Johnlogic121

Carjacking scenarios are a valid area of study for the martial artist. I used to train with a man named Dick Severance who put out some videos on th subject of defensing against a carjacking attemtp, but I think those videos might be rare to find nowadays. In many of those videos, one of my former instructors, Karl Koch, would act in the role of the carjacker and he would often get slammed in the door jam as a regular defense. Different variations on the scenario used simulated knives and guns to expediate the carjacking. Dick had a background in the military's Underwater Demolition Teams before the UDTs were reorganized as Navy Seals, so his stuff was pretty good and he was an excellant teacher. Carjackings are pretty common, relatively speaking. What does the forum think about thier odds of surviving a carjacking attempt, with their car intact (almost anybody can survive by surrendering their keys)? Does anybody have any experience with training on techniques where you are in the driver's seat when such an assault happens? Has anybody ever been carjacked before? Can anybody give some sound advice or good specualtions about how to defend against this sort of thing from the driver's seat? Thanks in advance for your replies.

A person's diet can help them or hurt them in ways that nothing else can. You can try to compensate for a poor diet, but the better option is to improve a poor diet, since compensating for vitamen deficiencys or too many meals from McDonald's is hard in the long run. Does anybody have any good suggestions for diet improvements? I believe that the USDA requirements are a good guideline (you can see the food pyramid on the web by searching under Google). I think taking a multivitamen is also essential. One book I read recommended a diet called a macrobiotic diet, but the details are not easy to research. I generally try to follow a kind of South Beach Diet, and it has some good results. My Dad lost 67 pounds on the Adkins Diet, but later found research that discouraged the Adkins diet because it can lead to health problems; apparently, Adkins died of his own diet(!). Cutting out soft drinks and candy bars is an excellant way to lose surplus weight. Does anybody else have any good suggestions, or even some good recipes they could share? Thanks in advance for your replies.

The Samurai of Japan cultivated their combat effectiveness to a very high degree. Meditation was among one of their practices. The "tea ceremony" meditation was a kind of way to escape from the world, sort of like how we Americans will go out to the movies for a while to escape from reality for a while. During the tea ceremony, you were only allowed to talk about how good the tea tasted and think the most serene and tranquil of thoughts. Other types of meditation cultivated the mind of "mushin" or 'emptiness' that is experienced by certain swordsmen before they have the inspiration to mkae a killing and life saving stroke with the sword. Today, various types of meditation exist, from progressive relaxation to classical Zen Buddhist meditation. Does the forum feel that these practices still have value for martial artists who are getting ready for combat survival, or is this a relic of the past? How many of you meditate for personal enrichment or cultivation of Enlightenment? Is the time required for basic meditation worth the effort in the modern busy world? Eastern gurus say that computer programming is a powerful form of deep meditation nowadays, since the concentration required is supreme. Has anybody had experiences with meditation that they could say have helped them as a martial artist?

Years ago, I saw an episode of wrestling in which one of the wrstlers explained that he would typically pick four physical exercises to focus on for a certain part of his training regimen and then associate those four exercises with the suits from a deck of cards (spades, diamonds, clubs, and hearts). Then his coach would draw a card from a shuffled deck of cards and he would execute a number of repetitons for the associated exercise that matched the rank of the card (Jacks are 11, Queens are 12, Kings are 13, Aces are 14). In this way, the workouts had the same total number of repetitions, but the workouts were randomized so that you only had a 1 in 4 chance of doing the same exercise twice in a row for a certain number of repetitions; although you could possibly do that if the cards came up that way. What do people think of incoporating this idea into their workouts? You could pick four martial art techniques and have the class leader 'draw a card' to decide what you do next. I have even experimented with writing computer programs in the BASIC computer programming language that randomly produce lists of twenty techniques for shadowboxing practice, and then when I get through the list, I can press the space bar to get twenty more and go as long as I want. The program is so simple anybody could write it. What do people think of using the computer for randomized workouts?

