ShoriKid

I think the best way, and one that often happens naturally, is a bell curve approach to the time taken during the ranks. When you first start out, any sort of basic skill is picked up and the improvement between raw and untrained, and slightly skilled, is readily evident. so, your promotions then can go quickly by. Asking for too much developement, too much foundational work between the early ranks can set an unrealistic level of expectation. I'm not saying its bad to want a solid base. However, if you put too much preasure on the level of skill needed to leave white and go for yellow belt, can a beginner achieve that skill in a reasonable time, say six months, before you see heavily deminishing returns? The early belts can go by quickly. What you need to know for those belts, and the level of understanding you can expect, is not that hard to achieve. But, as you progress into the middle belts, the time needed will naturally stretch out. Then, once you hit the more advanced belts, the time level can dial back. If your organization mandates something other than just physical skill for advancement, you fullfil those requirements and advance at your own pace.

Pitbull covered what I did. My 4ft bag weighs in at around 70-75 lbs. I think. Your 5ft bag sounds a bit heavy, I would expect, rough kg/lbs math in my head here, around 45-50kg at that size. You might want to pull out some of the leather and restuff with some rags. But, if your comfortable with the weight and the seams of the bag aren't showing too much strain, you should be fine with a heavier bag.

By "juijitsui" are you talking standing grappling/locks and take downs, or ground grappling? BJJ is the easy default if you like ground grappling, though many other schools, if you scout them first, offer plenty of good material. Striking....where to start? Do you favore punching or kicking more or a blend? How hard to you want to hit/be hit? Too many to shake a stick at. A more important question may be, what is available in your area?

FitOrDie, Define "Dim Mak" so anyone can say what they believe in.

Bushido_man, Working on different things while sparring can be hard to do without coaching from teh sides some times. You get caught up in the moment and that competitive spirit some people have. If you vary the set up or the contact levels sometimes it's easier to work on something. We went light contact the other night working on combinations and continuously moving. I was working on defense and head movement more. I flipout for some reason and got gun shy. Don't know why. I was frustrated, which made it worse. I think it had something to do with feeling crappy and training anyway. Felt I had no conditioning to back up my movements. Instaed of trying to win I was trying to set combinations and make openings from people's defensive actions. We coached each other from the side with reminders to move or keep the combinations. Our new home is a little smaller, so your at say, eight feet by sixteen feet in the main room. Then, we'll fight to defense a single 4x6(or whatever it is) mat. We work with partners on spontanious attacks too. Still though, we work with basic MMA range of attacks, sometimes varying off targets. We believe in being conditioned though and having an intense level of contact and resistance. But, then we throw in kata and bunki work too. What can I say, we like the some of the MMA philosophy, but we see holes in it and try to work with them in addition to our traditional needs.

Mike Thomas Brown vs. Leonard Garcia = Brown, Sub Carlos Condit vs. Brock Larson =Cancealed Rich Crunkilton vs. Bart Palaszewski = Palaszewski, Dec Rob McCullough vs. Marcus Hicks = McCullough, KO Johny Hendricks vs. Alex Serdyukov = Serdyukov, Sub Marcos Galvao (No. 6 BW) vs. Damacio Page = Page, Dec Mike Budnik vs. John Franchi = Budnik, Sub Justin Haskins vs. Douglas Lima =Lima, Sub Alex Karalexis vs. Greg McIntyre =Karalexis, KO Danny Castillo vs. Phil Cardella = Castillo, Dec Kenji Osawa vs. Rafael Rebello =Osawa, Dec

A lot more of the bad reputation that "semi-contact" tournament fighters get is from the bad habits that it sometimes breeds. Reflexively stopping after contact, carrying your hands low(almost every fighter in the Youtube link carried their hands low, at least until they got hit), turning away from hits if your being over whelmed. Not all "semi-contact" fighters get these habits. But, until you give a tighter definition of "semi-contact", almost everyone is thinking your average, stop action TKD or Karate tourny. If I say I'm a full contact karate fighter, that means something. Or a boxer, or an mma fighter. People understand that. If I say I'm sem-contact fighter, I think of light contact, stop when points are scored tournys. Bigger transition there to fighting skill. Combine that with the braggarts that have told how many trophies they have at home from fighting only to get killed at school when they ran their mouth too much and you get a bad reputation.

