bushido_man96

Good advise. Pick the one that you feel best reflects your ability, and also presents a challenge for you. You want to be your best at testing, so make sure you have the form you want to do down to memory. Good luck to you!

Slow down your techniqes....really slow....and use a mirror to see what your hip is doing in conjunction with your hand movement. It may be a small matter of timing. Also, ask your instructor for some advise. He should be able to help, and give instant feedback, because he can see what is going on. Hope this helps. Good luck with your upcoming grading!

You may want to see a doctor or specialist. It just seems that someone shouldn't get so injured in the first few months of training. You may be "hyperflexible," and that could be leading to your knee and shoulder dislocations. If you can start building up some strength around those joints, and learn to control the techniques that you do so that you are not locking them out each time, all of this will beging to help you. However, talking to the doctor may be the best idea here. He may give you the same advise. Welcome to the Forums!

I think that you should listen to your doctor. It is only for 4 weeks. What is 4 weeks now, if you won't be able to train 4 years from now? Listen to your doctor. They are there to help. Do the tests, stay away from Karate for now, and see if you can get things figured out. Best of luck to you.

This is the first that I have heard of this style. It sounds very interesting. Does it contain the slow movements of Tai Chi as well? Good luck in studying this art. Let us know how it goes. Hopefully, you can find an instructor someday.

It isn't as easy as you might think to de-horse a knight. And that armour will do its job well, too.

Maybe so, though I don't really have a place to do it. I checked one of those books out from the library, the one for beginners. It's pretty good, but it doesn't say exactly how to do the different moves and it stops short of some of those that I remember. It was a good refresher but I will look for the other book. Me and my partners wrestled around a little yesterday, and when I got on top of my opponent, I went into the traditional "on top" wrestlers' position, without really thinking about it. Hehe...kind of fun to do that!

I haven't seen the biting and pinching part. My previous post was about freestyle wrestling. I wrestled for a year in high school and wanted to research those moves again and perhaps practice some. This is kind of how me and my partner approach ground fighting from an LEO standpoint. We don't want to be on the ground for very long...we want to be back up as quickly as possible. Too much stuff on the duty belt to be rolling around and get taken advantage of.

The aim of "soft" strikes, like palm strikes is not necessarily to cause acute pain in the area you strike. Take for example: Palm strike(soft weapon) to the chin/face(hard target). Your aim isnt really to hurt their jaw or face(although any pain they experience is a bonus for you), but rather your trying to jolt the head back putting alot of pressure on the neck and shaking the brain around in the skull. Another aspect is striking a hard surface with a hard surface, which can break your knuckles. This happens more that you might realize. Also, striking the palm straight up into the chin can cause severe pain, plus, it allows you an opportunity to be in control of the head with one hand after completion of the strike.

I was surprised at that fight. It looked like Serra just dominated him, and I thought St. Pierre was a much better fighter than he showed. I hope he bounces back as well.

You are taking the point of the matter here to an extreme. The point is that quality is more important than quantity when you are training for technical purposes. Now, if you are endurance training, then the more you do at a time, the better it is for your endurance. However, MA training is equal parts endurance, technique, conditioning, strength, flexibility, coordination, and all kinds of good stuff. The difference between training 3 days a week for 1 and 1/2 hours may be about the same as training 5 days a week for 1 hour at a time. It really depends on the focus of the training, and how you go about it.

These are all very good points. You would think that with the show taking a "scientific" approach, that they would have had a "control group" to base some of the measurements off.

I try to avoid the very same scenarios, DWx. I work up in a jail, and there are even some in there that will ask me about it (our town isn't very big, so people know other people, and what-not). I try to shut down that conversation really quick, because I don't need a bunch of guys trying to challenge me all the time, either. After all is said and done, you just have to shake your head and walk away from those people. They won't really understand anyway, unless you can get them into a class.

Very nice! Its like your own action camera.

Kick, kick, kick your partner, all across the floor....

What about shuffling around? Do you think that is worth the energy? I don't think that it would use as much as bouncing, and it helps with evasiveness more.

Very nice!

This is true. The market is definitely more demanding now than it was then. Competition is nice, but as you said, it brings out some lower quality stuff as well.

Ah, that makes some sense. It sounds kind of fun to me! Make sure you complete each kick, and don't hurry into the next kick at the expense of the first. As for stepping, experiment with setting the kicking foot down next to the base foot, or crossing it over the base foot. On the hook kicks, it may be easiest to cross behind the base leg. Otherwise, if you have some questions, just ask away!

What are the English equivalents of these terms? Just curious...my Japanese isn't up to snuff. I know some of the terms, but these throw me off. Thanks in advance!

Hehe, thanks, Ed. I can kind of relate to your post as well, Ottman. I have been known to block with my elbows at times....that really makes them think twice about kicking!

Sometimes taking a little break is one of the best things you can do. It gives you a little time away to re-focus, and re-charge your training. As for those that slack in class, just push them a little more, try to talk them up. If that doesn't work, then I would go with obiwansbane suggestions.

Very nice. Thanks for sharing. I have heard a lot about Paul Vunak, but I have never had a chance to read any of his stuff.

Thanks for that information, Bajifan. Lots of good stuff there.

Hey, we all started right there, though. Every one of us was in your shoes at one point. Just keep at it!