Years ago when I was studying Isshinryu, one of the first arts that I studied, someone in my dojo went to a tournament and got to see a great martial artist preforming a Bullwhip kata. There are stuntmen in Hollywood who have perfected Bullwhip technique for special movie scenes, and the Bullwhip is a very difficult weapon requiring much practice. You can injure yourself if you are not careful and the end of the Bullwhip moves at 200 miles an hour, actually 'cracking' in the air with a lot of destructive force. The top performers with Bullwhip can do things like safely crack the whip against the cigarette in a person's mouth while riding by on horseback, but this is extreme indeed. Has anybody seen anything like this, or perhaps another exotic weapon not normally seen in martial arts? I have seen 'cord and dart' on television. The cord is about 22 feet long and the iron dart is thrown repeatedly and retracted from its full length. The practitioner coils the cord around his body and throws the dart in any direction in a 360 degree radius towards somebody's eyes, and whn he wraps the cord around himself, he catches the dart and throws it again. Anybody else seen exotics like these or different from these?

I have heard that gun disarms are only fifty percent effective when used by martial artists who are experts in the gun disarm techniques. After all, the gunman has to only move one finger while the martial artist has to move his whole body! Can anybody verify this? Furthermore, if the gunman is smart, he will brace the gun against his body so that his arms aren't extended and he will stand ten feet away from the martial artist (or potential martial artist) to discourage a disarm attempt. Some martial artists can leap eight feet, but not all of them can. What would you estimate your defensive chances to be against a gunman? Statistics suggest that you should remain calm and talk your way through a mugging encounter and give the mugger your wallet, as this generally results in nobody getting physically hurt even thouhg you lose your money. But if the gunman asks you to kneel with your back to him, he is probably going to shoot you in the back of the head. What are the forum's comments about defense in this common but desparate sort of situation? Thanks in advance for your commentary.

The people who use these fourms have pretty good backgrounds in the martial arts. Everybody seems to augment their basic martial arts skills with some purely physical training exercises for strength, cardiovascular efficiency, and flexibility. Could we debate the ideal ratio between pure physical training and trainng that emphasizes martial arts techniques? I have heard that boxers spend five and half to six hours a day training for thirty days prior to a match, but only thirty-five minutes of this daily training is on punching a heavy bag typically, as the rest of the time is spent on running, jumping rope, and sparring (which doe help with punching in a different way than heavy bag work). Essentially, one-third of a boxer's time is spent on punching, evidently (can anybody verfiy this?) What is the ratio that other people use between purely physical training and training on martial arts techniques? Bruce Lee used to work out 15 hours a day at the peak of his training, and this included thousands of technique repetitions over a period of hours. What's the right balance?

Suppose that someone interested in the martial arts prepares for years of study in a variety of arts similiar to the theory espoused by those who practice Jeet Kune Do. People say that in a desparate situation you can regress mentally back to the earliest "core" of your training regimen. In other words, if you have been training for a year and find yourself in a fight with your back really against the wall, you might start to instinctively rely on the things you learned in the first eight weeks. Some Kung Fu programs deliberately structure their teachings around this concept, having you do things like a "lower arm crane hook" where you temporarily catch a blow to the lower abdomen and trap it thousands of times before you work on a short arm wrist twist technique that would be one step more advanced. When you are stressed to the max, you would tend to go for the simpler basic technique rather than the advanced form. Considering this principle as true, what would be the best foundational training for a combat ready martial artist before moving on to other styles? Should you do grappling for the first three years before doing striking, or would a base exposure to striking be preferred? Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo, felt that a certain degree of mastery of Judo throwing techniques was a prerequisite to groundfighting grappling, becuase too much groundfighting early on meant that throwing would probably never be mastered due to a kind of mental block. What do you guys think if the best foundational training for the first three years of a ten year long martial arts training program? Thanks, -johnlogic121.

Aside from doing martial art techniques, martial artists often rely on pure physical training to reach their goals. Workouts that are based on other types of exercise than pure martial arts can be very beneficial. Here are some basic workout types and health practices: Strength training - bodybuilding with machines, free weights, and calisthenics Flexibility training - Stretching or Yoga Cardiovascular training - various forms Mental training - meditation or religious practices Sport training - participation in a therapeutic sport activity Diet training - cooking and eating Sleep - regular times Sex - not too much or not enough Can anybody add to this list with details about any practices that might be unclear? Thanks in advance for your reply.

