bushido_man96

This is what I consider to be one of the major problems behind "traditional" martial arts. One person does something like what Oyama did, and now there are people who will blindly follow along with what he did, with no questions asked. You can see the same with Funkoshi, and many other masters as well. Why did he do katas hundreds of times a day? My guess is becuase he was by himself, and it was a good solo exercise. How do you practice the bunkai by yourself, though? He also did loads of push-ups, and kicked trees hundreds of times a day as well, while he was up there. My point is this: just because it worked for one person, doesn't mean it will work for another.

Agreed. And if you are most comfortable striking, or are trying to escape, some working knowledge of grappling will make it alot easier for you to get back to your feet. I would also mention that the more that you know about takedowns from groundfighting/grappling, then the more easily you can defend from being taken down. Depends on your goal. If you want to be a good artist than i agree. However if your goal is self defence then doing one without the other leaves you with a huge gap in your training. I think I would have to agree with cross, here. I think that striking and grappling are different enough that it would not be very detrimental to train in both at the same time. This is a good point here, and very relevant. I have done a study of the Grappler vs. Striker challenge matches, and in all of the scenarios that I have read, the grappler was able to beat the striker. Now, I am not saying that this is always the case, but even grapplers have a very basic knowledge of striking. They especially know that if you are on your back, and they are on top, they can just swing away. I hope to never be in that position.

I also feel that smoking is detrimental to almost any other physical activity that you can do. One of my former instructors was a chain smoker. After being away for a while, he returned for a visit, and came back to our school to spar, for old-time's sake. He was superbly talented, but after about two minutes of sparring, he was sucking wind real bad. I am not in great shape, but I was better off than he was. Smoking was definitely a detriment to him, and he was in fairly good physical condition. He wasn't overweight or anything like that. It was just the smoking slowing him down. I knew you would have good information here, Kerry, speaking from experience. I'm glad to see that you have stuck with it! That is a good article, ps1. That pretty much sums it up, I think.

I was wondering what everyone's homepage on the internet was. Contrary to what many may think, mine is not KarateForums.com. I just have Google as my homepage.

Hopefully, that isn't the case, but best to get it checked out.

Bag gloves are personal preference. I don't really use any right now, but I am going to look at Wal-Mart to see what they have. Wrapping your wrists is important as well. You can get them at Wal-Mart as well.

You might go to the doctor, and have him/her take a look inside your ears. You could be having an equilibrium problem because of them.

The electric worm is like a dance move, where you lie flat, and then kind of do a worming motion. Former NFL wide receiver Johnnie Morton used to do it as a touchdown celebration. I will take a good look at the site you gave me, to make sure I do it right.

I think that having a knowledge of both striking and grappling is very important. When going to the ground, it is especially important to be able to work from the position that you are in, and to work to get into a better position.

The sport oriented aspect of the randori that judo offers is very beneficial to practitioners, as it allows for full-speed training. Full-speed training more closely resembles actual self-defense, and therefore, can be more beneficial. I think you can get good conditioning from any of the arts listed above. It will just depend on the instructor's teaching philsophies and methodologies.

If you can look around on the net, and find some evidence that striking a heavy bag can stunt your growth, then I would begin to worry. Otherwise, I would not worry about it. Use the bag, and enjoy your training.

