Johnlogic121

I read about a style from India called Kalarirapayat. I hope I am spelling the name of the art correctly. It is an old art taught in Northern India and it a sporting combat form. People who do this art have to prepare themselves for practice by putting on tight trusses to support their softer lower abdominal tissues, because the primary defensive method is to duck from a standing position into a very low squat, and this puts tremendous pressure on the lower back. When fighting with swords, the sparring custom is to touch the ground with the tip of the sword to both alert the opponent that an attack is coming and to also ensure that the attack rises to the opponent from a low angle, which makes ducking more difficult. All the teachers of this art also practice medical adjustments to the spines of their students so that they can keep the students healthy after their lower backs go out of place. The art also has a unique weapon that is a kind of sword which has a wide and thin curved metal blade. The edges of the blade are sharp and it is flexible enough to normally maintain its characteristic curled shape, but when swung at high speed, the metal blade uncurls and elongates to expose its sharp edges at the opponent. Thus, it is hard to judge the fighting range of the weapon and it is only used by advanced practitioners. A picture of this odd weapon would make its design clear but I think I have described it accurately enough. I thimk it could be compared to fighting with a slinky. Has anybody else heard of this interesting martial art? Does anybody know any more about it? Does anybody here do martial arts that orginated in India? Would you be willing to do a martial art if it meant that your lower back would be continually going out of place? How would you think that ducking in this art compares to something like Monkey style boxing, even though they tend to fight with swords? Please add any comments you like, --JL

The spear hand is an attacking hand formation in which the fingers are all held flat with the thumb on the side of the hand. The tip of the middle finger is the primary striking surface, and because all the force of the thursting arm is focused on the small surface area of the fingertip, the spear hand does a lot of damage relative to how hard you thrust it. The primary target is either an eye or the small indentation at the top of the sternum at the base of the windpipe. If you have fully conditioned this striking hand for fighting, then you can actually crush the windpipe with this deadly move. However, it can require a full six years of hand conditioning to perfect the strength of the spear hand so that the fingers do not collapse on impact. Some source say that the middle fingertip should be slightly bent inwards so that an attack that collapses the hand will tend to make the fingers collapse in the natural direction they normally bend, and not against their natural direction. I don't know much about how to condition the spear hand, but I think that doing so is rare today, as most people only have a 25% chance of being in a violent encounter during their lifetime, and the spear hand doesn't have many targets. A thrust with the fully conditioned spear hand into the armpit can be a deadly move, allegedly, and thrusting into the navel of the belly is painful. I really don't think there are any other targets for this hand form than these. Does your style use or teach the spear hand? Often it appears in artistic forms, sometimes at a point where you are imagining that you are reaching inside the other guy's chest to pull out his heart. Not even the fully conditione dspear hand can do this, however, even if you thrust into the solar plexus. Has anybody gotten hurt using one of these? There are other ways of attacking the eyes, such as using spread fingers, but holding the fingers flat together gives them some additional strength against collapsing. Does anyobdy know of any faster ways to develop the spear hand rather than to work on it for six years? -JL

In ancient times, there was a need for bodyguards just as there is a need for bodyguards today. Many bodyguards developed a capcity to fight with flexible weapons so that they could capture an assassin more easily than they could with bare hands. Some of these flexible weapons are things like nets, rope weapons, and things like the Chinese Cord-and-Dart. By capturing an assassin instead of killing him, they could question the individual later by torturing him. Rope weapons include the Ninja weapons of the Kyoketsu-Shoge and the Kusari-Gama. Sometimes the battlefield versions of these Ninja weapons had chains instead of rope. Occassionally, the ropes were made of women's hair or horse's hair braided together. I had the opportunity to study a nine foot rope when I was training in Ninjutsu, and it is a fun weapon to use. Usually you dodge the attacker's punch or parry it with the taut rope and then you loop the rope around his arm and his head. Next you throw him and try to get a loop of the rope around one of his legs. Then you pull the rope and hope you don't give your partner a bad 'indian rope burn' around the neck. Getting entangled with a rope is easily done, but getting out is considerably harder. You can even use a rope weapon to defend against a weapon, and the judical system would probably be fairly amazed at accomplishing defense this way. You would have a high chance of capturing the oppoent but a low chance of really injuring him, so using a rope weapon is good for self-defense. Has anybody else trained in a flexible weapon? Nunchucks are a common flexible weapon, and not everybody knows that you can fold the nunchucks over somebody's wrist and make a painful arm capture to subdue the opponent. A lightweight cord can be folded up inside your pocket easily and should be legal everywhere. Girl Scouts used to learn how to tie a burglar up with just eight inches of cord - they would tie the fingers or thumbs together or something like that (it used to be a merit badge). Flexible weapons really teach how to move spontaneously to control the weapon. Whips take a lot of practice and can kill people. Lengths of chain need to be practiced over and over for proficiency. Japanese policemen used to carry a weapon called a manriki-gusari which was a chain weighted at both ends, and they used this in place of handcuffs. It is also called the "10,000 chain" because of the number of times you have to practice swinging it to keep it under control when making loops and figure eights with it in the air. The hardest part is keeping it under control after you hit something. Does anybody here do flexible weapons? I recommend them because they are fun. -JL

