alsey

the huge swing probably isn't the best example. what i'm saying is that just because a particular movement adds power, doesn't mean its necessarily a good technique. if you chamber a punch excessively, it adds power, but also alerts the opponent to what you're going to do. you have to do what works for you. i find that drawing my hand to my waist creates too much of an opening, so i don't do it that way. to that i would say if it doesn't leave you open, then you're not fighting anyone with enough skill. we can criticise eachother's fighting methods (even though we havn't seen eachother fight), but the only real test is whether the technique works or not.

sounds like you did a great job!

they're certainly giving 100%. however, they're not in a real fight. its a match in a ring with rules, its very organised and both fighters are highly trained. its a sport, and the styles you usually see are the styles with a lot of focus on full contact competition; boxing, muay thai, wrestling, BJJ, judo, etc.

1. their strikes are very precise, very fast, and very powerful. most of the strikers train in boxing, kickboxing or muay thai. these styles use a lot of fast combinations which you may think are 'wild' but they're actually quite precise and complex. 2. i really havn't seen many kick catches in UFC. it would be useful if you have particular examples to discuss. as for the fighters being slow, all i can say is that they look very fast and strong to me. that arlovski fight wasn't the fastest ever, sure, but that guy is freaking strong. i dunno, maybe you should just watch some more. the lightweight fights tend to be faster.

getting a black belt is certainly not realistic. start training, keep training, and you'll get it eventually. its a good target to set, though you should have other reasons for doing MA as well. if i was in your situation, i'd probably tell the sensei/friend that i'm going to another school and why, and he should understand. good luck with it all, i'm sure once you've been to a few classes you'll love it.

a huge swing is way more powerful than any karate punch, but that doesn't make it a good technique. if using hikite to generate more power works for you, then use it that way. for me, the small increase in power isn't worth opening my face up. the only way hikite works for me is in a grasping and pulling action.

many martial arts (pretty much all the chinese and japanese ones) come from buddhist cultures of some form or another. i'm not actually a buddhist, but my beliefs are very similar to those of buddhism. i think you will find that martial arts work very well with a buddhist philosophy, and your practice in each will help the other. you might want to read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushin it sums up a lot of what i want to say in a better way than i can put it. basically, in the samurai arts, they had a concept called heijoshin. this is a state of mind which the samurai tries to cultivate, and it is essentially the same as the state of mind the buddhist tries to cultivate. i will say though, that asking permission from an internet forum won't necessarily give you what you really want to know. my understanding of buddhism is that there is no list of things which are forbidden; its up to you to decide what is the right thing to do.

to me the use of hikite is to grasp the opponent's arm and pull him off balance while you attack him. unless i'm doing that, or punching with it, the hand stays up to cover. to answer the question, in kata i've always had the hikite at the waist.

i've never heard it called the king of weapons. i don't really know anything about these names, but it got me thinking. a king has a lot of power, but isn't necessarily that well trained. a marshall is a military man and has advanced combat training, but overall he isn't as powerful as the king. analogously, a line of spearmen can have a lot of power on the battlefield but the spearmen probably aren't that skilled individually. swordsmen are probably more highly trained, but a group of swordsmen aren't as daunting or powerful as a group of spearmen. just a thought, as i said i've never even heard these weapons given those names before. and a spearman can be just as well trained as a swordsman of course.

the x kans are bujinkan and the other two schools (i forget their names), right? do you mean that part of your taijutsu comes from jujutsu? that would make more sense to me than a samurai developing ninjutsu, because what i know of ninjutsu goes against a lot bushido.

its the other way around. when the limb is contracted, the relaxed muscles (e.g. the tricep) have potential energy. these muscles then contract and extend the limb; the potential energy of the muscles is transformed into the kinetic energy of the limb. when the strike reaches the target, it performs work on the target (i.e. damages it) and the kinetic energy is transformed into the deformation of the target (and the sound of the impact!). by the third law, when you punch a wall, the force that you exert on the wall is also exerted by the wall on your fist. this force causes your fist to stop, instead of going through the wall. this force also causes the wall to move/deform insignificantly.

that's not really about potential energy, its about momentum. the law of conservation of momentum says that the total momentum of a system remains constant under collision. in this case, the system is the fist and the pad, or the fist and the wall. when you strike a pad, your fist stops (loses momentum). the system as a whole cannot lose momentum however, so the pad then moves. its important to note that in this case the fist and the pad are of similar mass. when you strike a wall, again your fist stops. but this time the fist and target have very different masses. the mass of the wall is huge compared to the mass of the fist. the wall must gain momentum because your fist has stopped, but because its mass is so huge, the velocity it gains is negligible (p = mv). as for damage to the knuckles; when you hit a pad, some of the kinetic energy is used up in deforming the pad. when you hit a wall, some of the kinetic energy is used up in deforming your fist (cutting it, bruising it or whatever). really all the physics can tell you is that to transfer as much energy to the target as possible, you need to hit the target at the point where the strike's speed is maximum.

just now, trying it with putting the supporting leg behind the kicking leg, it makes me want to turn and do a back kick instead of a side kick. do all TKD people do it this way? interesting theory, i've never heard anything like that before.

i once went and watched a TKD class just out of interest, and it was very similar to shotokan. they did do a bit more kicking than we did, especially in sparring, but the basics were pretty much the same. i don't know enough about TKD to suggest anything that the two styles could give to eachother, but they do seem very similar.

i wish i could describe it that well when people ask me about meditation

its not that i base my punching on slight differences in rotation; its just that with correct distance and timing, the punch lands when the fist is twisted about 3/4 of the way. beyond that, everything starts to slow down.

i think i know what you're talking about, but i can't remember the name either. i remember the viking one, and there was one with medieval knights.

our understanding of the world is in constant change, but that doesn't change the fact that at the moment, there are some ideas and theories that make a hell of a lot more sense than others.

i'd be thankful that the instructor is a nice person and (if i understood you right) there wouldn't be much problem with leaving and going to another school. from what you've said, the school seems like a bit of a joke. MA require discipline and lots of training. lessons starting consistently late and time being wasted doesn't create a good learning environment, and even if it was a good environment, 20 minutes a week of actual learning is very poor IMO. if your son is having fun and getting some exercise, and you think its worth the money, stay with it. but it doesn't sound like an effective way to learn martial arts to me. from what you've said, he can't have done much more than two hours of actual TKD. if you get a belt for two hours of training, well...i'd be like 100th dan by now.

another reason for it is that at the 3/4 twist position, the fist fits nicely into a lot of skeletal weak points; the solar plexus and under the jaw for example.

i don't know what it must be like to be in that situation or know someone who is. i hope he recovers, and keeps those good spirits.

yeah, i'd say that's what they're best for. however i've always thought that if you're grappling, you can't really beat a knife.

i started karate when i was 15. at the time i just thought it looked cool and i wanted to be able to do all those kicks. since then, my reasons for doing MA have changed a lot. my main reason for doing it these days is out of pure interest; i find methods of fighting immensely interesting. its great for keeping my body and mind in shape, and i just really enjoy doing it. my goal isn't to get good at fighting (i was pretty good at that without MA), my goal is to keep training. fighting skills are just a by product of training.

that's very true. i guess my answer really is yes he can beat hughes, but i certainly wouldn't bet on it.

the way i do it, the punch has twisted 3/4 of the way round when contact as made. the last 1/4 of twist is part of the follow through as everything reaches full extention.