alsey

heh, that's impressive.

check them all out and talk to the instructors, see what type of training is done. i think either boxing, muay thai or brazillian jiu jitsu will suit your needs because those arts usually involve training against a fully resisting opponent. but most importantly make sure you want to learn from that particular instructor. its good that you left the other night, you should always walk away if you can. fighting isn't pretty and should be a last resort.

granmasterchen's advice is good, and yes a bag is great for developing power. probably won't make a massive difference if you've only got until friday though. as granmasterchen said, try to imagine each block or strike as if you were doing it for real. give 100% as usual, and there's nothing more you can do. the important thing is not whether you pass the grading or not, its the fact that you are doing your best. if your best requires another three months, then don't worry about it. three months isn't very long. at nidan i still don't feel my basics are spot on, i doubt they ever will be. i just do my best, and that's all that can be done moral of the story though; don't ever think you've mastered something!

that's a really good point. i think that once you get out of your teens, threats tend to change from other guys wanting to prove how tough they are to random attacks by muggers and the like. its a change of threat though, not a dissapearance of threat. you still have to be prepared.

1. if he's kneeling on my legs, i don't have to do much to unbalance him. strike up at his jaw and tip him over with my legs. if i can't tip him, get to guard and attack his throat (don't see that in UFC!!). 2. not sure what kind of choke you're talking about here. i'm guessing its from behind...grab the testes, twist them etc, heel kicks to his knees. with my other hand, either work wrist points or fingers. once the choke is broken, body drop. depending on the size of the opponent and how ninja i'm feeling at the time, i could also attempt a shoulder wheel throw after seizing his testes.

really i was just saying that karate originates from kung fu, not jujutsu, though bits of jujutsu have been added here and there. yeah, spot on.

i may have to go and check my history, but some of the really old kata (like passai) existed before there was any real opportunity for the samurai to influence the art. i'm pretty sure most of it comes from chinese systems, though bits of jujutsu have been added over the years i guess.

far eastern cultures practiced meditative religions. meditation is really just a very focused breathing exercise, and breath is also the basis of ki 'manipulation'. the two go together hand in hand.

i am, for the sake of argument, a buddhist (i'm not actually, but my beliefs are similar) so things like demons and gods don't make sense to me, but i think ki is a perfectly natural thing and nothing for anyone to get worked up about. it is available to anyone and it doesn't require belief in the supernatural; whether that's god, satan, or undefined mystical energies. people who are very proficient with ki related techniques can and do take on a certain 'aura', and you can see a change. you might perceive this as 'strange eyes' or something, and they can do stuff like break things that they couldn't normally break ('inredible feats'). there is nothing supernatural about this; its just a particular state of mind that influences the body in a certain way. another example: anger. when someone gets angry, you can see it. their whole body language, or 'aura' if you like, changes. with great anger, people can do things they can't normally do (like break stuff). another one; depression. if someone is really depressed you can see it in them. hundreds of years ago people would have said it was a demon, but now its a recognised medical condition. i suspect in the future the science/medicine of ki will be understood a lot better and the whole supernatural thing surrounding it will dissapear. as for projecting ki at people to hurt them, i don't really know what is meant here. if these guys are saying that their master could physically harm people without touching them or something, then i simply don't believe it. someone with strong ki can be very intimidating, just as someone who is very angry can be very intimidating. you can in theory win a fight with ki alone, but you can't, for example, make someone bleed just by staring at them. finally, aikido and many other arts were developed in a culture whose popular beliefs were directly contrary to those of christianity, so don't expect them to 'mix' well with christianity. i'm not saying a christian cannot practice aikido, but you shouldn't go into it expecting the two cultures to fit together without problems.

if a master wants students to train exclusively in his style, then he should make that clear in the beginning. he's got a terrible attitude if you ask me, not what you want in a GM. someone at that level should be very humble and open minded, and he evidently isn't.

