Shizentai

I can relate. I've been known to blank on kata in front of everyone. There's something about the people looking at me that just makes me go still and lose every thought that was in my head, kata order, proper execution, everything. For a long time I thought this was something I had to overcome, this uncertainty and fear. I think now as an adult with a rather intense job, I am realizing that this blanking and panicked feeling is actually a great gift. If I practice my kata enough, then I don't need to think about the order. I don't need to think about each move. I just think about that blank feeling, that ultimate calm of giving in. I think more than being okay with the people or the place, it was being okay with my own mind as it inevitably changes in that setting. How to get okay with that feeling? Well, honestly, it might be a little embarrassing, but I started doing kata in public spaces: parks, on the beach, in my front yard, etc. The more I trained in those places, the more I encountered people watching, and that feeling. I had to learn to embrace the calmness that was there, even if I didn't recognize it at first. One of the things I found while doing that, was that each sequence in a kata is it's own unit, having its own timing, and beginning with its own tachi-ai. When I blank and forget what I'm doing, personally, I noticed it's often between such kata 'phrases.' Although at first I tried to rush through this feeling, now I let it wash over me, and don't move until the moment feels right.

It's so true! That's exactly what it is! I'm someone who has had the build of a wet noodle most of my life, so you'd think I'd have come to that same realization sooner than others, but not really. It wasn't until I accidentally took too much benadryl before class (a 5-hour prior emergency situation), and found myself suddenly unable to tense normally RIGHT in the middle of a kumite match in front of everyone. Then it hit me as hard as my opponent (whom I had never bested in a match before) hit the floor. The next day, after my movements were normal again, I was thinking about it and decided to film myself doing kata two ways: once the way I thought had been correct, with a good amount of tension just at the end, or so I thought, and once focusing just on relaxation and correct movement timing. The relaxed version every single time looked correct, and the version that felt best looked stiff and slow. Then I thought "Well if it works in kumite and in kata... let's try it in kihon." And the rest is history. Though I will say that makiwara training was where it was the most apparent. My sound was finally as loud and as crisp as the top-ranking men in my dojo. I had just written it off that I would never get quite to that level, but I was wrong. I'm now going through a similar epiphany with speed versus timing. Slowing things down to reduce superfluous movement and ultimately make things faster. I realize now that this is the way to a full life of martial arts. Speed and reaction time are good when you are young, but a person can fashion more staying solutions to underlie those skills.

I have a full-time job that is sometimes overtime for weeks at a time (ie, I'm in a remote forest for a few months collecting samples night and day, or camping on a beach alone). I think part of my ability to do my job well is realizing that de-stressing and taking care of my body is part of my work. One great way of doing this for me, is kata. I don't really measure the length of time I am doing kata, but especially if I'm at high elevation field site, I like to run through all of the ones I know nice and slowly when I first wake up. It's hard for my body to thermoregulate sometimes, so I kind of selfishly use kata for this purpose sometimes. When I am not in the field, I tend to arrive early for class and train for 30 min before, often staying an hour or so after to do mirror work before locking up on my way out. I train 4 days a week. So if I had to guess, I probably vary from 1 to 6 hours of out-of-class training a week. That's a big margin of error, but I think that's reflective of reality.

It's easier to break than make.

I think people bring up excellent points about execution being a key element. The things I find to be important while selecting a kata are the following, in order of importance: a. execution - my ability to perform it well b. perceived difficulty - advanced kata? sentei? heian? c. risk - some katas are harder to do than others on an unfamiliar mat, for instance, ones that have a slow foot sweeping motion, or a big jump. Given this, in shotokan a lot of advanced people choose to perform "the so's, the sho's and the ho's" at tournaments : sochin nijushiho gojushiho-sho gojushiho-dai bassai-sho The perceived difficulty of these katas is high, but there are no risky jumps. More high-risk advanced katas with jumps that are also popular include: kanku-sho (my tokui) unsu Now, this being said, the katta jitte, which is a basic 15 kata, has been used to take first place at the All Japan Championships at least 4 times, and at least twice at the world cup, reason being that Takenori Imura sensei was performing it so darn well: As others have said, the reason for this is because execution is the #1 most important.

