ShoriKid

Wife got me on of those big duffles you can smuggle bodies in. Love that thing. Main area has gi, belt, a 3 ring binder with the pull outs from Tapout mag and some stuff I've collected from other magazines. Copy of Essence of Okinawan Karate-do, have to get my hardback copy back from a kung-fu guy I know. 3 or 4 rash guards, a spare Tshirt, fight shorts, compression shorts, standard jock and cup, the Shock Dr cup and shorts(I like my protection!). A heavy weight escrima stick, great for working your arms. In a smaller, pullout bag I've got my gloves and two sets of hand wraps. Oddly, the shorter set keeps getting used to wrap ankles and such until someone can finish class. Side zipper has the MP3 player, mouth piece and my personal weirdness. Deoderant wipes. Got them as a side gift for Christmas or from my grandmother one. Don't recall which. But, in the gear bag they went for some reason. Used to carry a couple of unformed, adult sized mouth pieces still in the packs. Better than nothing for those folks that always forgot theirs.

Well, thankfully this thing is six pages long. I'm about 5 shades less ticked off by it having had time to chill a bit as I read the replies. I'll start by assuming the OP is fairly young, and this is their first time training. I'm making those leaps due to the way the instructort treated you in response to the female's reaction. I'll make another leap and assume the same things about the girl involved in this. That she's both young, and this is her first training experience. Hence, her reaction to being hit in the chest. Now, I hope Jkoko, you weren't targeting her chest in the effort to break her down, just hitting an open target. If it's a legal target on the guys and the instructor didn't tell you differently, you were prefectly justified to hit her there if she wasn't defending properly. All of that depends on the contact and target rules of your dojo. They shouldn't be any different for sex. Skill level perhaps, but not a different set of rules for each of them if they are going to mix things up boys vs. girls. Having lower belts leave the head alone, or not do leg kicks until they have a bit more control is fine for safety reasons. A lot of yellow belts think they are using control when they are hitting almost full force, or at least a lot mor force than they thought. Thus, the justification for different targets by grades/experience. Targeting of shots, and the defense of people will change with the rules. If the head isn't a legal target for hand strikes and limited from certain kicks, a lot of people will carry their hands low knowing the head isn't in danger. If the females in class know they can pull the 'don't hit in the chest' card, they may end up dropping the hands to a low defensive shell over the lower ribs/stomach area. Basically, they are denying you any legal targets that won't get you in trouble. Not saying this is what happens, but I've seen it in schools before. I fought a brown belt a few months back at a school I was invited to who didn't do a good job of defending her face because it wasn't open to hand strikes. Sides of the head yes, but not the 'face mask' area. I didn't hit her intentionally, and apologied for the strike, but I caught her in the jaw with a straight right when she did the standing equivalent of turtling up over the body. She was shocked and turned to the instructor, his warning was to protect her head. I was warned to watch my contact of course, which I deserved. She had adjusted her defense to fit the rules instead of keeping a solid posture. Now what really got me fired up was the reaction of both the girl and the instructor's reaction to her. She's been around enough to know that in sparring you get hit. It your drilling her in a legal target, with permitted force, she was totally in the wrong. Are you going full out in a light contact match? If so, your in the wrong. If your in permitted levels of contact, she's taking advantage. She could