Martial Arts Thread

Don't have a TKD background, but for wushu at least, maybe it helps to think of your non-kicking leg as the one that generates momentum? Like, for you jumping front kick:

1. Running start 2. Take an extra big step for your kicking leg to translate more momentum into upward motion as you push yourself up 3. Swing your nonkicking leg up like you're trying to lift yourself up by kneeing the sky 4. This should give you decent height for your kick

Similarly for your jumping back kick (am assuming this is the one where you spin around and kick them with your rear leg, so you don't really need height on this one):

1. Start jump on rear leg 2. Swing your front leg, kind of like an inside cresent, but tuck your lower leg in so you're less wide and thus have more spin 3. This should turn you around fast enough that your rear leg is in place for the kick

As for exercises, try jump squats with knee tuck, kind of like this

, except prioritize being able to do the knee tuck quickly such that you can finish the knee tuck by the time you reach the peak of the jump. It'll look like you did a Smash Bros double jump. This trains your ability to get your leg up and down quickly, both for generating momentum and also so you can complete your kick with the limited airtime.

I forgot where the post where I got this idea from but I read once where even if you are a skilled martial artist, you can still be felled by one good hit as fights are unpredictable in the real world. I am not sure if that is the exact quote and I know the smartest thing to do is to simply run away but how valid is that how one person can be beaten to the ground if they get a 'lucky' hit from an assailant.

"We are just like Irregular Data. And that applies to you too, Ri CO. And as for you, Player... your job is to correct Irregular Data."

Yup. There's only so much you can train your chin and if by sheer luck some complete newbie manage to land a punch to the face, even a champion might go down...Although it's probably going to be temporary and the thrower of sucker punch...might want to run away immediately.

Man, tonight in boxing practice I landed this perfect cross on a body bag. Like, I weigh about 200 lbs/91 kg and in that one punch, all my weight and strength just exploded. Even the sound was completely different, with my previous punches making sounds like pow pow pow, but that one was like boom.

It felt so powerful that I actually stopped for a second. I mean, holy shit. If I ever manage to land that kind of punch during a boxing match, I'm pretty sure I will get a K.O.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

I think a lot of people take that whole "even the best trained guy can go down to a lucky hit" and apply it improperly.

No, it doesn't mean that martial arts is pointless for self defense, nor that it's always better to de-escalate or run away. Some fights are unavoidable simply from the fact that it takes two to make peace but only one to make war. Being trained in a martial art (we'll assume "combat sport with alive sparring" and not "cultural cosplay"), however, does reduce the likelihood that you'll get hit with that "lucky hit" to start with, as you'll be more likely to react correctly to that first hit.

And then it becomes time to let the inner Ender Wiggin out.

Just got into TKD late last year. I can't help much on the jumping thing though, because unfortunately jumping is one thing I'm good at. In the "I dunno how to explain how to do it, you just do it" kinda way.

Everybody's all "Jerry's old and feeble" till they see him run down a skyscraper and hijack a helicopter mid-flight.

When in doubt, jump ropes all the way.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Double-post, a question for a story.

I got an American character who is an expert martial arts practitioner and scholar.

He has studied eastern martial arts (specifically Japanese ko-ryu martial arts and Indian kalaripayattu) extensively and also an Olympic level Judo practitioner who won several medals, as well as earned a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu.

Now, having retired from the fighting scene after multiple medals in the Olympics and championships in IBJJF and ADCC, he is focusing on martial arts studies, specifically how various eastern martial arts developed and influenced each other.

The question is, what kind of majors would cover this kind of topic? Asian studies? Sports science? Asian history?

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

I think that would fall under Asian Studies. Vaguely recall someone in wushu club writing their thesis on that.

I already got the answer in another thread, but thanks nonetheless!

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Be me; watch a bunch of wushu tiktoks; want to pick up my old routines again or learn new stuff; get depressed at my hip structure which does not seem to be conducive to pretty sparkly low and wide stances.

Life is suffering.

Clearly, Tik Tok is the problem here.

And that reminds me that after my country's COVID-19 lockdown level got escalated, I stopped going to my boxing gym (it got semi-indefinitely closed down) and I haven't been doing any boxing for months. Feels bad.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

I know this topic was already covered last November, but here are a few ideas on improving jumping ability.

Strengthen the hamstrings, abductors and adductors. Excessive hamstring tightness can be a sign of a weak core, so consider further developing the core muscles. Note that what is colloquially referred to as the "core" is the abdominal region, but you should actually think of the core as what your body uses to keep itself up. Rather than just the stomach muscles, the core includes the quads, rectus abdominus (the "six-pack"), erector spinae (the lumbar region) and the previously mentioned muscle groups. Those are closer to surface core muscles. Your deep core muscles include the pelvic floor, the transverse abdominals and the multifidi (deep back muscles). Think of your core as part of a springboard that connects the leg muscles to the rest of the body. If that spring is weak, the base apparatus (the legs) aren't going to get you far.

Unilateral resistance movements will help immensely as kicking movements are, by definition, destabilization movements because you are lifting one leg off the ground. Lunges, Belgian split squats, single-leg deadlifts (especially with a kettlebell) and curtsy squats with a dumbbell are good examples.