Hmm, good point. I'm trying to think of a time when a woman has asked me if I could kick her butt. I don't think any ever have. Although once a woman (who didn't train) asked me if I could kick the butt of the guy standing next to me, who happened to be my sensei. I was like "no"

There are two ways I'd like to divide up this question: 1. Would a competition/street-fight inexperienced person be to teach students how to win in a competition or a street fight? 2. Can a competition/street-fight inexperienced person have insight into marital arts in general? 1. I think the best way to learn to compete is by being taught by people who have competed well. I think the best way to learn how to deal with self-defense is to be taught by people who have successfully defend themselves against the threats you'd like to defend yourself against (guns, knives, empty hand, multiple attackers, throws, etc.). ...but, that's not all a martial art is. ^ this is kind of getting at my thoughts on number 2. I remember the first time I heard the definition of "do" that really rang home with me. I mean, I can read kanji. I know it means "road" or "way," but up till I was almost a ni-dan I interpreted the deeper side of "karate-do" as "karate is a way of life." which... isn't wrong, but wasn't really complete either. While on a business trip, I decided to visit a nearby friend and instructor who grew up in Japan. I arrived early to take his advanced class. At this time he was finishing up with the kids' class, and had all of them sitting around in a circle. He asked them "What is 'do' from "karatedo'." One kid said "way," another kid said "journey," but this wasn't the answer he was looking for. The instructor proceeded on to explain that "do" implied that whatever else the activity was used for before in terms of practical application, people had changed their reason for practicing it over time to something independent from that original purpose. He said that the act of practicing "do" becomes its own meditative and complete experience in and of itself. This kind of blew my mind. It was something I kind of knew deep down to be the case, but I never had heard the words or ideas so well formed in that manner. I myself appreciate the times in my life that karate has spared me from harm, but I don't keep coming back to the dojo because I'm banking on being attacked in the future to make it all worth while. I don't keep coming to the dojo because I can't get enough medals. ...it's something else. I'm pretty sure it's "do." After than I began to think about many other types of "do" and to think about the common threads it has with karate. To answer the original question, I think having experience as a streetfighter helps you master "jutsu" (practical use). However, I don't think you need to be a competitor or a street fighter to get and to teach "do." Each is its own thing, and technically a competition could judge either, depending on what type of competition it is. ...but a person can have one, both, or neither. Both are good. For reference check out these really striking videos of other "do" kyudo - sado - judo -

Jokes aside, that must have been so awful for her to have gone though. I'm so sorry to hear that.

This is fair, and sounds more like an institutional problem. I was watching a video the other day (can't find it now) about one tactic for arm wrestling which involved giving yourself a massive adrenaline rush right before the match by loudly screaming and self-adulating. The adrenaline rush is short-lived, but so is the average arm-wrestling match. Such a rush of course won't replace years of training, but it does add a few percentages of probability. To what extent MMA fighters try to utilize this is something I'm not familiar with, as I don't do MMA, but I wonder if it could be related, annoying as it is to watch.

Every generation is the "me me generation." Each generation has its idiosyncrasies, and each generation has its positive traits. Just because they're different, doesn't mean they're less than the others. I have to agree with singularity6 on this one. Every generation throws crap at the generation that follows it. This is nothing new. In addition, lumping an entire generation together either while praising or admonishing them is a bit foolhardy, because individual experiences, privilege, and values vary quite a bit across individuals of the same age. I am 31, so I get lumped into the "millenial" category by many people's definition of the term. However, the stereotypes of what I'm supposed to be like don't make sense to me: Am I... 1. lazy? Well, this is subjective, but I can't honestly remember the last weekend I didn't spend working. The reason is because I love my job, and I write better while siting comfortably in my own abode. I try to leave weekdays free for meetings and lab work. 2. living off my parents? I moved out of my parents' house when I was a teenager because a natural disaster destroyed it, and along with it, both of my parents' places of employment. They weren't in a financial position to pay for my college, even if they wanted to. I went to a state school, got scholarships for some of it, worked and took out loans for the rest. I lived on ramen for a while after, but I paid those loans off. Luckily because I went in-state It didn't take me 20 years to do that. I'm now in the phase of my life where my sisters and I are financially planning for our parents' futures. Mom and dad have worked hard for a long time, but weren't able to save up much due to circumstances out of their control. We've got their backs though. I will make sure they're okay. 3. nacisistic? HAHAHA! Well, I do like myself, I won't lie, but it's not something I go around telling people or something. It took me a while to get to there too. I spent a lot of my formative years with a doctor's note and ankle braces on the side of the gym in PE class. I spent a lot of time in the free tutoring sessions my public school offered on the weekends, because I was slow at arithmetic and am a terrible speller. Maybe in some other universe I could think that I was born to be more amazing than others, but I am blatantly and obviously not superior to anyone. 4. a job-hopper? I've been working in social insect research for 11 years. I often had to work side-jobs to make it through, and I have switched institutions over that time, but I have avidly pursued this career since I fell in love with it while at a part-time job counting ants in college. Now I'm a postdoctoral researcher at an r1 institution. It's been a wild ride. 5. spoiled by constant participation trophies? I am trying to think of a time when I got a participation trophy as a kid. I think one time when I was about 10, I tore a ligament in my right knee and couldn't participate in a girl scout fundraiser bowling tournament as I had planned to.... so I sat on the side with my foot elevated and kept score for everyone else and was MC instead. The troop made me a little trophy that said "best score-keeper" after that. That's the only one I can think of. Does that count? Does that trophy make me spoiled? If so, please elaborate. So go ahead. If you want to, take digs at me for being part of the problem with this ill-behaved fighter, or being somehow like her because of my age. I don't really see the connection though.