have backed off and asked you to drop the contact level if that was the problem. Instead, she makes a statement clearly designed to gain the attention and sympathy of everyone there. Yes, I'm assigning some motive here, but I can't see a girl in this day and age not knowing the kind of reaction she was going to get from using the "my private place" phrase. She instantly put the instructor on the defensive. She should have been questioned about what was going on. If the instructor wasn't watching closely enough to see what was happening, senior students should have been asked if they were conducting sparring, ie. gotten both sides of the story. If it was intentional, as I keep saying, your in the wrong and getting dressed down was fine. If you were just sparring, she gets a talking to from the instructor. She gets the 'private talk' about class conduct, and if he's worried about lawsuits, takes a senior female as a witness. If she had so much trouble being hit in the chest, time for her to pony up the cash for protective gear. If I'm being hit in the grion and it hurts, I buy the protective gear. Here's what she can buy to avoid this trouble in the future. http://www.awma.com/index.cfm/action/productdetail/product_id/11313.htm Now what rips me the most is the instructor's reaction. He drills you into the floor for what, by your telling at least, was a non-malicious incident in class. He rips you in private as well. This leads back to my assumption that your either young, inexperienced in the martial arts, or both. I doubt seriously he would have pulled the same stunt on any student over 20 years old or with more than say a year's worth of training. Not for something as you've presented it here. If he's scared of litigation, he's in the wrong business unless he's going to segrigate the classes in order to avoid this sort of trouble. I hate the constant threat of lawsuits, and the reaction it breeds. Everyone training should always remember that this is a contact sport/training. So, other than recommending going to another dojo, and if that, clearing what the sparring rules are between both sexes, I have a few recommendations. Like the others have said, stay away from the chest. If your rules allow head contact, I'd vary between body and head in rapid succession. If the legs are open, I'd work those as well. If your restricted to torso only targets and that girl is going to cry foul every time she fights with a guy and gets hit high in the body, refuse to spar with her. Heck, I'd refuse to spar with her anyway at this point. The instructor puts you up against her, tell him no. Politely, but tell him no. He asks why, or tries to dress you down for it, tell him why. Tell him your not going to open yourself up to abuse from her or him. Let him know you'll fight anyone else, or her as long as she knows the ground rules for sparring and so do you. But, your not putting yourself out there to be set up again. Fighting girls in general, fight them just like you would anyone else of the similar build, skill and a physical characteristics. Long limbed and fast, fight them just the same as a guy. Shorter and more agressive, handling them just like a guy. Don't pull back from them any more than you would anyone of similar skill level. Your doing them a huge diservice. If they train with guys always pulling back, they are being cheated and lulled into a false sense of security and skill. May as well give them their money back, because your not letting them reap the full benefit of sparring and trying to learn a fighting skill. A skill, as others have said, that will most likely be employed against males who will hold physical advantages in most cases(Predators, regardless of how many legs they have, will target those they preceive to be weaker. A smaller woman is a target more than an equally sized man. Don't want people thinking I don't believe woman to be capable and tough, just stating the psychological frame work most assaults come from).

