bushido_man96

Danielle brings up a good point. Instead of being soley stuck on the idea of losing "weight," think more along the lines of changing your body composition. If your overall body fat percentage is decreasing, but the weight isn't coming off quite as fast as you'd like, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. And it will take a lot of time, too, just like any other journey. But keep at it, and you'll get there!

Welcome to KF! It sounds like you've got some great experiences to draw from, and you should find it very enjoyable here.

I'd be willing to guess that you are seeing a difference in the talent level. With the WKF being the body one needs to work with should Karate go Olympic, those athletes that aspire to that goal are probably already gravitating towards it. I could be wrong, but I think the same thing has kind of been seen in AAU Judo and AAU TKD.

They do look a lot more difficult. It appears that they were designed for skill development or demonstration purposes. Perhaps for Olympic level poomsae competitions.

Or be Royce Gracie. Yeah, I guess. But since I'm not....

I think the Gracies did it to prove their point. They got into a better position, gained control, and then proved they had the control. I got to see Royce Gracie do this in person at one of the training sessions I had with him. It was rather fun to watch.

I like how you seem to stay "connected" the whole time, using your body position to keep distance, but still retain that contact with the opponent.

Very well put, Tempest.

Breaking is about technique and focus, not about being tough. Its a skill, like many others.

People will sign contracts for so many things, but not for an MA membership. I don't get it sometimes.

I second that! Here's to hanging in there!

Kendo will be primarily a weapon art, so I don't think it would conflict with anything else you are doing. So long as you have the time to do both, I can't see any issues.

If you can find a Tai Chi school that teaches the self-defense aspects, then you are looking at something with potential. If its just physical exercise approach they take, then you have to ask if that is what you want out of it.

That's fantastic news, Bob! Awesome!

I believe its a Martial Art, although with a mainly military focus.

Yes, there are some ITF forms that have some difficult kicking in them. But other than those, most of them contain fairly basic kicking.

Welcome to KF, Occam!

Welcome aboard!

Different from both WTF and ITF? That's interesting. Do you have an example? down block = han dan makihigh block = san dan maki knife hand strike = sudo tiergi knife hand guarding blocks = sudo maki upset (reverse) knife hand strike = han sudo This is just a few. We don't name off any stance by Korean, though. Spellings here are likely off, too.

I got this done. Completed a recertification in Police Krav Maga. I got only one written. I made it a ways, but work and family schedules headed me off course. I ended up becoming more of a strength coach for my son than for myself; I still get to the gym, but its to get my son through his strength training session.

I think that will be rare to find ! To the bold type above... Why is that, iyho?? From what I can see here in Sydney at least (not sure about USA) most of the instructors will be looking more for money & lock in contracts and some of them might compromise the art for the sake of money, some will get you to pass grading even if you are not that good just to make you happy and remain in the dojo , others will never correct your techniques so you don't leave the dojo. Some students will be very happy with that but I won't, if I am gonna train in Karate then I will need to do my best to perfect it (if this is possible in any way) but not to be taught the right thing then for me it's waste of money & time. As I mentioned before money is important for Instructors who earn their living form the dojo but shouldn't be more important than the art itself. It's like a doctor who doesn't give their patient enough consultation time / care in order to be able to fit in as many patient as they can during their working shifts! I have no experience with managing dojos & don't know the finaincial aspect of it so I might be wrong but that's just what I can see (may be I was unlucky with the dojos that I have visited / contacted) ! Have you seen this for certain? Do you truly feel that most, that is, a high percentage of the dojos available to you, are doing this? If that is the case, then I feel bad for your situation. Have you checked in on a bulk of the dojos in your area? Surely there is one that will offer what you are looking for.Again, don't be turned off by price automatically. And don't be turned off by contracts automatically. Most instructors don't want to be bill collectors, so having a billing agency handle it for them is a boon to them. If they are worth their salt at all, they should offer some way to get out of a contract if you are truly not happy with it. But don't give up hope, and keep looking!

I think an important question is how bad your eyes are. If you can get by without wearing them, then that's good. If you can't, trying a pair of sports goggles might be useful.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

Congrats!

Ours is interesting. We use Korean terminology during basics (followed by a translation, usually), but the terms we use are different from any I've seen for equivalent techniques in books I have on TKD. When we discuss the techniques otherwise, we typically use English.