RW

First off Kenpo/Kempo is a generic term like Karate. It mean fist law. It is not a new term nor was it invented in Hawaii although some styles with this name were. Whether Villari (And I'll hold my personal opinion) is legit or not isn't the issue. Whether SKK is considered legit by some is not the issue. The issue is do you feel it's effective? If they are teaching you sound and effective techniques that you can translate to real life then who care's where it came from, who invented it or whether it's Shaolin, Kempo or Karate? If it works for you then continue to train. If it doesn't then find an art that does. I have no idea what this art is or if it's effective. I do recall seeing this man when I was younger in one of the martial arts magazines (I think black belt). Having said that he is not the first to combine more than one art into a singular art. Do I believe it's legit? I have no idea. What I would be researching is a few things if I were concerned with the legitimacy of the art I was studying. 1. What grade did Mr. Villari hold in each of these arts and how long did he study them? 2. You said that Kata and requirements continue to change... I would look into whether there is a curriculum for the art. Maybe your teacher is the issue and not the art. Wouldn't be the first time someone studied for a time and decided to open their own school and started teaching without knowing the art past a certain grade (usually a low one). 3. Is it effective? Do you trust or have you used what is taught to defend yourself in a real fight (not in the Dojo). Did it work or did you get the you know what beat out of you? If what they teach is not effective then you probably need to move on unless of course your not taking the art to learn how to defend yourself. Maybe you enjoy the camaraderie and exercise. 4. Do you trust your teacher and what he teaches? Based on your post I would say you are questioning both. And on a side note: no, Kata usually do not change with the wind nor are they done or taught differently to each new class of students. They are the one true constant. If you have learned a Kata and they are now teaching it totally differently from what you learned I think I would be questioning the teacher. But that's me. Just my 2 cents. I don’t know what ranks Villari holds in any of the individual arts he studied, but he holds a 15th dan in his own art. https://www.villariwestboro.com/dan-ranking-system.html The scandal is that Villari self promoted himself to 15th dan hahaha

This puts things in perspective a lot, thanks very much. My art right now is as effective and realistic as my karate was when I was doing karate. Truth be told I have some issues on how effective I think traditional martial arts are in general (e.g. who punches in zenkutsku dachi? Who chambers their other fist while punching? Isn't punching in and waiting to get counter attacked a terrible reflex to have when it comes to fighting?) , but I have a huge appreciation for their personal development and health benefits, with an added bonus of self defense/fighting on the side How effective the stances, chambered fist, and anything else like that are really depends on how it’s taught, or better yet, if it’s explained properly. This can be a really long conversation with a lot of people expressing differing opinions, so I’ll be pretty brief... Stance is your foundation. The stronger it is, the stronger your techniques are. But IMO people focus way too much on the end of the stance, or better yet the pose. During kata, a teacher counts and the students complete the step. What’s focused on and gets corrected? The end pose; stuff like “deeper stance” “the block ends here” and so on. IMO where it ends up is irrelevant; it’s how you got there. Take a 180 degree turn from and into zenkutsu dachi while performing a low block. If you’re familiar with Pinan 1 or Taikyoku 1, you know exactly what I mean here. If you interpret the low block as a joint lock, and the strong step backwards and twist/pivot into zenkutsu dachi as spinning/throwing/unbalancing your attacker, it all makes sense to use that stance. If you’re interpreting that move in that kata as turning around and blocking a kick from a guy behind you, that move is just dumb. If you look at kiba dachi/horse stance, it’s all about dropping your weight, especially when you’ve got someone all joint locked up. What I’m getting at is the emphasis of stances should be while they’re in motion and not at the end pose. If the teacher is focusing on the end pose, the stances are not worth much more than aesthetics. You're 100% right. Who's going to chamber a punch (pulling your other hand to your waist or ribs), or move using zenkutsudachi transitions in a real fight though? Even in karate sparring we adopt a more natural stance and keep our hands up... That's the thing with 'traditional martial arts'. The training is full of lies. But the lies are there for a reason (an outdated reason in my opinion but the intention is well meaning). Stances are not meant to be used in combat. Stances train muscles to be strong and flexible, and teach principles that support good balance and agility. The classic front stance with all its variants for example. It's not very natural. But what does it teach? It teaches us that a bent front knee for example is harder to break, and a locked out back leg makes you harder to knock backwards. And it teaches us to lower our centre of gravity. That makes us more stable and agile, and is important because it goes against the natural instinct to make ourselves big, like you see drunken idiots do when they have a stand off and they stretch their chest out and practically go on tip toes and basically do everything to look big while in fact making themselves very vulnerable. Probably why do many drunken fights end after a single untrained punch. Chambering after a punch has many purposes. One of which becomes immediately obvious if you look at a grappling style like aikido, or even tai chi. The chambered hand is not about to do something. It is there because it has just done something. Imagine intercepting a punch with an in to out block, trapping it, pulling it down to the hip, which takes advantage of the momentum already in the punch, while putting you on the outside of the line of attack, where you are now in a position to go for an arm bar, or simply strike the side of the head. Well said. I feel we've misunderstood many things about TMAs. Take kata, for example. Back in the times when okinawa te and kung fu were created, not many people could read or write. How do you pass these techniques to other people, generation by generation? They were added to a sequence of moves and called Kata. Kata was like some sort of moving encyclopedia entry of different martial arts moves. Once people don't forget the moves exist because they're "documented" in a kata, then those individual moves can be used in drills, makiwara training, etc. rather than keeping this in mind, some people assume that kata moves are meant to be used in a sequence, or that it is an elaborate plot to hide secret deadly techniques within it. Some moves are exaggerated on purpose, so they're understood well (e.g. your hand goes to your ear right before doing a shuto uke), etc.

