ShoriKid

Mat burn on your toes and raw fingers are the marks of a grappler. I kept the skin rolled off the tips of my fingers while we were doing ground work only in prep for the BJJ tourney in September. Hang in there Lupin, I think you'll really enjoy Judo.

Sorry about that Darkon, Wales it is. And here you go, perhaps a little closer to home. http://historicalfencing.co.uk/c5/ Side sword, rapier, dagger and buckler on their list. Might be more up your alley. They even mention stage and film benefits. Sounds like you would be interested in sword and buckler maybe? These types of swords may be more what you're looking for. http://www.sword-buyers-guide.com/renaissance-swords.html And a stage combat school. http://www.yelp.com/biz/swordplay-school-of-theatrical-fencing-and-stage-combat-ruse Good luck with this pursuit. If I were in a different area I'd be pursuing European sword work. I don't even have a good point of reference to start from for solo work, so I don't dare.

I was also taught to be civil and avoid broad generalizations built on weak supposition. That's another way to use the grey matter between my ears. I can see how treating an actual fight like a competition bout will get anyone hurt. Like boxers without kicking defense or the ability to stop a take down. Post up the rules you spar under and I will be happy to point out the bad habits you're building for a fight. The ones that a truck can be driven through and will lead to high medical expenses. It can be done to any style, any format of competition and sparring. Easily. Again, there is a flaw built into the competitive method of every style for the safety of competitors. Kyokushin folks don't avoid punches to the face because they don't think they work. It has a whole lot to do with bare knuckle, full force punches to the face leading to lots of lacerations, broken noses and general head trauma.

It sounds very much like you have a decorative piece. They are nice to look at, but due to materials and construction they aren't safe for sword training. If I caught it right, you're in England? It may be worth your time to contact http://www.sirwilliamhope.org/ these folks. They seem more based out of Silver and a few others, but I would expect they have contacts with other styles that would use a hand & a half. Most of what you will find will be out of the German and Italian schools. As to swords, Albions are awesome. They have gotten rather pricey in the last couple of years. If you get serious about training, they are worth every penny. Doesn't mean I don't want one. Del Tin makes good swords for about half of what you'll pay for the Albion. For something that is solidly built, go to the SBG. Good site. http://www.sword-buyers-guide.com/medieval-swords.html And for questions on this forum, get bushido_man involved. He's the man to talk to in these parts when it comes to HEMA stuff. I've an interest, but he's got knowledge and experience.

Wow, okay. Lets start at the beginning. First, lets set some things straight. In competition they are restricted from punching to the head. Full power kicks to the head are common. Kyokushin fighters are good at stopping them. They learn to cover very effectively. Just about the time that boxer, having trained without concern for kicks, will have his legs cut from under him. When he can't stand, he will be destroyed. See how easy it is to pick apart a styles competitive holes? No, not at all. Strong fighting skills, the ability to continue to fight after you've been hit and the ability, and know this will shock some, to aim a punch 6 inches higher and blast someone in the face. No, they aren't about the weak defeating the strong. They are about increasing fighting and self defense skills. It has nothing to do with weak vs. strong. Only dealing with a threat. Kyokushin does that in it's own way. There are thousands of skill Kyokushin fighters out there, martial artists all and accorded as such by others, who would disagree with you. That's the most civil reply I can give to something like that and I'm not even a Kyokushin stylist. Each and every martial arts competition venue has a flaw for the safety of it's participants. Many don't allow continuous fighting, but stop, point sparring with little or no contact. No contact below the waist, some don't allow kicks. Some don't allow knees or elbows or throws. None of them perfectly mimic a real fight and many don't aim to. So, pick your poison and be careful of your words when being highly critical of a martial arts competitive format.

No doubt man. Holy smoke that would be bad.

A white belt and the heaviest gi top you own until you get a judo gi? A white judo gi can be had for $45-50 US+ depending on the size and brand. I'm looking at a Fuji single weave for $51 retail before shipping right now. Ebay isn't too bad a source either.

Just stepping in and trying not to get things hot, but if kyokushin fighters have a bad habit of keeping their hands low and leaving their faces open to punches, what about the shotokan instructor in the video you posted pers? The one time the instructor has any distance between himself and the uke, his hands are just above his waist. Thus, leaving his head open for punches. The rest are pre-set demonstrations where he doesn't move enough to demonstrate whether or not he can get to angles, cover and create openings. I'm not commenting on his skill, just that the video presented doesn't make the case you're trying to make for Shotokan. Kyokushin's huge advantage over styles that do stop and go, non-contact sparring(which includes the majority of Shotokan dojos), is that they understand and can deal with the dynamics of a fight. They know what it is to get hit, hard, and keep moving. They know how to hit hard because they have actually hit people hard. Moving off of a hit, rolling with the punch/kick to minimize the damage and know how to use posture to generate power and soak up a shot are part of what they do. Not every Shotokan dojo trains their fighters to fight on a rail, but plenty do. Just as not every one of them does non-contact point sparring, but many do. Some Shotokan will teach their people to keep their hands up in an honest guard, to circle and look for angles. They will even make hard contact and spar continuously. But, they aren't the majority. There is a reason the reputation is our there.

