Kyle-san

Again, the situation I had posted was in which the instructor had a decent paying second job and was only putting in 5 or 6 hours a week to the martial art instruction, but had huge payoffs as a result. If all the instructor is doing is running a dojo and making his/her money that way, it's not a big deal to me, but then (I've found) the quality of instruction drops as the flow of money increases. In fact, I didn't get my money's worth each month. As a result, I left the club and found a place where I am getting my money's worth. As for the movie theatre analogy, that's completely different than peddling an art on the side for some quick money.

There, I agree with everything in that reply taezee. There are certainly many moves that are unrealistic for any use other than demonstrations, more "flash in the pan" than anything else. The braggars and sunday-artists are, unfortunately, the most common sight in martial arts clubs, but I tend to look past them for the serious ones. Anyway, this statement: is a nice summary of what I've been saying. There is always a difference between direcly attacking without giving warnings or looking for an alternate route and being cautious. I've seen more reckless artists end up hurt than cautious ones.

My Aki-Jujitsu sensei hated to be refered to as "Sensei" unless he had really earned your respect and even then resented the term being applied to him. He was just there to "share the knowledge".

taezee, that was the kind of response I was looking for, much more productive than what you had posted at the beginning of this page. What you say about having a gun, but not necessarily using it is the point I've been making about having the skills as well as the discression not to use them. Any martial art (yeah, even a McDojo/Dojang) can give you skills that will help you in a street fight if you know what they are to be used for. This isn't to say any closet philosopher/martial artist that happens to read a few books or train once a week will be competent for all (maybe most) situations, but there will still be skills there that can be put to use. No training is "useless" or "an illusion" if you really and truely have studied the techniques. Most fighters I know in tournament abandon the traditional stances for something more capable, and I know from the way they've moved and hit they could have a chance on the street. Hell, anyone has a chance on the street. Speaking as someone who's come from bad training at two McDojo's I know it's very hard not to let your ego get the best of you, but when push came to shove my training was enough to get the job done after I had looked for a way out.

Zen in the Martial Arts by Joe Hyams give some wonderful perspectives.

Quite an effective use of stereotypes, but that doesn't have anything to do with discretion in a fight. Care to comment on that, or are you going to keep pushing this faux enlightenment point?

Sure, everyone knows how martial arts originated and the original purpose for them. But, really, how often in a combat situation that takes place on the streets are you looking to kill the person you're fighting against. There's a big difference between people that know how to use discresion when choosing how and if to fight, the people that aren't confident in their training and look to just run away and the people that are just out for a fight and abusing the responsability that comes with training. You, taezee, seem to address the cautious approach with scorn claiming that it'll just get the "enlightened" person a serious beating. Well, what happens to the man that isn't cautious, jumps full-on into the fight without considering other options and ends up seriously harming someone that was only looking at intimidation. Any good martial artist is able to assess the situation they're in and decide on an appropriate response. That's real "enlightenment" in fighting.

A good teacher will give you the abilites to defend yourself and the knowledge of when to do so. There's nothing wrong with running from a fight as a form of self-defence. In fact, it might be preferable to facing whatever police charges that might come with not keeping control of your techniques. Maturity is a large part of training. If all you're doing is looking for a fight, then that training didn't have the proper effect.

Just don't try and show off your martial art, you might get more than you barganed for.

His self-confidence has to be through the roof at the moment, but at some point or another he's going to spar someone that'll have a lot less experience but be able to beat him easily. I'd like to see what becomes of him after that.

Any block that I can lead into a wrist lock.

That sounds like the easiest solution to me.

Those are some outrageous fees, I know I'd never pay that much for instruction. Right now, at the Wing Chun club, I payed $120 for 8 months of instruction, but that was a special student's price. I think the regular is something like $30 or $35 a month. At the Aki Jujitsu club I'm at in the summers I pay $20 a month. Personally, I like the $20 a month idea. It's affordable and I really don't need a giant training hall to learn well anyway.

It depends on the school, really. My instructor didn't use any weapons and, as a result didn't teach it. It's not part of the grading structure (that I'd seen), but I know some clubs taught them on the side.