I'm thinking of expanding my workout routines into something that emphasizes cardiovascular training a bit more. I have read that the first research into Aerobic exercise came out of the 1950s when the U.S. Air Force tried to learn how to expand cardiovascular fitness for air force pilots who tended to black out during high gravity manuevers. Black Belt magazine featured a style called "Protectorcize" in one of its articles. Protectorcize was based on the idea that you can have a martial arts workout based on about ten karate drills, and by repeating the movements thousands of times, you build up basic defensive skills while getting the aerobic training benefit. Taebo is a modern program that utilizes the same concept, but I have heard that some of the high kicks in Taebo can give chronic repetitive motion injuries if you get so tired during the exercise that you do those high kicks with poor form or bad hip placement or foot pivting. Also, Cardio Kickboxing has emerged as a sport and exercise regimen that incorporates kickboxing routines into an aerobic workout. Does anybody have any good ideas for simple drills that can be done for Aerobic Karate Drill Training?

If you are familiar with "Rush" music, you know that it inspires a mood in which the body is at a low state of arousal and the mind is at a very high state of arousal. "Rave" music, on the other hand, puts the body into a high state of arousal and the mind goes into a low state of arousal like the brain is sedated. Working out to these different rythyms can be a mind expanding experience. Physiologically, there is a certain arousal level for the limbic system and the body and a related system for the cerebral cortex. When the body is in a low state of arousal, the mind can be very active, and when the mind is in a low state of arousal, the body can be very hyper and agitated. The "Rush" and "Rave" music formats are polar opposites and there are many levels in between, like "Industrial" music which is a step below raving. For fighting, you need a mixture of high body energy through the muscular system (limbic system) and enough thinking ability in the cerebral cortex to guide your moves wisely. Does anybody have any good bands they can recommend for experimentation with music backgrounds for workouts?

The popular wrestling matches on television fascinate me, whether they are the WWF Wrestlers or the guys from the RAW group. Documentaries I have seen on the subject of professional wrestling insist that the sport is realistic enough to cause serious injuries to its participants, even though they try to fake enough of the action so that they can put on a good show without killing each other. Clearly, these guys are good bodybuilders, and they all have great gross motor coordination to be able to do some of the athletics they possess. My question is this: How well do you think that a regular WWF Wrestler could really fight against a trained martial artist? Some personalities might do better than others, so please tell me how your favorite Wrestler would do agaisnt somebody who was, for example, a fifth degree black belt. What about a ten degree black belt opponent for a WWF Wrestler - could a Professional Wrestler beat a Martial Arts Grandmaster? I am presuming a street fight engagement outside of ring rules with no referee or judges. Thanks in advance for your reply.

They say that the human brain can withstand total oxygen deprivation for three to five minutes. Some Judo chokes, executed from either a standing postion or a ground fighting position, "seal the vein" to stop blood flow to the brain rather than seal the airway. A good choke is hard to bypass as "just nothing" when you are struggling with someone. Because it takes so long to make sure someone you are choking is dead, I don't think the move would be favored by soldiers, unless they choked someone until they were stunned and then beat them to death by other means. Occassionally, you can seriously endanger your training partner when practicing choking, too. My father read an article about a Judo practitioner who was Judo wrestling with his father, another Judo practitioner, and he maintained a choke so long that his father never woke up. What does the forum think about the self-defense and combative value of choking attacks? I see what looks like some choking attempts in the UFC fights, and it seems to have a valid place as a submission hold in tournament fighting. I don't think alot of Karate schools train on choking as a regular move. Kung Fu has a "butterfly choke" which is a two-handed choke that uses the thumbs to attack the windpipe, and it can be lethal. Kung Fu also uses a lot of single hand chokes to the throat that turn into claw attacks against the windpipe. Aside from attacking the windpipe, hoever, does anybody have real fighting experience with choking or being choked?

I read an autobiography of Chuck Norris. Tang Soo Do was evidently his style. His teacher emphasized blocking drills to an extent that the classes did them for 80% of the total practice time. Of coarse, when you are doing a blocking drill, your partner is also practicing a good attack, so you get good offensive skills at the same time. Chuck Norris was really popular in the seventies around the time of Bruce Lee and held the World Karate Chamionship title for five consecutive years. He had a hard workout routine that he would practice for three hours every day to stay fit enough to beat his competitiors. I have heard that Tang Soo Do incorporates some "soft blocking" moves from Chinese styles into its syllabus. Tang Soo Do will probably emphasize kicking attacks to the head more than Shotokan. I've been told that Shotokan is about 90% offensive in nature, but you would know more about this than I would, as you have experience with Shotokan whereas I'm going on what I've been told. Tang Soo Do blocking will probably be far different than the Shotokan blocking system. Tang Soo Do will probably offer a wider degree of kicking variations and have a bigger ratio of kicks to punches in its offensive patterns. I don't know much about Shotokan, other than that Shotokan was the style of master Gichin Funakoshi, the "Father of Modern Karate." Since it is a Korean style, I think they use a different word than "kata" to describe their forms, but it means the same thing ('poomse'='kata'='form'). I wish you good luck with Tang Soo Do. If it is the only style offerred in your area, you don't have many choices, but even if you had some alternatives, it will probably be a good place to learn some esteemable fighting skills.