Is bag work an option? I had a friend I trained with who had an insane kick work out for his bag, done nearly nightly. He had progessed to a 1,000 kicks a night with a 5lbs ankle weights. It took him a logn while to build up to that, but he hit it all the time and then wondered why he couldn't pack on any weight despite hard free weight work. I would warm up lightly, light stretching, with a bit of jumping rope, say 2-3 3min rounds. Then stretch more extensively. Then after a few squats or some jumping jacks to get the blood pumping launch into some kicks on the heavy bag. Pick a reasonable number and work each and every kick you have, from straight, lead leg front, to spinning creasant that number of times. You likely won't make it all the way through without stopping for water or a breather the first few times, but you'll get there. Then you build intensity, then reps. Once you hit the 10-15 rep mark, add ankle weights. Works you kicks, your flexibility, and your cardio. Finish with a couple of 3 minute rounds of hands on the bag at high intensity and you've got a very good work out. If your trying to save your legs after weights, their are some other things to do. I'd change the reps and skip the ankle weights then. Other than that, it really depends on your level of fittness, the other things your doing to condition yourself. You'll have to taylor any suggestion to fit your own needs.

I'd lean more toward the Judo if I were you. Not to slight the BJJ class, but your given the chance to train with an Olympian, who, if he can coach at all, will have a world of ability to offer you. The BJJ instructor could be anything from a brown belt on up, with varying degrees of experience. Again, they could or could not be a good instructor. I'm also keeping in mind that Judo was the style from which BJJ was derived. The ground techniques are there, they just have a different philosophy in there teaching. Many people I've seen writing refer to BJJ's ground work to a more pre-War judo than what the Olympics have. The submissions that Olympic Judo pulls are going to be quick. With the time limit on the ground, most judo players won't spend too much time fishing for a sub that isn't really there. But, they will 'see' things developing during a thrown and flow right into them on the ground. And, you can always go by and check out the Judo class, and ask the instructor and the senior students how much time, when(rank and training night wise) they work on the ground. BJJ will have a lot of ground focus, as is expected. The physical chess game of setting up submissions by exposing certain things is the equivalent of fienting to get an opening will be taught. All sorts of escapes, sweeps, reversals etc will be in your bag of tricks if you stick with it. A lot of the training will be geared toward competition. The Gracie family grumbles a lot about the loss of self defense training in their books. Submissions from odd angles and taking your time on the ground will all be factors in the training. Nothing, and I mean nothing, will be neglected in this aspect of training. On the other hand, where judo's lack of emphasis is the ground, which they cover, but not in as much depth, BJJ is weak on throws. A BJJ black belt locally was training at a traditional judo/jj school and I was there for his, I think, brown belt testing. When it came to the ground work, the sweeps, subs etc, he was smooth and had perfect technique. His throws and takedowns though, no where near as smooth. They functioned, but they didn't have the same look of intimate aquaintance his ground work did. If that makes any sense. And lastly, after all the rambling, the reason I think Judo might better suit you. With your Kyokushin background, it would just flow better, in my opinion. You're already going to be closing the distance to a near clinch situation. You're hammering someone's body, and a natural reaction is to clinch to stop you. That's the entery to your throws. Or you can set them up with your striking, working the legs a bit to deaden them so you can more easily upset their balance. Basically, I see it as a more natural fit for what your already doing. It's agressively getting in there and taking control of someone. Just don't knee to many people in class as you lock up. And lastly, do both. Though again, I'd start with the Judo. But, don't start either place without going in and checking them out. Talk to the instructors and the students, especially the more senior ones. See if they will let you take an introductory class to get the feel of things. Haven't met many serious instructors who wouldn't do that unless they see you as a wallet or check book with legs.

Going to do a little searching to make sure. But the nose and the face man. If it had been a pink gi and not a security uniform I'd have been a little more sure. I'll let you know what I find.

I'm not going to rave or rant o the unarmed, or even armed combat skills displayed by the fight set ups. No, it's something much cooler than that. In the pilot they heroes go into a bank. The poor security guard whom they bumrusha nd put down is a old man with no hope of stopping the female terminator. Actually, unless my eyes decived me, that's a lie. That nice old security guard could have put her on the floor and made her tell him he was pretty! It was Judo Gene LeBell unless I was completely wrong. It was neat just seeing him do what he always said he did best in the movies. Get knocked down or thrown through a wall, collect his check and go home.

Assuming the left hand is the one on my neck for this. My right hand goes to the choking hand and turn slightly to my left. That puts my right arm up in line as a shield for that in coming punch. Then turn back toward the right shoulder, maintaining my grip on the choking hand, and strike at or just above the elbow with my left forarm. Then it's push off with the left left and keep turning. Failing that, there are other options, even without grappling experience.

It's pretty typical ab conditioning really. Had it done and done it plenty of times with leg lifts. A tough varient has one foot on the abs, one on about mid thigh of the raised legs. Pretty much the same as using weighted lifts to build up your arms. It's a resistance drill that doesn't endanger your back.

Exactally. Part of it is putting the needed agression back into people who've had it drilled into their heads for years that fighting, and being in some body's face, is bad always. In that sense, I think it's one of the best ways to accomplish the goal. You want someone to get their aggression levels up, put them on the mats. It's close, nasty and personal.

You've got it Zanshin. Cry in the training hall, laugh on the battlefield.

Pirates, they could be pirates! If anything can take on a ninja and hope to survive it's pirates. For seeing the various regional styles, Human Weapon wins out. For sheer hard core training and ending fight challenge, Fight Quest takes the cake.