Sounds to me like you are doing ok. And kudos to you guys who can run 5 miles it at time. I do 10 minutes on the treadmill, and my knees then ache for a week.The "mill" is an evil device Bushido_man for sure. I'm trying to get back to my running ways and I hurt from the hips down after running Thursday before training. Maybe look at doing interval sprints to get the same cardio effect without punishing your knees as much?

Mostly my kicks now, if not just straight up functional, are being worked off of angles. Sliding into place, jamming footwork and following on the openings I make with my hands. I can still occasionally break the balance of Pittbull and a couple of the others. But now I'm just working on hitting targets they don't think I can, from angles I shouldn't be able to either.

If he's using the definition I think he is, it's a "literal" translation. A low block is a low block, a punch is a punch. Look at any JKA Shotokan "bunkai" on youtube. Attackers coming from ten feet back with telegraphed, "karate" style, attacks waiting for the kata performer to turn and defend. Not the most useful tool for training with kata and not particularly good for a beginner in my opinion. Better off to get a good practical set of wrote responses that address common attacks and learn those and how they were derived than a set of neigh unworkable drills against attacks you will most likely never see.

People here aren't trying to tear you down Alpha. They are trying to offer you hard earned experience from years of training under good instructors. They are asking fundamental questions you need to be able to answer. Not only as part of your training, but if you're serious about this, questions you will have to answer down the road for those you train with. If in a year you have been shown all of the techniques within the system you are training in now, you have not had time to internalize each one. Know them inside and out, front to back, so that you can break them down for others and help them adapt their bodies to them. You haven't had time to "learn" the kata yet. You may be able to walk them, but it takes a ton of hours with each kata to learn them. Master Nagamine said it took 3 years of daily work to learn a basic kata, as much as 10 years for an advanced one. Even some of the most talented masters of Okinawa spent 7 to 10 years training with various instructors before formulating a new style. If you are really set on forming your own style, consider that it is a long path. That you need to have specific goals as to what you want to constitute a style and how it will be taught. What are the governing principles that will guide the style in examining techniques and strategies? From what styles will you gather the experience with strategies, tactics and training methods? How will they form the blend you will be teaching? Is this something that you can accomplish with another style or organization, only with a change in approach? Those are some fundamental things you need to consider going forward. A style is more than a catalog of techniques and a collection of katas. It's a fundamental approach to the problem of interpersonal combat. That is the key thing to remember when looking at a style.

We focused in our dojo on just the ground grappling for about 2 months in prep for a BJJ tourney. Our stand up got flat out rusty, but we've swung it the other way to stand up only. The rust is coming off pretty quickly. It happens when you have a broad range of skills that if you focus on one aspect, others will degrade slightly, but they will sharpen right back up.

I sat on a promotion board for a close friend and recommended he not be passed for his 1st kyu test. That wasn't an easy call. We test for green, brown and black, with spot checks in between. They are tough tests with real chances of failure. But, they are not invited to test until they are "ready". Still doesn't mean that they won't freeze up, or get tired and just give up and try to go through the motions. I've seen that happen when I was just on a testing panel where the candidate seemed to be hoping that the instructors would call an end to the test early.

Stick with it a while, you'll see it. Sperki, Just wait. You will eventually run into the guy (it's always a guy and usually under 30) who thinks, and I quote, "That karate crap don't work in a fight". And when they come in to train, whether they say it up front or just harbor the thought, they are waiting for a chance to jump in with the instructor and "fight" when sparring. And, if the instructor doesn't lay a beating on them, with all the attached bumps and bruises, then they can't really fight and have nothing to teach them. I'm in a small town in the Appalachian Mountain region and it's common enough. Most guys get into a few scraps as teenagers and think that makes them a pretty good fighter. Most won't train. Those that do, about half start with the idea above and of that half most think after 6 weeks of training they've learned it all. As an instructor you have to keep your head on a swivel and be on the look out for that sort. It's always on the lower belt to ask for lighter contact. Unless they are blasting away at the higher belt and have to be told to calm down and ease up. You get what you give, and many times when you're really into things you don't realize how hard you really are hitting. That's more likely for lower belts. Since you don't want to blast them, sometimes the upper belt needs to remind them to ease up. We usually follow the second or third warning to back down the contact with, "If you don't, you're going to get hit as hard as you're hitting." If you want to hit someone hard, expect to get hit just as hard. I've met more than a few lower belts that thought sparring with uppers meant they could go all out and it was cool and they wouldn't get hit back with the same force. Sparring can be a fun and exciting training experience. However, everyone has to be on the same page as far as contact, have respect for one another and know that it's just sparring. It isn't a fight, you don't have to win and you aren't going to die from the experience.

