DokterVet

Your situation is exactly what is wrong with zero tolerance policies. Zero tolerance promotes bullying and dishonesty, favours students who have nothing to lose, demeans and cripples well-meaning, honest, self-respecting students. It discourages students from defending themselves, standing up for what's right, and doing the right thing in many situations. I'm sorry I don't have much advice for you because you are in such a terrible system. Zero tolerance allowed really mean kids to walk all over other kids when I was in high school and it seems to be doing the same to you. I don't have any advice to you, but I advise that others on the board to not support zero tolerance policies in schools.

Cool. Do you have any specific examples of using kata footwork in your MT, or is it more of a general sense of mobility and balance?

You forgot to post the vid.

Can you explain this? I'd like to hear what ways you think are more efficient. BTW, I don't fully agree with this, and therefore would love to hear your view, as I think it's important to understand contrary points of view. Absolutely. First, unlike some of the posters in this thread, I'm not interested in kata for its own sake. I'm interested in becoming a better fighter. I don't like that there is no opponent interaction or resistance with kata. I also found that the techniques and footwork had become stylized, and as a result weren't very combat applicable. I was taught a lot of "block, punch" type bunkai, which in no way resembled combat. But even after being taught more believable bunkai by better instructors, I would think the techniques were cool for about a day before realizing they weren't very good techniques either. After over 8 years, my footwork sucked compared to any kickboxer. I had no clue how to grapple. So I think the following are more efficient ways to train: shadow boxing, heavy bag work, pad drills, partner grappling drills (escapes, chokes, etc), sparring, and wrestling/rolling. I'd even say that weightlifting is more effective in the short term than kata for increasing fighting ability. I understand that some people enjoy the process of finding the 'hidden techniques' in kata and manipulating them into combat situations. But I think "why bother?" I can look at my school's curriculum chart and see every technique listed exactly as it should be applied. I can go to my shootwrestling coach and he'll show me exactly how to do a technique, do it to me, give me advice on how and when to use it, and correct my mistakes based on how to make the technique work, not how it looks in the air. I am also encouraged (and expected) use the techniques against fully resisting opponents every class. In comparison, techniques in my karate kata were, to be honest, not sound enough techniques to work on a resisting opponent. I was even told once, after performing an X-Block that "X-blocks are okay for kata, but not for sparring or fighting." Well then what is the point? That said, we have a few sequences of submissions and throws that we do in shootwrestling that resemble katas in that they are predetermined, but unlike katas they involve a resisting opponent and are chained together in a meaningful way. For example, the throws are chained together in a manner that allows you to take advantage of the counter to each throw in the next throw. So it's not an unrelated 'catalogue' like most kata.

I don't like them at all. The focus on katas and similar drills was the main reason I quit karate. After over 8 years of karate, I think there are many much more efficient ways to spend my training time.

I also recently (gradually over the past 2 years) stopped training in traditional karate after 8 full years of training. Like you, it wasn't suiting my goals, so I took up shootwrestling, which is a better fit for me.

If you want to keep the fight standing, you need the wrestling skills to do so. Boxing/striking skills will not help you keep the fight standing, they will just give you weapons to use once your wrestling skill has determined the range of combat. Why don't you think submissions are useful in real life? Most submissions are NOT based on pain compliance. People tap because otherwise they face unconsciousness or severe injury.

Yup that is right, and that is why I plan on taking a grappling art as well once I get to a good enough level. I can't say I completely agree with you though because the whole grappler and versus striker thing is true, full contact martial arts tournaments aren't realistic really many vital areas are not aloud to be hit, which I think gives grapplers a little bit of an edge in stuff like the U.F.C. and what not. All areas except the eyes were valid in the early UFCs when pure grapplers were defeating pure strikers left, right and centre. Have you seen UFCs 1 - 10? Early Vale Tudo?

Given remotely similar skill levels, I would bet on a pure judo player over a pure karate player virtually every time. It is much easier for a grappler to close the distance to clinch range than it is for a pure striker to keep the grappler at a distance and damage him with strikes. This has been demonstrated in hundreds or thousands of full-contact mixed martial arts fights. However, to be a rounded fighter, one should train striking and grappling.

I read Brazilian Jiu-jitsu: Theory and Technique by Royler and Renzo Gracie shortly before beginning to train in grappling. Honestly just reading it will do basically nothing whatsoever, except give you an idea of what you should be doing. So you won't be as clueless as you would otherwise be on the ground, but you still won't be able to pull anything off. I really enjoy that book and I use it as a reference all the time, but it is strictly a supplement to training. If you want to learn to grapple, you have to get on the mat.

My goal is to fight in amateur MMA competition and get a win. It will definitely take a few more years of solid training though. Maybe in 2010.

