, i[m looking out for your best interest.

I didn't say the art was fake, it's just hard to find a legitimate instructor in that art.

Nope, i['m saying that they didn't have enough time with bruce to become fully aware of his priniples. From what i know even insanto only studied with him for 6 years. in that time bruce had a family made movies and wrote books. That leaves very little time to teach principles he spent his life developing.

I don't think his stances are sloppy. Look at the other students in the third link that you posted, they look the same as their instuctor. I have heard many things on this matter, with the influx of americans. If you think about it, the americans had a base in okinawa (sp) and bombed japan. then they asked these okinawin masters to teach them karate. I have heard that's whne the shinai was brought into use. lets beat these americans with a stick till they stand so low that it hurts them and they will pay us. Well tell them that how they learn karate. These Gi's (like Robert Trias) came to america and did the same thing to there students. which leads us to today. You can't even spank your own children without worrying about a law suit. So I don't spank my student with a boken like my instructor did. I have more students, but there stances aren't like mine. If you read karate do my way of life, he was in his eighties, and states that he never saw a doctor or took an elixor in his whole life. He found massages ticklish and would forgo offers from his grandchildren to do so. The fact that he states he never saw a doctor in his whole life would tell me that he had no ailments (that he was aware of) If you heard funakoshi had osteoarthritis in his hips, it is false, and purely speculation. Trained properly,karate should extend your life. I live in arizona and last saw Sensei Koyama when he was 65, and he looked about 27. I've heard that he now only likes to do the tekki kata, but does them all the time. He is an example that all should follow.

When someone tells me they study JKD, I get a little suspicious. Also when people tell me they study ninjitsu, I also get a red flag. These arts just don't have the validity of arts originated in okinawa and korea. Bruce lee didn't have enough time to full convey all his priciples to anyone let alone another generation of what he was doing. If anyone is teaching JKD, it seems to surely be what insanto interpeted his intentions to be. In more traditional arts, i see universal agreement on technique and bunkai. I can do penan shodan in the usa and do it in japan and it will be recognised. There is universal agreement. I'm afraid only bruce lee could have taught JKD, and only Insanto has the time in grade to even be close to bruce lee's intent. Unless you instructor trained with him, then I'm afraid it's just a "fake" art. And as for ninjitsu...... well, I can't even type that long. My best advice to you is study an art that has real backing to it with an internationally recognised organization. Find an instuctor that can explain the principle of why the techniques should work. Then study that art as bruce did, and use what is usefull. adapt and change it to suit your style. test it in the ring, and learn from your mistakes. Then start over till you reach "enlightenment" I think the motives of someone studying JKD are a little suspect too. You want to be Bruce lee??? Why, we already had one of those. I'll relate it to you like music since i'm a musician, and a black belt. Don't be a cover band of nirvana, go out and be nirvana!!!!! Play originals. Learn notes and chords from other songs, then make up your own songs that are dcompletely original. That's what bruce did. Now go hit the gym danielsan!!!

it's always so funny to hear people thatt say they aren't in shape and want to get into shape to start ma training. Get to a class, you will get into shape. The place to get into shape is the dojo. I want to know what you've done. Get to it young man, and then stay with it for life.

That is the a great movie. I cant wait till I see tony Ja in another flick. It has some of the best fights ever. It made me wanna study muay thai.

Wow, I had my instuctor drag ME behind him on the ground, I never thought about just dragging the belt. Mine wore out from practice, which is all i can suggest you do. Black belts need to study. Teachers need to study. Work out.......... get to class!