kansascityshuffle

I'm not bad mouthing the style, but like anything, Isshin Ryu has some bad instructors, especially in the Pacific NorthWest area of the USA...but guys like Mady are great IsshinRyu stylists...and Mady is also a yondan in Kyokushin, too. I'm not a fan of the vertical fist and any Isshin Ryu practitioner that has fought knockdown karate, kickboxing, MT rules, etc...doesn't use it, that I have ever seen, anyway.

I wouldn't necessarily say that Wullie is obese..."bigger," sure, but it's obvious looking at Wullie that he has some muscle packed on him, too...and the same goes with his brother Iain, who's his Kyokushin instructor....and coincidentally, his brother has done a 100 man before, too. I interviewed Wullie about his second 100 man kumite not too long ago for "Osu Magazine." Wullie was the British Superheavyweight Kickboxing Champion some years back, too. Osu!

I broke my pelvis in a parachute accident, while in a "spec ops" unit that had huge oversight by USASOC and USSOCOM. That was 4 years ago, and I have put on at least 10-12 pounds every year since that time. I have severe arthritis, and the metal and screws that holds my pelvis together. I still am able to coach fighters that win kickboxing/Muay Thai titles and train kyu students to beat black belts in Kyokushin tournaments. Like Evergrey said, I would first observe what they can do, and observe their students. Long story short, a high ranking instructor should be judged by their students...if the students are garbage, and the instructor is obviously not "capable," I would than run. Osu!

I've had quite a bit of "real life altercations" and in my past have worked as a door man, fought many times in kickboxing, Muay Thai, Kyokushin, and Sabaki tournaments..and I'm also a veteran of 10th Special Forces Group (the latter required very few empty handed altercations). With that being said, I'm nobody special, just a guy that's been in a lot of fights, that's a Kyokushin and Muay Thai instructor, that had jobs that forced him in real life altercations. Consider yourself very lucky if you win a fight or prevail in a self defense situation with one strike. The closest I have been able to do something like that, is to throw or take down immediately followed by me crushing my knee on somebody's windpipe as soon as they hit the ground. I've been able to do this with very good success, and have had students of mine over the years that have successfully used it, as well. Honestly, I just don't have the patience, nor want to take chances anymore, I always have at least a tactical knife on me, if not my sub compact .45 that I legally conceal carry. I'm not a young punk anymore, trying to see if I "have it," but trust me on this, train doing rounds of pad work if you're a striker, and intelligent pad work with intelligent combinations. The reason for doing the latter is so that you really have the cardio/conditioning to keep fighting, because in a real fight, especially if you don't have experience in one, your adrenaline takes over, you forget much of what you can easily do in the dojo...simple things like keeping your hands up to help defend some wild haymakers to your head. If you can't do at least 5, two minute rounds with only 30 second breaks in between rounds, get your fitness up...and by rounds, I mean not faking the funk, make sure you can keep on going without stopping. If you preach to your students that they can win a fight in one strike, you're doing them a disservice, might as well tell them they're going to win the lottery. Osu!

I won my first Muay Thai fight in '97 by "leg kick KO" or "gedan mawashi KO," and have won matches in Kyokushin and Sabaki, the same way...so I'd have to say I favor gedan mawashi geri. I favor tobi hiza geri quite a bit, as well, and chudan hiza geri.... But for combinations, I have too many, it all depends on my opponent's habits, how they react, any obvious weaknesses I see in their defense...or any obvious ways I can bait them to run into an attack, too. I very rarely fight two different people the same way, and don't have favorite combinations. I just think this comes with experience of instructing & coaching others in Kickboxing (k-1 rules), Muay Thai, and for Kyokushin tournaments. Osu!