Context must be considered. Why don't we have only one type of battle tank? There must be a balance between many many factors. Cost, serviceability, appropriateness for the deployment, weapons of the enemy, ease of use, survivability, speed, range, armaments... etc... etc.. The context of a situation may call for a different kick, but there is a trade off. Speed, body position, overall power delivery, physical obstacles, ground surface type, and so on. Context determines tactics and strategy which influences technique, all for the purpose of exploiting an opportunity or a weakness in your opponent(s). Try doing a round kick in a very narrow hallway. While those are all good points to keep in mind when training, they in no way support the statement "There's no right way to kick and no wrong way" that I was questioning. They support an assertion that the most effective technique with which to kick depends on the circumstances. However, once again it in no way argues for the aforementioned statement. When you pull back the towel, you are accelerating the tip of the towel. If you wet the tip of the towel, you are changing the shape of the towel but more importantly increasing its mass giving it more of an impact. Ok... wow, where to start... This isn't actually correct. The relative mass of the individual segments of the thigh, lower leg are different and it behaves much like a whip in the sense that the angular momentum of the thigh is conserved in the lower leg causing it to accelerate. True there isn't a curved section as in the whip ( which can be visualized as thousands of segments.) If I make a chain with each link being of slightly less overall mass, I can accelerate that chain until the forces exceed the strength of one or more of the smaller segments and the steel will literally fracture violently into many small fragments due to the massive forces. If I were to calculate the mass of your upper leg and then the mass of your lower leg and add an ankle weight to equalize the two, how fast do you think you can kick. (front kick that is). The whipping action is not the only thing that is at work here... we have the forceful contraction of the quadriceps muscle group. We thus have the conservation of angular momentum, and the summation of forces working together. Think of it like this: a motor car has X horsepower with X torque (foot pounds) The transmission is geared to have high torque and low speed at lower gears but as the transmission gears up, it can accelerate the car. there is a trade off between pulling power and torque. Similarly we have short powerful muscles with relatively slow endpoint velocities which accelerates the mass of the entire leg, and smaller less powerful muscles which continue to accelerate the mass, this combined with the reduction in mass of the smaller segments result in a high endpoint velocity. In a kick the flexors of the leg are also the primary extensors of the knee albeit not all the hip flexors are involved. The forces generated by this group differs at different points during extension for a number of reasons, mechanical and physiological. We chamber the leg so that the mass is reconfigured to allow us to accelerate the entire mass of the leg to a higher velocity around the hip joint. By shortening the lever (the upper and lower leg) it takes less effort to achieve this initial acceleration. I'm not going to get into the thrusting motion of the hips right here, but suffice it to say we want to have as much mass attached to that fast moving object (foot or shin) as possible to increase penetration. Interesting. I can see how the reduced mass of the lower parts of the leg results in a higher acceleration, but I'm not convinced that one should take that knowledge to conclude that he should kick like he would snap a towel (in other words I'm not convinced that this proves that a 'snap back' is a vital part of generating kicking power). Snapping back with a towel creates the loop which eventually accelerates fast enough to cause damage, right? And this 'snapping back' is performed at the base end of the whip/towel (the equivalent of the hip joint). Well when one 'snaps' a kick, the motion is normally initiated by a contraction of the hamstring which brings the leg back to the bent (chambered) position, followed by bringing the leg back to its original position using the momentum from the first motion. So the snapping is occuring at the knee joint, half-way through the leg, compared to at the source of the initial applied force in the case of the towel. So I don't see how that snap would have the same effect. In your own words, "when you pull back on the towel, you accelerate the tip of the towel." So unless you can pull back with your hips -- and I don't see how you could do that with much force due to the structure of the leg -- the motion won't result in the tip accelerating. In summary: I stand corrected about a leg not acting like a whip at all, however, I still don't agree that the snapping motion of the whip technique applies to generating power in kicks.

Different styles teach it different ways. Here is an article which features 4 of the popular ways of performing the roundhouse kick (it's about 1/3 of the way down the article). http://www.kyokushinmail.com/koya/KickInstruction.htm

What are you basing "there is no wrong way to kick" on? Is any method of kicking correct even if it is entirely ineffectual? If this is the case, why do most instructors teach specific technique for kicking? If every way of kicking was right, then shouldn't the instructor just say "kick however you want"? A towel acts as a whip when used in the latter example. This article explains the science of a whip. http://www.hypography.com/article.cfm?id=32479. As you can see, the whip is designed to accelerate a loop along itself. The whip is tapered so by the time the loop reaches the end it is travelling at over the speed of sound. A leg is not a flexible tapered rope. It is a heavy mass with a hinge-like joint at the knee and one other at the ankle. It is not possible for it to behave like a whip.