This puts things in perspective a lot, thanks very much. My art right now is as effective and realistic as my karate was when I was doing karate. Truth be told I have some issues on how effective I think traditional martial arts are in general (e.g. who punches in zenkutsku dachi? Who chambers their other fist while punching? Isn't punching in and waiting to get counter attacked a terrible reflex to have when it comes to fighting?) , but I have a huge appreciation for their personal development and health benefits, with an added bonus of self defense/fighting on the side How effective the stances, chambered fist, and anything else like that are really depends on how it’s taught, or better yet, if it’s explained properly. This can be a really long conversation with a lot of people expressing differing opinions, so I’ll be pretty brief... Stance is your foundation. The stronger it is, the stronger your techniques are. But IMO people focus way too much on the end of the stance, or better yet the pose. During kata, a teacher counts and the students complete the step. What’s focused on and gets corrected? The end pose; stuff like “deeper stance” “the block ends here” and so on. IMO where it ends up is irrelevant; it’s how you got there. Take a 180 degree turn from and into zenkutsu dachi while performing a low block. If you’re familiar with Pinan 1 or Taikyoku 1, you know exactly what I mean here. If you interpret the low block as a joint lock, and the strong step backwards and twist/pivot into zenkutsu dachi as spinning/throwing/unbalancing your attacker, it all makes sense to use that stance. If you’re interpreting that move in that kata as turning around and blocking a kick from a guy behind you, that move is just dumb. If you look at kiba dachi/horse stance, it’s all about dropping your weight, especially when you’ve got someone all joint locked up. What I’m getting at is the emphasis of stances should be while they’re in motion and not at the end pose. If the teacher is focusing on the end pose, the stances are not worth much more than aesthetics. You're 100% right. Who's going to chamber a punch (pulling your other hand to your waist or ribs), or move using zenkutsudachi transitions in a real fight though? Even in karate sparring we adopt a more natural stance and keep our hands up...

