sorry guys! i didnt mean to bash the whole art of Tae Kwon Do , i shouldve mentioned that it is a good starter especially for the younger kids and it does teach good moral values and disipline as R3d said. I apologize to anyone in TKD. As for the whole Where did Tae Kwon Do come from? thing i couldve sworn i read something about it coming from Japan... but i guess i was wrong. Again apologies go out to anyone in TKD.

But mistakes aside i was wondering about ninjutsu... do you guys really practice hand signs and stuff or is that just hollywood?

At 6/21/06 01:19 AM, I3lade wrote: sorry guys! i didnt mean to bash the whole art of Tae Kwon Do

it's cool...I think you realize your mistake...moving on...

But mistakes aside i was wondering about ninjutsu... do you guys really practice hand signs and stuff or is that just hollywood?

I do not study Ninjutsu, however we do have hand signs but they are mostly for bows and stuff...they symbolize the moon and dragon and other stuff like that...its how we can tell who's trained where and what they study...

i figured it was something like that, dealing with respect and stuff. sometimes thats a pain though... literally! every other meeting we have a Ki Breathing exercise in which we have to sit on our knees and feet for a half-hour and breathe nice and calm (plus moving our arms around in differnt patterns, maybe kinda related to the hand signs thing) and I have Osgood-slaughters disease (not sure how to spell that...) and my knees burn the whole time! but its worth it to be able to come back the next time and be allowed to train!

At 6/21/06 01:39 AM, I3lade wrote: every other meeting we have a Ki Breathing exercise in which we have to sit on our knees and feet for a half-hour and breathe nice and calm (plus moving our arms around in differnt patterns, maybe kinda related to the hand signs thing)

I have no experience with your Ki breathing exercises...but we have our own exercises we do...some standing up...some sitting down...

the ones standing up take more concentration believe it or not...and by the end of the breathing exercises, if done right you are literally drenched in sweat...

the only downside is, because you have a lot of Qi (ki) energy built up...you have to purge it out of your body...if you dont, it could literally make you sick...

Thats almost exactly like ours, i actually put a digital thermometer in the palm of my hand when i started Ki breathing, and it went up 4 degrees! something about breathing deeper combined with our motions raises your core body temp. its fascinating really!

At 6/21/06 01:50 AM, I3lade wrote: something about breathing deeper combined with our motions raises your core body temp. its fascinating really!

it is fascinating...a lot of it is still to be had...but what is known is about the alignment of the chakras

0 <---This chakra is about at the bridge of your nose...
I
I
0 <---This chakra is at ther sternum of your body...
I
I
0 <---This charkra is most importat as it is 3 of your own fingers below your navel...

for us, there are actually 3 circles that the qi (ki) energy travels in the body...a lot of arts only have 1 or 2...but the 3rd actually travels the centerline...

what was it you practiced again? cuz all of this is pretty much the same for us... only we dont call it chakra theyre just called Ki Points (excuse the pun). I dunno though just about all the martial arts i know of have some sort of internal energy that you can supposedly harvest... i guess the name of it just changes from country to country!

On the subject of qi breathing:
scientifically speaking (in other words... i'm trying to sound smart), it is caused by the stress on your arms to build muscle tension through friction of muscle movement, the tension on your legs, and.... I just lost my train of thought... damn tv

end of post

nvm i just answered myself, i think... you study Tae Kwon Do right?

At 6/21/06 02:08 AM, I3lade wrote: what was it you practiced again? cuz all of this is pretty much the same for us... only we dont call it chakra theyre just called Ki Points (excuse the pun). I dunno though just about all the martial arts i know of have some sort of internal energy that you can supposedly harvest... i guess the name of it just changes from country to country!

I study Hung Fa Yi Wing Chun and Weng Chun...both are Shaolin...

but a lot of the Qi (ki) cultivation is necessary through martial arts...I can tell you now, by the way you describe your exercises, we do things differently, but the results seem to be the same for the most part... :)

The way my teacher explained it to me was that it dealt almost entirely on the breathing part. By breathing with your stomach and not with your chest you bring the diaphram down farther this causes more activity than usual and thanks to our old pal friction begins to heat core temperature, then by getting extra air your muscels get an extra boost and dont get acidic buildup as fast, lastly because of the fact that heat=energy you end up creating more energy than you expand. The reason you can get physically ill afterwards deals with the heat, since it was turned into energy and we are making more than we are using it begins to go places it shouldnt (such as the stomach, heart, brain, or other critical organs) though this is usefull in short bursts if it is left to sit there it heats up the organs and we end up with an upset stomach, an extremely fast heart rate that wont slow down even when resting, and of course the possibility of heat stroke in the brain. wow... i didnt know i knew all of that! lol!