The original Ashihara style has unfortunately been dying over the last couple of decades, if not longer. Hideyuki Ashihara, the founder, was a very well respected Kyokushin instructor, that many went to, to learn advanced footwork, and such from. One of the issues was, after he passed, he left the style to his son, who I believe was only a green belt at the time, and his son wanted to make some big administrative and costly changes for people that have been under his father, and were far more superior in karate experience and skill. Ninomiya Kancho, has had much more luck after breaking off, and forming "Enshin," but I will say that the not original Ashihara fractions have been gaining steam, the ones under Jonkers/Schilt, Cook (Tsu Shin Gen) and Narker's. I have been in contact with Narker's Shihan(?) or Kancho for some years, now, he's a very nice man, and very easy to talk to, I know Dobbersky has, too. As of recently I have been in contact with Cook Soke who was a Kyokushin practitioner, grading to, I believe yondan or godan directly under Oyama Sosai. Anyhow, if you're familiar with Enshin, Ashihara is very, very similar. Osu!

I can show you Isshin Ryu and just about every other karate style dojo that sucks, including the style I teach, Kyokushin. Like everybody said, it depends on the teacher(s) for what style you're studying. I even know of almost entire organizations I'd avoid for various martial arts. Visit the dojos you have an interest in, at least observe a class if not join in a "trial class." Many different dojo allow a trial class... I'd avoid any dojo that doesn't allow you to observe and/or do a trial class.

As somebody that is able to do this I'll give you my tips. You have to be able to commit to your punches. This is much easier said then done! Far too many people will start to punch and see their opponent posture to defend or hit back and only throw a little bit of their punch...when you doubt yourself, you don't commit. This means, you have to be able to punch through, and go all the way through with your punch. It's something most people are not born with, something they need to work on. Now, for the power, the question is, how much do you weigh? I ask this because lets face it, size does help if you're able to use it ! Lifting weights will help a bit, but don't focus on it too much... Since you're in a boxing gym train with 16-18 ounce gloves, and spar with 12 ounce (which I'm assuming you're doing). For all your bag and pad work, use 16-18 ounce gloves. This will make your hands feel lighter when you're wearing the 12 ounce gloves. Basically, you need to start practice really hitting the bags as hard as you can, as often as you can, the same goes with pad work. This doesn't mean sacrifice technique, neither. With all of this being said some people are just born with the ability to punch hard. However, it's still something I believe that can be developed. If you want to train to hit hard, you have to practice hitting hard. Like I said, when you apply this in sparring, remember to focus on committing on the technique! Make sure to go through your target, too! If you don't commit and go through your target, I can guarantee you won't knock anybody down.

Mai pen arai krap! That's not the name of the kick by the way. I know that's not the name of the kick...In Japanese knockdown karate terminology I can call it maha geri, kube geri, sankaku geri, but most of us call it "Brazilian kick." Sorry about my "Thaingrish," believe it or not, much if it is how I was taught by Thai MT arjan...how they wrote it in English. I realize now years later instead of "cup," I should have said "krap" and so on but old habits die hard.

I teach at a university, but it's done as a normal Kyokushin class, it's not just a club to show up wearing no uniform. Before I was brought in to teach it was a social club where people would get together and just swap techniques, etc. However, they wanted a structured class where they could actually learn, progress, have the opportunity to advance in rank, compete in tournaments, etc. My associates at other universities in the same state do the same thing...it's ran as a dojo but is held at a university. What this does for us is allow us to keep the tuition costs and overhead very low. The reason why I allow knockdown karate stylists to keep their rank is because there are a lot of politics in knockdown karate...primarily within Kyokushin and the different orgs. I do my best to avoid politics and in doing so will allow somebody from a different org to wear their rank. I've only had one student with rank from another Kyokushin org/dojo come to my class, I allowed him to keep his rank. He didn't have to learn anything new, convert, etc., what he did was the same as what I do and teach. With that being said, I was a shito and goju ryu black belt before I took up Muay Thai and Kyokushin, I was not able to spar at knockdown kumite "black belt level" until I actually learned knockdown kumite. I've been running this dojo for about a year now and have lost 3 students that wanted to keep their rank. This isn't really something I'm willing to budge on because I expect a certain standard. I guess what I'm asking is, any advice on possibly how to be nicer in explaining this to somebody? Or am I basically always going to have the few individuals that expect to keep their rank even though what they do is radically different?