Well it definitely sounds like I'm not alone. Like most of you, I don't usually tell people I just met that I do karate, but there are some circumstances where it's unavoidable. Case in point, being in physical therapy for a karate-related injury. When my sports PT asks what happened, I'm not going to tell him I was drinking tea. That's funny, because my most recent example at the PT actually went the same way. PT: "Oh, she does karate? I better not mess with her." Me: "Well, technically all you know about me so far is that I am good at hurting myself with karate" Then I showed off my solar-plexus hernia surgery scars and the deceivingly large one on my chest from where I lost a mole to an un-clipped toenail during a tournament. They shared theirs as well. As awkward as "can you kick my butt" is, scar stories seem like a peace pipe understood by all.

"Can you kick my butt?" It is the question that inevitably follows "Oh, you do maritial arts?" when someone (especially a non-MAist) finds out I train before they know me well. To me, this seems like a dead end question, because any answer I give is socially unacceptable (yes, no, maybe, don't care, why would I kick your butt?), yet the question itself has become a socially acceptable knee-jerk response. I have two questions for you all today: 1. Is this something I get because I'm female, or does everyone get it fairly regularly? 2. What is your favorite response to this?

Lately I've been thinking a lot about my timeline for training over the years. More than any rank or tournament win, I cherish the opportunities I've had to train under different masters here, there and everywhere. I'm guessing a lot of you feel the same way. For that reason, I'd like to ask folks to list who you've has as instructors over the years, counting all people you've trained with for longer than a month (so not counting seminars and brief visits). List in the order who - where - when I'll kick this off: Pat Jennings - New Orleans, LA - 2000-2001 Takayuki Mikami - New Orleans, LA - 2001-2005, 2009-2012 Rick Mekdessie - New Orleans, LA - 2004-2005 Charles Meyer - West Lafayette, IN - 2005 Ricky Pampo - Baton Rouge, LA - 2005-2007, 2008-2009 Masayuki Iwabuchi - Osaka city, Osaka prefecture, Japan - 2007 Masahisa Ueda - Nagao, Osaka prefecture, Japan - 2007 Teruyuki Okazaki - Philadelphia, PA - 2013-2015 Hiroyoshi Okazaki - Philadelphia, PA - 2016-2017 Tony Cuffie - Philadelphia, PA - 2013-2017 Carl Shaw - Philadelphia, PA - 2013-2017 Shojiro Koyama - Phoenix, AZ - 2017-present I also trained in an all-kids dojo in Maizuru (Kyoto prefecture) in 2003 for about a month, and in the Kansai Gaidai karate club in 2007 (Hirakata, Osaka prefecture) for about a month, but both of these experiences were very short, so I decided to leave them off the list. I wonder how many of us almost crossed paths while going here and there!

I wear contacts for karate now, but when I was a kid I'd have to take my glasses off whenever we were doing partner work. I remember that being a huge pain! If in the middle of the partner drill Sensei wanted to explain something I couldn't see him unless I put them back on. Once he was explaining something for a while, so I went and put them back on, but as soon as I got back to my spot he said "ICHI!" and my partner punched me in the face. Even though she just barely got me, I had a black eye for a week because the nose pad broke a blood vessel in my lower eyelid! If you can't see well enough without them, and if you can't wear contacts, I highly recommend prescription sports goggles (as others have), because those at least are designed to protect your eyes from impact.

yeah, like I said, I don't even bother striking hard surfaces in places that aren't sensitive. I don't think I've ever attacked someoene's forehead. Besides, it's hard (pun intended) for short people to reach. Agreed. I think what you're saying here is correct, but is not inconsistent with what I have said either. Yes, there are better ways to generate more power, but often times you don't need 100% power to take someone out. Even if punches to the head and instep kicks to the head aren't the "perfect" surface, they still can and do knock people out... all the time. Why? because the temple is sensitive to jolts, the "reset button" in the back of the head, and the side of the neck as well. The face too. I know this because I am a small female who doesn't condition much . If I can KO someone with good target, it probably requires less power than you'd think. Don't just take my word for it though Here is a video of people accidentally KOing using one single instep or seiken strike with bare knuckles:

