bushido_man96

Did anyone see the Daytona 500 this weekend? A pretty good race, although most of my favorite drivers ended up watching the finish. Harvick pulled the sweep, and won his first Daytona 500 in the process. Congrats to him. Jeff Burton looked good, too. It may be another solid season for RCR.

Essentially, last year was his rookie year. A lot of people are over-looking this fact. Prior to last year, he had injury problems, or was busy learning the offense, and waiting his turn. Rex Grossman has a ton of potential, and could be the next franchise quarterback for the Bears. Sports fan want everything now, now, now. Rookie quarterbacks just don't win Super Bowls that often. I think everyone needs to just slow down, back up, and take a look at things. Give Rex another year, and see what happens. He is better now than some of the starter that are out there. I'd take a straight up trade of Rex Grossman for Trent Green. I think he will be that good in the future. Go back and watch old games of Brett Favre's first few seasons as a starter....I think you will see some similarities.

I don't know, 40 homers, 40 steals, the guy can play. I think A-Rod is a great player, but he just needs to get out of the doldrums.

I do think that it is important for women to spar with men, for the reason that if a woman gets attacked, it will most likely be by a man, rather than a woman. They need to know what they can do against the more physical components of being attacked by a male.

Incidentally, I just saw that Virtua Fighter 5 is to be hitting the shelves (pardon the pun ). It looked very good. I can't remember if it was on PS3 or Xbox 360, though.

When in doubt, go with honesty. In the end, somebody may get hurt, but your integrity won't. If you had not given the belts yet, then this wouldn't be a problem yet. Did you test and promote right away, or was there a waiting period?

A lad at my club did that, it was only a thin pine board though and he had to drill the kick for months before getting it right No doubt! I can do the kick better low than I can high. Don't quite have that flexibility, yet. I will work on it, though. I am going to start practicing my scissor kick as well!

Incidentally, has anyone seen the movie Only the Strong? I thought it was alright. And the Caporieaist that they have on The Quest was awesome to watch.

Sometimes being forced into a few days off helps our bodies out more than we realize, eh?

It looks good. I would still add in some lower body exercises, even if it is only one day a week. I think this is a good start, but as your body gets used to the training, you may want to adapt the numbers of reps and sets you do to line them up with your goals. Reps in the range of 4-6, with higher weight, will build strength faster than what you have set up now. Also, middle ranges of weight with higher reps can build muscle endurance and tone. It really just depends on what you want to do.

When doing some static stretches, like the front and side splits, toe touches, leg stretches on bars, etc., I make sure to keep the knee straight while stretching. There are some stretches that it may be ok to bend the knee on, but it is stretching different muscles then.

Kneel on one knee, with the leg trailing behind, with the other leg out to your front, and lean toward your front leg. You can also do the standing stretch, grabbing your ankle, and slowly lower your upper body, making a T shape.

Ah, back to training! 2-19-07: Chest: Bench Press: 145x10, 195x6, 205x5 I'm starting to feel good about bench press again. I think next week I will take the weight up a bit more. Triceps: Skullcrackers: 70x8, 80x6, 85x4 Dips: 2x5 Abs: Decline abs: 15x3 Side Raises: 3x20x25 lbs. Hanging Knee Raises: 3x10 Also did Hang clean: 115x10, 135x8, 145x4 Conditioning: Stairs: 3x30 sec, 1 min. rest Steppers: 3x30 sec, 1 min rest Squat jumps: 3x10 Single-leg butt kicks: 5 each leg. I may need some more strength to get to where I can do these decently. But, man, they will be great for building explosiveness for my flying side kick board break. I will also have Combat Hapkido from 3:30 - 5:30 or 6:00. Then, I will have Tradtional TKD Class from 6:00 - 7:00. A good training day, all around. I'll give an update on how these classes go later on (if not tomorrow). I don't know if I'll be back on tonight, so I thought I would just make one entry, and edit as needed. I know; I am all about efficiency! OK, here is the edit: Oh, boy, we had fun last night in class! It was the normal class, but at the end, I had one sparring match with a youngin' that I did well against, but then, we had a 3-for-all! Me (2nd dan), a 1st dan, and a 4th dan. What a good time that was! I was happy with myself, because I felt like I did a good job of staying out of the middle, and making sure that I was only fighting one guy at a time. I even faired well against the 4th dan, who is very tough in one-on-one. I did manage to get the 1st dan in the back of the head. He was caught up with the 4th dan, and I snuck behind him, and gave him a little tap on the head-gear! You know, just to let him know I was there. Unfortunately, at one point while I was retreating from a punch by the 1st dan, I got caught on his heel as well, and started stumbling backwards. I decided to just fall down, and roll with it. I was able to get back into the rumble quicker that way.

This is similar to what I have heard. However, lifting the head off of the floor for the leg lifts is different. Crunches are better than sit-ups as well. I'm not sure why, but for some reason the Army still uses the sit-up in their physical testings. I wonder why they don't use the crunch?

If you want realistic targeting, I feel that BOB is only useful if you care to limit your realistic striking practice to 1/4 of the body. Personally, if you could get one of those very tall Thai kicking bags, that would be great for training.

No, I know the kick, and I've often thought it would be good in point sparring...but I have yet to try it. I'm not very good at trying "new things" while sparring. I have used it a few times in sparring. Instead of switching stances and throwing a round kick, I just flip the twist kick up to the body. I don't throw it to the head, though. And it isn't often that I do use it. Being able to break boards with that kick, though, would be cool.

I was merely try to use MMA as somewhat of a comparison to real life. I know a cage match is not real life but in my opinion about as close as you can get without going at it for real. I have never taken the art and am merely stating my thoughts of it being of limited use. I respect the art and your opinion but still find it of dubious self defense use. The more "tradtional" style, the Angola, is said to make use of headbutting, some punching, and elbows. It tends to not be as flashy as the Regional style, which is the style that seems to get more exposure. Regional would be style most likely used in the Olympics, if it ever gets there.

He played for the Chicago Bears for a short period of time. If you have seen the new version of the movie The Longest Yard (with Adam Sandler), he is in that movie as well. Here is a Wiki-bio on him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Sapp They have him listed at 6'5", but I have heard that he was more like 6'8". 335 pounds if probably close, if not shy a bit. Here is his record, listed on sherdog.com: http://www.sherdog.com/fightfinder/fightfinder.asp?FighterID=4416 I thought that he had fought more than that, but I could be wrong. Here is a page with some Sapp videos: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Bob+Sapp Enjoy!

Ummm, .................thanks? One of the problems that I have with TKD is that in many schools punching to the head is not allowed. I have trained at some schools where head contact was allowed, but it was light, and most of the time backfists to the side of the head were utilized. This is ok, for competition purposes, but I think that instructors need to include drills that focus not only on hand to head contact, but also on defending against it. Those traditional blocks really don't work quite like you think they would.

Good one!

What is the "rule" that you are referring to???

Very true. Didn't think of that.

Who is your instructor out there in AZ? Is Master Thor in Phoenix?

I would check with AWMA, or maybe Century (although I never hear good info about Century).

I agree with bearich. It should work out ok, just don't overwhelm yourself with too many katas at one time.