At 6/20/06 11:13 PM, I3lade wrote:

At 6/20/06 10:31 PM, dsmking wrote: Really i alwas thought, you know, it was Tae Kwon Do, you know it being one of the biggest and well known out of well, most martial arts.

except karate or kung fu. not necesarilly the most known about, but the most domestically recognized names. i hate the ignorant masses. if i know nothing about a topic i acknoledge it, not make up stuff and follow a mob mentality and assume that stereotypes are true.

my little wild tangent...

actually, Tae Kwon Do isnt Korean im not entirely sure what exactly it is though... i think its Japanese...

i know for a fact that tae kwon do is not japanese. it is korean, and has been for a few hundred years, but was probably not originally for all i know. japanese arts generally are followed with the suffix -jutsu or -do. not all of them are, like karate, but most are. also tae kwon do is a korean phoneticism, while japanese prefere a very different style of phonetics. you'll never hear the sound "kwon" in japanese from my gathering of japanese grammer. and tae kwon do follows a few minute constants that japanese arts don't. for instance the spiritual focus of most japanese arts is lacking (or at least nowhere near as present, not to say that it isn't there, then again, i don't practice it) in tae kwon do. not to mention that tae kwon do is the national sport of korea. i'm not downplaying it one bit, i have gotten my ass handed to me on a platter by some experienced students of TKD, but i'm saying that it isn't a japanese art (the kind of which i am vastly more knowledgeable than any other except systema.) and don't let the fact that it is the national sport of korea fool you, they teach a massively watered down version to school children as a part of the ultranationalist curriculum imposed by the communist rule to raise awareness of korea's "rich cultural past" or something to the effect.

about parkour: i acknowledge it as an art, and think that it would be great for self defense, but it's main intent is not combat. in my mind any art whose main intent, or one of whose main intents, is combat or war, is a martial art. i respect it as an artform though, and know that it is in no way a sport, aside from the competition that can arise from it.

the point about tai chi is a good one, and i know that it is not a martial art, it just comes from the same origins as many martial arts, and can be applied beautifully to them. parkour can too from what i gather, but i am much less experienced in how.

new members: sigs: appreciated if you put a link or plug in your sig, not nesecarily your sig pic (but the way everyone, do we have any more info on an official club sig???)

try to come back. not nesecarilly every 18 seconds, but at least once every day or two if you can. once a week is fine. attendance is not mandatory, but it is suggested.

this is a place for people that are serious about their arts, or the arts in general (i fall under both) and you don't need to be a walking textbook, but don't come in and say stuff like " hey guys, did you see that jet li movie? i did those things last night in my kewl dojo with my blood brother master in our shaolin temple. man his kahrahtay was sw33t!!!" we know when you're making stuff up (though it doesn't happen too often) and will acknowledge the fact. I don't mean to come across as cold or anything, it's just that the recent massive influx of new members makes me worry a bit about the chances of some spammers coming in.

and i don't think that satan has gotten a new keyboard yet, i think she just wanted to check up on the club. my conversations with her involve me talking at her, and her responding with assorted smiley faces, so i think it's safe to assume that we don't fully have her back yet.

i think that tkd is a good starter art, and a good art to be really advanced in (like black and further) but in between it kind of lacks some of the luster that i look for in an art. i have never had trouble with a tkd practitioner under the rank of second dan. not to say that there aren't good practitioners out there that haven't devoted like 5-10 years of their life to it, i bet there are a few if not many that would show me what's what, it's just that japanese arts were perfected in close competition with each other for 1000 years during the fuedal era, arts like systema and r.b.s.d. are meant to be effective right away, and i doubt i've ever seen a serious lean either way from any other art (like boxing) and tkd. i think the reason, overall, that tkd is good to start, and good to get far in, but not so much to be intermediate is that it is an art that stacks upon itself more than most others i know of. japanese arts tend to be effective to a degree all the way through your training, and arts like systema and R.B.S.D. are meant to be picked up in a week then used effectively ad infinitum, while tkd assumes that you are commited and will stick with it for a while.