Every JKA & ISKF club I've seen trains on makiwara. I don't usually see kids doing it though. Usually we have them do knuckle push-ups instead when their joints are still soft, until they are done growing. I agree with sensei8 and Wastelander on this one. These are not hard and fast rules. It depends on multiple factors. It also has little to do with the sex of the MAist thank you very much . The way I was taught, in an ideal situation striking surface should depend on 3 main things (though also a variety of other situation-specific factors): 1. target surface: - a. how hard or soft is the target (ex: skull=hard, belly=soft) - b. how sensitive is the target (ex: bridge of nose more sensitive than ribs) 2. strike surface: - a. how hard is the attacking surface (ex: knuckle=hard, palm=soft) - b. how sensitive is the attacking surface (ex: heel less sensitive than instep, conditioned is less sensitive than unconditioned) 3. area of contact between the two - a. Is target area small or large? (ex: eye vs. solar plexus) - b. Is striking surface small or large? (ex: ippon ken vs. teisho) Finding the balance in these three areas minimizes the ratio of damage to you vs. damage to your attacker. I like to use soft-surface attacks with hard targets, BUT I only bother attacking a hard surface if it is very sensitive. For this reason, I find teisho very comfortable for face strikes, but prefer seiken for belly strikes. I punch seiken to face too though, because I have conditioned my knuckles to not be sensitive, and because it protects my fingers better. Surfaces I have not conditioned are sensitive, so I don't tend to use these for strikes unless the force I am applying on them is small, delivered to a sensitive target, or dispersed over a wide area of my body. For example, I always use the ball of my foot for mawashigeri to the belly, but using haisoku mawashigeri to the face doesn't hurt me, because I don't need to deliver as much force to someone's head to knock them out. Also, haisoku mawashi geri changes the area over which the technique is effective in a favorable direction. To land the ball of the foot where you want it, the kick needs to be precise; the target has to be within about 4 inches of where you sense they will be. Using haisoku expands the error distance to about 2 feet (distance from knee to metatarsals), so even if your opponent goes forward or back, it's harder to avoid. My guess would be both a different cultural origin, and difference in trajectory of strikes may be at play here. Most boxing strikes send the hand traveling in an arc motion while the attacker is light on his feet. Makiwara focus on training a way of attacking that relies on kinetic linking to the ground (being very grounded), with the hand itself traveling in less of an arced trajectory (though the rest of the body does indeed arc). It kind of makes sense that makiwara are flat for this reason, and that boxing bags are rounded.

Ossu! I'm glad that you are alright!

That sounds kind of funny. It's so awkward when friends want to play-fight. I feel like when no rules are established ahead of time, it's hard to know what the objective even is.

One good thing is that it made me look really carefully before turning after doing it a lot. You can actually hear me collide with the hot water heater during jion

Funny video of home-training kata When your basement ceiling changes heights depending on where you stand, this is the result:

I don't look down on people without a federation. However, I do look down on certain federations that seem more like a marketing ploy than a credible lineage. Even if you're part of those though, I don't look down on the individual. Sometimes I feel bad for the victim, but not looking down.

This is my 11th year as a black belt, and my 6th year as a nidan Dodging testing is my favorite pastime.

You really called it! day 2 was pretty sore. Day 3 so far is improved, but a bit stiff. I really lucked out here. It was asphalt, but there was so much paint on it marking out the bike lane that it was pretty smooth. No road rash at all! It reminded me a lot of the nice wood floor of our dojo actually -well, minus that pleasant 'springiness.' We are mostly striking, so the mats almost never come out. Just a few weirdos like me rolling around on the wood. I really think it would be nice to have more ukemi waza in the JKA regimen, not just as a special class, but the core curriculum. It's so obviously useful. I'm glad my sensei taught it anyway! Ossu!

When people I meet find out I am a martial artist, one of the first things I tend to get asked is "Have you ever used it?" I suspect most people who ask have in their mind that "using" karate means some form of hand-to-hand combat. However, as all on this forum are likely aware, there are many other important applications as well. Yesterday I was reminded of that as I looked down while peddling over a bridge just in time to see a strip of metal slip into the spokes of my front tire. My basket and its contents (bike lock, otter box phone case, wallet, etc) are smashed. As for me, I have a couple of bruises from where the handlebars hit my thighs as I flew over them, but in the end, I don't even need so much as a band-aid. Today I would sincerely like to thank all instructors who teach falling. It's easy to overemphasize what makes the martial arts different from one another. However, the applications of these skills are universal, and have been of use to me many times in my life. So Thank you!

Am I the only person here who thinks that keeping kata in is a good idea? It seems like a good way to showcase the various ryu, not just one. What are everyone else's objections to it?