Toptomcat

What do you want to talk about here? Karate as a battlefield art, kyusho-jitsu, or kata bunkai? You're sort of all over the place. As for karate as a battlefield art, karate was invented in the 1930s, when gunpowder warfare had already made all close-combat martial arts a very poor second choice for the battlefield- when this had been the case for centuries, in fact. It has no history as a battlefield combat art, except as an almost incidental backup to a soldier's rifle, pistol, and combat knife. It is a civilian art of self-improvement and self-defense, and has been for the entirety of its history. As for Kyusho, it has failed to live up to the claims of its most prominent practitioners whenever put to serious skeptical examination. At best it serves as an interesting supplement to a far broader training program: at worst it serves as a pernicious distraction from kata, kihon, and kumite. As for bunkai, they are all right as far as they go- but the line between discovering applications of a kata and inventing them is a very fine one, often too fine for me. If you wish to apply a kata, make sure that the applications that you're practicing are immediately and obviously apparent in its movements when even a modicum of observation is applied: otherwise, be honest about what you're doing and create combinations or sequences of prepared responses from scratch.

What 'original concepts?' What your instructor had in mind? What your instructor's instructor had in mind? What the founder of your substyle had in mind? What Funakoshi, Itoshi, and the rest of the 20s-30s pioneers of karate had in mind? What the teachers of the Shuri-te, Tomari-te, and Naha-te had in mind? What the teachers of White Crane had in mind? What Bodhidharma had in mind? It just doesn't work to think that way. It's turtles all the way down. Worrying about whether or not your karate resembles what was being taught long ago is far less productive than seeing to it that your karate is as effective and powerful as you can make it.

Different styles of karate throw the knife hand different ways- with their fingers straight and together, curved and together, or relaxed and slightly apart. I've had a few bad experiences with the 'curved and together' method taught by my style- I keep having the tip of the ring finger whip into whatever it is I'm striking, even though I'm delivering the vast majority of the force through the edge of the hand, as is supposed to happen. How does your style traditionally throw it, and what's the justification for it? How do *you* typically throw it, and why? Specific advice from those with experience breaking with the technique and using it in kumite would be particularly welcome.

I'm part of a small Tang Soo Do school that spars with a ruleset much less restricted than is usual to our art, with a higher level of contact. This has lead to a higher standard of technique, but some of our students have difficulties with the level of contact involved: one or two in particular have a great deal of trouble with pain tolerance and taking hits properly. Though they stick to their training and keep coming back to spar, they are persistently unable to absorb punishment. What are some drills or training exercises that we can institute in our classes to promote physical toughness and fighting spirit? As they are famed for these qualities, I would especially appreciate advice from Kyokushin karateka- though help from any source would be gladly welcomed. For those unfamiliar with it, Tang Soo Do is essentially karate, except a few touchy Koreans will get very upset if you say as much.

Most of the AWMA stuff seems way too small for even an 8x11 sized poster, and all Century seems to take pictures of are empty uniforms.

I'm doing up a poster to recruit for my college's Karate club. The layout's pretty good, but I need a good centerpiece- a great picture that will draw people in and make them say 'wow, I should give this a try'. It can be clipart, a drawing, a photograph, whatever- so long as it looks good. Google has failed me- can you guys help me come up with anything?