The premise of most jujutsu fighting is to restrain the opponent in some kind of immobilizing hold. The theory is that capturing someone is not only more humane than killing them, but generally that it is easier, too. Wrestling is an ancient art that usually results in a capture, too, even though some wrestling manuevers can break bones or suffocate somebody. My impression is that in modern times it is usually easier to kill somebody than to capture them. In different time periods, people had reservations about killing that were so high that in Napoleonic Warfare most soldiers would intentionally miss the targets they were shooting at because they didn't want to kill anybody. They have done studies of Napoleonic battles and discovered that a thousand bullets were fired for every shot that injured somebody. Nowadays, after the World Wars have introduced the concept of total war, human life is considerably cheaper. What does the forum think about how easy it is to kill rather than to capture? What does this distinction imply about how soldiers should conduct themselves - is it more efficient to seek captives or kill everybody whn you confront them in close quarters combat? Does your martial art emphasize going for a knockout or kill result, or a grappling capture? Is it always more humane and appropriate to go for the capture, or is there a time when killing the attacker is called for? Please feel free to take this discussion wherever your comments lead you. -JL

Many people would agree that the Ultimate Fighting Championship matches on television depict a mode of fighting that is very similiar to what someone might encounter in a streetfight against an assailiant. However, it occurs to me that these bouts might not really be an accurate representation of the kind of pure combat fighting that soldiers do. Soldiers would probably use eye gouge attacks more readily than they would use a jab to the nose or a right cross to the chin, and they would probably make use of the front kick to the groin as a principal fighting weapon. In the UFC, these moves are illegal for obvious safety reasons. If the UFC permitted full power kicks to the groin, the whole sport might become very boring as one fighter after another got tagged with the groin shot and became unable to continue the fight. The UFC also makes hitting the back of the head illegal, but soldiers would likely do this at every opportunity to cause the easy knockout that would result from attacking the top of someone's spine. Because of these and other reasons, I think we could only see pure combat on television if they filmed a true "Death match" tournament between skilled fighters who are willing to possibly get permanantly maimed in the process of killing the other guy. Such fights would be instructive for the military, but they would be as barbaric as Roman gladitorial contests fought to the death. Thus, I don't think we will ever see 'pure combat' on television even though we can specualte to some limited degree about what a lethal martial arts engagement would truly be like. If you are discounting eye gouges and full groin kicks, then you are introducing artificial limitations that result from psychological barriars. Honestly, I don't support the notion that we should introduce 'Blood Sports' that would have people killing each other for spectator pleasure. But don't other people agree that the rules limitations of the UFC make it just another sporting contest, albeit a brutal one? -JL

I was thinking about various sports stars the other day and I wondered what conventional sporting activity would make a good fighter if the person were not a trained martial artist but only had to rely on the physical fitness they developed as an athlete for defense. Football, basketball, and soccar came to my mind. I think a soccar player would have good cardiovascular endurance, but most of their strength would be in their legs. A basketball player has good agility and coordination and they also run like soccar players do. Football players, however, practice tackling each other and learn to ignore being hit hard. Football players are used to resting in between plays though, so they aren't conditioned for continuous activity. Suppose you were facing one of these types of athletes in a bar room brawl scenario. The individual you are facing is not a martial artist, but is really physically fit from their sport. Who would you rather face and why? Suppose we also consider baseball, but without the baseball bats. How would a non-martial artist baseball player fare against the others? What are some other sports that might prepare someone physically for a fight without necessarily building martial arts skills? Would cross-training in some or all of these sports benefit the martial artist? Please share whatever comments these ideas provoke in you. -JL