This puts things in perspective a lot, thanks very much. My art right now is as effective and realistic as my karate was when I was doing karate. Truth be told I have some issues on how effective I think traditional martial arts are in general (e.g. who punches in zenkutsku dachi? Who chambers their other fist while punching? Isn't punching in and waiting to get counter attacked a terrible reflex to have when it comes to fighting?) , but I have a huge appreciation for their personal development and health benefits, with an added bonus of self defense/fighting on the side

Great point. I knew I would find good answers here at KF (The same goes for JR 137's reply, I found it most helpful too). I definitely feel fitter, faster, stronger and more coordinated than when I started. I guess my main concern is feeling that I am learning a style developed by some dude and that no one outside that chain of dojos has the same katas and drills. The training itself isn't that different from what I used to do at karate, with some added circular movements and softer katas here and there to make it more kung fu-ish I guess.

Oh! adding to this, any schools that splinter from other schools in SKK usually change all their katas because of... copyright??! Imagine a copyright over Heian Sandan...

Background: As some of you may know, I began training decades ago a traditional karate style. You know how karate goes, kata is basically sacred. No garden variety teacher would dare say "Ok, this is is our "Mike Jones Dojo version of Heian Sandan. Sensei Mike doesn't like blocks, so this kata is now all strikes". If you're going to change a kata you better be the founder of your style (so, you're probably dead by now) or their successor. Kata are almost uniform across schools of the same style, and they even crossover to other styles, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karate_kata#Kata_performed_in_various_styles So basically, the guy practicing shito Ryu will know Heian Nidan, and so the guy practicing Kyokushin! The issue with SKK: I quit karate because life got in the way, and many years later, after I moved to a different city, I joined a "Shaolin Kempo Karate" school. I didn't expect it to be like a "real" karate school, but I joined it because it was nearby, the people there were good sports and the vibe was very friendly. Fast forward a couple years and I am starting to feel that SKK is not a real martial art. 1) The katas change!!! Basically you can be taught a kata a certain way and... the same kata will be taught a different way to another student next year. For example when I was an orange belt I was taught to do a shuto uchi to the throat followed by a tate tsuki right after. 2 years later, new orange belts are taught to a shuto uke defense. Why?!?! Most important, why can kata be changed just like that, on the whims of the dojo owner?! He is not the founder of SKK. He is not even a Hanshi yet, he simply owns his dojo, which is a chain with a couple dojos. 2) Talking about being a Hanshi... who owns this style? So apparently SKK was founded by Villari, who it seems is a total joke in the martial arts world nowadays. So the SKK schools split into different schools, for example, USSD (United Studios of Self Defense), Z-ultimate and SDSS. The thing is... studying "shaolin kempo" in any of these branches makes for a wildly different experience. Heian Sandan is almost the same, if not the same across Kyokushin dojos, and even if you change styles, you may still be doing Heian Sandan in your Shito Ryu school. So how come a SKK student in Z ultimate has different katas from the SKK student in a Villari school and a z-ultimate school? 3) Adding to that, exactly what is shaolin kempo karate? It's cetainly not shaolin, though some schools have added kung fu stuff to their curriculum (e.g. some schools may teach Wu bu Quan & continuous fist). It's not karate either. I mean, I see these guys use some of the same strikes and kicks, and sometimes they even use karate names (e.g. "shuto"), but there are 0 karate katas in SKK. Is it even karate? Could a Shaolin Kempo Karate compete in a karate competition? What about the upcoming olympics? What is even kempo? There's shaolin kempo karate, there's American Kenpo (with N) Karate, there's Shaolin American Kempo, kosho-ryu kenpo... apparently these are not different styles (e.g. Shotokan and Goju Ryu are still karate), but different arts altogether? Is Kempo/Kenpo even a real style? Apparently it's something that was put together around the world war 2 years in Hawaii? Apparently there's yet another Kempo (Shorinji Kempo), which comes from Japan and is a very ancient, traditional style, but that is NOT the same style that ended diverging into kosho ryu, american kenpo karate, shaolin kempo karate, shaolin american kempo, etc. What are your thoughts? BTW I have been practicing SKK for years now, and I enjoy it. I am by no means trying to insult or offend the art or its practitioners, I just have a healthy curiosity about its true nature.