yeah, that's what i was saying. i see judoka using karate stances all the time, they just don't look the way the look in a kata. the stances are part of kazushi, even if you don't notice it.

there will never be a good MK movie. there is the potential, but no one good enough at making movies will ever do it. i thought MK1 was brilliant when i was ten, but its a REALLY BAD movie. if someone would make an MK movie with a really dark tone, blade style fight scenes and stuff, that would be sweet.

almost all karate techniques, including the throws, come from kung fu, not jujitsu. a lot of them are very similar however. also, i don't quite get the 'its stance, no its not its kazushi' debate. the stances as they are demonstrated in the kata are part of kazushi as i understand. the stances are a bit rigid and exagerated in kata but i see judoka using them all the time.

ninja don't really exist anymore, and yeah its pretty much impossible to find a 'real' ninjutsu school. also real ninjutsu covers lots of stuff; combat is just one part of it. i think your best bet is to find a bujinkan taijutsu school. as far as i know that's about the only organised system that teaches ninja fighting arts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bujinkan personally i'd be very wary of anyone who claims to teach ninjutsu.

hangetsu and gankaku are awesome kata. never seen them in competition (havn't been to many competitions, to be honest), but i've always thought they're very good-looking kata when done properly. tekki nidan is a nice one as well if you want to be a bit unconventional. but then in my limited experience of competitions, bassai and kanku always seem to win.

the different governing bodies and things can get really annoying at times. a lot of people near the tops of organisations need to start focusing on similarities between schools instead of minor differences.

as others have said, talk to your sensei. you shouldn't have to train with someone like that.

you have to be very careful when trying to learn without an instructor. its very easy (almost certain actually) to miss little things and do it wrong over and over. if you do it, make sure you get a DVD with a lot of attention to detail and things like common mistakes. despite this, i don't agree with the 'forget it unless you've got an instructor' thing. if you're careful and have plenty of patience, you can learn something from a DVD. before i had the opportunity to get to a kendo dojo, i wanted to do it so much that i bought a book and learnt the basic cuts from it. when i eventually made it to a kendo dojo, the instructor had to correct a few minor things, but i didn't have to spend as long on the basics as most beginners. so i would say give it a go, just make sure the DVD gives enough detail and make sure you pay attention to every little thing. you'll most likely get a few things wrong, but they can be corrected when you get the opportunity to train properly. until then, i'd concentrate on stretching and increasing your fitness levels.

in my opinion nunchaku aren't very good weapons, in fact i think they're pretty terrible. sure if you spend years training with them, you'll end up being pretty lethal with them, but there are much better things you can be lethal with. out of the traditional kobudo weapons, i'd pick anything over the chucks. not to say that chucks aren't fun or interesting to learn, i just don't think they're particularly good weapons.

well, i tried out the thing shotokan kid was talking about this evening. i can see how it works in principle, but neither me or the other two guys i was training with could get it to work when the guy on top was doing his best to stay there. i found that once the legs are wrapped around, its extremely difficult to do anything other than cover your head. back control owns. i think that if someone takes your back in a real fight, they're unlikely to think of getting their legs under you, which makes lifting/rolling out of it a lot easier.

wow, that's a hell of a long time to be out.

yeah, done the same thing with nunchucks. whacked myself in the kidneys a few times as well with them. i once hit myself in the knee so hard with a staff that i fell to the floor; that was probably my worst weapons mishap.

if you're willing to, that would be great.

from what i gathered, the old guy retired and passed on his control. so what gives him the right to suddenly start telling people what to do? i don't see why you or your sensei can't tell him to go away if he's being disruptive to the school and your training. if your sensei is the current head of the system, then surely its up to him what your status is and how you train.

real racism is nasty stuff and it doesn't really involve stupid jokes which i don't find funny anyway. i don't know what its like where you guys live but the political correctness thing here is so over the top. people will get annoyed about stupid jokes instead of concentrating on solving real racism problems.