I have decided to post the books that I have in my library. My library is not all-inclusive, by any stretch of the imagination, but I would like to share what I have. It is quite a list, so I will post it in chunks. I may also give a little synopsis of each that I have read, just to give an idea of what the book is about, and if it may be one that interests some of you. I'll start with Korean Styles: The Way of Traditional Taekwondo, 11 volumes Grand Master Haeng Ung Lee Encyclopedia of Taekwon-do, 15 volumes General Choi Hong Hi Man Of Contrasts The Complete Tae Kwon Do Hyung, 3 volumes The Complete Black Belt Hyung W.T.F. The Complete Master’s Kick The Complete Master’s Jumping Kick The Complete One & Three Step Sparring The Complete Martial Artist, 2 volumes Master Hee Il Cho The Complete Book of Taekwon Do Forms Keith D. Yates The Secrets of Tae Kwon Do Jennifer Lawler, Ph.D. Ch’ang Hon Taekwon-do Hae Sul Real Applications to the ITF Patterns Stuart Paul Anslow Taekwondo Kyorugi, 2 editions Sang H. Kim, Ph.D., w/Kuk H. Chung, Kyung M. Lee Tae Kwon Do The Ultimate Reference Guide to the World’s Most Popular Martial Art Yeon Hee Park, Yeon Hwan Park, Jon Gerrard Black Belt Tae Kwon Do The Ultimate Reference Guide to the World’s Most Popular Black Belt Martial Art Yeon Hwan Park, Jon Gerrard Tae Kwon Do The Korean Martial Art, 2 editions. Advancing in Tae Kwon Do Moo Duk Kwan Tae Kwon Do Korean Art of Self-Defense Richard Chun Taekwondo Techniques and Tactics Skills for sparring and self-defense Yeon Hwan Park, Tom Seabourne, Ph.D. Hapkido Korean Art of Self-Defense Scott Shaw The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Tae Kwon Do Karen Eden, Keith Yates Taekwondo The State of the Art Master Sung Chul Whang, Master Jun Chul Whang, Brandon Saltz Authentic Tang Soo Do The Traditional Martial Art of Korea Chun Sik Kim, Joe Goss Taekwondo Textbook Kukkiwon Complete Taekwondo Poomsae Kyu Hyung Lee, Sang H. Kim Chon-Ji of Tae Kwon Do Hyung Tan-Gun and To-San of Tae Kwon Do Hyung Won-Hyo and Yul-Kok of Tae Kwon Do Hyung Chung-Gun and Toi-Gye of Tae Kwon Do Hyung Jhoon Rhee A Killing Art The Untold History of Tae Kwon Do Alex Gillis

It looked like the guys in the back of the second video were doing the electric worm to get back up. Is that what you are referring to?

I think his yelling was just a movie thing, and it worked. People that he trained on a personal basis also commented on his unique yelling. I think it was something he did all of the time.

To cut a long story short, if you are practising authentic martial Tai Chi, you will still need more than a couple of years to become proficient enough to fight lets say a karate-ka who has had the same amount of training. It is just a fact that some arts, usually the profound ones, take longer to make effective than others. The main reason behind this reasoning is the training methods involved, as opposed to the nature of the art itself.

Good point. I think that this is very true for many people. However, I also think that it is based off of your experiences early on as well. I think that kids that get into wrestling early on, for example, will be perhaps less inclined to be tied into worrying about attaining a rank, and more inclined to focus on the training for their next match. Aside from my comments above, I would have to say that this is the case many times. I actually was motivated by ranks early on myself, and have come to realize that now they aren't so important; just as you stated. The fact that some schools/styles have more belts and less time between testings is probably relative to the fact that so many people use the rank system as motivation.

I guess my favorite would be a candy bar. Does that count? Mine is Snickers. If I have to go with candy, like a onesy type of thing, I would have to say peanut clusters. Them are gooooood!!!!!

This move, I am familiar with. You can do the same with a hook kick, or a round kick. However, to do a spin like this, I dunno....

Hey, Tom. If I remember right, when you drop to the push-up, you bounce off your chest, and then suck your feet back in as you push up. It is an explosive movement; very anaerobic. Sohan can throw in a fix if I am off, but I think this is right. They are difficult. I have a tough time with them as well, but I am not is superb shape by an stretch of the imagination. I think that I may start with trying to get in 50, and then build on that.

I like to compete with forms. I always have. I have never been all that great at sparring, but when it came to forms, I always had a pretty good one. I am not the most flexible person, nor am I the fastest person. However, I like to break down the techniques, and putting a nice form together, with power. I love to do forms competition.

One other thing martial arts in general has helped me with is to find my thing. My brothers played sports in high school: football, track, and wrestling. I did TKD. They are done with high school sports, but I am still doing TKD. It was my thing, and it still is today.

Personally, this is where I think some styles like wrestling, boxing, and Muay Thai have an advantage over other styles. They don't take on any ranks. Instead of worrying about their next testing, and memorizing the techniques, forms, self-defense, etc. that is involved with your standard belt test, they spend their time refining their technique, and working on strategies and conditioning. They don't have to worry about a rank; instead, they just train. Many still have goals, whether they be for competition, self-defense, or getting into shape. They are not corralled by a curriculum. This is where I think their advantages lie.

Merry Christmas!

I have a Hotmail account.

Congratulations!