Your Style

[granmasterchen]

I was hoping to get some great participation in this thread. I would like for you to write about your style, the style that you personally take, not the general out look or stereotype of your style. I want to know the different things that your instructors teach you and what things you do training wise,. I think this will help others reading greatly in learning what each style has to offer depending on instructors and schools instead of just the stereotyping that many styles receive.

 

Please feel free to tell about your sparring, whether it is full contact, or point based or somewhere between

 

do you perform breaking techniques?

 

what kind of hand strikes? elbow? knees? headbutts?

 

low kicks, high kicks, spinning , jumping?

 

pressure points? self defenses? grappling?

 

do you practice the native countrys' terminology?

 

weapon use? what kinds of weapons? what levels do you learn weapons or special techniques?

 

and also tell where this school was located and your instructors' names for the purpose of individuals that may be interested in learning more about martial arts in their areas.

[granmasterchen]

my original style was called moodukkwon taekwondo

 

the forms that we practice were the typical tangsoodo forms and also the japanese forms.

 

we did point fighting only for tournaments

 

mostly we trained for street fights and did moderate to full contact depending on the level of the students, we also did grappling, performed in full contact kickboxing tournaments for those that were interested and did no holds barred matches similar to the early UFC fights

 

we used every part of the body, elbows, knees, finger attacks to the eyes, smashing the ear drums, spear hands, ridge hands, hand knives, numerous blocks, lots of kicks, starting at yellow belt we did spinning techniques, and starting at white we taught jumping kicks,

 

we perform breaking using mostly concrete , using fist, ridge hand, chops, palm strikes, kicks, elbows, and even our heads for black belt testing

 

we did real life self defenses along with ordinary self defenses to teach individuals how the body moves and reacts...

 

knife and gun defenses

 

starting at yellow belt we did take downs

 

we taught lots of faking techniques and how to use your mind to defeat your enemy.

 

for black belt test we had to know all of the pressure points and we started learning them at white belt

 

we spoke english in class and didnt' use much of the oriental languages, just a few korean words here and there, coming to attention, and bowing...

 

the weapons we practiced when i was there were knives, katana, nunchuku, tonfa, bo, jo, throwing daggers, shuriken, three section staff, and the chains, we learned weapons depending on the individuals maturity level, so adults could learn and some children as early as yellow belts. Breaking was mostly done by higher ranks, we did unique training methods like forte(hitting forearms together to strenghten) medicine ball, finger tip push ups, knuckle push ups, hand training ( example, 5 gallon bucket with apple at bottom, fill with sand and spear hand the apple out), we did submission holds, sleeper techniques, locks, and throws, wrist manipulation, and many techniques for life or death situations(finger attack to the eyes, ridge hands to temples, neck, spear hand to groin, and so forth,) for weapons we did training drills with katanas and cucumbers..a person would lay across two chairs head and shoulders on one and feet on another ..gi open with cucumber long ways up and down chest...the individual with the katana would then cut the cucumber with out cutting his fellow class mate open....this was performed by individuals with a green belt or above, and real knife use in our self defense starting also at green belt....well thats enough about me, I studied in a small town called Lisbon, OHio my head instructor was Tom Smith, he trained with bill wallace, billy blanks, chuck norris, richard stevens, nasty anderson and others....

[Draven Chen Zhen]

Great topic, I cant tell you anuthing get, cause I just started 4 monthes ago...

 

Greetzzz ChenZy

[blitzcraig]

Im taking Karate with tkd and boxing influences. We use karate blocks, Tkd forms and kicks and some boxing punches and evades. Its pretty well rounded.

[Beka]

I'll just answer in order...

 

I do Cuong Nhu, I recently posted on it, but I'll add more info here.

 

We break boards. For tests, one needs to break boards in a variety of directions, with a variety of techniques. kicking, punching, chopping, etc.

 

For hand strikes we use a lot of closed fists, as well as knife hands for chops, backfists, punches, etc. We use elbow strikes as well. The kids and teenagers aren't taught the downward elbow strike, since we mainly use that on someone's back, and Sensei doesn't want the kids messing with anything that might be too dangerous. We use a lot of knees during class. I don't believe there are any headbutts.

 

We kick anywhere from low to high, and we do so standing, jumping, and sometimes spinning, at least from what I've observed in class.

 

I don't believe we really focus on pressure points exactly, but we use a lot of twisty moves that require very little force to get someone to let up. Usually these come up in classes as a method of getting out of grabs. We do a lot of thumb escapes, we practice them all the time, and we learn newer techniques as we progress. I can't say there's much grappling. I know one of the instructors likes to do grappling and ground fighting, but that isn't something one would work on before their black belt, I don't think.

 

Some of the katas preserve their Japanese name, even though Cuong Nhu was created in Vietnam. Because so much of it is rooted in Shotokan Karate, it retains a few of those names. We say 'neem' and 'chow' when we do our bowing at the beginning and ending of class, but the only words we use that aren't a name of a kata or specific move are Sensei or dojo. We don't count or ask questions or say yes or no in Japanese or vietnamese or anything like that.

 

We have Bos and Tambos, one may begin to learn the weapons at 2 green stripes, with the sensei's approval. I know others learn other weapons later on.

 

My dojo is in Berkeley, CA, and my sensei is John Burns. If you want to find out more about Cuong Nhu or find a dojo in your area, this is the web address: https://www.cuongnhu.com

[karatekid1975]

I do a hybrid style of TKD. The base style is Tae Kwon Do Moo Duk Kwan. We do WTF TKD forms with the TSD MDK ones (except for color belts. It's just the Taegeuks).

 

Our style is mixed with Judo-ish stuff, like sweeps, throws, chokes, standing grappling, and ground grappling.

 

Sparring is the typical TKD way. Grappling, there are no rules, except for no contact to the face (for saftey reasons).

 

We do defenses against different types of grabs/holds. The BB's do the weapons defenses.

 

We don't get into weapons training till BB But they include the bo, knife, sword, and gun (defenses). We do some pressure point training, but it's not required till BB.

 

We don't break all the time for testing, but it does happen.

 

As far as techniques, we use everything from high kicks to low kicks, elbows, knees, ect. I haven't seen any headbutts yet, though.

[blaze78_9]

my martial art is called chimo ryu jijitsu since im only a yellow strip my knowledege of the style is limited. but what i do know is that it its mainly a self defense style. i consists of locks, holds, grappling ,kicking and punching. the kicks in this style are mostly low. the stance is a boxing stance. there are no forms in this art. if you want any more info just ask

[Shorinryu Sensei]

I'll try to keep my responses brief, as some of the questions you ask would take maybe a whole page to answer halfway effectively!

I was hoping to get some great participation in this thread. I would like for you to write about your style, the style that you personally take,

 

The system that I have been practicing (and teaching since 1978) is Okinawan Shorinryu Matsumura Seito (Orthodox) Karate and Kobudo.

Please feel free to tell about your sparring, whether it is full contact, or point based or somewhere between

 

All of the above. Light contact and point sparring for quickness and speed practice, full contact using Okinawan bogu gear, and medium contact without gloves for realism.

do you perform breaking techniques?

 

NEVER! We believe there is no point to it, and it's flashy *. Although, some schools do breaks...we don't.

what kind of hand strikes? elbow? knees? headbutts?

 

All of the above. As to what kind? Geeze...sorry, but I don't have all night here! lol

low kicks, high kicks, spinning , jumping?

 

All of our kicks are low. We never kick higher than MAYBE the bellybutton, but usually lower abdomen or lower. We do a spinning back kick, but teach that it is powerful, but dangerous to the user and leaves you off balance and vulnerable. We do a few jumping kicks, but they are to cover distance to your opponent, not for height.

pressure points? self defenses? grappling?

 

All of the above are taught. Emphasis of this system is practical and effective self-defense.

do you practice the native countrys' terminology?

 

Some of our dojos teach quite a bit of the Okinawan terminology, but I don't. My sensei didn't teach me or use it himself, and we use very little in my class.

weapon use? what kinds of weapons? what levels do you learn weapons or special techniques?

 

We start teachjing weapons at brown belt level. We figure you need to know how to use your bare hands effectively first. One new weapon is taught with each promotion, starting with the bo.

and also tell where this school was located and your instructors' names for the purpose of individuals that may be interested in learning more about martial arts in their areas.

 

Kalispell, Montana. My origional sensei was Sensei Denny Miller, who hasn't taught classes since he left Montana back in 1980. I Have also trained under the late Grand Master Yuichi Kuda of Okinawan, Sensei Greg Ohl of Minnesota, and Sensei James Knoblett of Washington state.

[battousai16]

i do hwa rang do. i've seen people break boards there, but in my time there i have yet to do it. i've never seen it in class time, always at a tournament as a way to raise money for a childrens hospital near by.

 

we like to think of our style as a 2,000 year old martial art, but realistically, from what i've seen, i can't imagine it being more than 100-500, probably closer to the former than the latter. from the looks of it we essentially combined a whole bunch of styles into one art. it's like cross training with all of the work done for you we've done everything suggested, except for headbutts, i personally have never done one in class. i'm sure there in there somewhere (we have over 4,000 techniques, though realistically only about 4% of the students will ever see all of them). we train weapons, too, 108 to be exact. but again, the average student will only train in 3 (ssang jyel bang or nunchaku, chang bang or staff, and mok gum or sword). once you get to black sash, which takes a very long time, they start throwing more weapons at you like kali sticks, tonfa, spear, cane, etc. and a little stick that resembles a taiko drum stick, which is where i think it originates from. depending on which instructor is there that night (and we have a lot of them), you'll get more or less of the korean terminology. i train under instructor ochalla at the world academy of hwa rang do madison west in madison, WI. if any hwa rang do students see this and wanna' correct me, go ahead on, this is just what i've seen

[Pacificshore]

My current Kempo system I study was developed in the State of Hawaii. The founder of the system was Professor William Kwai Sun Chow. Kara-Ho Kempo focuses on self defense first, to that end we learn numerous self defense sets. Unarmed/Armed self defense, to 2 and 3 man multiple attack self defense. We also have katas, and weapons katas. We also incoporate Ki principles in all the techniques that we learn.

 

Our movements can start out high, it can start out low to the ground as is evident in our katas. As you progress in rank, your overall movement is suppose to be fast and fluid. Your always in constant motion never being in one place for to long a period.

 

We learn high, low, and spin kicks. We use all kinds of hand strikes...plenty eye rakes. Blocks just like eveyone else. Sparring pretty much like everyone else. There's also breaking, although I have not seen it taught per say, and I don't teach it. This is just a short rundown of the system I study.