No person is a weapon. A person is a person. Now, if there is going to be some sort of legislation that considers a person "dangerous" and therefore putting additional restrictions on that person, why would it target martial artists? Imagine a world where an elderly person practicing taichi in the park is considered a "lethal weapon" while some guy in his 20s who gets into street fights because he is in a gang isn't considered one. Imagine if the average mcdojo black belt that just does forms/katas and one step partner drills has to be considered a lethal weapon after his/her 2 year journey into black belt (again, mcdojo status). In this hypothetical maybe a professional MMA fighter or a full time practitioner of full contact martial arts with a black belt (e.g. Kyokushin who spars full contact regularly) could qualify for "lethal weapon" status, but your average non-full contact martial artist should not.

Did you guys see the greece fights?

Thanks! Wouldn't point fighters doing full contact eventually get better than Kyokushin guys in this sort of competition? Their lack of face punches while doing full contact may have conditioned them to miss that sort of defense...

Hey guys do you remember this old topic? Time to resurrect it almost a year later! Look what youtube suggested to me: This is what i was looking for

Got links to any Ian Abernahy videos you like the most? I'd love to take a look!

Would I throw a tsuki strike, while chambering my other hand to my ribs or waist? No. Would I adopt a kiba dachi or shiko dachi (horse stance) stance while on the fight? That screams "kick me in the balls please". Would I move into a zen kutsu dachi forward stance while attacking? That's a great way to lose a fight. Would I bring my hand all the way behind my ear so I can then block a strike with a shuto uke? Of course not. Would I raise my forearm in an Age Uke block while chambering my other hand? Nope. If we go by the Kihon, Kata, Kumite rule, and it that is 33.33% each, that means that 66.66% of what we train in karate is actually unusable in a real fight. This is not a criticism about karate. ITF Taekwondo has very similar moves to age uke, tsuki, shuto uke, etc, and stances very similar to Kiba Dachi, shiko Dachi, etc. WTF practitioners often spar with their arms hanging at waist level and never strike with the hands. Kung fu has even less practical concepts, why would anyone adopt a lotus position or a cross stance while fighting? Even getting out of that stance is difficult! In general, most traditional martial arts will have you train "unusable" things 66% of the time at least. What matters is what you do with the resting 33.33%, kumite. Karate can and has been used in pressure tested fight environments. Look at Lyoto Machida, Sage Northcut, Seth Petruzelli or Steven "Wonderboy" Thompson. In order to end with usable karate for a real fight you need to pressure test your techniques in real, full contact or semi full contact fights. You learn to swim by swimming, you learn to drive by driving, you learn a language by speaking it. So it's only logical that you learn to fight by fighting. I would argue that karate, and traditional martial arts in general have a different purpose. This takes us back to the whole -do topic, TMAs are supposed to be about self development and growth. Mastering those stances, learning and perfecting those kata, strengthening your body by practicing kihon and calisthenics, etc, it will all result in a healthier, more fit and more engaged individual. You're also helping to keep alive an ancient, wonderful art that if lost is not coming back. My 2 cents

Animals use their intelligence too. Years ago we had a dog. For some reason the horrible dog of our neighbourhood used to bully our dog. Our dog would always come off worst in these altercations. Fortunately she never came to real harm. The horrid dog would for some reason cease it's random attack as soon as it was clear it had won. I think it was purely a dominance thing. But here's the thing. These random attacks always took the same format. Always the bully dog started with the same trajectory of attack, and always aimed for the same spot on my dog's throat. Then one day, we encountered horrid dog again while out for a walk. Once again it attacked from the same angle, going low and aiming for my dog's throat. Except this time it would be different. This time my dog waited till the last second, dropped to her belly, and grabbed horrid dog my the throat. For the first time, she had dominance over bully dog. She gave it a bit of a shaking down, before pinning it. Horrid dog was terrified, and after a long pause of my dog standing over it, pinning it down with jaws around throat, we convinced our dog to let it go. It legged it, and never attacked our dog again. This is one story. One story alone doesn't really count as proof of anything. But I think it was pretty clear that it was pure instinctive strength against strength. How would you try to break the fight when the horrid dog was attacking your dog?

