bushido_man96

That sounds like it was a good time. How long did the seminar last? 5/13/2013 Played about 40 minutes of one on one half basketball with Kendall. I shot a frosty .07%, and I lost, 24-22. But it was fun, and I used it as an opportunity to generally run around and work on my footwork. Taught TKD: 6-7 pm. Did basics up to side kicks again, and then worked side kicks more and more. Did several line drills, first working on chamber, then chamber and pivot, and then adding the kick last. Then got to one-steps, did combos of kicks and punches, and then the 1 technique drill back and forth. 5/16/2013 Taser re-cert: 8-11 am. Mostly class stuff, then shot a few targets, and discussed some use of force issues and where to fit the Taser. Also considered some thoughts on transition to lethal force if needed. Basketball with Kendall again, about 30 to 40 minutes. Lost pretty bad this time, 32-20. It was all ugly, but fun. I will add that my son travels and double dribbles to no end, giving him an unfair advantage..... Stretched in the evening while at Kendall's Wrestling practice. He was working on some Greco/Freestyle throws with a bigger kid, and was a bit discouraged by the mismatch, but he did good, and got lots of reps in. I did a little bag work while there, too.

Welcome, Angel!

Respect is important for any social activity, including the Martial Arts. Respect is strengthened over time, and through our experiences. I also agree that respect goes up and down the ladder, and I also understand that there will come a time when one won't respect another for various reasons. Its just the way we as people are. And the staunchest rivals usually have the deepest respect for each other.

I agree here. However, you can do some training on your own to help improve speed and timing to some extent. Working on improving your explosive movement will help when putting things together. If you can get a partner to work with outside of class, you can work on some drills to help improve as well. Working some counter drills, and then working some of what I would call "mission sparring," where the goal would be to score using what you just worked on drilling, as opposed to winning.

When viewing things like this, one has to really try to keep in perspective what it is. These are very athletic individuals performing at a high degree of difficulty. I don't enjoy watching them really, either. The back flip, although cool, had no point, and neither did much of the weapon twirling.But, they are talented men and women, and I admire their talent and ability; I can't do that. I struggle to stand up straight sometimes I try not to view these individuals entire Martial knowledge by watching them do 2 minutes of twirling and back flipping. They probably have very good basics, and very good forms, and they may have a good understanding of self-defense, as well. I don't know them, so I shouldn't assume their entire MA knowledge and experience is centered around a random back flip.

I've heard the "8-12 reps for muscular endurance" talked about for a lot of years, however, I've done some reading that may show that not to be the case. If you want to improve muscular endurance, you have to tap into a different energy system in the body, and 8-12 reps aren't going to get you there. Things like running long distance do that. So, if you want to "lift" into muscular endurance, you are probably looking into doing reps in the range of the 100s. Better to go with sets of 5, and build your strength, and supplement running or other cardio for endurance. But for Karate, sprint training or hill running may prove more beneficial.

I think in order to make something like this work from across styles, its important for the judges to be up to snuff on the technical aspects. All need to agree on what proper side kicks or front kicks look like, what the back stances and front stances look like, and the other techniques. Now, I'm no Karateka, so I can't be sure, so I'll ask: are there variations in how a knife hand strike is formed from Wado or Shotokan, or are the technical similarities similar?

I think there are more than a few Martial Artists out there who have picked up and read Tao of Jeet Kune Do, and then decided they liked the ideas and concepts within, and then tried applying them to what they do. That won't make one more of a JKD stylist than my reading some Gracie books has made me a BJJ stylist, even though I like their concepts. I don't think the intention of that book is to learn and become a JKD stylist. If you like some concepts there, then that's great. Apply some of them to your training, no matter what style you train in. That's one of the things thats nice about concepts like that; they can cross many different disciplines.

5/13/2013 30 min walk, stretch.

11> Show proper understanding of the kata bunkai. I'm curious here. Are they supposed to demonstrate bunkai after the kata performance?

Absolutely.

Make sure to go in there with confidence. As a judge, I like to see a confident look in the eye of those testing. They need to believe in themselves if they want me to believe in them.

You would probably get the answers you need by consulting with the technical director or other such titled person within the KUGB. Bring your concerns to them, and see what they have to say. If they can be approached, that is. Is there a number you could contact them at, or perhaps send and email voicing your questions?

In order for muscles to move, there has to be some tension. Otherwise, you don't get any muscle movement. I do agree there is a difference in being more relaxed and trying to force a technique. But up to there, really the only channeling comes from proper technique and body alignment, and driving power up from the floor through the body and into the punch.

Ah, I apologize. I misunderstood what you were getting at. To me, that doesn't make much sense, but, to each instructor their own, I guess.

I don't think this is the case. I've seen some 10 year olds with very good motor skills. Our kids are always running and moving, and in better shape than I ever have been.