Diego Sanchez vs. Joe Stevenson =Stevenson, Dec Dan Hardy vs. Rory Markham =Markham, KO Nate Marquardt vs. Wilson Gouveia =Marquardt, KO Chael Sonnen vs. Demian Maia =Maia, Sub Josh Koscheck vs. Paulo Thiago =Koscheck, KO Terry Etim vs. Brian Cobb =Etim, Dec Junior dos Santos vs. Stefan Struve =Struve, KO Per Eklund vs. Evan Dunham =Eklund, Dec Neil Grove vs. Mike Ciesnolevicz =Ciesnolevicz, KO Troy Mandaloniz vs. Paul Kelly=Kelly, Dec

"heavy hips" is partly keeping your center low. Part of it is that once you have a position, you know how to keep you weight on the person so that they have trouble moving adjusting. It's about body positioning mostly.

Wrestled when they started the team. Wish two things. 1: The team had been around and I'd come up through a middle school feeder team. 2: I'd have known what the heck I was doing and had trained harder in the off season. The biggest things I've taken away? Sensitivity in the clinch/feel for someone trying to take my hips. And the scramble. While learning, yeah, getting everyone to be willing to slow down like PS1 said, is improtant. But, someone who has wrestled seems to be able to flip the switch and explode in ways a lot of other grapplers are not used to. It's littleraly drilled into you to work from a bad position with the midset that you have only seconds left. The tolerance to pain and the never say die attitude that says you can last ten more seconds and you can win, I don't know if it's beaten into you or that those who don't have it won't stick to a team very long. Maybe that is something else that wrestling work does, bringing the attitude out.

Joe Lauzon vs. Hermes Franca = Lauzon, sub Cain Velasquez vs. Denis Stojnic = Velasquez, ko Mac Danzig vs. Josh Neer = Danzig, dec Kurt Pellegrino vs. Robert Emerson = Pellegrino, sub Jake Rosholt vs. Dan Miller = Miller, sub Matt Grice vs. George Sotiropoulos =Grice, dec Rich Clementi vs. Gleison Tibau = Clementi, ko Anthony Johnson vs. Luigi Fioravanti = Johnson, dec Steve Bruno vs. Matt Riddle = Bruno, sub

Bushido_man96, If I could have spelled Licthenhauer without seeing it infront of me, I would have. There are others too, but with the Western cultural tendancy to disgard the old and take up the new as warfare changed, not many have survived the passage of time and fighting methodology.

Most people don't "invent" much when it comes to combatives. Codify maybe, but damaging the human body is damaging the human body. And while you won't see many "western systems" of ma with drawn out histories and liniages tracked back through the ages for cultural reasons, some historic inovators for their codifying stand out. Many of the names of Western inovators/codifiers, come from armed disciplines since those were considered far more important and thus got put down in print more often. James Figg for boxing(back when it contained throws and kicks) George Silver for anything armed and western. Otto the Jew for wrestling and grappling in the age of armed combat. William Fairbairn with Defendu/do- Stripping out and finding ways to break the body for the military.

I think we all vary back and forth between those two points over time Tallgesse. At different points in time we are sliding up an down, from wrote following of tradition to tinkering with every single thing we're working on. right now, we tend to start out with a traditional technique and then tinker with it until we find the variation that works for us. Sometimes that's very close to the original, traditional, technique. Other times it is very different. And sometimes, what we are teaching is something that we've already fiddled with. So, the white belts coming in now are getting the advantage of years of working on something and finding the small improvements. I wonder if they consider those things as traditional? I mean, it's how they were taught. And, while we try to explain why it is we do things the way we do, I don't know if it all makes sense to the first timer since they are seeing the end result and not the way things didn't work before.

