Toptomcat

Why have 'time limits' between belts as anything more than a suggested measure of how long it will take the average person to reach a certain level of competence? A talented, motivated, and physically fit student studying full-time as a live-in student at your style's honbu dojo could easily be expected to reach the level of proficiency expected of a shodan in as little as six months. Conversely, a listless, unfit student studying infrequently in an overcrowded class with an underqualified teacher will likely never reach that level. The intent behind them is good, but such time limits are unhelpful, vague indications at best of the true ability of a karateka. A minimum number of active hours spent training would be a much more sensible and useful metric.

*shrug* I never personally said point sparring was a waste of time- indeed, my first post in this thread was a post endorsing it as part of a wider training regimen including other methods. The 'misconception' you seem intent on fighting isn't created out of whole cloth by those looking to befoul the reputation of point-fighters: it's a result of people having a lot of very real experience with tournaments where any degree of contact, including sweeps, will result in instant disqualification- to the obvious detriment of those participating in them. This is more common, in my experience, than the kind of more realistic and useful point karate seen in your clip. Attempting to salvage the reputation of 'point karate' as a whole is destined to be a futile and unrewarding exercise. Defend the sparring rules and judging practices of your federation, school, or style, not point karate as a whole.

Unless that was one long disqualification highlight reel, the ruleset those karateka were working under has more in common with kickboxing or full contact than 'point sparring'. Even boxing and kickboxing have point systems to determine the victor should one participant fail to disable another, as appeared to be the default in those matches.

Getting back on topic: I never understood why certain styles of karate got attached to one particular style of sparring to begin with. As many have said, none of them can truly be a real combat experience: each set of sparring rules has ways in which they approach a combat closely and distantly. Why, then, lock every student of your style from now until the end of time into the same set of strengths and weaknesses, always knowing certain aspects of true combat and remaining ignorant in others? That's all choosing One True Set of sparring rules accomplishes. ANY set of sparring rules becomes a waste of time if it's all you ever do! Every karateka should spar under every set of rules, getting considerable experience in each of them. Train stop-and-start point for its great lessons in distancing, openings, movement, and getting the first strike. Train continuous point for its lessons in how to use and defend against combinations, control a chaotic and fast-moving situation, and deal with head strikes in a reasonably unrestricted situation. Train full contact/knockdown for its lessons in fighting spirit, how to take a hit, effective body punching, and the physical toughness it confers. Find your opposite number in the karate community and get him to show you what he does and why he does it! I guarantee you'll learn something about your strengths and limitations. Don't get stuck in some martial echo chamber, hearing only things you know you agree with already. Get out there and learn something.

It also depends on distance. Sometimes you won't have enough space to get up the speed for a damaging strike with a ball mae geri, but will with a heel mae geri.

I didn't miss what you were saying, I complained that it was off-topic.

I have to agree here, a lot of the most basic techniques learned in karate (deep stances and the standard defends in particular) simply have no place in kumite. After all, have you ever seen someone in a true deep kiba dachi (horse stance) in kumite? Of course not. It's just impractical. The notion that simple, or basic combinations may be better in kumite is hardly without merit, but the expectation that traditional karate techniques belong in kumite is absurd. Everything is much faster and more free flowing. Those sorts of techniques belong to kata, where they can shine. Now when did I say all that? Some traditional karate kihon are, it's true, entirely impractical in kumite- but there are a good many useful techniques that are often discarded because of that kind of mindset. What I said was that whatever sort of technique you use, you'll need to put them in combinations in order to make them work.

That's a bit of a non sequitur- kihon are wonderful, but they aren't combinations and can't fill their role. Whether you build your combinations out of simple and time-honored or complex and flashy parts, you need them for competence in sparring, and they help tremendously for effective self-defense. Employing techniques in quick succession, and studying which work best together when employed in rapid sequence, doesn't render them somehow newfangled, suspect, decorative, or nontraditional.

Covering a missed roundhouse kick with a spinning back kick is often helpful, especially if you throw a more committed roundhouse kick with a lot of hip rotation. As you get more comfortable with the motion, you could start doing it on purpose, baiting retaliation with a roundhouse kick thrown too far and spinning quickly into the back kick to interrupt your opponent's counter. Shuuto strikes are often difficult to find a use for: look for angles from which you can powerfully strike with a chop that you could not manage with something simpler like a punch or hook. Once you have one or two useful-seeming chops, try them out in different contexts: in particular, I find that situations in which you've backed an opponent into a corner or otherwise restricted his ability to retreat make them quite a bit more useful. Set up a spinning back kick to the body with a jab or two to the head. Assuming your proportions are roughly similar to mine, you'll have two possible situations: if you're close enough to actually strike with the jab, the back kick will hit more unexpectedly, but you'll be unable to make full extension on it. There will still be a lot of power there, but not a lot of knockback value. If you're just too far to hit with the jab, the spinning back kick is a bit more telegraphed but will hit harder and with full extension, driving your opponent back. Watch competition footage of 70s-era kickboxer Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez to see a master of the spinning back kick, and its setups in particular. An excellent bread-and butter combination is lead, cross, rear roundhouse: this one is nice because it grows as you do. Lead, cross, rear leg kick is easy enough that it can be used to teach basics of combining hands and feet in combinations to beginners: Lead, cross, body kick becomes a viable weapon as you get a little better, then lead, cross, head kick can be a very good weapon as you develop the flexibility, speed, and balance to execute it. Experiment with different sorts of ways to combine kicks: kicks in quick succession on the same leg without dropping it, kicks in quick succession on the same leg while allowing it to rebound quickly off of the floor, kicks that alternate quickly between legs, kicks bridged by various sorts of steps, skips, slips, pivots, and jumps. Keep in mind that combinations with more than about three kicks are probably impractical for self-defense, though they may be useful in sport karate. Also be honest with yourself about how much power you're trading for speed- developing dazzlingly fast and varied combinations of very weak kicks is a trap that a lot of people fall into. For guys who depend on a strong guard without as much movement- taking hits on their elbows, forearms, and shins rather than avoiding them or mounting a more active defense, try unbalancing them with by opening a combination or rush with a push kick- which works whether or not you block it. If you find yourself favoring a particular combination, don't start avoiding it out of fear of becoming predictable. Develop variations that prey on your opponent's familiarity with it, setting up an expectation by obviously overusing a certain sequence and subverting that expectation by changing the target, timing, or type of any of the elements of the combination. Just don't change the first hit or two, or they won't have anything 'predictable' to sucker them into reacting incorrectly. Something as simple as changing a jab-jab-cross to a jabjab-cross or jab-jab...cross can pay enormous dividends. KEEP IT SIMPLE! Make minimal assumptions about how your opponent will react, and don't include more than four or five strikes in a combination, especially if they're kicks.

What's the distinction between a 'throw' and a takedown, though? I think you could make a pretty good case that a great many of judo's ashi-waza and sutemi-waza aren't purely 'throws'.

I think that's making an unwarranted assumption or two. Your teacher may or may not be firmly, irrevocably committed to the One True, Wado-Tested, Wado-Approved Way of doing things- indeed, it's not unlikely. However, you shouldn't just assume that he is without asking him first. Try asking him if he is comfortable he is with discussing 'why' questions about Nagashizuki as well as 'how' questions- what the technique is intended to express or teach, and how the movements he is attempting to teach you serve those purposes. Don't attempt to correct him with concepts and techniques you learned in Ashihara- but engage him by asking about what the unfamiliar footwork he is attempting to teach you is intended to accomplish. I know that I've encountered similar-looking techniques in different karate substyles that are actually intended to accomplish something entirely different! Don't set Wado's Nagashizuki against Ashihara's- learn the concepts behind both, and whether the differences between them are illusionary, superficial, moderate, or foundational. Be able to perform both, and know the benefits and drawbacks of each. This allows your learning of two karate styles to mesh constructively rather than destructively, and will teach you something about both of them.