Finally got to see the China episode off of dvr. Each fighter spent 4 or 5 days training at a different kung-fu/san da school. One of the poor guys, Jimmy I think was the one, was training with some of the monks and they sifu he was paired with spoke no English. I felt bad for the guy on that. He trained at the temple and it looked tough. After discovering he wasn't as flexible as the monks, or as well conditioned, and that he couldn't do a staff form, they seemed flustered with him. Then, they put Jimmy working the heavy bag and they discover he's not completely hopeless. Doug, I think that was the other guys name, is training at an academy in town, with a sifu who speaks English enough for them to get by. He also has no clue on a staff form and looks pretty bad, but they start him shadow boxing and hitting mits earlier it seemed. There he did okay. Both men got a taste of some traditional body conditioning and breaking drills, between them at least. Before the fight they had to give demos, about what you would expect. Jimmy getting bricks smashed on his stomach by a monk with a sledge hammer and Dough breaking a brick with his hand. The fights for each man were 3 round san da maches and were full contact. Good fights that I don't want to give away, but there were bruises and bangs from the get go. You basically have two gusy with fight training, to what degree I don't know yet, but enough to be solid. They seem to have zero traditional training experience though. Phillipeans is next on my list to watch and they had a preview of the karate episode. Looked like a tough one.

bushido_man, For the Shorin Ryu orginization I was in before, 5th was the last purely physical test. Physical elements still existed for 6ths, but it became advancement of the style and ability to teach and pass on your curiculum. Zanshin, it's not a problem. I know how the test sounds on paper or the net, as the case may be, but I know what it looks like too. Part of the push for the physical conditioning is the idea that you won't always be fresh and warmed up if the time ever arises that you need to employ your skills. You'll have finished a long shift at work, or be tired from shopping all day with the family. You'll be sick, or leaving a dinner full and a bit groggy. One of the few times I've ever had to do anything was in the middle of my 3rd or 4th day of 14+hr shifts at work. The head instructor said this a month or so before these guys tested as we had finished up a workot and he was headed back out of town, that anyone was good for the first 2 minutes, but you had to have gas in the tank to keep using the higher level of skills you develope later in your training. Part of those long sections of drilling wasn't just horse stance, fire the technique, it was techincal instruction and watching how well they absorbed and communicated the principals and movements with each other. So, despite the push for a level of fittness, proficiency in the arts wasn't compromised. In class, some nights are very techinical, and after a warm up the pace drops way back so you can learn. Other nights, it's drills with round timers and body weight exercises etc. Over all, I think it's a pretty good mix. So do the people training there. Doesn't mean it's perfect, but we like it.

For the first one, one last tip on not having your hands collide when going from high to low blocks. As you start to transition your hands, the best way I've found to learn the proper spacing is this. The hand that just made the outward block should touch, or almost touch the inside bend of the elbow of the low blocking hand. Then, almost like that was the on switch, the low blocking hand comes up, forming your outward block as the other hand pivots downward for the low block. On the ending with the low elbow, over the shoulder punch. To get the proper rotation I thought of the lower elbowing hand as checking down a punch/trapping to pull the attacker inward. The other hand, the over the shoulder punch, I thought of as a forward elbow on that attcker. Being a Matsubyashi Ryu man though, I had that Neko Ashi Dachi(e?) to check to the groin in the same sequence. Once I got the basic movement down, having some mental picture of what it was doing always helped me in getting all of the boby movement correct. That and doing it over, and over and over and..you get the picture. I always started out with the first time through a kata slowly, working to set each stance and get all of the mechanics down before I even worried about power or speed.

~Passing the inhailer after a hit and a cold drink of his choice~ Congradulations Charlie. Enjoy the stripes sir.

Proud yes. Would I dread doing it again now more than 10 years later, when I'm not in as good a condition? Heck yes! Its something about two small girls that may condition my body well for some aspects of the arts, like the patients needed, or the impact of a shot to the body, it hasn't helped some things. Like cardio conditioning or maintaining a good diet. Like I said, each school sets their own standards, within those, each instructor. For each instructor, many customize the test to the individual within certain aspects. A 50 year old will have different requirements than a 20 year old for say, conditioning. I would expect more from the 50 y/o in maturity perhaps though. Does anyone know, for their orginization, where the rank testing starts to shift more from purely physical skill, to what you've contributed to the school/system? Where the ability to teach, and furtherance of the art matters as much, or more than kata and punches and kicks? For example, 5th or 6th degree in some systems is where this shift happens.

Zanshin, Pittbull survived it. If it were a movie, I'd have been the man listed as sensei no. 2. I played the role somewhere between stick and carrot. I paced on the runs with the oldest canidate, I conjoled, urged, encouraged and growled at them all in turn. The whole idea of the test was to push them to their limits and well beyond, evaluate their techniques and to see how hard they would dig down to get it done. I'll say this for the three that graded that day. They all gave maximum effort and never once gave up or decided they could slack and get buy. Pittbull and one of the others were straining out those push ups be determination alone. Ask him if he can remember how to count now? Shodan Testing day.... Mean while, back at the ranch, or behind the dojo! Shori-How many have you done? Pittbull-Lost count sensei(as he strains out one more rep) Shori-(Knows he's gotten at least forty)-Do 15 more. Pittbull-(grunts out reps while other canidate is encouraged and his reps checked) Shori-How many Pittbull? Pittbull-Lost count sensei... Shori-Give me 7 more. Shihan breaks in-He's done at least 10 Shori-Give us 4 more Pittbull. Pittbull-(Looks like he's about to burst a vessle with effort, does the reps and recovers to his feet) -And..end scene..- Pittbulljudoka isn't having a laugh on you Zan. Like dineshm, my instructor's head man trained for a year long stint in Okinawa, and made several return trips in later years. The average class, after a light warm up and stretching, had use pushing up on knuckles on the hardwood deck, supporting ankles crossed. That's just how we did things. Makawari training was required and even part of exams. We're a new dojo under an old group of instructors. And one thing the head sensei and I have talked about, as well as the men grading that day, is the slow deterioration of technique, standards and the value/meaning of a shodan. Each school sets it's own standards, and we have some very old school standards. Being and advanced belt means your focused, have solid techniques and can fight at least somewhat. Like a friend I trained with for years would remind me, as part of the encouragement he gave, if it were easy, everyone would be a blackbelt. My own experience at shodan testing was somewhat different in the set up. Warm ups. Demonstration of all basic techniques, about 30 different ones, from a fixed horse stance with about a 40/50 rep count each. Push ups/sit ups alternated between each technique. Demonstration of all moving technique. Ukei-waza with a partner. This is a formal blocking drill with a partner who is trying very hard to fire that reverse punch right into your nose, stomach, groin, or to kick you very hard. And oddly, if you had good form and they were actually trying to hit you, it worked a lot better than if they were pulling the punch off to the side or stopping short. Yakotsa kumite-translates out to roughly 'promise sparing'. Pre arranged series of techs thrown by both attacker and defender at full speed and power coming to skin contact level for the final attack. Had to know 5 of the seven that were based strongly off the teachings of Choki Motobu. Several laps in the parking lot, I have no clue on the actual distance. Sprint some of the lines in the parking lot. Makawari striking to demonstrate proper technique. atemi waza-breaking demonstration Break falling and throwing techniques. Self defense vs. various attacks, mostly unanounced. Some required escapes ect though. Oral testing on terminology and history of the style. 10 page writen report on any subject envolving karate or the martial arts. I was left in a horse stance while each member of the grading board took their copies outside to read, discuss and grade. Basically they had a water and smoke break while watching me sweat and tremble. Kata: Fyukyukata 1,2 Pinan 1-5 Nanhanchi 1-3 Anaku Wankan Rohai Pasai shiromatsu nokong-a bo kata we had learned. Demonstration of basic proficiency with the 5 traditional weapons of kobudo. Had to have a short 'kata' of our own devising with one of the weapons. Nothing too complex, it was recommended we look at empty hand forms and improvise something based on one of our favorites. Run fyukukata ich and give bunkai when asked at any point. Then, run it backwards and give bunkai. Sparing had been done two nights before this with the instructor and a ni kyu and san kyu on hand. The man I was to fight on promotion day had an ankle injury and had to let it heal before a tournament he was entering the next week. I was personally thankful considering what I'd been through and how skill this man was. Being shorter, lighter, exhausted and less skilled was not something I looked forward to.

