bushido_man96

I would like to see scholarships, for sure, but we'll see. He hasn't had the same success that his older brother had, but he's got a lot of heart and he keeps at it. I need to take some time to work with him to keep his game up during the offseason, and even to drill some new stuff to get better. It sounds like your son had a great performance! That's awesome to hear. We take video of all the matches as well, and he'll watch them and learn from them. It's a fantastic tool.

I've got a ton of Legos, too. All kinds. Loved them as a kid, love them still!

Excellent!

3/20/2024 Range: Put in 3 hours at the range. We started out with just drawing the gun and getting on target and acquiring the dot. Reholster and do it again. Lots of reps. Then we went to drawing and firing one shot, then reholster. We did that with 10 rounds from the 10 yard line, then from the 15 yard line, then from the 25 yard line, shooting at steel. Indexing the off hand at the chest when punching out on the draw helped in acquiring the dot more consistently. I was still pretty shaky at 25 yards, making consistency hard to come by. Next, we did some shoot and move drills, switching hands, strong hand/weak hand only, etc. A couple run-throughs of each drill, working to improve our time on each run. My one-handed got pretty frustrating, and there were times when reacquiring the dot was harder due to not punching out with two hands. Finished with another proficiency drill for time, and that was it. About 200 rounds. 3/25/2024 Aikido Class: 5:00 - 6:00 pm. Weapons class. It was just me today, so lots of work with the instructor. Warmed up with high 4, then low 4, then high 8. I mixed myself up in spots, but it was a good warmup. Next we did jo kata 1, and I think I've finally got it memorized. Then he explained about performing the kata with a rhythm to certain segments, which was a nice change of pace. We worked on Kiai in spots too, and one spot has kind of a longer, drawn out kiai over two moves, which is weird for me. I'm used to brief kihaps in my TKD. Last thing we did, very briefly, was jo disarm from a kotegashi. Notes: on the kata, I need to focus on the "high blocks" (my terms, not theirs) in which I do a high strike to a descending sword. Need to make sure I don't drop the staff down to circle around the side of my head, but above my head. Instructor said my base and power transfer into the weapon was good. I tried to focus on where my hands were positioned when striking from above my head. When going from thrust to guard to yokomen strike, not letting my hands be too far out in front when I transition. TKD Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. Black Belt Class. Pre-class stretch in The Rack, and class warmup was Do-Kang 1 and 2. Again, just me and the CI, so we did forms and three-steps. We took an approach where we did our form, Choong Jang, and then another black belt form, then our form again, and so on until we got all the way through the black belt forms. So it went like this: Choong Jang Yoo Sin Choong Jang Se Jong Choong Jang Gae Baek Choong Jang Poe Eun Choong Jang Kwang Gae So 10 forms, 5 of which were Choong Jang. My knees were hurting, and my head was wonky today, making everything off. I started the forms out slow and taking it easy, warming up, and my third run through of Choong Jang was probably my best. What I need to focus on when doing forms more slowly is to work on a rhythm and a pace and flow to the form. Even though it's not at full power, it still has to have life.

Thanks for sharing your viewpoint here, Dennis. It's very eye-opening.

Follow-up from State: It turned out that Kenneth actually had a concussion from the slams in that last match. All good though; a few days later he cleared the concussion protocol at the doctor's office. This Thursday we leave for the Heartland Duals in Iowa.

I just picked up a copy of Secret of Mana for my collection. I was pretty happy with the find. Very nice!

3/18/2024 Aikido Class: 5:00 - 6:00 pm. Weapons class. Got through jo kata 1 after some hiccups at the same place halfway through. We did some cutting work up and down the floor with the bokken, and then went back to the jo for some kumi jo partner work. I need to focus on weapon pressure when doing partner work to get better at blocking and countering. TKD Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. Black Belt Class. Pre-class stretch in The Rack. Warmed up with Do-kangs 1-3. After warmups, it was Ho Sin Sul work. The CI worked us on a throwing counter to a bearhug from behind. The premise was to base out somewhat, and then on the side where the space was, turn your hips and throw the attacker from around behind you. You'd basically roll on top of them and then have a chance to attack and escape after knocking the wind out of them or hurting them by landing on them. I didn't like it, and when the attacker started adding resistance, I couldn't get it to work at all. I may do some checking online to see if there is some more breakdown of such a technique, but at this point in time, it will not be a technique I'll go to. After that throw work, we did punch/pass flow drills. Me and my partner expanded things quite a bit as we went, adding multiple passes and counters. We also changed up attacks to a haymaker, which altered the blocking scheme some. This was much more productive work in my eyes.

Congrats, Himokirir Karate! Well deserved!

I collected football cards as a kid, but not much as an adult. I collect Magic, the Gathering cards, but haven't gotten much new lately. I've recently gotten back into retro video games, and have been collecting some there.

I'm betting Tyson still has heavy hands, and I reckon that when he hits Paul, Paul will realize he's never been hit that hard before. I'm taking Tyson. He may have no footwork, but he'll still hit hard.

3/16/2024 Firearms Training: I did 10 solid minutes of dryfire work. Drawing, acquiring red dot, and transitioning between two targets. 3/17/2024 Firearms Training: 10 minutes of dryfire training. I focused on drawing and acquiring the dot. One of our rangemasters gave me a tip of indexing the off hand at the chest on the draw, bringing the gun hand up to the indexed hand on the chest and then punching out. That helped with acquiring the dot more consistently. A lot of draw, fire, re-holster, repeat.