Hello, I have done a little research into Tae Kwon Do ad I am given to understand that it is a compilation of perhaps as many as nine or ten Korean styles. Furthermore, I have an impression that Korea has more native martial arts than these which went into TKD. I have compiled a partial list of martial arts below that are associated with Korea. Can anybody help me add to this list, and help me differentiate which ones contributed to Tae Kwon Do? Thanks in advance. Tae Kyon - an ancient style, 2,000 years old, related to the three kingdoms period Kuk Sool Won - a style with a high variety of forms, compared to Kung Fu Tae Kwon Do - the modern kicking art with a World TKD Federation and an International TKD Federation Tang Soo Do - incorporates soft blocking from a major Chinese style Others...???

Suppose you go to kick someone in the head, perhaps with a roundhouse kick or perhaps with a front kick, and they evade your attack in such a manner that hey catch your leg high in the air while you are fully extending the leg. Does anybody have a counter technique to this type of takedown? I can describe the specifc takedowns to specific high kicks in greater detail if necessary. My impression is that such takedowns can be very dangerous to the kicker, and I'm wondering if anybody has a remedy for kickers who would otherwise have to take a solid fall from such a takedown. What do you think? Thanks in advance.

This is a question I ask in four parts. I would like it if everybody could respond to all four parts of the question. (a)Suppose you are encountered by a single aggressor in a 'street fight.' What would you most want his style to be to give you the best advantage? (b)What would you least like his style to be?(In other words, what would be hardest to fight against?) ©Suppose you are in a tournament with controlled sparring. What would you most want your opponent's style to be? (d)What style would you find to be the hardest to fight against? I'll answer my own questions to start people off. I would most like an aggressor who attacks me to be a kicking expert such as a Tae Kwon Do stylist because I'm good at takedowns to kicks, but I would least like to fight an athletic Jeet Kune Do practitioner. In a sparring situation, I would most like to fight a Kung Fu practitioner just to gain the experience in a controlled setting, but would least like to fight (spar) someone else from my own style, Montgomery Style Karate. Thanks in advance.

The government uses Montgomery Style Karate and has documented thousands of cases of soft tissue injuries from people who moved too quickly when executing the efficient routines of this style. The soft tissue injuries have been linked to simply moving too fast during efficient transitions, and these injuries can be reduplicated under laboratory conditions. Hence, all Montgomery Style Karate practitioners now keep to a speed of two moves per second or slower during training. At slower speeds, the soft tissue injuries don't occur.

I can't recommend a good insurance company, but I wanted to add an anecdote that emphasizes how important a good insurance company really is. I was chatting with a martial arts student on the Internet and he or she was doing Aikido dive rolls over an obstacle (a wooden shinai or bokken) when the fifteen-year old holding the stick raised it really high as a joke just before the person went over...The sudden surprise ending was that the martial artist's shoulder got really screwed up in the resulting high fall, and thereafter the preson I spoke with was doing Tai Chi rather than Aikido. Accidents don't generally happen if you are careful, but they can potentially happen at any time, and you don't want a broken collar bone to cause twenty students to decide to train somewhere else. Schools can be lucrative, but I have heard that good insurance is expensive; I wish I could offer more to help. Good luck!

The mathematics of combinations shows how a simple number of basic things can quickly evolve into a high number of variations very fast. For example, consider the three moves of a solar plexus punch, a hook punch, and a uppercut with the three kicks: a front groin kick, a knee smash to the groin, and a side slicing kick to the inside knee. If you start with the left side and make a move on the right side followed by a move on the left side, there are 6 times 6 times 6 or 216 combinations of patterns. There are 432 combinations when you also count going right to left to right again. Supposing that you want to practice each "useful" combination at least 300 times, how does the style you study select the "useful" combinations? Most styles offer far more than six techniques on the right and on the left. What happens when you are dealing with 45 techniques, or 90? What logical guidelines limit the variations that you practice?