I'm a non-Wado student unfamiliar with Nagashizuki. I simply read what you wrote and examined what little video of it I could find. What it looks like- and feel free to tell me that I'm completely off base here- is that Nagashizuki is not so much a discrete technique as a demonstration or drill illustrating principles of counterpunching. The particular sequence of slipping a straight punch to the head, responding with a backfist, pivoting away from a straight punch to the body while parrying the shot, and backfisting the head again may or may not work for you, and may or may not be practical- depending on vagaries of foot speed, how naturally certain kinds of defensive footwork and parrying come to you, and the like. The general concept of seeing a shot coming, dodging or deflecting it, and responding with a quick technique while your opponent is open is an excellent one that's well worth internalizing and practising, but you probably ought to be moving on to drills that are more flexible and 'alive' than Nagashizuki.

It's not a matter of merely 'good' black belts or 'bad' black belts, black belts worked for three years or seven- that's only a part of the spectrum. Even dedicated martial artists who worked hard for years for their shodan, and hold a legitimate black belt, can have dramatically different skill sets.

Belt rankings seem to be a topic that attracts a lot of attention in the martial arts, and I've been noticing some pretty severe misconceptions about what they are and what they mean. One of the biggest is that someone's belt ranking has meaning as a measure of their objective ability. There are a great deal of topics dealing with questions like how long it ought to take to get to shodan and the like: I submit that the whole thing is just so much fruitless wheel-spinning because it varies so very much between styles and schools. Think about it. A black belt at the worst of McDojos means that you payed your membership dues for a year or two. A black belt at a school of slightly higher standards means that you showed up on a regular baisis for about the same period- not that you have neccesarily improved a great deal while doing so. A black belt at a competition-focused school means that you're physically fit and have an understanding of timing, distance, and have an excellent grasp on a core set of no more than a dozen techniques that work excellently for you- without, perhaps, having heard the word 'bunkai' more than once or twice in your life. You could have gotten there in ten years or six months, depending on your innate athleticism and whether or not you'd studied another applicable combat sport beforehand. A black belt at a kata-heavy school means that you have carefully memorized an impressive number of set routines and bunkai, and can perform them well- but you could easily have gotten there and still be red-faced and out of breath at the end of three minutes of energetic shadowboxing, or find yourself more or less a loss should one of your predetermined routines miss or fail to work the way you expect it to. In many places, degrees of black belt above about 3rd or 4th have more to do with who you know and how well you can play the political game than physical fitness or martial skill. Different schools award rank for different things. One shodan may have a broad knowledge of kata, another may struggle with them. One shodan may have made deep study of the writings of karate's founding figures: another may have difficulty naming enough of them to fill the fingers of one hand. One shodan may be able to kick your rear up and down the street, another may be totally unable to defend himself. One shodan may be a capable, charismatic, and patient teacher, while another may be unable to just keep order in a roomful of students. Granted, this isn't ideal. But it is the present state of karate, and it's something everyone ought to keep in mind. Rank is *not* an objective measure of a karateka's worth as a martial artist, across the board. It is a reflection of whether he embodies what his style, school, and federation values in a martial artist, and before trying to draw any conclusions about a martial artist's competence from their rank- positive or negative- one should have a fairly good idea of what rank means in their context.

Krav Maga has quality control problems. A good Krav school is some of the best martial instruction you can get: a bad Krav school is what you'll probably find. Check it out- go there with an open mind- but be on guard for poor instruction.

There was a term for this, but it escapes me. I looked around, but didn't see it pop up. Do you recall it? 'Menkyo kaiden', meaning ' "license of total transmission.' I've come across a disparity in my notes that may go some way to explaining the problem. The passage I quoted is not from Karate-Do Nyumon, which is what was at the top of my page of notes, but Karate Jutsu, which was essentially a second edition of Ryukyu Kenpo Karate- essentially the first thing that Funakoshi ever published on karate, dating back to 1922. So we've got a timeframe for this- this is very early Funakoshi, some time before karate had really begun to catch on in Japan.

I'm not interested in the split between the JKA and sport karate, except peripherally. What I'm interested in right now is whether there's anyone out there who can answer my questions about Funakoshi's writings- not the writings of JKA instructors, not the writings of those who interpreted him, not even the writings of his direct students- except perhaps when they claim to directly quote Funakoshi. Perhaps once my question of primary sources is settled, the answer to it can have bearing on the larger issue of the historical split(s) in karate organizations. But right now, I'm looking for the answer to a very specific question, and you seem determined to stick to generalities, which is rather frustrating.