Boy, that's too bad DP. Hopefully it doesn't flare up when the next grading rolls around!

Nice! I thought it sounded familiar....I started one of those threads!

What you are describing here is not what I would say rises to the level of being an abusive instructor. There are times when hard teaching is required, and that sounds like what your instructor does. He's trying to retain a certain quality in the students he puts forward as black belts, as all schools should. This is appropriate and necessary in the Martial Arts, and is not what I would consider falling to the level of embarrassing or belittling students.

3/11/2024 TKD Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. Black Belt Class. Three of us in class tonight, and we worked on forms. We did white and our two orange belt forms to start as a warmup, and then from there we each went up and did the next form one at a time, evaluating each other and giving each other pointers and things to work on. There were a few spots where I lost my balance, and had a few other mix-ups in some spots, but by and large ok. We made it all the way to our 1st degree form, Kwang Gae. As we talked about this after class, we talked about how the exercise would be helpful for our younger students. One of he guys mentioned how he liked it, but by the end of the night so many things get mentioned that it's hard to remember it all. I suggested that everyone bring a notebook to class and then jot down a few notes on each form after the critique. The guys thought it was a good idea, and will be implementing it next week. I think I'll use mine to jot down after every class, and even when I read MA material and something strikes me as intriguing. I think when we do this exercise in the future we should also pick out something positive in each form done. I've suggested to students in the past to keep a journal of their MA journey, starting at white belt. I think if I ever run a school again, I'll provide a notebook to each new student and tell them to just start tracking things, writing down key points they remember from their classes. It would be fun to look back and see how they progress in their own eyes. 3/13/2024 TKD Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. T-Shirt Class. I worked the bag early, mostly kicking. I worked on cutting the angles and kicking from a more traditional sparring stance, and also worked on some kicking from a side-on stance (think Bill Wallace style). For the last 15 or so minutes of class, the CI and I sparred, just open, free sparring with no time set and no one calling points, just on our honor, and stopping when we got tried, and then we'd discuss what we'd been doing or trying to do, or what we saw the other doing. It was really fantastic, I got dinged up a few times, and had a lot of fun. I even worked on the side-on sparring style with some success.

I agree with you 100%. There is no room for that kind of treatment of anyone. I had an instructor who was known for that kind of thing at times, and I always felt that same way about it. If there is an issue that becomes a teaching moment for a whole class, that is one thing. But outright berating someone is not tolerable. I would think this would end up driving students away, and the only ones staying are the ones willing to put up with it. In the end, the students need to do their talking with their wallets, but closing them up and refusing to attend such a school. Those who choose to stay, I wonder why they do so? Intimidated to the point that they believe they'd be openly ridiculed for quitting? That kind of action is absurd. I don't think this is really debatable. If we look at the history of what most katas where put together for, as methods for basically storing information for later extrapolation, it is as if it was intentionally done to make it harder to access (if you read up on the traditions, this was probably so). Instructors would reveal much more to the students they trusted more. The real benefit comes from partner drills of the applications. At that point, why not just learn the applications? With all that said, it's important to understand what most the "traditional" styles are doing. They are presenting the self-defense system in the same way that it was preserved over time in order to preserve the system in perpetuity. If this is understood by all parties involved, then everyone knows what they are signing up for, and are taking in all aspects of the training. After all, not everyone signs up for classes to learn how to fight.

Welcome to KF, Dennis! I am currently and LEO, and I agree that practicing some MA is definitely a boon!

Nicely done. That's awesome! Thank you so much!

Steelers did sign Wilson. Not a bad play for them, as they are paying him the veteran minimum while Denver is actually footing the rest of the bill for Wilson to play for another team. Interesting. Lots of other FA activity going down this week, but the best news for me was KC re-signing Chris Jones to a five year deal making him the highest paid DT in the league. KC also signed Drew Tranquil to a 3 year deal, a great move in my opinion.

3/4/2024 Aikido Class: 8:30 - 9:30 am. We did weapons today, lucky for me. Jo kata 1, and I got stuck a few times in the middle. From there, we did jo kiji, which were some partner drills with different attacks and finishes. A fun class. I also got in 10 minutes of dryfire training today.

I've never had an issue with children studying the Martial Arts. We would be proud of the prodigy that excels from a young age, but are we to throw away the opportunity for the rest of them to try, even if they are not as good? I don't know that the advent of kid-focused classes was necessarily the downfall of adult classes. I think society has changed and adults have less time on their hands for hobby pursuits that may require 3-6 hours of their time a week, not including possible commute times. Adults are just busy. I think this has more to do with it than kids classes. If anything, I've seen parents decide to join because their kids were doing it. I just think there is another answer.

I would think with as litigious as society has become that these kind of schools would be weeded out by now. Somewhere like that is a lawsuit waiting to happen. An instructor being abusive like that is probably some kind of sociopath, and they should be watched out for. Tough training is one thing, but convincing your students to demean one another is not the Martial Spirit.

Years ago, I remember talk about a university that offered the chance to "major" in Karate, TKD, or Kung Fu. I can't remember if it was that Bridgeport University or not, but I think we had a discussion here about it.

This is a great way to look at it, and just thinking of it that way can really have an impact on how one trains. Great thoughts for sure!