DWx

Welcome Washo

I do know they're very restrictive with firearms in the UK but knives too? Will you get in trouble for carrying a knife? Even if you don't carry a knife I would think you can keep knives in your house so a knife might be a good weapon for home defense in the UK. Now depending on where you are in the UK, in Scotland I believe they play lots of golf so carrying around a golf club might not be out of the ordinary. A golf club can obviously be used for stick fighting. I think the law is pretty fair in the UK. It's all about intent. Folding blades under 3 inches are fine i.e.pocket knife but for anything else you better have a good reason to be carrying it. Anything you carry with the intent of using it as a weapon could land you in trouble. Even if it was for self defense. The UK Police are pretty clear about this https://www.police.uk/crime-prevention-advice/possession-of-weapons/ "If you are caught illegally carrying a knife or a gun, even an imitation one you will be arrested and prosecuted. It is no excuse to say it was for your own protection or you were carrying it for someone else. Remember - the law is clear - if you choose to carry a weapon, you put your future in danger. If you don't take it with you, it won't be used." Interestingly kubotan are also specifically mentioned in the Offensive Weapons Act so you couldn't even have one of those in your key chain for defense. As to the original question, I would say you wouldn't go far wrong with something like Arnis or Eskrima. Seems applicable to the types of improvised weapons you may be able to obtain. And see, to me this law is anything BUT fair. Self defense is a fundamental human right and the state choosing to say that it is not a sufficient reason to carry an object with you is essentially endorsing the idea that it is more important to do as your told by the state than to adequately prepare for potential violence. Which I suppose is fine if there is no violent crime in the U.K. I don't really know the stats... but this doesn't look good. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/04/suspected-burglar-dies-tussle-pensioner-78/ The fact that they arrested him at all is a bad look for U.K. law and law enforcement. I think it's different cultures. On the whole violent crime is lower in the UK compared to the US. Just look at the stats: http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/United-Kingdom/United-States/Crime According to the figures per million people, you are 4 times more likely to be murdered in the US compared to the UK. I think we just have a different attitude to self defense and violent crime, I mean it's very unusual for our police officers to be armed and is actually pretty shocking to most of us when we do see armed officers. As to that story about the pensioner.. I don't know the specifics but I would imagine there is more to the story than is in the news. You are allowed to use "reasonable force" to defend yourself so the arresting officers must believe he has gone beyond that. Not to scream "Fake News" but the BBC's Reality Check fact checker has some interesting statistics on this. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43628494 Yes London had higher murder rates for February and March this year vs New York but actually not that much higher (e.g. 22 vs 21 in March). In January the figures were very much the opposite with the NYPD investigating 18 murders, compared to 8 in London. All in all New York is slightly worse taking into account the whole of 2018 so far. Looking at the whole year, homicide rates for 2017 in London were significantly lower taking the full 12 months into account, you were 3x more likely to be murdered in New York in 2017. (1.2 per in 100 000 London and 3.4 in New York).

I do know they're very restrictive with firearms in the UK but knives too? Will you get in trouble for carrying a knife? Even if you don't carry a knife I would think you can keep knives in your house so a knife might be a good weapon for home defense in the UK. Now depending on where you are in the UK, in Scotland I believe they play lots of golf so carrying around a golf club might not be out of the ordinary. A golf club can obviously be used for stick fighting. I think the law is pretty fair in the UK. It's all about intent. Folding blades under 3 inches are fine i.e.pocket knife but for anything else you better have a good reason to be carrying it. Anything you carry with the intent of using it as a weapon could land you in trouble. Even if it was for self defense. The UK Police are pretty clear about this https://www.police.uk/crime-prevention-advice/possession-of-weapons/ "If you are caught illegally carrying a knife or a gun, even an imitation one you will be arrested and prosecuted. It is no excuse to say it was for your own protection or you were carrying it for someone else. Remember - the law is clear - if you choose to carry a weapon, you put your future in danger. If you don't take it with you, it won't be used." Interestingly kubotan are also specifically mentioned in the Offensive Weapons Act so you couldn't even have one of those in your key chain for defense. As to the original question, I would say you wouldn't go far wrong with something like Arnis or Eskrima. Seems applicable to the types of improvised weapons you may be able to obtain.

Happens more often than you might think. Mental disability, drink, drugs, or even just being very sick and disorientated can make someone lash out.

I think people often mistake ab-work for just crunches, loads of stuff you can do and actually as martial artists rotational forces / resisting rotation comes into play a lot more. Alongside crunches and the like you can also do bodyline drills for stability. The plank is probably the most well known but you can also do reverse plank, hollow holds etc,

Belated Happy Birthday Liam

Congratulations!

Got to train smart as well as hard. Definitely agree with JR that it's easy to burnout if you're not careful. For most it is better to moderate how often they train for both healthy mind and healthy body.

Welcome Paloma

Do they not provide training for difficult or combative patients as part of the job? My sister works in healthcare and they get taught both verbal and physical strategies. As far as the Hippocratic oath goes, which bit would be cause for concern? As far as I can tell nothing in it would prevent you from striking. I would also consider preventing a patient from further injuring themselves or others as preventing further harm.