5/8/2013 Now with my schedule changing, I get to teach a different class, and the instructor is letting me continue to have the leeway that the class on Wednesday is designed for, and not just sticking with traditional class routine. So, I took advantage. I'd been wanting to do some side kick work, and did so today. Once we got to the side kick portion of basics, we did the regular side kicking drill down the floor twice, like always. This consists of students in a sitting stance, stepping back leg across and in front of their front leg, side kick and then down, advancing one sitting stance length. The tricky part is making sure they don't overstep, turning their body forward and not keeping it sideways, making too much work for them to turn back into proper position. So, after that, I put them in a back stance, and had them bringing the back leg up for a back leg side kick chamber. I had the students keep the leg tight and bring it forward like a front kick chamber, then turn their bodies to the side by pivoting to the 90 degrees on their base leg, so the front kick chamber now faced to that 90, as well. From there, it was bringing the leg back down into another back stance, moving one stance length forward. No kick yet. I focused on landing controlled, as well. From there, I went back to the sitting stance method, and worked on only chambers as well, foot tight to the knee. Up and down the floor. Then, I added the kick, focusing on pivot with the base leg to get the hip into the kick, and good drive. Then I went back to the back stance method, added the kick, focusing on pivoting the base leg, and making sure the chamber was around before the side kick went out. Otherwise, it becomes a round kick. The kids responded very well, and I was pleased with their efforts. Overall, a lot of good ground covered there. Form review came next. I had one blue belt that was struggling with low rank material, but everyone else was spot on. I also debriefed each student that went to tournament, and asked what they learned. If they sparred, I asked what they learned when they won, and when they lost: The low blue belt teenager we have said from the match he lost, he learned he needed to keep his hands up better. I asked about the match he won, and he wasn't really sure, and gave me that funny "how do I learn from someone I beat" look. I asked, "what did you do to win?" He said he was aggressive, and the other student was really defensive and didn't attack hardly at all. Too tentative, perhaps. So I informed him that he did learn something, and although you may not notice, you do learn from all your matches. Our high blue belt girl said she learned she needed to move sideways more, and not back up all the time. After forms, we sparred, and I worked in with the kids, working on some of the things they mentioned for improving their sparring.

We do both. I'm not sure you could say we teach primarily one thing or the other. We try to teach them situationally for what response you're looking for. As a rough set of guidelines we use a lot of palm heels and brachial strikes to the head and neck while we focus more on punching, kneeing, and elbowing on the torso and extremities. Again, just generalizing. I'll try to get some knife work on video and get a link up for you on it. Like I said, we got it from Prof. Harris and it's FMA based. Very focused on training method, flow and repetition compared to most things I've seen. It's a partner drill so both parties have a knife in hand, you should have seen the fireworks that ensured from the LT level when we wrote that into the lesson plan. It took some discussion to explain the philosophy of pared training for repetition sake to them. We managed to get the okay though and it's been really well received to date. Cool, I'd like to see the knife drills. I'll bet there were some raised eyebrows when that was mentioned. But, its great they gave you the benefit of the doubt and trusted your judgement. I look forward to seeing the video. 5/8/2013 30 minute walk. Taught TKD: 6-7pm. Basics up to side kicks, then I did some drills to emphasize proper side kicking, and making sure students weren't cheating their side kicks into round kicks. Form review after that, and a bit of a tourney debrief with those that went (more on this in the What did you teach today? thread in Instructor Central). Sparred, and since there was an odd number of kids, I worked in and sparred them. They wore me out, too. 5/10/2013 30 minute walk. 5 pistol draws. 5/11/2013 5 pistol draws. 5 Taser draws.

I've been doing MAs since 1993, and I've been pretty well out of shape that whole time I see this question posed often, and more often with those who are trying to get back into the arts. They want to have all their old stuff down before they come back. I say forget that, you're just giving yourself an out. Come back and re-learn as you go. There's no shame in that at all.

Kicking should be just as safe as punching. If you feel the need to avoid tearing skin, then some tape or cloth padding should be all you need. Punching the bag is great for developing some strength, as you get the resistance not available when doing basics in the air, or forms. You can work your techniques as you would in basics on the bag, or do more free-form work doing combinations and the like. Change it up, and enjoy your routines.

Its never a bad idea to enter a tournament at any rank. Its a great learning experience, and you should be paired with those of similar rank and experience. Go learn and meet new friends.

White Lo orange Hi orange Lo green Hi green Lo blue Hi blue Lo brown Mid brown Hi brown Recommended black (skunk belt) Black

I think thats spot on, it does not necessarily have to be a black belt, but anyone with a higher grade than yourself. After all a belt is a rank of knowledge in an art and not just 'time served' indicator. That's exactly right.

We, an update. We've been doing Greco/Freestyle practice for the past few months, and I think it is going to pay off well for him. There aren't near as many kids involved here, so he doesn't have a wide variety of training partners, and tends to get tossed around quite a bit by the more experienced kids. But, the coaches are telling him to keep his head up, and I keep it positive with him, as I think he will see lots of improvement when the Folk style season rolls back around. He's nervous about competitions, so I told him we would wait until next year and try competitions with these styles. From what I've seen, I think they will be a lot of fun.

Kids learn differently than adults do, and I'm guessing the kids BJJ curriculum is somewhat different than the adult curriculum. I think it would only be natural to have a bit different belt system for the kids.