Georges St. Pierre vs. B.J. Penn = St. Pierre, KO Lyoto Machida vs. Thiago Silva = Machida, Dec Stephan Bonnar vs. Jon Jones = Bonnar, Sub Karo Parisyan vs. Dong Hyun Kim = Parisyan, Sub Nathan Diaz vs. Clay Guida = Guida, KO Jon Fitch vs. Akihiro Gono =Fitch, Ko Manny Gamburyan vs. Thiago Tavares = Gamburyan, Sub John Howard vs. Chris Wilson = Wilson, Sub Jake O'Brien vs. Christian Wellisch = O'Brien, KO Matt Arroyo vs. Dan Cramer = Arroyo, Sub

Old dojo started using writen tests for history and terminology after I earned my 1st dan. There is an easy requirement, or used to be, at each dan grade for the shorin ryu oganization my instructor was part of.

None taken Tiger, crazy thing is that they do happen and often enough you don't know they're a challenge until its all over with.

Tiger1962, We had a few people come into my old Sensei's place looking to do what I called a few posts up thread, a "modern challenge". Haven't seen the old school, "Your kung fu is weak. I say you can't fight!" type challenges though. ~thinks~So, Tiger, you saying I'm in my own action flick? If so, I pray I'm not the side kick. Things never go well for the side kicks.

ironsifu, It happens that way. Back when I still competed, which has been quite a few years due to life and expense, my favorite tournaments were the Sport Jujitsu ones that were just coming into there own. Continous contact, I could hit the head, take downs and a few seconds of ground work. A very nice mix. I always fought well, but ran into problems with the guys who trained with the US nationals team. I would get out pointed on the take downs as I hadn't intergrated my sprawl work from wrestling into my stand up work. Familiarity with the rules and time sparring under them hurt my preformance. Same could have been the case with the traditional karateka who didn't do well at the tourny you were at. By your account the instructor was very solid and if he is, I can't see him turning out inferior students without knowing what he was doing. Any way, but to the US Sport Jujitsu tournaments. The last one I attended my instructor came to as well since one of the main sponsers, and one of the US team members had trained with him years ago. My sensei is there, speaking with some of the other older black belts, people he knew and hadn't seen in years when one of the younger competitors starts running his mouth. He's going on about how the seniors division, 35+(I'm almost there! ) was only there to protect the older guys from the young ones who could realy fight. He kept running his mouth, sensei, who hadn't planned to compete signed up. When asked what division he's enter he says sparring, 35 and under. There are enough smiles from grey haired judges that it doesn't take a genius to figure out who he got to fight in his first match. The match starts and sensei is getting the better of the guy so he starts shooting a sloppy double leg and dumping sensei pretty hard to the mats. Getting both feet off the floor in a take down scores twice the points as a head kick(this was meant to reward diffuclt and technical throws, but ended up rewarding heave and dump take downs). As long as it wasn't the pro-am, full contact division, you just walked through a couple of hand strikes or body kicks and dumped the person for the take down and won on points. The young guy is making up ground points wise with the take downs and is trying to slam sensei hard enough to rattle him and win. About the third take down sensei told him as he got up and they were seperated, "Do that again, and I'll break your nose." Sure enough, the kid dumped him after charging through more well placed, but legal level of contact, shots. Again they come up and as the boy closes for yet another take down the pair of shots he ran into weren't moderately powered hits, but hard and solid punches. His head jacked back and there was an injury time out so he could stop the bleeding. That was the end of the take downs against sensei, and the young man lost that match in the end. Sensei went home with second place, finishing behind the man who took top honors for the day in pretty well all of the divisions. Moral of the story, if there is one? Young pups should bark less around the old dogs. Grey whiskers and battle scars down come from sitting idle on the porch.