The practice of making a powerful shout during a fight is common in Chinese martial arts as well as Japanese martial arts. In my instruction in Japanese martial arts, most instructors asserted that the sound of the shout doesn't matter. I had one teacher who said you could shout "Yah!" or shout "Pizza!" and it would achieve the same effect. In my instruction in Chinese martial arts, however, the specific sound was considered very significant, especially during the execution of forms. The way it was explained to me is that different sounds require the lungs and diaphram to contract in different ways. Thus, certain sounds for a shout are more appropriate than others at certain times for different purposes. Some sounds use the air on the top of the lungs and some other sounds expel air from the entire chest cavity. Consequently, there are breathing secrets in Chinese martial arts that are encapsulated in the sounds your instructor teaches you, and you don't need to understand the complex anatomy to use the right sound for the right situation, you just need the proper instruction. Japanese sounds like "Hai," "Yah," or "Toh" are associated with attacking, victory, and defense in Ninjutsu but Chinese arts get more elaborate in the variety of sounds used. Can anybody give an example of how they would spell the words they yell in their Chinese martial art? Does anybody know the Mandarin word that corresponds to the Japanese word "kiah?" (shout?) Has anybody heard of health imbalances that can occur from repeatedly using the wrong word for a shout during a therapuetic form? Does anybody feel that yelling "Pizza" is perfectly fine, and that refinement of the word used is unnecessary? Thanks in advance for the time it takes to type your input. -JL

Dogs like rottweiliers and pittbulls are so aggressive and vicious that they sometimes even go crazy and attack their own owners. Little dogs like chihuahuas can even get so anxious and excited that they will try to bite. The medical term for a animal bite is called an "avulsion wound," and these can be very painful and in some cases even deadly. Military attack dogs, for example, can leap up in the air and bite someone's throat. If given a different command, they will latch onto someone's wrist or hand and immobilize that person while the dog's trainer and partner does something else, like ready a revolver. Ordinary dogs will commonly bite at the genitals, because that is a target that they can reach and latch onto with their jaws. To defend against attacking dogs, particularly a large number of them, you might try this approach. Kneel on the ground and curl your body up into a ball so that your forearms cover your ears and your hands are folded together tightly over the back of your neck. With your head down in this position, it minimizes the surfaces that the dogs can really bite onto, and since you are obviously surrendering, the person controlling the dogs might call them off. Other than this, your best option is to feed them sausages! This takes out dogs everytime. I have heard that running is normally not advisable, since a dog's natural instincts are such that it loves to chase, and most dogs can catch a runner. If you do run, however, the heels of your feet can hit the dog in the nose or chin and thus discourage the animal from chasing you. If you stand and fight by kicking low kicks at the dog, it might get by your defense and bite your genitals, but you could possibly hit it in the nose and make it run in pain. Hitting a pitbull in the nose might make the animal outraged, however, so I would prefer to throw sausages. Does anybody else have any ideas for dealing with dog attacks? Encountering a dog that has been trained to kill is uncommon outside of certain areas of the military, but many people have pets that are potential biters. Does anyone know the legal repercussions in the United States if you defend yourself against a dog bite by kicking the pet dog until you kill the owner's animal? Does anybody have any stories about facing a dog? Thanks, -JL

In Mang Chaun Kung Fu, there were about 120 short forms called "letter forms." These were sets that had about ten moves each, combining striking and blocking with the hands. When we practiced these, we would stand facing a vertical posterboard that had a drawing associated with the letter form sketched on it. The visual image helps you remember the form. When you execute the movements, you use your hands to "paint" the lines of the visual image in the air like you are doing calligraphy. Certain letter forms are more effective in sparring than other letter forms, and each has associations of offense and defense with other letter forms. People who knew about thirty of these forms could mentally decide to shift into a certain one of these letter forms during a fight and then they had a few seconds to let their arms "do the fighting for them" as they run through the reflex of the sequences and decide what to do next. It was a kind of simplification to ordinary boxing, but you might almost classify it as a form of "temple boxing" because the assumption is that the other guy will also be trying to apply some of these letter forms in his fighting as well, and normally only the group you train with has those forms in their arsenal. When people spar this way, you do occassionally see unnecessary movements, but if somebody picks a letter form that fights well against the letter form that the opponent picked, you see a clash of hits fall all over the body of the person who picked the weaker choice. Learning and remembering these forms is easy when you follow a diagram, and the concept is very interesting because it gives you a little bunch of movements together in a small set. When you get advanced, you can "paint" the movements of the form sideways or upside-down or in another kind of order rather than the basic sequence, and this makes it more difficult to judge what letter form the other guy is using. Under regimented sparring rules with these forms, you tend to use speed and rush fast to get through the current form you are using before you apply the next one, but if you were applying these movements in a real fight your could naturally skip movements as the circumstances demanded. Has anybody else heard of letter forms? Does any other style practice them? Thanks in advance, -JL