Strengthen the glutes. They are very powerful muscles that often get neglected by martial artists. In my Shotokan days, great emphasis was placed on training the hips and quads, but many karate people give little thought to how the glutes contribute to any launching ability such as a jumping front kick or hopping side kick. They obsess over the hips. Consider the aforementioned curtsy squat, the glute bridge and the hip thrust as common exercises for building the butt. It's helped my Muay Thai significantly. I also say that because your glutes are a major part of your posterior chain (your backside from the shoulders to the heels, really), and people with back pain and instabilities during kicks often have underdeveloped rear ends.

You can also take a piece of string or rope and tie it or tape it to opposite ends of a small room. When you shadowbox, work on altering your height while you work on your kicks, and take note of how your center of gravity changes relative to the string/yarn/whatever. High-level taekwondo practitioners are really good at "settling" into their kicks and building a strong base that allows them to launch with seemingly magical ease from a stationary position. This technique takes a long time to develop, but you can accelerate your progress by learning to understand how your hips and center of gravity influence and are influenced by height changes and movement away from and into your target. The yarn is meant to be a reference point that indicates how, if and to what extent you are parallel with the floor.

My stance is more grounded now as I've aged, but back when I worked jumping and spinning kicks more, I would take a red dot sticker or pad and maintain my body over that circle while doing bag work. The idea was to rotate over that circle as much as possible. Sounds backwards, but you will actually learn to get more airborne over time by keeping yourself from floating forward or backward too much. Again, good airborne kickers are really good at controlling how far they travel forward or backward.

This is a little old-school, but practice your spinning and jumping kicks in front of a hanging tennis ball, too. Don't make contact with the ball, just get as close as you can to graze it.

Random question: I presume melee weapons are also within the purview of this thread, has avoiding overpenetration in polearms actually been a sufficiently common use case to warrant specific design features for this purpose? I haven't been finding much about this other than "some polearms have it, others don't", but perhaps my google-fu is lacking in some way.

I do know about boar spears and tiger forks, but those are hunting implements that aren't so much for making it easier to pull out as to prevent the angry several hundred pound wild animal from coming up the shaft at you. But while I'm on that train of thought, is an enemy human coming up the spear shaft to kill you particularly common? I would think that the general response upon getting impaled would be to, ah, try to remove the self from the impaling object rather than to force it deeper.

Kind of a silly question.

What would be a good way to defeat someone in judo using bigger reach and weight?

The context: The MC is a 190cm tall guy weighing 100kg. He has practiced martial arts for almost 15 years, holding 3rd degree dan in Judo and black belt in BJJ.

His opponent is 162cm tall guy weighing 68kg, but he has practiced Judo for almost 30 years and hold 6th degree dan. He also has a track record of beating a guy even bigger than MC, 200 cm tall and 160kg heavy.

During sparring, MC realizes that he can't beat his opponent with skill alone so he resorts to using his much longer reach and weight.

This vid certainly gives me a good starting point:

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Thanks a lot for the tips!

I tried some of those core and glute-strengthening exercises yesterday. Today, I have some muscle pain, so I hope that means it’s working!

My AO3 profile. Let sleeping cats lie and be cute and calming.

Re spear/polearm design: Well, we do have a weapons thread, but the Troper Fencing Academy appears to be defunct sadly;-; Granted, I haven't been on these fora in ages.

As for overpenetration, I don't know that that would happen with regular use against humans. You don't really need to get that deeply in to get the job done (giggity). Just a couple of inches is enough to slit a throat, sever major blood vessels, damage muscle, induce shock, etc. In battle you'd only put enough force to achieve that goal. Impaling someone all the way through is too much because you'd tire yourself out. Wild boars pretty much do the job for you insofar as impaling themselves on the spear.

The projections on weapons like the jumonji-yari, billhook, halberd or what-have-you were for tricksy weapon manipulation and various nasty tactics.

Swordplay and writing blog. Purveyor of weeaboo fightin' magic.

I have about 2 weeks to get my body back into wushu demo condition.

That feel when I try to enter pan bu◊ and discover that my legs are too thick and my belly fat ends up pushing me over whenever I try to assume the position.

That is rough. Good luck, you got it.

Who watches the watchmen?

This is a little video by the Modern Martial Artist from youtube, about how boxing knockouts get set up and happen, following the strategy, the feints, footwork, and more, and how they all come together. This particular video uses examples from Vasily Lomachenko, a Ukrainian boxer who may have had the greatest amateur career of all time (almost 400 victories vs 1 loss as an amateur, multiple olympic gold medals, etc.) who turned pro late but won several world championships nonetheless.

If anyone still checks out this thread, I hope you enjoy.

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |

Those breakdown videos with explanations are fascinating to watch.

Who watches the watchmen?

I think so too, it's why I like to share them. I hope anyone else who tends to browse the thread both enjoys them and finds them enlightening.

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |

Nothing like hopping back into training in an actual combat sport as opposed to cultural cosplay to make you realize that high schoolers can still beat you up and take your lunch money.

At the same time, a lot of traditional kung fu things make so much more sense after doing just a tiny bit of boxing/kickboxing/wrestling/jiujitsu.

I'm curious exactly what you meant there. Would you be able to explain a bit?

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |

Getting beat up by high schoolers, or traditional arts making sense after just a little bit of training combat sports?

The second part.

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |