Tempest

My instructor has a very straightforward statement on this for Judo. If you have the points, time in grade, and skill to pass the test, then not taking the test is a violation of mutual benefit and welfare. In Judo, if you beat someone who is higher rank than you, more points are awarded toward promotion. If someone is good enough to beat you regardless of rank, they should be awarded the points for beating someone the rank you should be.

Interesting discussion. Where I live I see a great deal of crosstraining between BJJ and Judo. It seems that the order of training and the focus differences between BJJ and Judo make them great compliments to one another. They both operate on the same basic principles so gaining profeciency in both is a great idea. I will be training some BJJ when it becomes financially and time-wise feasible for me.

Excellent. And now you know the point of drilling Ukemi Waza to the point where it becomes second nature. A large number of higher level practitioners should take this to heart and remember to include Ukemi practice in to each class. Thank you for sharing with us Lupin.

I gotta go with Judo on this one, but it depends on the quality of instruction. Here, I am blessed with a world class coach and most of our kids, that want to, enter wrestling and do very well. I have very limited BJJ experience. Been to a couple of classes, rolled with several practitioners, and went to a couple of clinics is literally all the experience I have with the art. However I can tell you that all of the practitioners I have rolled with that did not also train in Judo or Wrestling had terrible takedowns/throws and defenses against them that involved going to the back which is bad for wrestling.

I gotta agree with the Judo being a good style for a kid. But it REALLY depends on the instructor. I had to take quite a bit of time off from my Judo training when I moved to an area with a not so good instructor, but they had a really good Tae Kwon Do instructor their so I picked up a bit of that. Quality of instruction makes all the difference in the world when it comes to choosing a style for your kid.

I am not sure I understand, why would a 3 year old need to be concerned with rank at all? This is part of the reason I am not a fan of starting children quite that young. The other part is they do not typically have the kinesthetic awareness to correctly perform a technique, or even a stance or position, the way it should be done. It seems to me that a belt, or rank, or any other merit denoting a martial arts accomplishment should perhaps be earned rather than given and most 3 year olds are not going to do a technique correctly. Many do not know left from right consistently at that age and following directions comes later than that in a childs developement.

Not always, no, but it still can as long as the person doing the technique can keep his thoughts and ego in check. The goal should always be to resolve the situation without violence unless it is your job to use force, and even then using force is a risky proposition to be avoided whenever possible. Now that being said, if you are offered physical violence, you MUST ensure your own safety first, and then the safety of anyone you are responsible for.

Pressure for me. Bones can be actually rather difficult to break by just delivering momentum to to them, but they do have weak points, normally at the joints, that can be exploited by an application of pressure. Also, human bodies have so many weaknesses that can be exploited by pressure, whereas momentum, until you reach a certain level, can be absorbed rather effectively by human bodies.

Tuck and roll. To quote the genie from Aladdin "You would be surprised what you can live through." Seriously though, my general method of dealing with any force is to make sure it is not being directed at me whenever possible. This can include stepping off line of an attack, avoiding a co-worker who is angry, or simply NOT picking a fight with my GF that night. I just don't think my pride and ego are worth the hassle and injury of arguing with people most of the time.

1. Make Shodan in Judo 2. Add additional training days to my current regimen. 3. Be able to compete more. 4. Develop my Tai Otoshi to the point where I can win with it in competition.

Developing Kuzushi. If I could get that down, I would be FAR more effective in competition Judo.

Thank you

Cool. What is the name of the book, and is it possible to get it from a typical bookstore?

I work for a third-party call center company currently, however if you ever work for a company where your job is to take angry, disagreeable people and convince them to do what you want, and physical force is NOT an option, then you will learn some variation of these skills. The method I originally posted is known as H.E.A.T. and is tought to customer service professionals in a number of areas. Some internet research yields at least one hospital as well as every company I have worked for at least mentions it.

For Judo I would want it to be De Ashi Barai. Nothing quite captures the elegance and simplicity of the principles quite as well as a good footsweep. It isn't applicable to every situation, but with a bit of practice it is versatile and it truly illustrates the need for timing and knowledge over speed and strength.

Thank you. This seems to be a really cool place, but I would definately be careful about making any sort of categorical or absolute statement here, especially about martial arts.

So, I am going to reply to myself here after the opportunity to get some rest and a bit of caffiene. I just realized that there is an Introductions section that this should have gone in. Hopefully it can be moved there without too much trouble. Sorry for the mistake.

This is a topic that is very near and dear to me because in my job I am literally a professional de-escalator and a great deal of what I see taugt to people in MA about de-escalation would get you fired where I work. There are several standard, industry accepted practices that can be used to de-escalate an emotionally charged situation long before it becomes violent, but ALL of them rely on you NOT taking an adversarial approach from the begining. For example, if someone is yelling in your face and even threatens you with possible harm, BUT has not moved to actually DO anything to harm you, it behooves you to Hear them, Empathize with them, Apologize for what ever has upset them, and Take action to correct the situation if you can. I am curious how this is practiced at everyone's schools when they teach self defense.

You know, I think if I had had the opportunity to study with you, I might have stuck with Karate. But one question regarding your non-compliance drills, to what degree does the training you have received in your respective style effect the type of resistance that you give. For example: Someone training in a non-compliant manner with experience in, say Kyokushin, will resist in a completely different manner and with vastly different body mechanics than someone who was a football player in high-school and gets in to a drunken brawl about once a month.

Sounds like you are enjoying it. I definately recommend sticking with it. The mat burns DO eventually lessen, and if it gets too bad you can always tape your fingers and toes. As far as groundwork goes, at my particular club we do a lot of it because we have some BJJ guys in town who some of our tournaments and our head coach belives in being prepared. The actual RULE on groundwork in Judo contests is that Matte should be called when any evidence of "No Progress" or stalling is seen. The rules were writtent to favor the standing grappler. In practice, it depends on the referee. I have seen local referees that let people roll on the ground for quite some time and there is at least one Olympic level A that will call Matte as soon as the action goes in to groundwork.

Brown belt in Judo Some early Kyu grade in Shotokan. It was years ago and I do not remember the rank. I learned the Aikido and CQC I know from my father who was a Marine. Rank was never an issue, either you could do something or you could not, so I am unsure where I would be on those.

I am surprised nobody has mentioned this one: Sasae Tsuri Komi Ashi. It really is ridiculously easy to perform and does not require a gi nor does it require you to violate your own posture to perform. Additionally, unlike a typical footsweep it will work regardless of the terrain you are in. Thank you,

Hail and well met, I am a long time lurker on these forums and after spending many years reading some of the most interesting discussions it has been my privelage to view in internet forums I feel I am ready to step up and perhaps start commenting on some things. This initial post is just for me to say hi. If I put it in the wrong spot, please move it and let me know so I will know where such things belong in the future. Thank you,

it looked to me like they were using a millitary issue .50 machine gun, which generally would mean ball ammo. The .50 is not designed to break up like that because they are supposed to be a high velocity round at long range. Its just really cool that a katana can cut through that. But it depends largely on angles. At the right angle a katana can cut most anything you'd likely want to cut with it, i.e. bamboo, bodyparts...whatever, get the angle of the cut wrong and instead of slashing through your target what you'll get is either it bounces off, or just sticks into it.

see, our book says that we should be doing them (the heians) in about 40 sec. as stated above, but at least one of them we've got down to 18 and that doesn't seem to be correct