I read that about 75% of Americans resist the urge to drink alcohol daily. Not only that, but if kids under age fifteen start drinking, there is a very high chance that they will become alcoholics. In Ninjutsu and Montgomery Style Karate, the tradition is that you can drink a single alcoholic beverage if you are in bereavement. For those of us who can't keep it to a single beverage when they drink, they are encouraged to remain totally sober. This seems to be a workable system because it limits drinking behavior to a low level and makes it associated with grieving, so it is not a celebratory occassion. Naturally, a zero tolerance policy for illegal drug use is part of full sobriety. Does your dojo have a policy on alcohol use? Schools that teach kids might warn kids about the dangers, but it would be very rare for eight-year olds to throw back some Jim Beam on a Saturday night. In schools that teach adults, however, newcomers to the school might need some support from friends or even alcoholics anonymous to quit drinking. How do you deal with a student who can't control their drinking conduct? Is the only option expulsion from the school to prevent the sutdent from learning anything that would hurt somebody if he got drunk? Are there some milder solutions? Thanks in advance, -JL

Some martial artists really pursue a strong policy of avoiding bloodshed. They may still get into fights, but when they do, they explicitly avoid techniques that have a chance of causing the opponent to bleed. For example, punching the nose could cause a nosebleed, or punching the mouth could cause a cut lip, or punching the eyebrow could cause blood to flow by the eye. The main rationale for avoiding techniques like these that can cause blood flow is simple. The population has a large number of people who suffer from blod bourne diseases like HIV or hepetitis, and you don't want to win a battle against sombody but "lose the war" by becoming infected by something in that person's bloodstream. The knuckles are a very hard part of the body, but abrasions on the knuckles can bleed if you strike somebody in the face or head, and thus the blood they have from their wounds can get into the wounds on your knuckles. Some people even avoid using a hammerfist against the radial nerve on the top of the forearm by the crease in the inside of elbow joint because a drug user could have a broken needle still inside his arm in that area, and if you hammerfist him there, you might get a prick that could be dangerous. Does anybody have any comments about this phenomenon? Does anybody have any similiar tips for safety? Thanks, --JL

There is a book called "The Relaxation Response" which talks about scientific studies of half a dozen meditation techniques and their effectiveness at eliciting relaxation. Not all meditation techniques involve freeing your mind of thoughts and keeping your mind so clear that you never even think of thinking. That form of meditation is common in Zen Buddhism, but Transcendental Meditation is a form in which you train the attention aspect of consciousness to "let go" of all thoughts that come into it and thus you relax the concentration of ordinary consciousness until subconscious material floats in. When subconscious material comes up to the surface, you acknowledge it, but you also let these thoughts go and allow more thoughts to enter freely like sets of clouds floating across the sky. This method is similar to the method Salvidor Dali used to come up with his curious paintings. As for the Void, there are references to it in some of the books by Glenn Morris, who wrote "Pathnotes of an American Ninja Master" and various other works like "Shadow Strategies." My impression from his writings is that the Void is a kind of dreamscape that you can enter when you are asleep and sometimes you can experience shared dreaming with other people who are there. Working on lucid dreaming is considered important in Mikko Buddhism, because they believe that dreams are either the same as or similiar to the afterlife. Thus, you want to learn during this life how to have a free consciousness that can effect the environment during dreams so that you can be safe from nightmares in that belief system. Hope this helps. - JL

