Wastelander

I think you'll find that a lot of us tend to do kata when we are training by ourselves. It's a convenient training method for improving your skills while you're alone. If I have equipment, though, I'll generally go for drills that use the equipment, so it depends on what you have available.

People are notoriously bad at goal-setting, and I think that this is an example of that, along with people getting bored or life just getting in the way. I would say that most people who start training in traditional martial arts set the goal of "earning black belt," and they don't tend to update their goals as they get closer to achieving that, so once they earn black belt, they feel as though they have "finished what they started." I hear this a lot from people who quit before earning black belt, as well, saying that they want to get back into it and "finish what they started." I think we, as instructors, need to be more clear about the fact that black belt is NOT being "finished" with your martial arts journey, and help them come up with goals to achieve after reaching black belt.

I'm sorry for the loss to his family, friends, and organization.

Karate and kobudo historian, Andreas Quast, recently posted some footage of a kobudo tournament on Okinawa, and it reminded me of the general subject of sparring in kobudo: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/15EpmMsVYZ/ When I first learned kobudo, I was taught a non-contact version of kumite where you had to make contact with the opponent's weapon, first, and then you would launch a strike at the opponent's arms, legs, body, or head. If it got close enough, you scored a point, and reset, very similar to karate point fighting. Even back then, I liked the idea of actual contact sparring with weapons more, and I thought up all kinds of ways to make it safe to do so, eventually landing on almost the exact same thing you see in the video, although I never got the chance to do it. I'm curious if anyone has done this type of kobudo sparring, or any sort of sparring with weapons.

I have dislocated my right knee several times in martial arts training. The first time I dislocated it, I was just walking in a straight line down a hallway at school, which should have been a clue that I had something wrong with my joints, but I didn't get a diagnosis about that for about 15 years. The first time I dislocated it in martial arts training, I was working with a throwing dummy in my Judo class, and I was told to work on drop seoi-nage, which resulted in the dummy slamming into the side of my dropped knee. The second time, I was throwing slip kicks on a pad, and my foot slid on the sweaty mat. The third time was attempting a foot sweep at the wrong time when their leg was fully based.

Well, I know that it's quite common to solicit students to leave reviews, but I don't think most martial arts schools are astroturfing. It definitely DOES happen, on occasion, though. One of the karate schools my late Sensei had trained at as a kid did it once Yelp became big. They also left completely false negative reviews of my late Sensei's dojo.

That's great news!

You're more than welcome to do so, but here is the draft ruleset so you can have the full outline. Competition Kakedameshi Draft Rules.pdf

Thanks! Points of contact are huge when you're at close range, so it makes perfect sense that you'd have experienced that in BJJ. I know I did in Judo. The lack of respect for the strikes in my example videos is mainly because we were going light, and keeping it playful. When you ramp up the intensity, and start making a bit of impact to the face, it changes the dynamic, for sure.

Turning it into a competitive format is certainly the challenge, because it's easy to do when no one is keeping score, but if you want it to be a competition, you have to set up scoring criteria and there have to be people trained to be judges and referees. I actually suspect that, even if it took off as a competition format, it would not draw many spectators--it's too close range to see what's going on from the stands, so unless there are knockouts allowed it's unlikely that many people will want to watch it. Just as Judo and BJJ are primarily watched by people who practice those arts and their families, I think kakedameshi would be similarly watched only by karateka and their families. If it's done right, though, it could certainly become a feeder for MMA competition. For what it's worth, I have actually taught a couple seminars on kakedameshi, and even sell the recorded video from one of them on my website. I've also tried to get focus groups put together from karateka around the world to test out competition rulesets, but they have proven to be inconsistent and eventually fall off the map. For gear, I use MMA-style gloves, mouthguard, and groin protector, with shin guards and headgear being optional. At such a close range, head kicks are unlikely, and we know that headgear is more likely to increase your risk of TBI, so shin guard and headgear don't really need to be used, IMO. As for the points system, it gets a bit complicated, since there are so many things you can do in kakedameshi. If we made it so you could win by KO, most people would never participate, because it's just too dangerous, so while we could have a full-contact circuit where that's allowed, it probably won't attract many competitors. Semi-contact and light-contact divisions would probably be more popular. We also have to consider the fact that instant-win conditions (such as KO, submission, or ring-out) and higher point values will attract more focus from competitors, causing them to emphasize those aspects more than others. If we want kakedameshi to actually pressure test and represent karate, then that needs to be taken into account. As a quick overview, I've proposed 5 minute matches, with the winner being the person with the most points by the end of the time, and a 1 minute sudden-death round if there is a draw. You can also win if your opponent taps out. There are penalties for breaking away from your opponent, because you have to maintain at least 1 point of contact with them at all times, as well as for stalling. Disqualification occurs after 5 penalties, or if you injure your opponent (including KOs outside of full-contact divisions). Points are awarded for achieving dominant positions, landing strikes, successfully manipulating the opponent with joint locks, and successfully knocking the opponent to the ground. You can also earn points for keeping your opponent on the ground, as long as you are in a dominant position, and you can earn points by getting back to your feet when your opponent is trying to keep you down. 1 Point - Strikes to the limbs and body, immobilizing the opponent's arms, disrupting the opponent's posture with a lock/sweep/attack to "vulnerable points," and successfully preventing a downed opponent from standing back up 2 Points - Strikes to the head, successfully defending a throw or leg-reaping takedown, successful takedown where both participants fall, holding an opponent in a lock or stranglehold for 10+ seconds, and regaining top position on the ground 3 points - Successful takedown where tori remains standing, successfully regaining the feet while the opponent is attempting to keep the fight on the ground, successful takedown from the ground against a standing opponent which results in tori getting back to their feet or taking top position on the ground, and pushing your opponent out of the ring. These are still in the workshopping phase, of course, and I actually have a more detailed write-up I've used for people testing it out. My hope with the scoring is that it will emphasize trying to keep yourself off the ground and engaged in the fight standing up, and from the little feedback I've gotten so far, that seems to work. The biggest issue is preparing judges and referees, because they have to keep a close watch on what's happening and try to keep score (a click counter is best for that). Since that basic premise comes from Chinese pushing hands competitions, that makes perfect sense. I actually include a provision for that in my ruleset, although it isn't an instant-win to push your opponent out of the ring.

