bushido_man96

You are right, Sohan. It is important to remember, and to cherish what we hold dear. Today is my brother's birthday as well.

Seeing the pics, and reading the explanations by lordtariel, I think that your combat system would be very interesting. You would probably have to use the dao in the lead hand, to be able to parry with it, and then attack with the jian. You would be able to attack with both, obviously, but with the jian being primarily offensive, it would limit some of your options.

Thanks for the pics, lordtariel, and the explanations.

The topic of visualization got me to thinking about self-talk. How many of you do this from time to time? I try to do it every now and again, especially while training, to help get me over a hump.

I have actually used some visualization at work. When just gazing off, I think about getting attacked by a drunk or an inmate, and how I would react, what I would do. I visualize the attack, the parry, then an arm twist and a takedown. I try to vary the attacks as well, and come out with different ends. The nice thing about visualization is that I always get to win!

Just keep posting.....

Very nice pics, Jiffy, all of them. Portsea looks like a load of fun, and being done outside is a nice freshness.

a good startegy is to tell urself to never be in the way of the kick. when they go to kick you shift backwards or sideways to aviod the kick. you sometimes don't even need to block it if you shift away from it enough. I can shift back away from the kicks well enough, but I prefer to cut sideways, to try to gain some distance. It just seems like I can't get the very end of the kick blocked, and I still get snagged by it. I am going to work some partner drills, trying to get my timing and sidestepping down.

In the tournaments i go to, yes. in shotokan tournaments, you only get points for the head, sternum, above the waist and the rib cage area(with roundhouse kicks). if you face sideways and have a good guard, they will have a hard time trying to get in and scoring a point on the more vital targets. if you have any more questions similar or close to this one, will gladly try to help. The rules that I spar in at class and at tournaments are similar to yours, and I find it useful to be able to spar from both situations. You can use it to try to cut off targets, frustrate the opponent, or open up target areas to bait the opponent.

My suggestion is to watch the movie, enjoy the movie, and don't think anything else of it.

One of the best ways to learn new things about yourself is to teach. Although, I don't recommend throwing someone in cold to their first teaching experience. I like to hang out, and help them out. It helps to build their confidence with it as well. It is amazing when you teach how you have to be connected to every part of every move you do, including hip placement, hand placement, target, path of travel, chamber, focus, and all of the little things that you have done for years without even thinking about them. Sometimes I get carried away, like on a rant, and want to just keep dumping more and more information on them, but I have to remember not to overload them all at one time.

Ah, I did not realize this. I will have to give it a try as well. Thanks, Jiffy.

Thats good to hear. I wish my school did some grappling. I need work on it badly.

So, the conditioning just comes through the training process? I wondered if it was that, or if there were conditioning drills. So when you first started, did you get your legs really frogged up, making it tough to walk?

Wow, haven't heard about that in a while. I do think it is an effective style, and it covers most of the fighting ranges, which is always great. I was wondering if anyone could tell me exactly what catch wrestling is. I get the feeling it is different than high school/college wrestling, but let me know if I am wrong.

i think you have to differentiate between self defence arts and battlefield arts. most arts that use kata are not battlefield arts as far as i know, and were designed mainly for random street attacks. for example jujitsu and kendo, which are derived from battlefield systems, aren't big on kata. then if you look at iaido/iaijutsu, which comes from the same place and culture, its all kata and it is designed for use in surprise street attacks. This is true, but the societies were using the weapons/grappling systems before the forms systems came into place. Even the ancient Greeks, with boxing, wrestling, and pankration, would practice to fight against skilled opponents, and not just the untrained attacker. They may not have used weapons disarming either. However, with the advent of the firearm and the reduction of close quarter weapons combat, everything began changing so as to preserve the fighting arts.

Oh, ok, glad you like it. I believe it whole-heartedly. I try to use it to make myself work out more, and work out harder, when I have a chance. Here is one by Napolean: "Luck is the residue of design." What do you think of that one?

There have actually been studies done with basketball players on visualization. They had a group who would practice so many free throws, another who would practice so many and visualize making the same number, and then a group that just visualized the baskets. All groups showed improvement, and the group that used both techniques showed the most improvement. I like to use visualization when I can't practice, like when I'm driving down the interstate, or just sitting on my duff at work.

I like the scene in part 3 where Miyagi fights the Cobra Kai guys in their dojo, and ends it by going, "wa....waaaa....waaaa..." That was classic!

Thanks for the info. I will look into it.

Well, having a family and full time job, I don't see myself gaining much time to enter an MMA event around here. As far as being able to teach the material: some are better teachers than they are fighters.

I would get the box set as well.

So, what do you do to toughen them? Just take some leg kicks, or do you have someone pound on you a little? What do you do for the shins as well? I have done some shin conditioning in the past, just kicking hard objects, but nothing in a long while.

Which quote?

A 'Fins' fan, huh Patrick? That's cool. My brother was a huge Marino fan as well. This is Dante's chance to prove to everyone that he can be a good QB without having Randy Moss to throw to.