Please let me clarify my original message posting. I did not mean to imply that people should consider various ranges. Talking about what combat range is the most desirable range amongst the others would be a message thread onto itself, as some people prefer long range and some people prefer close range fighting. However, I am trying to gather perspectives on what the most powerful technique category is. If you could move to any range that you wanted to be in, what type of techniques would you prefer to use? If somebody was creating a new martial art, what category of techniques should be their primary focus? My opinion is that punching with the hands or striking with the hands is relatively stronger than anything else, even though you have to use everything else from time to time. I consider grappling and groundfighting to be weaker than throwing, even though throwing can be a lead to wrestling on the ground. I feel punches and hand strikes are generally stronger than kicks, when you consider how long it takes to develop good kicking ability and think of how much easier it is to land a strike with a punch rather than a kick. I hope these comments let people know what I was trying to get at. Thanks, -JL

I saw an article claim once that the very first weapon that everybody studies should be the Bo staff. The justifications for this was that the footwork positions for Bo staff would create a positive learning transfer for learning all other weapons. Learning rifles and revolvers is a little unique, but most melee weapons either swing or thrust if they aren't thrown. Does anybody know of any good sequences for study basic forms of weapons, so that the skills you learn with one weapon pass reasonably well to the other weapons you study? A really well rounded student of medieval weaponry might study fifty-four different sorts of weapon tools. In former times, Knightly orders had systems for combat that had similiar positions for distinct weapons so that learning how to use everything was easier. Thus, you could use a short sword against someone in leather armor, or an axe against someone wearing chain, or a mace against someone wearing plate mail armor and the basic swing would utilize the same muscles and the basic stances would be similiar postures. How well does knowing one weapon transfer to others? Does it depend on the specific weapon itself? Unarmed combat usually has mores moves than a single weapon, but with over fifty weapons to study, you could study medieval fighting for years. Where should somebody start with weapons training for best results - is the Bo really the best place to start?

I read an article about ten years ago that introduced a concept called "reality sparring." The goal of this form of sparring is to simulate conditions as close as possible to a real life-threatening encounter. To legally engage in reality sparring, you have to prepare by having one thousand hours of class time. This preparation period is to ensure that you have had an opportunity to develop good defensive skills. If you have trained for a thousand hours, then you can do reality sparring for one minute. This is the most intense type of full contact sparring availible, and it is really close to a street fight in everything except duration. Because it is done so infrequently, and with a thousand hours of preparation, people generally defend themselves very well and injuries are not as common as one might expect. No gear is used, so you really have to protect yourself. In the worst case scenario, your instructor can beat you so badly with one or two or three shots that before he has a chance to stop attacking you are headed for a hospital. The people who do this type of exercise say that the rigor is very valuable. What do people think of this practice? Would you be willing to train for a thousand hours just to face your instructor for one minute? What if your dojo friends had a grudge against you, and taught you badly? What if you worked really hard for a thousand hours but didn't do very well? Tanks for your replies, -JL

When I was doing Kung Fu, our instructor expected that we would do at least as much work ouside of class as we did inside of class. Also, he would show different things to different people with the understanding that we would get together outside of class and share those things with each other. Two of my friends showed me two different "endurance forms" that our Sifu taught on a night when I couldn't make it to class for some reason. I no longer recall the names of these forms, but if you do them regularly, they can be very helpful for building up muscles. Endurance form one: Stand in a front stance, or alternatively, in a hourglass stance. Curl the wrists of each hand upwards so that you can execute palm heel strikes with each hand and hold the arms ready at the sides a little higher than the hips. Step one: Thrust the right palm heel to the point of maximum extension as though you are striking a foe in the chest, and then retract the right hand. Step two: Thrust the left hand to the point of maximum extension as though you are striking a foe in the chest, and then retract the left hand. Step three: Thrust both hands to the point of maximum extension as though you are making a double palm heel press to the opponent's chest, and then retract both hands. After this, you repeat the steps many, amny times until you are tired. These attacks are actually strikes from the Puma Animal system and you should visualize the front paws and rear paws of the "Puma" pouncing onto your target. This three step sequence is often used together to unbalance and throw somebody by pushing them off balance backwards. Endurance form two: You make fists and hold your two fists in a vertical position on the left side of your body so that the right arm in crossing your body horizontally and the left elbow is tucked into your side with the left forearm angled outwards. You move the arms to form the mirror image position on the right side of the body. Then, you move the arms back over to the left. You repeat this process many, many times. Doing this works muscles in your back as well as your chest. When you get advanced at this, you can stand back to back with someone and pass heavy clay jugs that have two handles on them back and forth, going around your two bodies in a circle. Does anybody know of any other forms that are explicitly classified as endurance forms?

