bushido_man96

4/24/2014 GRACIE Re-certification: Day 1, 8:00 am - 3:00 pm. Doing an overall review of all the material from the course. Good workout, and it was good to see some familiar faces from our time at the course last year. One more day to go, and its always a blast to train with Royce!

The NFL released its 2014 schedule. Here is a week-by-week schedule: http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2014/04/23/2014-nfl-schedule-by-week/8072059/ And a team-by-team schedule: http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2014/04/23/2014-nfl-schedule-by-teams/8072165/ What do you think? How does it look for your team this year? KC got a tough draw, playing at Denver, New England, and at San Francisco, all before their bye week at week 6. November 16 they have Seattle at home, then two weeks later, Denver at home. It will be a tough road to hoe this year!

Nope. Not going. They probably don't have an internet connection, and then I couldn't post on KarateForums. Not going.

I have not seen it yet, but have wanted to. Now that its on Netflix, the wife and I may sit down and watch it.

At 5'7" to 5'8", you'd be a pretty short QB. Unless you have a rocket arm, or play at a school that runs the option, your shot at playing QB might be fairly minimal. Your prototypical QB is 6' at least, although there have been a few great shorter QBs, but even then, they go about 5'10". Depending on your speed, you might be able to fit into a position like halfback or wide receiver. You might also look at putting on some bulk to gain a bit of weight. But those are just suggestions, and not hard and fast rules, either. Best of luck, and keep us posted.

Happy Birthday Noah!

Personally I think someone filmed them at a demonstration and jumped to conclusions. The WTF has a creative forms division for competition therefore there is no need to add these to the traditional divisions. The info I got was from a book by Richard Chun. It made mention of them being developed, so I went looking for them. I figured they would slot them into the black belt ranks somewhere.

Agreed! Sometimes, too much thought gets put into the wrong things.

Everyone's learning curve is different. The most important thing to do when making mistakes is to not get down on yourself. Let the instructor fix it, and move on. Focus on the task at hand, and do your best. That is all any instructor can ask out of their students.

Each person will be different on this. I don't look down on someone because they have a lower belt color; I don't know that person, what they have done in the past, or may currently do. To assume something like this can put you in a bad spot. But, I'm sure there are those out there that do look down on others, look at sparring as a chance to school a lower rank, and show how good they are; it can be an ego trip for some. Everyone will be different on this matter.

We have now started the Greco/Freestyle season of practice. Its two nights a week, for 2 hours each night. Kendall is always nervous about this style, I think mainly because of the throwing. He has more of a comfort level with folk style, and I feel I can help him with folk style better than Greco or Freestyle. But, I think its good for him to keep getting the mat time, and he is even having a better attitude about the practices, and is staying much more positive. I don't think we will be hitting any competitions for it yet, but he will hit the practicies as often as he can.

Great post, so well explained. I haven't got to this kind of training yet, but I hope to, soon. Now, I have an idea of what to expect, and to keep myself positive about it.

I disagree here to an extent. I'm not big on the philosophical side of the Martial Arts. I'm not really big on trying to influence others to what I believe, which is what I really think the philosophical side of the Martial Arts is. I do think good character is important, though, and most people, especially adults, have developed their own ideologies by the time they would come to me to learn a Martial Art. I also feel that if I am going to spend my time and money learning Martial Arts, I want to learn technique, and how to use it and when to use it. I don't really want someone to preach his value system to me. I already have one, and it has served me well for many years. Maybe putting a little bit here and there foreward for something to think about; I don't mind that. I think that students like this can still be good students, and become great Martial Artists. Its just a matter of what each wants to focus on. Then, on the flip side, you get those students who sign up for a Karate class or a TKD class, and then they want to become Japanese or Korean. They may try to focus so much on the culture and its philosophies that they ignore developing skills that might help them defend themselves. So, its possible to get students on both sides of the coin.

Welcome aboard, Carpenter! I found that when I did Aikido, I found spots that would allow me to insert kicks quite nicely to help "facilitate" the takedowns. I've found the same in Hapkido, but my Hapkido style is very much open to striking for distraction. I find that the BJJ that we do will help level me out so that I at least don't get freaked out when being on the ground. Some of the Hapkido/Aikido takedowns work nicely with controlling an arm when they land, leaving a nice opportunity to set an armbar.

Very well said. Some schools will put more focus on philosophical meaning behind belt colors, and some will just use different colors to denote different levels of knowledge and ability. In the ATA, there is a meaning and interpretation to each belt color. In my current style of TKD, there really isn't. So, it just depends.

Pretty sweet! Congrats on her accomplishment!