I'm a Kyokushin karate sensei, for all of you that don't know, Kyokushin is a full contact style of karate that focuses quite a bit on knockdown kumite. Our gradings for dan ranks who I'm under are 30 person kumite for shodan, 40 for nidan, 50 for sandan. With all of that being said I teach Kyokushin at a university and all of my students are university students. Some of them have backgrounds in other martial arts like shotokan, freestyle karate, MMA, Muay Thai, TKD, etc. Two of those styles got upset I wouldn't let them train with their black belt and brown belt. Basically, my own standard is I'd rather have a student that lacks in kata but is competent in kumite...not the other way around. With that being said, that doesn't mean somebody from a non-knockdown style wouldn't be able to hold their own in knockdown kumite but if they have never done it before I can guarantee they won't be at "black belt level." It's the same if I went into a TKD dojang, I wouldn't be at a "TKD black belt level of sparring." I only allow someone with a knockdown background to wear their ranks in my dojo..knockdown being Kyokushin, Enshin, Ashihara, Yoshukai, Shidokan, Seidokaikan, etc. This is because those styles do knockdown kumite, that doesn't mean that person will be grading for their next rank under me or my org, neither. That person would have to learn my ways and still convert but i'd let them start out as their current rank. So, I explained to an adult shotokan brown belt why he couldn't wear his brown belt, for one he only knew the taikyoku kata, which even in shotokan is odd considering shotokan does much more then that. I told him the kihon he does is good but there is some kihon in Kyokushin that isn't in shotokan...like shuto mawashi uke. He also has never used gedan mawashi geri, hiza geri, etc. in kumite. With all of this being said I will not hold somebody back from grading if they're ready I will also never promote somebody just because they show up to class..they need to put in the effort and train outside of my instruction, too. I have a TKD student right now that's a red belt in TKD, he'll probably double graded to yellow belt (white, blue, yellow) in 3-4 months, versus the 7-10 months it would probably take if he was a complete beginner. In the past when I've gone to other dojo I have never assumed I could wear my black belt. I show up wearing a white belt. I have been fortunate that the instructors have asked me in private about my background and insisted I wear my black belt but I've never assumed I could. What are some of you instructor's thoughts on this and how you deal with it? I must add I've never came across this problem as often as I have now, the difference is in the past I have taught at private commercial dojo and now I'm teaching at a university.

Cop cunb cup! You're right, I mixed up the terminology, now I forgot what I called the "Brazilian kick" in Muay Thai, but it's done a bit differently. Hopefully you can remember because I don't feel like digging through some old syllabus from the 90s....

Yup, sure did, Barnett was a bit chubby in those days and was known as "The Baby Faced Assassin," however, even though he was chubby back then he wasn't a fighter to be taken lightly. Barnett is far slimmer these days and I'm now the chubby one LOL! Almost like I reversed roles with him, good times.

I urge all of you to do some fact checking on lineage. No, I'm not calling your instructor, or instructor's instructor a liar, neither. What I'm saying is a lot of facts get mixed up, forgot, and some people stray from what was originally taught and really add their own "flavor" that gets passed on, and the same thing happens again. I've seen this happen in many different styles of karate, and I'm sure any other style is no different on what I'm describing. Often times some very fabricated romantic stories are told about some founders of martial arts. I don't necessarily think that the founder themselves made these stories up but that they had students that got carried away and these urban legends took on a life of their own. Not only do I urge you to fact check to verify, but you'll also learn a few things you didn't know before hand. It's a win-win situation..no direspect meant to any of you. I've learned this over the years by being friends with people that have their history wrong about their own lineage...it's not exactly their fault neither, their instructor(s) told them some misinformation and it's a snowball effect from there.

Hey, that's pretty cool!Thanks I edited that so I wouldn't sound like a big keyboard warrior but I meant 2-3 days before the fight, Hallman backed out due to some training injury. I probably trained my butt off for 2 months prior LOL. Not saying I would have beat him, who knows, it didn't happen, so I can't really say, just one of those "what ifs?" that I'll always think of. Hallman is a very skilled grappler though, I won't even try to act like I'm in his league of grappling skill. My brother fought a training partner of his (Anthony Hamlett) for his first MT fight on a amature card Hallman threw, too...very small world. Was an exciting time to be fighting in the WA state area, I remember fighting on some of the same cards as Josh Barnett a few times, too.