I am not interpreting the passage as constituting full and enthusiastic support of sportive competition. I interpret it as interest in the theoretical question of how to establish sportive competition. The interest may not even neccesarily have been supportive- but the fact that he was willing to entertain the idea of 'continuing research' into the area suggests stongly that the very idea of competitive karate did not instantly repulse him. If he is concerned that this jeopardizes the original essence of karate and regrets the neccessity of adopting it, but sees it as a painful neccesity to grow the art- then he devotes little verbiage to lamenting it. This is in contrast to the popular view of Funakoshi's teachings that he was implacably opposed to any sort of competitive karate under any circumstances whatsoever. Notice that I started with the assumption that the popular view of Funakoshi's teachings is the true one, and asked for those in the community with greater familiarity of his written work to provide some idea of where I could find where he had recorded his opposition to competitive karate. This is not an attack on the idea that Funakoshi opposed competitive karate. This is an expression of surprise that, on review of one of his published works, he seems to have had less than total opposition to competitive karate at at least one point in time, and a request for additional information that verifies and expands on his opposition to competitive karate. I am not attempting anylasis of this paragraph from any point of view other than the purely textual- what Funakoshi's plain words seem to convey, without any preconceptions about his philosophy or his legacy...ancient, modern, or otherwise. I do this because to view the works of an author through the lens of his later students and critics can distort them. While Nishiyama is a highly respected karateka and a great master, he may have chosen to emphasize certain teachings of Funakoshi and downplay others- as is his perogative as a superbly qualified teacher in his own right. For this reason, when it comes to learning about Gichin Funakoshi's views on karate, I trust the accuracy of Gichin Funakoshi's words over that of even such an authority as Hidetaka Nishiyama.

Let us perform some textual anylasis. Modern Japanese defines shiai as a 'match, game, bout, or contest'. There is very little ambiguity there. However, assume that 'shiai' meant something different in the Japanese of Funakoshi's time and a mistranslation of some sort has occured. What about the context of the word throws that into doubt? To begin with, 'Shiai' is mentioned in the context of judo and kendo, which at the time of Funakoshi's writing had well-established sportive sparring traditions that he would have been thoroughly familiar with. If he had meant 'shiai' to be somehow analogous to shiai in judo or kendo, with some important difference that rendered it non-competitive or otherwise more congruent with his philosophy of karate, then it seems likely that Funakoshi would have pointed out this important difference in the text. He did not. Furthermore, Funakoshi makes reference to rules banning attacks to vital points and the use of protective gear- immediately after discussing how similar changes made in kendo made it more sportive and enabled competitive sparring. Such an error would be a vanishingly unlikely one for a translator to make: he would have to drastically mistranslate not merely one word or one sentence, but an entire paragraph loaded with context clues. The weight of the evidence indicates that this is not an error of that nature.

And yet it is evident that, at least at the time of the writing of Karate-Do Nyumon, Gichin Funakoshi was interested in developing karate in precisely the direction of testing, grading, sport, and competition. To read his words otherwise borders on deliberate obtuseness. Historical time frames are up for interpretation, but that Funakoshi wrote Karate-Do Nyumon, and that its words express considerable interest in developing karate along the competitive lines of judo and kendo, is not. I am uninterested in restarting the dead-horse argument about whether or not competition and sparring is contrary to the essence of karate. What I am interested in is the progression of Funakoshi's viewpoint over time- how it came about, how it impacted the development of karate, and how it is documented in his written works.

