bushido_man96

That is good advise, but you may want to spend some time in one art to get a good base foundation, and then move on. Welcome to the forums, BTS!

Kind of like a punching bag you can wrestle with.

Yeah. It is like, when you are getting ready to work out, and you want to improve your speed. You tell yourself that you are fast. You punch fast, you step fast, you kick fast, etc. Loren Christensen talks about it in some of his books, and it helps to reinforce postives as opposed to focusing on things you can't do well.

Even Bruce Lee was a little arrogant, and some would have said he was cocky. However, his contributions to the MA world are well known. Most of us would probably say that he is a martial artist as well.

Like the scene in Hard Target with Van Damme, where he kicks the guy off the bike. Ouch!!

When we were taught the back stance, we were taught to make an L with our feet, and then the front foot goes 3 feet lengths forward, and then bend the knees. For the cat stance, we were taught it was half of the back stance length, or 1 1/2 feet lenght, and up on the toes of the front foot.

Even in point sparring, I think it could be beneficial to allow clinches and lightly applied knee strikes, just so students can get the idea of how it feels to apply them, and what its like to see them coming in.

true, though i think the greek systems were sport oriented somewhat like modern MMA. it just seems to me that a lot of kata using arts were designed for non-sporting, non-battlefield situations. there are exceptions of course. True, they were sport, but people got killed doing it. And as it is with UFC today, they probably tried to do it quickly, and with the most efficient moves available. Sometimes they even fought with gloves with spikes on them!

Do you think this is the case for most TKD schools? My instructor is this way as well. The only way I was able to take up Combat Hapkido is because he got his 1st dan in it. If he wouldn't have been teaching it, I would not have had a chance to learn it.

My dad studied Moo Duk Kwan TKD many years ago. He said the forms I do now are the ones he used to do. He also did the old palgwe forms, too. His style was a little more open in sparring, allowing sweeps and groin shots, as well as hands to the head.

I think that the only time you will see a fight start from a stance is in competitions. Most of the time, it is a fairly natural fighting stance, nothing really fancy.

"Will you teach me how to sweep?"

How hard a punch is also has to include what you expect a punch to do. Like a jab--it won't usually knock someone out. A cross can. Or is the prerequisite for a punch just to contact an object with a closed fist? From what postition does the punch have to be initiated? Does it start from the rib, or from an advanced arm base? Does have to travel 12 inches, or just 2? There are just too many variables.

I train for free Must be nice!

I concur. My knees.....hurt every day.

I liked 5 as well....I mean, come on, it has the best street fight ever filmed!!! "I didn't hear no bell!"

Hey, that's great!!

Um, wow. That's just wrong.

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.....