DO NOT assume that i am elitist to japanese arts, R.B.S.D. and systema. shit, i don't even practice R.B.S.D. i'm willing to look at any art from an objective point of view and weigh it in my mind to the best of my ability. there is no art that has any clear cut advantage over any other, i just have my preferences. i'm just saying why i prefer those arts over tkd. and yes, i prefer japanese arts to most others (except systema, that's still my number one. and R.B.S.D. in it's official form [ask mono] and only because of the practical adaptability and quick pace in which you pick things up.) but mainly because that's where all of my experience/knowledgebase lies, and also i have met more people in those 3 categories that could make me their bitch than any others, and people learn by example pretty well. i'm always willing to learn, so if you see me make a mistake about something, whether it be an assumption i make or something i present as fact or whatever, feel free to thouroughly educate me on the topic. this applies to everyone.

hmm... i just got really defensive. like i were having a conversation with myself. lol, i almost filled the quota for how much you can type. 200 characters left.

wow, that was a somewhat long post...

anyways i just wanted to say that last time i had checked the site (probably like a year ago) Kuk Sool Won was Koreas National Martial Art, if they did change it please tell me so i dont continue spouting false information (i hate doing that cuz i get REALLY defensive about stuff, runs in my family :)

sorry about the double post, but it had to be done.

holy shit i just wrote a book!

it didn't look NEARLY so big in the box you type it in with...

oh well, it's all good.

At 6/21/06 02:29 AM, I3lade wrote: anyways i just wanted to say that last time i had checked the site (probably like a year ago) Kuk Sool Won was Koreas National Martial Art, if they did change it please tell me so i dont continue spouting false information (i hate doing that cuz i get REALLY defensive about stuff, runs in my family :)

well to stay on the safe side...if you dont know for sure...you probably should make it obvious that you do not have all the facts...or dont comment at all...sometimes the best answer is none at all...

but sounds like you have a knowledge base of what you study so that's good...

there are soo many martial arts in here lately...so I've been sitting sidelines and just reading, IDK like most of them, so I cant really comment on them...

At 6/21/06 02:36 AM, R3dF0x wrote:

there are soo many martial arts in here lately...so I've been sitting sidelines and just reading, IDK like most of them, so I cant really comment on them...

that's what i've been doing mostly, people are starting to stray out of my realms of knowledge, and so i really have very little valuable input. but about the breathing stuff, we do some breathing excersizes in tai chi, but not many, and they only get as long as ten minutes. the only other experience i have with that is that i tried some one time, i'm not sure what art, i think ninjutsu, but i'm starting to doubt that, and you just say there for about 2 hours for the whole set and did a whole bunch of things with you breathing, centered yourself, and then did some meditation.

but there was a thing about how hypoventilation (hardly breathing at all) lowers some chemical in your blood, and hyperventilation raises it, so first you purge it with some hypo, then replenish it with some hyper, then breathe deeply at a normal (somewhat slow) pace for a while, and that is why meditation can sometimes make you feel refreshed and such. i forgot most of the details, but that was the gist of it.

At 6/21/06 02:46 AM, tom3rulz wrote:

i'm not sure what art, i think ninjutsu, but i'm starting to doubt that, and you just say there for about 2 hours for the whole set and did a whole bunch of things with you breathing, centered yourself, and then did some meditation.

mmmm I know absolutely nothing about Ninjutsu...but that's a long time for breathing exercises...more is probably involved like you mentioned with meditation and all...

at first it used to take me around 10-15 minutes to get a good amount of energy through breathing...but now I can prepare energy in only a few minutes...

but mostly that energy is called upon and used during combat/sparing through the breathing right there on the spot...

it makes going through all the exercies worth while...but they are fun to do anyway...

At 6/20/06 04:44 AM, -TheFaces wrote: Well... when put into comparison to many strictly defensive arts, I don't see how they are any more of a martial art than le parkour. All they are about is avoiding getting hurt in a fight, by using the enemies weakness (and occasional strength) against them.
Well, if you are able to tire somebody out by running around like a maniac then you have already won half the battle.