The best thing I can suggest is to look at the schools in your area, take advantage of "free lesson" offers and determine what you like from there. It's really easy to give you a list of martial arts that are quite good, but they might not be offered in your area or have a teacher you don't want to learn from. Hell, some sound better in words than actually seeing them in motion.

You'll probably be very bored for the first few months of classes. In the ITF club that I was in we learned three kicks (front kick, turning kick, side kick) the basic punch and two or three blocks(?), as well as the first pattern Chon-Ji (if my memory is holding out). Sparring started at the next rank and was pretty slow and easy going. Everyone was pretty cautious unless they had some previous experience. ITF also uses a stripe system in the rankings. White Yellow Stripe Yellow Green Stripe Green Blue Stripe Blue Red Stripe Red Black Stripe Black

Making enough to keep itself open is an entirely different thing than making money for the instructor to live off of. An example I'm fond of is my Aki Jujitsu club; the monthly fee is $20, most of which goes to a fund to get proper mats and other equipment for the club. We work out in a community centre that charges $20 a night for rent, so it's fairly cheap. On the other side of things was the TaeKwon Do club I attended for a few years. The instructor had a job as a teacher during the day and taught TKD for 2-3 hours a night, three nights a week. He had well over a hundred regular students in the club and charged them $35 a pop, got a cut of the testing fees and Black Belt fees ($50 a year 1st degree, $100 a year 2nd degree, $150 a year 3rd degree, etc.). He made enough to pay all his bills and get a new truck just off of the club. That's the kind of business that bugs me.

I'm fine with any instructor if they know what they're talking about and can explain it in a way that I can understand. If they're younger or older than me, it doesn't matter, as long as they can teach. I've had some experience teaching at a young age (when I was 12 I helped teach the white belts in my Karate class, 14 I was teaching white belts in my Taekwon Do class) and all I can say is that you have to be assertive. There will always be people that don't want to listen to what you have to say, but all you can do is stick with what you know and attempt to get the point accross.

It's been habit for me to know what every move in a kata/pattern/hyung/form is when I'm learning it. This goes back to when I first started in martial arts and my Shotokan class would, ever two weeks or so, break up into groups and learn what the moves in the kata were meant for. We then had to demonstrate our understanding of it as a group to the rest of the class. It just makes sense to know what you're doing, then it completely compliments your sparring by, as others have mentioned, teaching you how certian moves can fit together and giving you better balance, power and control.

This is the kind of dojo I was talking about, where the instructor could be very good, but since they're running it as a business, they can't weed out the bad students. I'm pretty against martial arts being a business, but that's just personal opinion and another story.

No problem. Kensai- Traditionally, yes. However I've seen many examples of a good Sensei who's students weren't so much interested in learning as getting their next belt and, as a result, didn't put in the proper effort and messed around a lot.

*Shrug* Through experience I've found that just having a good instructor doesn't make or break a dojo. If the other students are just messing around or don't put any effort into the art or don't care, it really ruins the experience. karatekid1975- I was the one that posted that, you know.

A good, dedicated instructor who's trying to make his or her students the best martial artists possible and not out to make a buck. Students that work hard and make sure noone falls behind. The better your training partners, the better your technique will become.

I say "it's the fighter" more often than not, and I'm all for cross training.

I'm a firm believer in Chi (Ki, Qi, whatever you choose to call it) and have had some first hand experience with it. Once I was at this Tai Chi demonstration and the head instructor was on stage saying he would demonstrate the application of Chi. He looked out into the crowed and picked me out specifically as a volunteer (I hadn't ever seen the guy before and was near the middle of the crowd, but he pointed right at me and asked me to come on stage). This was when I was still in Karate and my technique was quite good. He asked me to punch him as hard as I could in the stomach to demonstrate how Chi could be used defensively. I was hesitant to hit this old man with one of my punches no matter what he said he knew so I threw a lighter one first. He stopped me before I got close and told me to punch again, this time to really do it. I shrugged, focused on my target and threw my hardest punch. It felt like everything was slowing down, especially my punch, and when I hit him he didn't even move. *Shrug* I don't know if he was in excellent condition or was actually using Chi, but I believe what I experienced.