I had an experience today in which I encountered a man at a McDonald's restaurant. He struck up a conversation while we were getting our food, so we sat together to eat our meals. I'm usually sociable, so eating with a stranger is normal for me. However, as we talked, it not only turned out that this guy was a single homosexual, which doesn't bother me too badly, but it turned out that this guy was clearly schizophrenic. He had delusions that were so bad that he told me he wanted to buy an aircraft carrier and start taking people to the moon on a school bus that was modified with rocket engines. Cautiously, I only made about ten percent verbal resistance to his outlandish ideas and I studied him carefully as we talked. I tried to project a totally calm demeanor and I avoided saying or doing anything that would have made him frightened, excited, or angry. I just projected a compassionate and friendly exterior as his stories got more and more wild. Finally, I said I had to meet my wife in about fifteen minutes and I politely excused myself after exchanging names with the man as though everything were perfectly normal. He seemed happy by the way I dealt with him and didn't show any signs of wanting a fight, even though I was worried that something like that might happen. How would other people have dealt with this situation? Have you ever met a truly insane preson before? Would talking to such a person make you afraid? What could I have done if he started to become hostile? Thanks, -JL.

I thought that this topic might make an interesting thread. We have many karate practitioners who look through these forums. What I would like people to do is to state their style and list the names of the stances that are in that style. Translating the stance names from Japanese or Okinawon to English would be helpful, and giving some description of what the stances look like would be helpful to people who are unfamiliar with them. My curiosity on this issue is motivated by a suspicion that many styles of karate share the classic stances in common, and the degree to which this is true is interesting to me. I expect that most styles have at least five stances, but some may have fewer or more. The style in which I am a Grandmaster, Montgomery Style Karate, primarily uses a front stance but a side stance is sometimes used. I offered students some additional stances in a footwork document so students could identify them when meeting other karate practitioners, such as the cat stance, crane stance, and horse stance. How many different kinds of stances can we name? - JL

I am given to understand that there are actually hundreds of styles of jujutsu. Brazilian jujutsu orginated in Japan under another name but was expanded and popularized by the Gracie family. Japense jujutsu has been around for hundreds of years. Essentially, jujutsu training methods practice specific training techniques in short two-man forms that involve a certain attack or attacking sequence and an effective counter as a defense. The degree of improvization used by jujutsu styles varies, as some styles try to have a prearranged technique for everything and other styles try to teach general principles that can be broken down and linked together. American Kempo resembles this definition of a jujutsu system, as does Bujinkan Ninjutsu. Karate training, conversely, tends to involve solo repetition of basic strikes and blocks and forms and practice with a partner is usually secondary. Chuck Norris, however, trained in a Tang Soo Do school that have people working together in blocking drills for 80% of the total class time. My question is simple. How many styles of jujutsu can the forum name? Can everybody give a little background detail about each one? People respond to this fourm from all over the world, so knowing what country the jujutsu style comes from would be intersting as well. Thanks in advance for your time. -JL

One of the best books I have found on Western Philosophy is called "The Story of Philosophy" by Will Durant. Will Durant was a historian who wrote a ten volume set on the history of the world with the help of his wife, but his real passion appears to have been philosophy. His book is filled with simple and engaging descriptions of the work of about fifteen of the world's major philosophers. Philosophy of the martial arts, however, is a little bit more obscure to research. Aikido dojos tend to spend a little bit of time each week discussing these issues during class in a kind of informal lecture format, but most martial artists get far less exposure to martial arts philosophy ideas. People usually research a lot of that stuff outside of class or recite a dojo creed that emphasizes nonviolence and loyalty to your country and stuff like that. Having some bit of a philosophical attitude can discourage fights, however. Does anybody know of any good martial art philosophy literature? How does it connect with larger philosophical movements, like Daoist philosophy or Buddhist philosophy? Do you feel a desire for more philosophical teachings in your current martial arts curriculum? Would some kind of philosophical content on the Ultimate Fighting Championship television show help the fighters be better rolemodels for kids? Does anybody feel that Western Philosophy is dead, except in academia? -JL

