sensei8

That sounds pretty cool. I decided to look up the Toma, to get a better understanding, and is this the video you're referring to? Whether it is or not, I still love this video. Everything flows so well. Yes, that's Sensei Toma. The following link too...

Congrats; well deserved!!

yes...Yes...YES, and then some. Cheesy, oh no, a deep gem, imho. Your post here is SOLID!! Bruce, in Enter The Dragon, asked his student, after a series of kicks, one better than the other..."That's it! How did it FEEL to you?", asked Bruce. The students answer..."Let me think!"..."Don't think; FEEL!!", Bruce exclaimed.

Where do you study kyokushin? The Castleton dojo? I study Seido in East Greenbush/Defreestville. OSU! Yup, that's the place. Our respective dojos are pretty close! Hopefully, you both can train together; that'd be cool!!

Solid post!! In addition, consider your work schedule versus class times as well as travel time.

This is great advice. 1) Find out what schools are in your area. Why waste hours or days deciding you want to study say, Goju Ryu Karate when the closest school is 50 miles away? 2) Once you find what schools are in your area, research into those styles a little bit (I'd not spend too much time doing it). For example, if you hate grappling you can cross BJJ schools from the list, if you hate kicks, you might want to skip taekwondo... 3) Once you narrow your list of schools to a certain style or group of styles, go check each school out! Pick the one you like the most. Solid post!! Narrow the search to the top 3, if where you live will allow you to do that, incase if once you're at the school you decided upon, it doesn't work out for some reason(s).

That's a valid and solid post, Spartacus Maximus.

Another formidable Kobudo instructor...excellent choice, as well!!

Yes, Fumio Demura...an excellent as well as a formidable Kubudo instructor!!

Yeah, I believe that this is true of us all instructors...if our students aren't ready, they don't test!!

I absolutely agree with you here. I think there are some good examples out there of Martial Arts changing some people, but I think those are examples of people who want to change, and that makes a difference, too. Agh yes BUT if we place so much emphasis on the parents what's the point. Why should we bother? Some parents simply won't. Parents can be the obstacle to children learning. There's no much can be done about it because....well....I'm not the parent!

Excellent OP; thank you, Spartacus Maximus!! Now let's finish what Bruce validated his thought... "It's like a finger pointing away to the Moon. Don't concentrate on the finger, or you'll miss all of that Heavenly glory." The learning apex of any student varies, and it's up to the instructor to guide that student into the understanding of this...The Summation of 'Why' is to the Summation of 'Because'. Nothing replaces the hands-on learning; so much is listening, the majority of it is applying it. Don't think, FEEL IT!! A gem of gems, imho!! We can get in our own way quite quick without even trying. The more knowledge and experience the student has, the more the student doesn't have to think about it as correct muscle memory kicks in; the automation of technique is just there without having to ponder about it. Once, you couldn't tie your shoe lace if your life depended on it, now, you don't even think about it, and that's because you feel it, and thusly you just do it.

SAFETY!! That's why certain things are allowed and not allowed in any given tournament and the like. After the weekend, competitors have to go to work and/or school, and it's hard to do that from a hospital or at home in a cast.

When one is learning how to golf, one can't muscle a golf ball; it's all about technique, that too is a punch. It's not the style as much as it is the practitioner. If the practitioner is trying to muscle the punch, then the punch will not have much power compared to the practitioner who's using pure technique, well, that's where the club meets the ball, so to speak.

50+ years of Karate? That, sir, is awesome. I'm not entirely familiar with Shindokan Saitou-Ryu, though. How would you describe it, in comparison to other styles? That's cool that you stuck with it, sir. I find that level of commitment highly commendable. Thank you for your kind words, Doomed!! To the bold type above... Shindokan Saitou-ryu is Shuri-te and Okinwaw-te based. 85% hands and 15% feet; all kicks are waist down. Shindokan is Tuite, and Tuite is Shindokan; heavy laden, and in that, our brand of Tuite is best described...if you've seen Seido's Master Toma, then you've a glimpse in our brand of Tuite; our brand of Tuite has to be experienced. Shindokan trains heavily in Kyusho jitsu and grappling as well. This is in a nutshell.

Welcome to KF, and welcome back to your journey! I too, wholeheartedly concur with bushido_man96!!

Nice tutorial, Alex; as always!! Thank you for sharing it. No situations are always general. Therefore, I...use these as well as variants of these...so does any practitioner of Shindokan. No, we've no certain tactics because, Soke believed that it was limiting to the practitioner, and therefore, we must look for other opportunities, and things change in a moment. I see the overlapping quite a lot, but I've also noticed that that also depends on the practitioners experience/knowledge...the more one has, the more one can adapt, alas, the one knows less, the less one can adapt. The hard lesson I've learnt over the years is that the capabilities of tactics in any given situation depends on whether we're doing sport or art; art, imho, demands more than sport.

YES....AND OFTEN!! Learning about the different styles is fine, but learning about the practitioner is just as important, if not more so!! The style's not going to hit you, but the practitioner is!!

Solid post!! Don't want to get hit...THEN DON'T BE THERE!! Don't want to get hit...THEN HIT THEM FIRST!! Don't want to get hit...THEN LEARN HOW TO DEFLECT/BLOCK!! Don't want to get hit...THEN RUN FASTER THAN THEM!!

Nice OP!! To the bold type above... Yes...why not. The limitations, imho, aren't with the styles themselves, but with the practitioner; that's when the difficulty arises. Man creates style, then man boggles the style; man gets in the way!

Oh, yes; Shindokan trains with the Sagi-machiwara, but Shindokan also trains with the WCD even more so. I don't know of many Karate styles that train with the WCD, if any outside of Shindokan.

Oh dear, this is so true. And it's just not true for that subreddit, but for many, many martial arts communities. It's either Muay Thai/Boxing/BJJ or bust. Also, many of their members are of the mentality that you must be Anderson Silva or Mike Tyson or you can't comment on anything (also, huge coincidence, everybody there is at a Anderson Silva or Mike Tyson level!), which puzzles me, since people can discuss NFL without being as good as Brady, or NBA without being on a Lebron level.. yet when it comes to martial arts they feel you just have amateur MMA fight experience or at least be REALLY good or you can't have an opinion Solid post...both!!

Rank is arbitrary-skill is definite. Don't let the color of your belt define you and don't let your past keep you from enjoying the ride. Solid post!!

I believe that this is shared across the board, no matter the style. Having an open class is the bread and butter of most schools of the MA; it has been for me, as it was for my own Sensei.

Do children have that ability within themselves to do that? Maybe! Parents dictate quite a lot, leaving children without a choice of their own.