Here ya go - I had a friend that raised fighting birds. I didn't realize the differences between dogs and birds. For example - a champion fighting dog is studded out whereas a champion bird is not. The reason is they want to horde that bloodline. Contrary to popular belief, dog fights normally end in submission not death. Cock fights, on the other hand, almost always end in death. So they don't want to put their champion bird up against a bird from the same super effective bloodline. I do not support animal bloodsports, so knew very little about this. He asked if I wanted to see the difference between a $200 and $800 bird. The larger one being the cheaper of the two. He put "boxing gloves" (shields their talons) on both and turned them loose. The cheaper (bigger) bird came in really aggressive, attacking str8 on with both feet. The high dollar bird swooped down (chest almost brushing the ground, wings pointing behind it) and went under the legs of the other. It then immediately threw a back kick (never turned around, both birds still back to back) and struck the cheaper bird in the back of the head. He separated em right there and explained - had they been wearing weapons, he would have just killed the other ones. So yea, I have seen animals exhibit impressive technique. Your friend is a sick individual. Yes. Plus I am pretty sure that stuff is illegal

it depends on how you're kicking. MT kicks are like a baseball bat strike. Karate/TKD kicks are more like a whip. If you're "chamber kicking" like in Karate and TKD, you want to use the instep, if you're kicking like in MT, the shin. Having said that, Anderson Silva's shin fracture still sends chills down my spine. I am not sure that could happen with an instep kick, since your knee and ankle will move if push comes to shove. I guess you could break the foot bones, but that can't be as bad as a shin fracture?

Absolutely! Even the instructors are like "this is a spear hand strike!" and I was like "who in this dojo can pull of a spear hand strike in an actual fight, where the opponent is moving and trying to harm you?" Few people have the conditioning to hit with a spear hand strike and not break their fingers like twigs, and among those elite few, how can they make sure they won't hit accidentally a hard target (e.g. face or skull) rather than a soft one like the throat in the middle of a fight?

I realized I enjoyed karate, and I enjoy Kempo. They're Martial Arts. Arts are about self expression, beauty, or perhaps a certain sensibility. What is an art? Architecture is an art. Literature is an art. What's NOT an art? Something strictly scientific, perhaps much more efficient and verifiable than an art, something based on science or industrialized. Architecture is an art, but the guy building McMansions with plywood walls and adhering to county codes is not doing architecture (or art). Literature is art, but the guy writing press released and corporate communications is not doing art. Traditional Martial arts are like achitecture, literature, etc, as opposed to the more brutally efficient and stress-tested combat sports (not arts) such as boxing (after all, it's "the sweet science"), MMA or modern Muay Thai. Those are stress tested and practiced live against a fully resisting opponent who is trying to cave your face in. So with the whole "learn to fight" aspect, what do we have? Enjoyment. The preservation of a historical art. Beauty. Health. That horse stance that looks useless? It will give you amazingly strong outer thighs. Those chamber punches? They will teach you power. Kata? Kata is an amazing exercise, it combines cardio, memorization and a whole different way to coordinate mind and body, some might even see kata as moving meditation. The health benefits that martial arts provide are way too many to list here. Some people play basketball or soccer. Why? Because it's fun. It may bring them some sort of benefit by helping keeping them stay healthy because they're now being active, but that's it. Some people play basketball or soccer, I do martial arts. I also have the added bonus of improving my self defense skills a little bit, but I won't delude myself into thinking I can fight somebody who fights often (e.g. somebody from a rough hood) or who trains a combat sport (e.g. boxing, MMA, and full contact muay thai). I don't want to waste my time learning useless stuff (I am quite biased against aikido style techniques, which are sadly part of my kempo system sometimes), but I do enjoy greatly practicing katas and sparring. Bottom line is I enjoy the "Art" aspect of my martial art, so I chose to stay with it.

