Muki

Paying for the exams all over again doesn't sound right to me. There are other, more efficient ways to discipline a disobedient student anyway... I couldn't agree more. We have a general rule in our club. When someone is not behaving properly or is missing classes for too long, he or she gets sent to the beginners group and has to start over. No need to pass the exams all over again tough. It seems to be working cause there is not a single person in my group who doesn't wan't to be there and train hard. No goofing around and stuff...

Red colour has always been the colour of success, good luck, power, strength... In Roman mythology it has been associated with Mars, the god of war. Obviously there's something about it..

I couldn't agree more. I was once stupid enough to deliberately ignore my doctors advice and started training too soon. Because of that I developed chronic condition, ended up in surgery 2 years later and thanx to my uttermost stupidity I lost another year of training just to heal properly. What could have been a short 1 months rest became a 3 year hiatus... I never repeated the same mistake again. Ever!

Aaah, lovely!

Somehow I prefer white, don't know why really. But I'd definitely buy a pink set of shin guards if I found them! In competitons we have to wear blue/red mitts so I don't have much choice there.

Go see your doc, explain the situation, ask for some advice and then try to follow it (I know it's a hard thing to do, especially in a situation like yours, but usually it's the smart thing to do...) Hope you'll be okay. Keeping my fingers crossed for you.

A lot of people in my club are pressured into teaching or helping at the club in some other way as a condition for promotion to a higher belt. Some of them are helping out for more than 3 hrs per day, 2 or 3 times a week (+having a full time job and young kids at home)... I was forced to set priorites for myself a year ago, cause my work/studies, social life and training were in each others way... I stopped teaching classes and the decision turned out to be a real eyeopener about the folks at the club. Some of my "friends" took it personally and didn't understand that my job and boyfriend were more important than reaching the requirements for the black belt. They reacted as if I was quitting on them, but I was just standing up for myself and for what I think is important in my life. I never cared about the belt colour. As long as I'm doing my best I'm fine. But sometimes the remarks I hear about my decision make me sad and angry - so it's really nice to see someone else who's set his priorities straight. Thanks for venting out Throwdown!

I save the important stuff in a .doc file and update it when I get home. I don't keep an exact training log but just put down the important stuff that was said/done in classes.

Wow. I have one that hit the floor on a daily basis, plus it survived a number of throws to the other side of the room. I still had to get up and turn in off tough. Now I use my mobile phone to wake me up. Haven't tried to throw it yet, but it's a very tempting thing to do at 6 in the morning.

My favourite snooze button is the one I'm not able to push until I'm fully awakened.

I agree it helps a lot. I play the piano and I used to dance, so generally I don't have problems with rhythm. It's just different with an opponent, that doesn't cooperate like a dancing partner would... Thanks for all suggestions guys.

Okay, I do that occasionally at home. But it's a bit harder in a real sparring situation. I guess lots of practice is the answer to all "how-to's" of the martial arts questions...

Does anyone have suggestions, exercises or tips (anything) on how to improve rhythm? In our classes we do a lot of count drills to get comfortable with connecting a certain series of punches and blocks, the counting forcing us to maintain a certain rhythm - but thats about it... I'm just courious if anyone has some other idea on how to improve, except repeating the same movements over and over again. Thanks!

I'm the Spider-Man Spider-Man 85% Supergirl 80% The Flash 80% Robin 77% Wonder Woman 75% Superman 60% Catwoman 60% Hulk 55% Green Lantern 55% Iron Man 40% Batman 35%

I always need an alarm clock (or two) on workdays. It takes me at least 20 minutes to actually wake up and be able to get out of bed without bumping into anything or acting like a zombie... It's just the opposite when I'm on vacation tough. Then I can get up in a snap before 7 a.m.

It's an interesting subject, because good rhythm can tremendously benefit your performance, in a sense that movements are more fluid, individual techniques become interconnected, faster and even more powerful. It's of course important to be able to change and adapt it without loosing your focus. I've never heard of the "Broken rhythm" (shame on me ). But I googled it and I really like the concept.