I'd agrew with most everyone else here. Stick with Shodan. Crisp, clean technique. Don't get in a hurry to get to the next movement and not plant your stance, set your hips etc. Rushing through a kata really hurts in a competition. Work on your timing so everything isn't bam, bam, bam, bam but, bam, bip, bip, bam. As dictated by the kata of course. Lastly, do, what you know with intensity. I'm not saying stiff, overly forceful movements. I'm saying with fighting intensity. If you can bring that out while preforming kata, in the competition, and in the dojo, you'll go a long way toward polishing your kata. The easiest way I've found is to keep one thing in mind every time I do a kata for review, be it by judges, a grading instructor or myself, is that I'm in a fight. Each technique has to be perfectly on, fully focused, fast and strong.

We likely have about a 70/30 split with stand up taking the lead. We start with the stand up, but with an Okinawan striking base, that's a foregone conclusion. But, we cover ranges and work clinch after someone has a grasp of the basic strikes and combinations. After that it gets to the ground. There, it's position to strike as much as it is to submit. Close friend is currently in Criminal Investigations in the Army and just got back from deploment. Had a long talk on the combatives as we were training partners for a long time. His take was the grappling was safer to institute with less gear, than the stand up work that came later. He said it was fun stuff, but some of it not nearly as practical or effective as the instructors tried to pass it off as.

So I forgot to introduce myself here. Been at this wounderful and maddening thing called martial arts for...~thinking~14 years or so. I've been lurking and enjoying the forums here for over a year now and finally joined up. Blame pitbullJudoka for that one. I blame him for a lot though, and that's a thread unto itself some day. So, looking forward to the conversations and the insight. ShoriKid

I would still say that the stance in use by the better strikers in the UFC and other places is not nearly as squared as what I've seen in tradtional Thai only matches. That front leg gets out there a bit further, and if anyone would get serious on working inner leg kicks, they could make them pay the price. What that less squared stances gives up in kick defense, it pays back with a little more pre-set body torque to get into the rear hand when firing it at the opponent. They aren't getting so side on that they are hurt for take down defenses, and they are learning to carry their hands high and still transition them down as part of a good sprawl. The game is evolving a bit now, demanding that anything brought into it be modified from its mother art in some way. A note on the wrestling stance, it's weakness is not in the trouble a jab or other hand strike would cause. Any wrestler worth his salt should have his hands high near his head while prepairing to shoot or jocky for grips. It's the extreme lean over that front leg, or over the more squared stance that would get him eaten up in mma. Defending the leg kick from there is hard, though the trapping of a leg is easier, if your still awake after it comes into contact. Its the loss of high end mobility that is the killer. You can move with the opponent, but the energy consumption to stay that low while moving throughout the ring is draining. And with the longer mma rounds, you want to keep plenty of gas in the tank to work with. And I would completely agree that good offense is the key instead of shelling up defensively. It's not so much you don't know what the other guys style is. Everyone knows enough about what 90% of their opponents do to not worry about that. It's that you don't have a huge number of rounds to sit back and pick at a guy with an occasional shot here an there to make shelling up work. That, and the scoring of most matches will award more points to the more aggressive fighter, even if he's not doing a lot of damage for the out lays of energy and aggression.

Like others have said, you can use whatever you want in most mma events. They have found though, that high, mobile and squared up stances work the best for them in initial phases of a fight. It allows them to move and keeps all of the weapons open. By that I mean that the more squared stances leaves both hands and both legs able to react offensively and defensively. Taking a side on stance cuts down the use of the rear side hand/leg. It is also murder on the thighs for leg kicks in that stance. Cat happens in transition, as does forward and you might even spot a staggered horse stance when someone is tee-ing off on a staggered opponent. I would disagree with MMA Jim on the boxer's semi-side on stance not being good to avoid take downs. When I wrestled we did call it sugar footing. You were baiting that shot with the lead foot. Your sprawl had to be solid and quick or you would get caught, but you knew it was coming 90% of the time. I've seen a lot more of this stance, or at least I think I have, in recient years for the UFC/MMA events. It's not quite as side on as true boxers use, but not nearly as squared as Thai guys get. The biggest problem there, to me at least, is how open it leaves you to the inside leg kick. That inner thigh takes a beating, and the knee seems to buckle outward, destroying your balance/stance more easily than outside kicks. PS1 mentioned the transitions and he's right. That is where you'll see most of the traditional stances show up. That long right hand might give you the forward stance. That instant before the knee is thrown into the man clinched on the fense is cat. Horse, I've seen Chuck in while pounding Tito on the fense. They happen, but don't expect the fights to square off, take a deep stance, set their hands and then go.