But I can't change your mind that its a martial art any more than you can change mine.

I think you can change my mind more than I can change yours, because after all you're the one who's practicing it and I only heard of it few days ago (I saw some videos but nvm that).
Actually, I think it's a nice expression to using the enemies weakeness.
I suppose there could be a debate as to whether this is a martial art, or not. You can ask your teacher what's his opinion perhaps.
Oh and do you have a ranking system?
Anyway, I think it depends on you being in a really really good shape, which i'm not sure other martial arts depends on.

wow, ive been watching the whole Le Parkour issue and i dunno what to call it. It technically dosnt quialify since theres no hand to hand or anything but it is just as much an art as Tai Chi which IS considered a martial art... right? wow thats confusing...

At 6/21/06 02:54 AM, R3dF0x wrote:

At 6/21/06 02:46 AM, tom3rulz wrote:

i'm not sure what art, i think ninjutsu, but i'm starting to doubt that, and you just say there for about 2 hours for the whole set and did a whole bunch of things with you breathing, centered yourself, and then did some meditation.

mmmm I know absolutely nothing about Ninjutsu...but that's a long time for breathing exercises...more is probably involved like you mentioned with meditation and all...

at first it used to take me around 10-15 minutes to get a good amount of energy through breathing...but now I can prepare energy in only a few minutes...

but mostly that energy is called upon and used during combat/sparing through the breathing right there on the spot...

it makes going through all the exercies worth while...but they are fun to do anyway...

i can manage to get adequate energy from about 10 or 20 seconds of breathing, and necessary energy form a few quick ones in a fight if i need to, but mostly because i used to do a LOT of meditation, and i am naturally up and going when i want to be. given a half an hour i can build up more energy than i may ever need, but i'll just crash and go to bed, lol. the breathing excersizes were pretty tedious, it involved like 80 breaths in such a manner, then 120 in another manner, then you hold your breath for one minute, then take 10 quick breaths, then repeat that 20 times, so about an hour and a half of breathing excersizes, and half an hour of meditation. it was kind of pointless, but i had nothing to do way back when except that kind of thing and sparring.

At 6/21/06 03:06 AM, I3lade wrote: wow, ive been watching the whole Le Parkour issue and i dunno what to call it. It technically dosnt quialify since theres no hand to hand or anything but it is just as much an art as Tai Chi which IS considered a martial art... right? wow thats confusing...

sorry about the double post (though it might not be, ten minutes isn't a double post anymore!) but i think with the exception of satanic_samurai i am the only member that does tai chi. and i have stated and will state again; tai chi is not a MARTIAL art. it is an art, and it can be tied into other, martial, arts beautifully, just like i'm sure a great leparkourer (ist???) with 20 years experience in some other art like say systema or jeet kun do could use his parkour to simply rape someone if he tied it in with his other art. i'm sure that through enough practice one would find how certain moves work better than others, and discover patterns within the human body that are also utilized in tai chi that can be used to enhance his art even further. it's just that tai chi in itself, like parkour, is not meant for violence.

At 6/21/06 03:00 AM, carmelhadinosaur wrote: I suppose there could be a debate as to whether this is a martial art, or not. You can ask your teacher what's his opinion perhaps.

Ill settle this discussion, again. Parkour is not a Martial Art. But it is an art, and i think that makes it close enough.

but im so confused. all these names are starting to make my head hurt. but i suppose ill be learning about them. Ive been wanting to take a martial art, but never knew which one.

At 6/21/06 03:22 AM, tom3rulz wrote: i'm sure that through enough practice one would find how certain moves work better than others, and discover patterns within the human body that are also utilized in tai chi that can be used to enhance his art even further. it's just that tai chi in itself, like parkour, is not meant for violence.

Very interesting, and i suppose your right. oh, and someone who does Parkour is known as a Traceur.