Some grappling systems teach as many as seven hundred and fifty graplling positions while other systems teach as few as ten. Judo, Wrestling, and Brazilian Jujutsu are popular styles that emphsize groundfighting moreso than contemporary karate, Ninjutsu or Aikido, even though Aikido and Ninjutsu have a lot of ground immobilizations (they try to remain standing when they get the prone foe into a joint lock). My question is this: how many holds or grappling restraints should the average fighter need to be comfortable with his success? I suppose that most martial artists will continue training throughout their career as martial artists, learning new moves. But suppose you dedicated only five or ten years of your life to martial arts hobbies and were looking for "just enough" grappling rather than specialization or overkill. How much grappling is just enough? The core holds and restraints are about a dozen in number, but since people usually train in both offense to make the holds and defense to break and reverse the holds, more might be good. How many grappling holds does the average Jeet Kune Do player need? -JL

I read that Shotokan, Gichin Funakoshi's own style, uses four basic types of kicking manuevers. Funakoshi is called the "Father of Modern Karate" so his system has had a major influence. In Tae Kwon Do, on the other hand, there are about fourteen kicks, and each can be executed wih a hop, a spin, or a leap. Tae Kwon Do stylists are also famous for intricate kickng combinations where they sometimes spin a total of 540 degrees, or 360 degrees plus another 180, when delivering three of more kicks to the opponent. Some or their kicking combinations are totally aerial, such as leaping in the air and executing a roundhouse kick followed by a spinning sidekick before landing on the ground. Most folks would agree that versatality is a good thing, but training kicks can take longer than training a lot of other things. The basic flexibility to kick to the head in multiple ways can take nine months to develop. Shotokan people tend to feel that their kicks are sufficient in number. The Tae Kwon Do kicking specialists explicitly focus on that aspect of fighting, however, and thus they naturally have almost every conceivable kicking manuever possible. Suppose you are training like a Jeet Kune Do practitioner. How many kicks do you need? -JL

People do things like aerobics in various forms for cardiovascular training and running and swimming for endurance. There are also classes that incorporate martial arts movements into an aerobic workout, like cardio kickboxing and the "Tae Bo" system of exercises. What do people find to be the best thing for cardiovascular improvement? Aerobics was orginally called "Cooper" training when it was developed by the Air Force back in the 1950s, and it is good at cardiovascular development. Running, however, burns more fat per minute than any other form of exercise. Does anybody have any experience with both where they could recommend either aerobics or running? Running can be hard on joints in the long term, and aerobics can be done for a longer duration at lower intensity. Muscular endurance isn't quite the same as cardiovasular fitness and swimming and racquetball are said to be superb for building endurance. Muscular endurance requires that the muscles be resistant to the buildup of lactic acid that occurs during muscular contraction. Would anybody recommend cardio kickboxing or Tae Bo as good complements to their martial art, in the sense that it helps martial art performance while building you up physically? Has anybody got any other tips for cardiovascular fitness besides aerobics and running? --JL

Suppose you got into a situation in which you really had to use martial arts to defend yourself against multiple attackers and the only possible way out seems to be to strike rapidly and forcefully with everything you have until you literally kill all the guys attacking you. I am supposing that this is truly genuine self-defense, of coarse, and not just a bar fight in which you start going berserk and commit manslaughter on everybody. Suppose you have to take out three guys. How many strikes is lethal? Also, how long would it take in seconds to execute that number of strikes? For the purposes of this question, let's suppose that you can engage each person individually and no grappling holds or throws are involved that might take precious minutes to lock on before they can obtain a submission (which really doesn't achieve a lethal result, anyway, and which would release the foe when you let go of him to move onto someone else.) I would predict that ten strikes in five seconds would normally be lethal for most people, but I would expect that a really skilled person could do it in four seconds with eight strikes. What do you guys and gals think?

I think that getting together for group activites with people from the workplace is generally a good idea. However, I think that something like a cooperative team sport like bowling might be a better forum for mutual friendliness than martial arts. I used to work as a computer software developer in a company where we discussed the idea of joining a bowling league. However, if we would have done a martial arts program, several of the company's personalities would have probably come into conflict. I don't want to speculate and name names, but I can imagine that most of the engineering team would have tried extra hard to beat up the lead salesman who was the brother of the company's boss... He would always pass on information late and generally goof off all of the time and people despised him. Our big boss also had the kind of personality where he wanted you to play competitive at things like company volleyball during our yearly picnic, but he would really hate you and your coworkers if he was on the team that lost the game. Giving him a sidekick to the head would be a pleasure, but you might hear about it the next day in other ways. Having to let the boss win is a drag. -JL