So I'm certainly no expert (and there are professional trainers on the forum) but I do coach a high level sparring team. In general we expect people to work up to running 5 km comfortably to build a base of fitness and then to gradually improve on their time. If you struggle with 5K, search for the Couch to 5K program or C25K, plenty of stuff on the web and loads of apps available. It has you alternate running and walking and gradually gets you to run the full distance. However for sparring, what really counts for sparring fitness is short fast bursts and quick recovery. Sparring rounds are 2 mins or maybe 3 mins and even then it's short flurries and then rest. Best way to improve fitness for this is anything high intensity with tempo changes. So sprints, hill sprints, skipping sets, rowing, tabata, all out bag work... You get the idea. At first you'll not be able to do much but as a rough guide aim for 20 secs of work flat out, 10 secs of rest for multiple sets. The key is to make sure you're working max intensity while doing it and keep going till you complete your sets.

Seems like you might be a bit limited. I think even free standing bags are going to be noisy, especially if you're bouncing around on the floor. What do you want it for? Does it have to be something your can practice full power strikes on?

You've had some pretty sound advice so far. Especially great post from sensei8 One thing I will add is: has he drilled down into why enrollment down? Why will self defense have a higher enrollment rate? I think both should work if you are actively marketing and have a good product to sell but these are two different areas with different target markets. Swapping to self defense isn't going to be a magic cure in itself and he will still need to be actively promoting his school in the right places. edit for spelling

Happy Birthday Alex, hope you had a great day

Congratulations!

Welcome to the forums

I’ve heard that happening from several people with the Wavemaster 2XL/XXL. Watching a Torrent assembly video from Century, it appears they’ve redesigned the part that goes into the base. Rather than the base being a donut, so to speak, where the bag threads into it, the base has a shaft part that the bag slides onto. No more unscrewing and the bag part coming up. At least in theory anyway. That might be better and more durable. The one we had we had to bin as the plastic core was in two pieces.

I once read an article that discussed a surgeon who warmed up with Katamari Damascy for at least 20 minutes before he would operate. That's pretty cool. The exercises the physio gave were just trying to touch each finger with your joint and squeezing a stress ball. Xbox was more fun

If it's anything like a Wavemaster... one of our guys snapped once with a roundhouse once kicked it clean off the base. He is a bit of a physical beast though If you can't hang a bag I think they are a good option. The benefit of a hanging bag is that it swings and moves with each strike which you won't get with a freestanding bag, but for basic bag work they are a good alternative.

Congratulations both Great to have you on the team and work with you

I'm really interested to see the responses on this one. Need some ideas on how to combat this myself. Usually I just ignore as they will come undone at some point. Or if they persist, I tend to ask them to come out and demonstrate and try to show them they are not so clever. For what it's worth illusory superiority is common right across all fields. People tend to think they're cleverer then they are or a better driver than everyone else or better at their job https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority

I think we need to ask "What part is mental?" The phrase, as you mentioned, is so pervasive throughout MA culture that it is one of those things that we accept without too much thought. It makes sense at the "gut check" level. We hear it and think "yeah, that checks out." But what about it checks out? I think this is what you're leading us towards in this conversation (I could be wrong). Let me add on to this then: What part is mental? I don't think we can say it's the actual fighting part. We train very hard to make that muscle memory and instinctual. Instinct is not mental it's reactional. Is it the ability to let go of the fear and let this training take over? Is it the part of our brains that lets us choose "fight" when we have to? I'm not necessarily leading us down any path more that I think we as martial artists (myself included) hear these phrases and adages and just agree with them rather than look deeper. I have a problem with the 90% claim. Not that I doubt mentality is important, but I think other things come into play too and that winner or loser isn't determined by mindset alone. If we look at self defense for example, I would argue that when it comes to real self defense, a real life or death situation, you're going to find that everyone wants to survive, everyone has that drive to make it out alive. It's against human nature not to try to preserve one's own life. So what determines the winner or loser in that situation? Mentally I can really want to make it out of that situation but if I don't have the tools to do it I'm going nowhere fast. Forgetting self defense, we can look at fighters who must fight to put food on the table e.g. young Thai boxers. The will and determination is there but with that alone they won't go far.

Thanks guys. Well today is officially 150 days post surgery. Scars are starting to fade now, need some awesome tattoo coverup ideas. https://photos.app.goo.gl/TRpEzKIY1zppaL9y2 Somethings I learnt so far: - lots of things are difficult to do one handed: obvious ones being opening jars and bottles, not so obvious includes buttering toast, turning the pages of a book, making tea (this one caused me the most pain) - maybe TMI but having a cast on does make you really hairy(!) I have one wolf arm one normal arm - teaching TKD sucks one handed, trying to correct movement is really difficult when you can't use your hands - physios take pleasure in your discomfort - console gaming is a great way to improve dexterity in your hands and much more fun than the physio's exercises On a more serious note, for anyone who has to have a similar procedure on their elbow or knee, I found it was really important to force yourself the move the joint as much as possible when the cast comes off. It's painful and far to easy to sit with the joint immobilized but the quicker and more often you move it the quicker the recovery.

You've made amazing progress so far Bob so I wouldn't be too disheartened. With weight loss and strength programs I think it's common for people to plateau. Sometimes you have to mix things up and power through. Eventually you'll see the pounds start to come off again.

Never done it in TKD, but when I studied Tai Chi we'd do mirror image and also in reverse for balance. Interestingly if you do the Chang Hon forms, virtually all start with a defensive movement and with the left arm. The two that do start with attacking techniques, Ul Ji and Tong Il, start by stepping backwards. I always heard this was because the General said Taekwon-Do is supposed to be primarily used for defense and not in aggression. As to why it's a left hand first, the training convention in ITF TKD is to always start blocks with the left and attacks with the right when doing line work.