Keep in mind when training that "feeling the burn" is actually lactic acid which is detrimental for building muscle. While high repitition exercise will improve your endurance, it won't do much at all for strength. Spirit At Choice is right that muscle is built during the resting process. So avoid overtraining. Rather than doing pushups every day, why not start a weight lifting routine and just do pushups once a week?

Chambering a kick refers to first lifting the knee, then straightening the leg as part of the motion of the kick. While this is obviously done with front and side kicks, there are varying schools of thought on whether the roundhouse kick should use a chamber. Typically in karate and taekwondo, the practitioner is taught to roundhouse kick by first bringing the knee up, then snapping the leg straight as the kick finishes. Of course this is done in one fluid technique, but the process of chambering and straightening the leg is nevertheless present. Also note that different styles (and individuals) perform this chamber differently -- for example on an upward 45 degree angle, horizontal, or even snapping around to come down at an angle. The thai-style kick, on the other hand, is typically done with a "dead leg" swung more like a baseball bat. In other words, the hinge of the knee is essentially ignored in the movement.

Somebody at some point thought it was best to chamber kicks, so he practiced them that way under that hypothesis. He taught his students to chamber. His students taught their students to chamber. Those students taught their own students to chamber. One of those students taught you to chamber.

Arguably the most important thing in weight loss is diet. That's right, diet. Check out the diet and nutrition forum on https://www.wannabebigforums.com. It is primarily a bodybuilding forum, and half of bodybuilding science is how to lose fat while retaining muscle (the other half being how to gain muscle mass). You might find it surprising, but one can get totally ripped without doing any cardio at all!

I'm interested to know what you train for grapple defense. Myself, I'm currently doing shootwrestling twice a week (3 hours total) and weight lifting 3 to 4 times a week (3-5 hours total) plus the occasional bag work to keep up my striking.

Unfortunately, the human body does not work in the same manner as a towel. I have a very long winded physical/mechanical description of why these whip/snap/whatever puches and kicks do not aquire much power, but that's the subject of an article I was thinking of writing (upon suggestion). Please write the article. I would be interested to read that.

My foot collided with my opponent's and the nail on my big toe was torn up at the root. Extremely gross and painful and actually kept me out of training at 100% for a couple years.

I have three points: 1) I agree with the other posters that you need to add resistance. Gradually increasing resistance is the key to muscle hypertrophy. Any rep range between 5 and 12 reps seems to work. Some argue that 6 - 8 is the best rep range for hypertrophy, others will say 10 x 3 (10 sets of 3 reps of your six rep max) and others prefer the 10 -12 rep range. Research rep ranges on the internet and see what you find. 2)Your body resists muscle inballances. It will generally not allow your chest and abs to grow very much unless your upper back (lats), lower back (spinal erectors), shoulders (deltoids), and legs (quads, hamstrings) are growing as well. Which means you have to work your whole body. Sorry. 3)In order for your muscles to grow you need to consume more calories than you are expending. So you need to change your diet until you have a caloric surplus. You also want to be consuming plenty of protein (approx 1 gram per lb of bodyweight is good).

In hundreds of fights I have watched, I have seen the knee vs. takedown defence work twice. I have seen sprawling work hundreds of times. I disagree that grappling skill is not important. Sure, some fights end without a takedown attempt, but most don't. Especially not if your opponent knows you can't grapple. Also, guys with superior grappling skill gain an advantage in striking range due to being able to strike without fear of the takedown. See: Vitor Belfort's punching fluries, Kazushi Sakuraba's high kicks and spinning back kicks, Randy Couture outstriking Liddell in their first match up. Pure strikers have to be cautious and keep their weight under them out of fear of the takedown. That is not a concern for expert grapplers, and they can strike at will. I'm not saying grappling is the only important skill; I'm saying you should train for all ranges of combat. But pure grappling will beat pure striking 9 times out of 10. NOBODY fights professional MMA now without training in all ranges, regardless of his specialty.

Training to not be taken down is called wrestling. The "sprawl and brawl" style of fighting you see strikers like Chuck Liddell, Mirco Filopovic, Maurice Smith, and others use works because of their wrestling skill, particularly in sprawling. Liddell, for example, was a national level wrestler in college, yet he is billed as a "kickboxer." He uses his wrestling skill to allow him to keep the fight standing so he can use his strikes. Also, MMAers these days train for all ranges of combat: free-moving/striking, clinch, and ground. Even those billed simply as "Muay thai" or "kickboxing" train in all these ranges in order to be able to defend themselves in all phases of combat. Do you?

When fighting you, opponents will likely attempt to close the distance and take you down rather than deal with your reach advantage on their feet. Your high centre of gravity and light weight will make you relatively easy to take down. For this reason I reccomend learning grappling (wrestling, BJJ, etc).