wolfen

agreed

thank you for the information, everyone. While looking up red oak and purple heartwood; I actually found that properly treated hickory is MUCH stronger than any of the others without a terribly significant hike in prices.

about "kancho" In Toshikan we refer to Shigeki Umemoto as kancho; he is the founder and head of the house; he is at least 8th dan (I'm not sure exactly). is this abnormal?

I suppose a seperation between energy replenishment/rehydration drinks and caffienated "sleep is bad! kill the sleep! hyper is good!" energy drinks is a good thing. I was only referring to the caffiene variety.

shadowstep, grab, pull yourself in, slash.... unfortunately this woudn't work on the likes of a naginata. edit - or the glaive

if you still don't get it... think of the black knight in monty python's holy grail. Arthur used his attacks to prevent any more attacks on him (a fangless snake won't do much)

I find increasing the duration of each sparring round is more useful for building endurance than increasing rounds. In any case, the idea is to do extra so that you won't be totally worn out after the sparring portion but can still put high effort into that portion.

against bo or tonfa... tonfa against sai or a single short sword ... bo against dual blades... kama w/chain against katana... bladed jutte against a spear... katana

actually, rick makes an escellent point. Depending on the severity of the fight, it could be wiser to shadow step and explode into their underarm. however, I assume that if it is a poor hook then there would be no need to go really hard; a simple block->counter would suffice

Are there any specifically excellent materials for combat staff? I think mine was probably a practice staff of some sort... I'll have to check. On a side note, I just realised that with the tape (already slightly worn) it sort of looks liek donatello's bo from tmnt

Hello all. I was doing some bojutsu training (shadowbox-style and on a tall stump in our back yard) and accidentally splintered (not a full break, but cracked) the bo with a strike that I didn't think was very hard. So the question, as I bought that bo for a group demonstration and bo kata competition (I got 3rd with "twelve winds") I was wondering if it was simply a lower quality material than it should be for striking practice. I patched it up with athletic tape and it has held well enough to not wobble, but I want to but a new bo and thought you folk might know what material to get. Thanks all.

if he's experienced, then my strategy would be simple... run fast enough and move through/pver/past enough obstacles that I could prolong death or earn life. If he's inexperienced then I would grab a stick of some sort... people try to use hollywood sword fighting which involves a lot of blocking and very little offense. get close and drop the stick to do a tiger fist to the side of his head... after that, I would have at least a slight advantage.

sugar snap peas are wonderful, but why anyone would ever cook any type of peas or put them in a soup/stew is beyond me.

I can see the possible benefit, but when you read the warnings and then think about starters for a football team downing a bottle during the halftime.... just doesn't seem healthy. Thank you for all the input

I couldn't agree more with Cathal... if just holding the persons arms to prevent then from swinging while you wait for them to calm down is enough, then you should go no further. now, if you know that by not going furtherm they will sneak attack you later, then only do what you must.

I'll agree to both of those statements... it helps a lot if you get hit hard during a spar if the other person apologises.

In my dojo we do "one-steps". these are single move thing, not one-step-at-a-time sparring. there is a list of pre-made one-steps to learn (these give good ideas for application in actual fights). A good class drill is to have everyone line up into 2 linesl sensei names an attack, left side attacks, right side improvises a one-step counter (by one-step counter, I mean a continuous flow, eg - a simple counter punch; a lock->kick->sweep->punch combo; a punch->grab->throw->hop back->low-angle fighting stance). The idea is to have an immediate response to an attack that stuns or stops the opponent a litlle less than 1 second. It is a little less complicated than a real fight, but it is very useful if the students already have a decent repertoire (sp?) of moves.

maybe this is a little off-topic but my high-school squad just ROCKED our rivalry game... everyone played... may seem small-timem but the game normally attracts around 10,000 fans (mostly alum and about 99% of the student body of both schools)... it is the largest rivalry game in the city of Phoenix. We also hope to take state again. GO BRONCOS!

As soon as the competitive ones in the dojo learn to respect eachother, they should no longer act in such a disgraceful manner. My sensei made it prefectly clear that sparring was only for mature individuals. If you intentionally did wrong while sparring, you would go to a number of extra classes (intermediate level(6th kyu - 3rd kyu)if you were an advanced (4th kyu - 1st dan) student or beginner level (8th kyu - 7th kyu) if you were an intermediate student). You would participate in these classes as a student even if you would normally be a sempai. Essentially by the time you reached advanced, you were going to be a moderator if you were even involved in an altercation (I actually can't remember any while I was there... Sensei Ron and Sensei Mark are awesome that way).

Ig you have a roughly 100m about 5% grade hill nearby: stretch jog to the foot of the hill do 3 sprints up, walk down between each sprint do lunges up the hill twice, walk down after each trip do froggies (jumpies with forward motion) up the hill once without a stop until you reach the top. walk down. run backwards up the hill as fast as you can once. same but slightly slower grapevine up the hill once. the last two act as the beginning of the cooldown.

yeah... a blender and a suspension (the icecream) would work plenty well... and I can attest to how tasty that type of shake is.

It was impressive. I wish I was that good.

don't drink the "energy drinks"; they are bad. They wouldn't dissolve very well in regular milk (at least if I remember basic biochem well enough... that WAS three years ago though). you could get one of those bottles of liquid flavored coffee creamer (the kind that goes in your fridge) and a 2 L bottle of carbonated water. mix the CO2 water and creamer stuff in a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio depending on how strong you want it. That would dissolve your protein mix quite nicely and hide the taste. (You could also get vanilla flavor-syrup from a company like Monin (in those bottles you see behind the counter of coffee places) but that lakes the texture of a homemade cream soda (milk once again doesn't work, it leeches the CO2 and doesn bad things)). good luck.

alright, thank you... I also used that after he tried to charge me into a wall... also mixed with a grasping block though... I guess I must like arm locks a LOT more than I realised.

an exact ending time is not as important when learning and honing the kata. relative time between moves is more important. Once you have that down, move to whatever speed your sensei wants you to be at. once again, focus on technique before timing.