I have four goals with BJJ at this time. Work on my positional escapes, particularly from under side control. Work on getting my arm bars down more. This means less hesitation when I see or, rarely, manage to create the opening. Learning to chain combinations of subs. I'd like to link two or three attacks together. And lastly, compete with my head on straight. PittbullJudoka did a great job getting me ready, and the more I watch the tape and think about the feel of my first match I really think I should have won that if my head was in it. He has instructions to go ahead and throw the camera next time if I get that way again. Pittbull and I have talked about the broken limb thing. I get it. It wasn't a goal that you go after, but something you wonder about. And he was right, the kid he faced had a coach that was telling him he was fine, to keep pushing. To me, it's like going for the knock out. I'm not looking for it with my training partners, but it's crossing from the theoretical to reality that a lot of people wonder about.

When I'm not on a phone I'll give a longer reply. However, the cardio conditioning is perhaps the easiest thing to address. Work the bag. Round kicks, the same leg,start at 30 seconds per round and 10-15 seconds of rest max. Alternate legs, two rounds each. Then the same sort rest and move to punches for four rounds. Your cardio will improve as will your power. You cannot slack off on these rounds either. High volume and high power are the key to seeing any benefits.

We've haven't done a video review in a while, but we tape a lot of our grappling and stand up sparring. Kata we record for reference and pick at each other live. It's a great tool to help you improve as it can be used to look for the things you were trying as well as what you missed doing.

I can't speak for Japanese karate traditions, but having multiple variants of a kata taught by the same instructor to different students wasn't unusual in Okinawa pre-WWII. Multiple instructors teaching you multiple versions of the same kata wasn't that big a deal either at the time. Post war that all changed though,

I've got two girls, sounds like much younger than yours, that I dearly want to see actively training too. They can kick as well or better than anyone in the kids class, but they don't enjoy the class and don't want to learn the kata. Hit pads and work on break falls and they are all there though.. Putting a degree of separation between you and your daughter as far as promotions is likely good for both of you. From the sounds of it she was already up to training before this fight? If so, it can be a good lesson learned. Don't beat her up about it too much or it might drive her into her shell. Have her walk you through it as she recalls it and then ask what she did that seemed to work and what didn't. Then ask if she would like to work on things that will shore up problems she had in the fight. Spend a little time helping set up drills, or bringing out the existing ones done in your dojo, that cover the sort of SD situation. I guess I'm saying show her the direct benefit or resuming training. Good on you for encouraging your daughter to train though and not pressuring her.

I meant it so much that I said it twice!

This is exactly it. Good Post!!! My first instructor started training in the early to mid 70s. They worked their basics and kata religiously, but as he put it "We were five night a week fighting fools." I expected karate to be rough and loved it for that. Others don't. PittbullJudoka and I had a woman we worked with, who's son was a bb, ask if we really hit that hard after we both came in to work sporting facial bruises. Her son was a shodan who had never gotten an eye blacked, nose busted, or a bloody lip, yet he said he was a pretty good fighter. Some people don't really expect that learning to fight involves actually fighting.

All good points, Justice. Thanks for your thoughts here. I'm not trying to point to the validity of lack thereof of MMA in comparison to other styles. Nor am I saying I think having a cage fight as a requirement is good, bad, or indifferent. What prompted the thought of this thread was the idea I've heard in past discussions about how "black belts used to be tougher," guys like Wallace, Lewis, and Norris. There usually wasn't a question of whether they could fight or not. And that nowadays, black belts are "given away" and don't mean what they used to. My thought process is along the lines of thinking that if the option to do a fight in the ring are present, would be a prudent course of action for a black belt candidate to endeavor? One thing is for sure; it would be a learning experience. When Wallace, Lewis, and Norris were coming through their early days and just getting their black belts the composition of people training was very different at that time. 2 of those named gained initial training while in the military. Classes used to be pretty well exclusively male with ages running from mid-teens to about 30-ish. No body much cared if you got bruised up, it was expected, you were learning to fight. Karate was supposed to be tough and was marketed that way. Class composition has changed, younger students, kids, more women. Karate isn't a tough guy thing any more, it's an "everybody" thing now when marketed. Karate/martial arts haven't changed really. We've got some better training methods due to straight advances in the science of training and equipment available. We've got more training available, more people teaching in more locations. But the people training are different and train for different reasons than they did 15-20-30 years ago.

See, this is why I prefer the Jutsu. While the martial art is a huge part of my spiritual life, that is up to me to find that personal meaning. I think all of the long term guys from our family would feel this way, too, despite having very different religious views. I feel pretty much the same MasterPain. Spiritual development comes from a lot of places, but I don't get it through my martial arts. Not in a planned path. It's honest, it's punishing and I enjoy it. That's it. Karate is my drug of choice, but my spiritual path comes from my faith and my family.

I can't speak from personal experience really. I mean, I've considered myself out of shape before and needed to get at it, but never worried about it much. I did have a friend in high school start and train with us who topped out over 425lbs. No one gave him a hard time, he was always welcomed and encouraged. Heck, everyone admired his guts for training. Honestly, I don't think anyone would make an issue of you training. More people start training when out of shape than start training while in shape.