It isn't that simple, though. Funakoshi's comments in Karate-do Nyumon make it plain that he once considered sparring- not merely the drills often called 'kumite' in non-sparring Shoto offshoots, but actual competitive matches- to be compatable with the nature of karate and actually desirable for the development of the art. He was aware of the dangers it posed to the 'purity' and philosphic foundations of karate, but felt it was a neccesary and important way to develop karate nonetheless. What I want to do is not merely establish the view of Funakoshi generally, as considered across the whole of his life, but to pinpoint when his views on sparring changed- as evidently must have happened at some point during his development as a martial artist. The relevent quote follows: "The reason that until now there has been no assigning of ranks in karate is that it has not been possible to have shiai (competitive matches) as in judo or kendo. This is because of the devastating power of karate techniques; a strike to a vital point could immediately prove fatal. Likewise, in times past swordsmanship was taught only through kata since a shiai, whether using real swords or wooden swords, was always fought at the risk of one’s life. Subsequently, today’s face masks and wrist guards were developed, and although this brought about a certain amount of degradation in kendo, it allowed it to become that much closer to a sport rather than a martial art. With continuing research it is not unfeasible that as in judo or kendo our karate, too, might incorporate a grading system through the adaptation of protective gear and the banning of attacks to vital points. In fact, I believe that it is important to move in that direction.” Quote is from the Teramoto translation. Emphasis is added.

I am given to understand that the split between Shotokai and Shotokan was over a dispute about how to interpret Gichin Funakoshi's philosophy and teachings- specifically, whether competition is compatable with karate. Seeking to better understand this split, I located and read through the first significant work by Funaskoshi I could find, which happened to be Karate-do Nyumon. Frankly, given the degree of controversy, I was surprised how little verbiage supported the Shotokai position of competition being against Funakoshi's principles: in fact, while he acknowledged that he had as of the date of the book's writing only engaged in kata and exercises, reguarding unprotected sparring as far too dangerous, he expressed great interest in finding a way to make competitive karate matches safe with a set of rules banning strikes to vital points and protective gear. This leads me to believe that Nyumon was an early work, and in later years he made statements that could plausibly have lead to the kai/kan split. In what work of Funakoshi's could I find more negative statements towards the practise of sparring- or, ideally, a discussion of his previous positive statements and why he had changed his mind on the subject?

Constant study over about the last seven years, moving from karate school to school- for reasons of opportunity rather than listnessness, as schools closed down and I moved from place to place. The differences I noticed sparked my interest in this subject.

There is an amazing panopoly of karate instruction out there. I've been trying to get a general picture of the way to best classify the various modern American karate systems, but the whole thing is so balkanized and varied that it's proving a difficult project. I've got the barest beginnings of a generalized framework, but nothing I'd like to expose to criticism yet: instead, I'd like to throw some of what I deem to be my more solid observations out here for comment, inviting criticism on any individual point- as well as fishing for similar observations from those who have been doing this far longer than I have. -The knockdown systems all seem to have much more in common with each other than they do with anything else. -While thoroughly hybridized with boxing and frequently not called 'karate', American kickboxing owes enough to karate in its historical roots and modern technique to demand classification as a karate in a general framework. -Similarly, most of the Korean systems owe enough to karate technique and pedagogy to require placement somewhere in the framework. -Systems that identify as Okinawan tend to have a greater emphasis on makawari work and other impact conditioning. -Schools that do not spar at all tend to be either fraudulent or very specialized in purpose (i.e. geared more towards women's self-defense courses than karate as a hobby or lifestyle). -Schools and systems that make a policy of training full-out with full-body armor- Redman suits and the like- tend to be geared towards a single group or small number of groups of security professionals, possibly due to the high initial investment involved. They tend to be thin enough on the ground not to form federations and set up sparring rules or tournaments that cover wide geographical areas, coming together on an ad hoc baisis or not at all. As I have invited criticism and comment on a number of quite disparate obervations, please try to keep the original purpose of this thread firmly in mind to avoid one smaller issue overwhelming the whole. I'm trying to paint with a very broad brush, here: if you hold up a single person, a single school, or even a single style as counterexample to one of my general statements, but admit that it is true as a general rule, you miss the point. Also note that my primary goal is to classify how modern karate is taught in America, and am interested in history only insofar as it directly relates to that. A few things in particular I'm interested in: Are there geographical differences in the mix of schools? I know areas that have seen a lot of Asian immigration have a lot of schools, and there are some kinds of instruction that you can find practically anywhere in the suburbs- but are there any surprising and interesting hot spots, like the black karate scene in Harlem in the 60s and 70's? Are there any large federations of unusual homogenity or heterogenity?

Not at all counterproductive- it'll make you a better martial artist. Go for it.