Jamie Varner vs. Donald Cerrone = Cerrone, Dec Urijah Faber vs. Jens Pulver = Faber, Dec Danillo Villefort vs. Mike Campbell = Villefort, Sub Jose Aldo vs. Fredson Paixao = Aldo, Dec Anthony Njokuani vs. Ed Ratcliff = Ratcliff, KO Hiromitsu Miura vs. Edgar Garcia =Miura, KO Dominick Cruz vs. Ian McCall = McCall, KO Frank Gomez vs. Scott Jorgensen = Gomez, Dec Blas Avena vs. Jesse Lennox = Lennox, Sub Charlie Valencia vs. Seth Dikun = Valencia, KO

Fedor Emelianenko vs. Andrei Arlovski = Emelianenko, Dec Josh Barnett vs. Gilbert Yvel = Barnett, Sub Matt Lindland vs. Vitor Belfort = Lindland, Dec Renato "Babalu" Sobral vs. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou = Sobral, Dec Green vs. Dan Lauzon = Lauzon, Dec Kirill Sidelnikov vs. Paul Buentello = Buentello, KO Vladimir Matyushenko vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira =Matyushenko, Dec Jay Hieron vs. Jason High = Hieron, Dec Mark Hominick vs. L.C. Davis = Hominick, Dec Antonio Duarte vs. Albert Rios = Duarte, Sub Brett Cooper vs. Patrick Speight = Cooper, KO

To become compitent you need time to train. Over that time you take take either case and balance the equation. Bringing up the fittness, or the skill so that you have the best of both worlds. If your supremely skilled and don't have any physical capasity, you can't realy use the skills you have, not in a full range of cases. If your supremely fit and don't have the skill, you've got plenty of ability, but not to apply it to, and you'll have a limited range of capability. Our instructor's sensei said this as he left an all day work out with us. That anyone can be great for 30 seconds. But, if you don't have any gas in the tank, all your skills go away very shortly after that.

Training a technique to the exclusion of all others for a quarter of a year will cause a deterioration of your other tools. If you have a high degree of skill, you must maintain them. A pro fighter would not neglect all of his tools except one for that period of time. The loss and lack of intergration renders whatever skill increase you experience null and void. If you train a single technique as the focus of a class, that's fine. If your goal is to improve the jab, to use your example, then the next several classes, you start out with working the jab. Then your work the angles with the jab the next class. Then the next time, warm up with the jab, learn to use it setting up your cross. Next class, jab into the hook. Then the jab into the low purring kick. Then the jab to close for the double leg. Then, the jab as a defensive cover your retreat and motion. Then the jab to cover movement by obscuring vision with it. Then, the jab to counter or cut other strikes and follow up with a combination. Now you've spent time on the jab each class, in exclusion, say five three minute rounds each class as your warm up. And, your still working other martial applications and learning to use the jab in the context of an actual fight. And, you've gotten 8 classes, at one a week that's 2 months, focused on the jab. You've sharpened that skill considerably without completely forgetting about everything else your working on. If you've already gotten your skills to such a high level that not training them for 3 months won't hurt them, the gains given by sole focus on a single technique will be negliable at best. It has nothing to do with martial arts being a race, or the drop in quality of blackbelts. It has everything to do with developing overall compitency. That's why forms don't consist of a signle technique over and over.

Rich Franklin vs. Dan Henderson =Franklin, Dec Mauricio "Shogun" Rua vs. Mark Coleman =Rua, KO Denis Kang vs. Alan Belcher =Kang, Dec Marcus Davis vs. Chris Lytle =Davis, KO Martin Kampmann vs. Alexandre Barros =Kampmann, Dec Tomasz Drwal vs. Ivan Serati = Drwal, KO Rousimar Palhares vs. Jeremy Horn = Horn, Sub Eric Schafer vs. Antonio Mendes =Mendes, KO Nate Mohr vs. Dennis Siver = Siver, Sub John Hathaway vs. Thomas Egan =Hathaway, KO

I'm going to second Tallgeese here. You can have all of the muscle and speed you want, without the focus and mindset, it's not going to come across as a powerful kata. Exicute each technique like your in a fight and it's the last thing you get to do. Now, I'm not saying don't train your body with basics like resistance training, pad work and improving speed and timing. But, if your blasting each movement at 100% and your mind is on the fighting application of each movement, the difference will be there.