Years ago, I remember reading an article in Black Belt Magazine about a guy who had done, or was doing, both TKD and Muay Thai. He kind of dubbed it TNT, and I think he was out of Florida.Also, KwonKicker is a youtube channel of a TKD stylist that went and trained and fought in some Thai matches. You might find some of those interesting to look into.

I agree. I wasn't sure if it appeared to be more suited to women because they would have carried them more often, as the men would usually have carried something more useful as a weapon, like a sword? But, it appears the fan may have been an item carried by men at times, as well.

This sums it up wonderfully. Each style has a different focus and methodology in training. And even within styles, different instructors will have different methodologies. It is very hard to peg a style as this or that, because so many people do them, even in the same art. This is great advise. It will be able to provide you more specific histories of the styles, and the generalities of each style. Its a good place to start, and you will probably get ideas of where to look to find more specific information from there.

I think that most Karate is Karate-do. Some choose to use it on the end, and some don't. "Do" tends to put the emphasis on the "way of life" aspect that many attribute to practicing the Eastern Martial Arts, hence why some choose to emphasize it.

Welcome to KF!

4/16/2014 Defensive Tactics club: 1:00 - 2:00 pm. Worked on some of the weapons rentention in the GRACIE set, both standing and on the ground. Department DT Training: 2:00 - 4:00 pm. Covered a lot of the GRACIE system with the fella that showed up. Worked headlock defenses (to cuffing, and to an armbar, then to cuffing), standing and ground weapon rentention, and cuffing procedures. 4/21/2014 Defensive Tactics club: 1:00 - 3:30 pm. I took Kendall along to this today, since he didn't have school. For a warm-up, he and I worked on some stance work, some shot/re-shot work, and some sprawling into the Iowa (because he loves that move so much). Then we basically did some free rolling together, which consisted of him pummelling me for probably around 10 minutes or so. Its amazing how much energy an 8 year old has. Then for the rest of club, when the students showed up, we did GRACIE material review, since I am going to re-cert for that this week. I started at the beginning, doing punch defense, getting to clinch and takedown from behind, UMPA escape, UMPA swim and trap, elbow escape, then UMPA/elbow combination, Americana from mount, guard passing, headlock defenses, standing and ground weapon retention. I didn't get through all the material, but got quite a bit of it down, and I should be good to go with the re-cert, I think. One of the guys that showed up to club after we had been started for a while opted to wrestle with Kendall. He was a high school wrestler, and it was really cool of him to work with Kendall. They focused on some takedown work, getting back to base, and wrestled for quite a long time. Kendall got some really good work in. At the end of club, there were three matches that went, and Kendall got to do one of them wrestling. All in all, a good day at club. TKD class: Taught from 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm. The lowest rank in class was a high green belt, so I jumped in for basics again. It made me tired, but I need to get the work in, so I did. I also did Yoo Sin hyung prior to class as a warm-up. Even though basics were wearing me out, I put us through at a pretty good pace. Forms were Won Hyo, Yul Gok, Joong Gun, Hwa Rang, Choong Moo, Do-Kang 1, Poe Eun, Gae Baek. Worked in one-steps, and sparring. I stretched, too.

I totally agree. Like other sports, if they want to increase viewership, perhaps look at the structure of point scoring and perhaps the rounds. But stay true to the sport. I think just getting rid of the padding would make the event more exciting, and much less of a point game. It would also change the strategies just a bit, but not so much that it wouldn't be WTF TKD anymore. More contact related strategy would ensue, making it much more fun to watch, I think.

4/15/2014 Aikido: 8:30 - 9:30 am. I was invited to a workout session called "300's." It consisted of the following: 31 shikko laps (down the floor counted as one, and back counted as one). 25 push-ups. 50 sit-ups. 50 downward jo strikes with squat (legs hated that, after I got done and tried to walk). 50 forward rolls. 50 backward rolls. 50 forward breakfalls. Upon conclusion, I stood and yelled out, "THIS, IS, SPARTA!" (no, not really). Then I stretched. This is a routine I guess that is done at the AAA Hombu dojo by Toyoda Sensei, and he and one other guy do it in 15 minutes as a warm-up. I guess the goal is 15 minutes. My goal is to be able to walk tomorrow. Shikko that much was tiring, but the most problem was with my toes bending and feeling uncomfortable. It got better as I went, but it was a very steady pace. Some might call it slow. The jo strikes didn't feel too bad at the time, but afterwards, when I tried to walk over to get a drink, my legs protested, a lot. The push-ups and sit-ups I had to do in varying sets to get through them, and the rolling was segmented to stifle the dizzyness. All in all, it was a good workout, and maybe I'll get to do it some more in the future.

Welcome aboard! My knees hurt often, too, but don't let it stop you from working out! Get back in there, and we look forward to hearing from you!