Well, I think parcour is a very nice thing to do. I'm going to do some freestyle parcour myself now. :)

wow, you guys posted alot in one night...

lessee.. breathing exercises and hand isgns in ninjutsu, those are saved for later in the art. right now, our breathing exercises are things like kicking/punching exercises (only done in the one guys saturday class though), we get to practice getting hit, and how we should breathe in respnse to that attack, and breathing while attacking.. its fairly simple, if you get out of breathe and tired after a little bit, then your doing it wrong.

the hand signs DO exist, though only to higher ups, its like.. personal students of the grandmaster only, i think. they are callled Kuji-In (just the hand signs) and kuji-kiri (you make little cut things with your hand), heres a site i found that explains it..
as you can see, its a Buddhist practice (at least some buddhist practice) ninjutsu has incorporated it into the art though, its just meant for like spiritual benefit. this is probably some of the most spirituality you'll find in any martial art, if you look into it deeply, ninjutsu is alot like a religion, but its not quite a religion. it does create a more spiritual and compassionate (i think I butchered the spelling of that word) attitude in you if you take the teachings to heart though.

Wow...you guys post too much.

@ Breathing: In Kenpo, we don't do too much of that, its mainly in forms and one class, in a black belt one, we meditated the whole time, but other than that, we don't do seperate breathing exercises.

Also @ Breathing: I'm Dharmic, or Hindu as you guys know it, and we do some breathing exercises like that and if you do hardcore Yoga, you get to a point where its all just breathing. I'm not talking about shit american yoga either, I mean Yoga as spelled out in the Vedas. That is really hardcore stuff.

@ Hand Signals (or wtvr): You guys are reminding me of a show called Naruto, where they do "Jutsus" combined with hand signals to do special powers. I wa wondering if the word Jutsu meant anything to you guys...to see where it came from...

@ Ts: You do know that since its from Buddhism, it probably originated from India, and Dharma right? India is where Martial Arts were invented, a lot of the fundamentals and basics come from there, including Buddhist rip-offs of Yoga and hand signals.

About the whole breathing thing: we don't do that in our school. Our system is based on self defense, unless you can activate the energy obtained by controlled breathing in literally a split second then I don't see how it is applicable to self defense. Martial arts training I can see but practical application there of I can't really imagine for most situations that would warrant the use of martial arts.

Now of course I say this not knowing entirely what I'm talking about, I know only what I have experimented with myself (raising body temperature through controlled breathing and concentration) and from what I have read in this club. So is there a way to make this process applicable for real life martial arts situations?

---------

I'm not too sure how to spell it but has anyone ever heard of 'akido'? If anyone knows anything about it could you explain to me what specifically it is?

At 6/21/06 01:33 PM, fremen13 wrote: Wow...you guys post too much.

@ Breathing: In Kenpo, we don't do too much of that, its mainly in forms and one class, in a black belt one, we meditated the whole time, but other than that, we don't do seperate breathing exercises.

In Hung Gar, there is one move, where you inhale your nose, and relax your muscles, and then exhale through your mouth, and tighten your muscules up, and strike. This
move is to gather power, and then release it at the time of your strike. It is called Dynamic *something*, I can't quite remember. In our style we have these dynamic *something* forms that pretty much use the breathing in every strike. But we don't do separate breathing excersises, either.

@ Hand Signals (or wtvr): You guys are reminding me of a show called Naruto, where they do "Jutsus" combined with hand signals to do special powers. I wa wondering if the word Jutsu meant anything to you guys...to see where it came from...

I think on that show they refer to Jutsu more like magic, or illusions, rather than just those hand signals.

At 6/21/06 01:39 PM, ThebanLegion wrote: I'm not too sure how to spell it but has anyone ever heard of 'akido'? If anyone knows anything about it could you explain to me what specifically it is?

I don't practice it but I do have this handy book about martial arts, and it includes "aikido" if that what you're looking for. I can't provide all information, because there are about 30 pages about it, so I will write the basics, and if anyone has questions, I can probably answer them. Ok, say here that Aikido was dveloped in the early 20th century in Japan by Morihei Ueshiba (1883-1969). It also says that the philosophy behind Aikido is based on the chinese yin-yang symbol. A good example: "If you are attacked by a force (yang) and you apply force yourself (yang), a collision of energies ensues which results in disharmony, and accordingly the strongest force wins. If, however, you meet that force with an absorbing movement (yin) and then exhaust it to the point of imbalance before applying a force of your own (the aikido way), you are, in effect, restoring harmony or redressing an imbalance. This is the basic logic and underlying philosophy of aikido." That's the word by word paragraph from the book.

so which book was this? i'm interested in a lot of books on the topic, and own a few myself.