Definitely an interesting read, and resonates with concepts that I learned and how I teach, as well. Thanks for sharing!

I actually wrote a fairly lengthy post on kakedameshi here on KF about 6 years ago: As far as the competition ruleset, without getting into the weeds, the gist of it would be to award points for strikes, joint locks, strangleholds, and throws/sweeps/takedowns, as well as ring-outs, keeping your opponent on the ground, or getting back up while your opponent tries to keep you on the ground. Of course, if knockouts and submissions are allowed, then the points become less important, but the majority of people will not participate if knockouts are an option because it isn't safe.

When I said "JKA-style," I didn't mean that it was purely the JKA doing demonstrations, but that the JKA's videos and demonstrations influenced karateka from many different styles, and many of them picked up that approach to kata bunkai for their own training and demonstrations. This has resulted in many, if not most karateka, today, only knowing the types of kata applications seen in those old JKA videos, whether they were part of the JKA or not. Regardless of the intent, there are a lot of people who take those applications as gospel, even today, and refuse to acknowledge other interpretations. I believe that is the result of the JKA's overall culture, more than anything. With regard to the UFC, it was designed to make the Gracies' BJJ look good from the start, so it isn't exactly as good of a measure of effectiveness as people like to believe. The rules had a bias toward grappling, they didn't make much of an effort to find good fighters from other arts, and they set up the brackets to try and avoid Royce having to fight someone with solid groundwork. The first thing to really cause an issue with BJJ wasn't Muay Thai, either, it was wrestling (by way of Japanese "shootfighting," at first), which brought on the "sprawl and brawl" era of MMA, since the BJJ guys can't do much to you if they can't take you down. Muay Thai started to take off after people had begun incorporating wrestling into their training, but karate and other traditional martial arts had already been pretty heavily torn down in the MMA community for its failures in the early UFC events even though, again, they didn't actually try to find high level fighters. Karate Combat is just American kickboxing from the 70s with a little extra grappling allowed, and while American kickboxing was based on karate, it and Karate Combat are both still based on the Kendo-inspired kumite developed by the JKA in the years following WW2. The karate represented in American kickboxing and Karate Combat is stripped down to its most basic striking techniques and a couple sweeps and takedowns, so it is missing a majority of the curriculum the art is supposed to posses, making it a poor representation. Additionally, Karate Combat stopped requiring fighters to have a karate background, and that has resulted in kickboxers from other arts coming in and not only competing, but winning at high levels, because it's kickboxing, not karate. If it were actually representative of karate, then kickboxing from other arts wouldn't be winning championships, because they wouldn't have the techniques and tactics necessary. I totally concede that self-defense and mutual combat are different contexts, and that most people don't understand that, but I also realize we will likely NEVER get them to understand it, so the only way to restore karate's reputation is going to have to be some form of competition. Like it or not, competition is how martial arts spread and grow. For what it's worth, you can actually use most of karate's repertoire under the modern MMA ruleset, despite the differences between self-defense and mutual combat. The trouble is that there is nothing about the MMA ruleset that forces you to fight like a karateka, and there shouldn't be, because it's meant to be a broad, open ruleset for all styles to participate in. Personally, I think there SHOULD be a competition format that is actually designed for pressure testing karate, and I think kakedameshi is the best option for that. Yes, it's still mutual combat, and you aren't reacting to untrained ruffians trying to mug you, but it forces you to fight at close range using the techniques of the kata. If you want to represent the self-defense side, you could always do something like the "random attack" tournaments that somebody has been running in Europe for the past several years, but I don't think that will win over many people considering what martial art to study. I could certainly be wrong, but we'd have to give it a fair try.

There is a difference between telling people what your titles are and referring to yourself by the titles. I don't tell people "I'm Sensei Noah," or "I'm Renshi Noah," I tell them that my name is Noah, but they can call me Sensei in the dojo, and I can tell them I hold a Renshi title if that is relevant.

As I see it, the issue isn't with people having these titles, it's with HOW the titles are applies. There's nothing wrong with calling an instructor "Sensei." There is nothing wrong with people having Shogo (Renshi/Kyoshi/Hanshi). There is nothing wrong with people having Shihan licenses. The issue is when I introduce myself as "Sensei Noah," or "Shihan Noah," or have when people call me "Renshi Noah." I realize that the nuances of this are cultural, and so many of us will not have an inherent understanding of how to use the titles, but that just means there needs to be education. "Sensei" and "Shihan" are both appropriate titles for someone to use to refer to someone who is their instructor, although only someone with a Shihan license can be called "Shihan," and they can still be called "Sensei," even if they have a Shihan license. Shogo (Renshi/Kyoshi/Hanshi) are appropriate to use in writing, such as official organizational documents, or business cards, or event announcements. They are used like "PhD" or "MD" for doctors.