I walked out on my sons competition Saturday

[Chikara]

Absolutely! I would love to fight in something like that, point fighting sucks.

[tallgeese]

To each their own, but I really enjoyed my time doing this. In stark contraxt to when I was competing, there are several smaller venues in which to try yourself now. More importantly, there are plenty of clubs that have training session specifically designed towards the amature competor. Find one and roll with them for a bit and see if it's what you want to try.

You don't have to give up what you're doing to give it a go. In fact, I found that time spent doing the mma thing was very valuable to my sd skill set.

[Chikara]

Thanks! I found an mma place around here. I don't know that I'll have enough $ for that and the dojo I want. If it comes down to it, I'll still go for the Aiki J-J place instead of mma. Of course, I hope I can afford both!

[tallgeese]

Naturally, that's both is the best case .

You said elsewhere that you were in college. It's my experiance that there are ma clubs of all sorts all over campuses everywhere. From 4 yr. institutions on down. A buddy of mine runs a great program out of a community college he teaches at.

Groups like this are more often than not, less bound by tradition and willing to train with different methodologies. They are more often than not free as well, or accessable with only the college rec program fee.

Such a search may or may not pay off for you, but it's worth a look.

[Chikara]

Yeah, I looked. But, I didn't find anything. Why does being a martial artist have to feel so lonely sometimes? Is it because we're constantly told to keep it secret? I just constantly want to do it, talk about it, watch it on tv, and dream about it.

 

It's a tiny campus (very good school though), so there aren't that many martial artists there. The most students in one of my classes was 15 on the roster, not many showed up.

 

BTW, there's a smiley on here, the one with the red flashing aura. It says "kaioken". What does that mean? Do you know?

[Tiger1962]

I don't want to be harsh and I'm sorry if I was interpreted that way.

What I mean is simply that I believe that's the way to see things

- you don't win, train harder.

- you don't win and you believe it was referee's fault, train even harder

If you are really good and much better than the others, you won't give a chance to the referee to make bad judges.

The reason why I tend to disagree with this is because I've seen judges who score higher for their own students or relatives and think that no one else notices. So, there is always the possibility that no matter how good you are in a tourney, if you've got a biased judge, "you ain't going nowhere".

[jaddensinn]

Hey guys, I'm new to posting here but I've been lurking for a little bit now... waiting for the perfect chance to jump in on a topic.

The Kaioken technique is an ancient ability that permits you to focus your chi and enhance your fighting ability. Of course this technique can only be learned from the mystical King Kai and to meet him you have to first die and then make your way down the winding "Snake Way".

Seriously though, its a move from the japanese cartoon dragonball z and I don't think I could do a better job of establishing my nerdom on my first post here if I'd tried.

[Chikara]

Before I got to your 2nd paragraph, I knew immediately you were talking about Goku. Yes, I'm sure at some point we've all seen it. I use it as inspiration. I just didn't know the Japanese name for it. Thanks and welcome to the forum, O'Nerd.

[kansascityshuffle]

Absolutely! I would love to fight in something like that, point fighting sucks.

You train in isshin ryu, right? I have only known of one Isshin ryu person to ever compete in knockdown(kyokushin)rules tournaments and do well, and that was over 20 years ago. Isshin ryu is known for point fighting, go figure.

Anyhow, no kata is beneath a black belt. You can always work on your kihon. Unfortunately, in open tournaments some of the judges are looking for "flash" and not proper form so you will not win doing a kata taught to beginners. You can, however win if your form is good enough in a tournament with judges that know what to judge on.

I would rather see somebody do a pinan/heian/kihon with good form than do something like Paiku, Unsu, Pasai with poor form. Quality over quantity.

[bushido_man96]

I would rather see somebody do a pinan/heian/kihon with good form than do something like Paiku, Unsu, Pasai with poor form. Quality over quantity.

I agree. However, if you do a high quality lower rank form, and the next competitor does a high quality form like Unsu, be ready for the competitor doing the more difficult form to place ahead of you.

Also, welcome to the Forums!