I've been reading trough the posts steadily all week. It's a great discussion and some good and interesting points have been made. If we look at the origins and reasons for why katas were developed in the first place, well, then katas are now indeed quite useless. We can instantly see, that nowadays there is no need to hide the "deadly" and once "illegal" moves in such an oldfashioned way. Why practice kata, when you could simply videotape the moves, defence techniques and then lock the tape in a Swiss vault? I also understand the point Cross is trying to make. Why practice kata, if you can practice the moves unmodified, the way they're meant to be performed in a real life situation? I personally like them. Sometimes I simply dig in and search for new bunkai. I like to polish just one move or concentrate on a series of movements, until the feeling is right and I eventually don't need to think about the individual moves anymore. I like them, because it's all up to me to make it as hard or as easy as I want. Kata practice (in my opinion) also improves abilities in other karate techniques, like being able to work in a rythm, which is great in sparring, kumite. Also to able to handle relaxation and contractions better, to improve movement skills, balance... Of course you can take them as an ancient art - a now useless combat technique. But then again - as Oscar Wilde put it - all art is quite useless. A point that I really liked was made here: I can't say that a good kata performer is necessarily also a good fighter. But I can say that he/she is a disciplined and persistent person, who's spent a years on perfecting his skills and and I value that.

Well... I continuously train barefoot and have no problems with my feet whatsoever... I had a couple of blisters when I first started, but that was it. In one of our branches people train in light sports shoes, because the floor is too cold to train barefoot. I'd like to point out that their stances and kicks are more "sloppy looking". Whether this is a consequence of training in shoes is of course disputable, but so far this seems to be the case. I guess that training barefoot somehow forces you to be more precise and accurate in your techniqe...?

Digital cable (TV + the internet)

Subscribed to National Geographic magazine. Frequently buying TWSnowboarding. No martial arts magazines for me... yet.

Our school has hardwood floor, no mats or anything. Sometimes we bring out pads just to practice a new throw or something like that, but soon remove them and then continue without. During summer karate school a couple of years ago I trained on concrete floor (with shoes on) and needless to say the throws were a painfull experience. Now it's covered with artificial grass and flintstone sand - the kind of floor used for indoor tennis fields. It was okay when it was new, but it's like sandpaper now and after a few days of training we're all getting burned feet. I prefer hardwood floor to other surfaces, especially if it's the type used for basketball - more elastic and shock absorbant which is nice to have when your're hitting the ground. I don't like mats or carpets, probably cause I'm not used to them, but also cause of the carpet burns and the extra friction when turning/rotating the feet.

I try not to change my eating habits a day before the competition, I've got enough problems with my stomach and nerves as it is... My choice would be a rice or pasta meal with steamed chicken and vegetables, perhaps a home cooked soup. For dinner something like porridge. Breakfast on the day of competition - yoghurt with cereals. It's what I normally eat and I don't think I could keep down anything else... In the bag: plenty of water, a bottle of gatorade, some powerbars, a sandwich or two. But the idea of bringing baby food to the event sounds very interesting. I have a fast metabolism so I can't avoid eating during the event.

This is best advice ever. Remember that in the old days karate-ka's didn't have the diverse range of kicks and blocks we have today... and they practiced a single punch for years.

It's hard to pick a favourite but I really like two: Seipai for versatility of the moves and "rythm". Seienchin - cause it's really difficult to perform on the same level of quality from beginning to end (it's a constant challenge for me)

The only thing that helps me is a lot of sparring drills. Repeat, until one combo becomes second nature to you and you're able to use it without thinking - until it becomes a routine response you can use in a real sparring. You have to teach your body how perform an effective attack and how to respond to the opponents attack. But because motorical learning requires a lot of repetition - you do have to practice as much as you can. With practice you'll also gain confidence and that will eventually help you in competitions too.