In Japanese Karate styles, you can expert that earning the skills necessary to become a Black Belt in a style will take a number of years that can anywhere from five to ten years. In certain styles, under more intensive training regimens, or under more relaxed requirements, you can gain a Black Belt in one to three years. Magazines used to advertise courses where you would work out ten hours a day for two to three weeks and gain a Black Belt at the end of such an accelerated course under individual instruction. Considering that many Chinese styles are intended for lifetime participation, I wonder how long it takes to get "good" at Kung Fu. I don't know the equivalant term for "Black Belt" in various Chinese styles. But generally, I think people can understand my question: how long do you have to train in a Chinese martial art to get as good, comparatively, as someone who has been doing Karate for five years? I have heard the statistic which says that only 25% of Americans are ever involved in a violent encounter, and most of those encounters involve guns or knives (and compliance to those that wield them); so their might not be any real data to go on for answers to this question. How would you guess? Does Kung Fu compare favorably with Karate within the first three years, as well as after thirty years?

The Kung Fu training I had was full contact without pads. Work on defenseive drills did not keep pace with the skill that people developed in offensive techniques, thus injuries were getting common before I quit to study Ninjutsu. Most nights were interesting as the general goal was to develop a demonstration team, but the group members liked sparring, so at least once a week they went at it with gusto. People trained as much outside of class as they did inside of class and figured out each other's favorite combinations so that they could defeat each other in sparring. Sparring really isn't my main area of interest, particularly when people end up developing bloody noses.

This thread started with the post remark, "Sick and tired of people putting down Kung Fu." Commenting on that remark briefly, as I can say is that of all the schools I have trained in, the Kung Fu studio was probably the second worst. It was definately interesting as an art, but some of our sifu's practices encouraged heavy contact in hitting, and I was disocuraged by this and other things as well. I have an interest in Kung Fu fighting to this day, but my exposure to it so far has been a dissappointment. My karate training was not only safer but more suited towards practical self-defense work. This is only my experience, so it may not apply to everyone, but based on what I have found I would stick with karate for training and visit Kung Fu demonstrations for the enjoyment of those Chinese arts. I might take up a Kung Fu art again someday if I could find an interesting and capable instructor, but at the moment, my own training is tied up with my own style of Montgomery Style Karate and the work I do for the Bujinkan Ninjutsu organization.

In the style of Karate I study, we focus on combat techniques that are generally illegal to apply in normal self-defense scenarios. For example, one of our basic moves is a shikanken, or extended knuckle fist, executed to the throat. A firm punch with this hand formation to the throat seals the windpipe shut and it can be lethal. Legally, the ordinary person could only apply this technique if the attacker was using 90% full force, since you can normally only use 10% more force that your attacker. My question for the forum is this: What are some of the best moves for self-defense? I am not talking about combat techniques, like a full power frontal groin kick followed by a vicous eye gouge. What techniques are good for stopping power only, and not for killing power? What kinds of methods do you use when you don't want to go to jail or prison for permanantly incapacitating someone? Any thoughts?

In North Carolina about ten years ago, one state legislator was approached by some Tae Kwon Do schools that wanted state licensing for their students and instructors. They felt it would help police officers to have a comprehensive database of the names of martial artists, including such information as what style they were in and how long they studied and under whom. However, for their purposes they wanted the law to be written in such a way that you needed just a minimum of 196 hours of training in order to be an instructor, and certain other styles balked at this, insisting that this was hardly enough time. In the end, the legislator found out that there were so many disagreements among martial artists as to how the laws should be written that drafting a single unfied bill would be almost impossible. Thus, after the issue appearred in the papers, the initiative to license martial artists as students or instructors died in the state of North Carolina. What does the fourm think about this? If your own style or styles were drafting a proposal for instructor licensing guidelines, what would have to be included? Many law enforcement officers would benefit from knowing in advance if a suspect they were approaching was trained in some style. Granted, not everyone might be registered properly if martial arts required a license, but most would be licensed normally. Should martial arts require a license, seeing as how you can kill somebody with them? Many contemporary schools are starting to offer lethal instruction. What should a license to practice martial arts require (no criminal convictions, for example)?