It would take an exceptional piece of clothing to start a fight in most of the places I frequent. There is no problem with those who wear a plain "Black Belt" teeshirt most of the time. (As an aside, the best shirt of this type, and one that I actually almost ordered was "The privailages of being a Black Belt" that counted off all the extra work you were supposed to do, ie. more push ups, more sit-ups etc.) It will come down to the attitude with which they carry themselves anyway. Certain people could make a Bugs Bunny tee offensive and fight provoking. That doesn't mean I would personally wear one. Yeah it hits the bragging button. And, as I've reminded my wife , that I'm a blackbelt is my business and something I would rather come as a surprise to anyone should the occasion to 'demonstrate' any skill be forced upon me. A Sprawl/Tapout type shirt, something with a tournament name on it, or one sporting my dojo's logo, sure. Those are things I'm comfortable with. I'm down right proud of the dojo I train at. Wearing that shirt out is a conversation starter at times and an opening to invite some people to come train with us. On the other hand, trying to explain to some people what the word "sprawl" means can be difficult or bothersome. I suppose in the end it comes down to the attitude that you wear something with and the places you are putting yourself. There are a few local 'watering holes' as the original poster put it, that I wouldn't wear the wrong NASCAR teeshirt into. Those are places that my brain generally keeps me out of, so my fashion sense doesn't come into play there at all. Just my common sense. So, wear what you want, make use of the muscle between your ears everything should be fine.

Part of the trouble a lot of fight fans see in the scoring comes from a couple of key sources. Based on boxing's 10 must system. The 'winner' of the round gets his 10 points based on effective striking, grappling, ring control and agression. And why, oh why do the judges in close fights never seem to want to go to the over time, "sudden victory" round? Effective strinking is pretty easy to spot, most of the time, for the largely boxing based judges. The man landing the damaging strikes, defends well against the strikes and establishes the tempo of the up right fighting. In this case, the boxing model works pretty well. Although someone judging should have an understanding, no matter how basic, of what constitutes effective kicking and clinch work. Other than take downs, I feel that the clinch might be the most mis-scored portion of the fight. Effective Grappling is where things get dicey. And submission attempt that nearly ends the fight should score. But, so should the brilliant escape that kept that attempt from ending things. Currently, this factor doesn't seem to enter into the judge's scoring system, or at least not well. If a fighter is defending well from the guard, effectively neutralizing the man on top's offense, that SHOULD be scored well. Currently, this is an un appriciated aspect. Repeated attempts as submissions that, while not nearly ending the fight, show activity of the attacker/defender along with their gameness and how "in the fight" they still are. Transitions should be getting scored right along with escapes. Within the field of effective grappling is where, in my opinion, the take down problem arises. The fighter scoring the take downs is scoring points. It doesn't matter if he can't maintain control of the position once they hit the ground. Or wheather or not they mount any real offense (the imfamous lay and pray tactic/charge). Or even if they can't keep the person down. As long as they don't get caught in a submission/near submission, they are racking up points. Think of the man doing the taking down as a boxer/kick boxer scoring a knock down. That's the way the judges see them. They won't shift a point each time on the score cards, but the man with the most take downs is getting that point for the round. If all other things are equal, they win the round. Ring control/agression as very, very vague scoring criteria contribute as well. The man making the take downs is seen as instigating the action and atempting to control the location and pace of the fight. Never mind that he may have been getting hammered in the face three seconds prior. Never mind that the other fighter didn't really even defend against the take down, not because he couldn't, but because he was confortable in another aspect/range of the fight, and began gaining dominant position and atempting submissions soon after hitting the mat. If Big John is working on putting forward a scoring system, I would love to see what it is. If any is qualified to try to work something like that out he is. Between his MA experience and his time reffing, the man knows who's winning a fight. He's in there nose to nose with these guys. So I wish him all the best in his current and future endevors and will miss him in the sport as much as any major fighter of whom I was a fan.