What is your previous training that you fall back to? I got zero experience with TSD, but I went through a similar thought process as you recently. I realized my kempo practice will never prepare me for a real fight. Neither would my previous shotokan practice. Both schools were far from McDojos, but these martial arts are just that, Martial Arts. Every hour I spend doing a horse stance, neko ashi dachi or zen kutsu dachi is an hour I am not learning boxing or MMA style footwork. Every hour I am practicing a tsuki and chambering my other hand next to my wrist is an hour I am spending NOT punching the way anyone would ever punch in a real fight. I have yet to see someone, ANYBODY use a Yodan Age Uke block or an Ude Uke block in an MMA fight: several fighters do have a traditional martial arts background, e.g. lyoto and chinzo machida, steven thompson, sage northcut, cung le, seth petruzelli, etc etc, yet none of them are using traditional blocks, ever. Yes, we do spar in kempo, and we did spar in shotokan karate (though my shotokan school only did point sparring). Sparing is at most 1/3th of TMA training, according to the traditional triple K method: Kihon (basics), Kata (duh!), and Kumite. I also feel the ruleset makes it less realistic. So how did I come to terms with this and decide to keep training? I'll explain it my next post

I agree, this is a very, very good point. I still feel there is a hierarchy of sorts, which wouldn't really change even if we compare wild to fat & comfortable animals, e.g. a tiger born in a zoo who has never ever had to hunt or fight in his life vs a human, or a pet Pit Bull dog who's domesticated and raised in a loving home but that happens to fight a human.

I don't think our bodies were meant for fighting. We don't have any true weapons. Some animals have fangs or teeth made for tearing, some have claws, or venom, or horns. We don't have anything. Our feet were made for walking, our hands were made for grabbing, and our elbows and knees are fortunate "accidents" or how our bodies are designed (it's where 2 bones meet) We're very weak and frail even compared to animals that weren't designed for fighting either. Look at a cow or or horse, for example, I don't think they'd truly get hurt from a body blow delivered by a champion heavyweight boxer, somebody who has tuned his punches for his entire life and makes a living out of it. Our healing isn't particularly good either, I saw a National Geographic episode where a bunch of hyenas cornered an angry female lion. She managed to deliver a full force bite to one of the hyenas. The poor thing's face was mangled so bad, it hurt me just from even seeing it. The hyena spent days howling in pain and there were flies in its wound (sorry for the graphic image). Somehow the hyena recovered months later! We can't even recover from certain human strikes without medical attention. Having said that, we can fight (other humans, that is) because we have smart brains and we've discovered that the knees and elbows are rather sturdy hard surfaces, that out feet can be thrown at other people and that if we close our hands they will show the knuckles...

If we're talking strictly competition (e.g. sport) or fighting applications where everything goes, karate would be one aspect - striking. Ideally you need a striking art, a takedowns art and a ground art, for example, karate, judo and BJJ, or muay thai, wrestling and BJJ.

It sounds like you and I are at a similar point in our respective journeys. So I'll share some of my own musings, to see if you can relate. Very often, rather than being a super tough martial artist, I actually feel like an aching old man that's always working around some niggling minor injury or other. In training, because it is hour upon hour, month after month of same training, you don't always notice the gradual improvement. Exactly like you don't always notice you're getting older until one day you realise your hair has stopped growing When I first went back to training (consider it starting again as it had been years since I'd last trained), the student that had to take time out due to exhaustion or faintness or a sprain was usually me. In fact it was pretty much always me. Then one, out of respect for the feelings of others, I kept eyes forward as someone else wobbled out of the hall with assistance to be cooled down and checked over by the first aiders. Then it happened other times. Then one day I realised the student that bails out first is no longer usually me. The training hadn't become particularly more intense. The students hadn't become less fit. The only remaining explanation is that I'd become more fit. By the same token, I suddenly realised that I don't seem to always have a pulled muscle somewhere, and I hardly ever fall over these days in kick drill. If I take a decent knock, I don't seem to hurt as much as I used to after just a light knock. In sparring, I used to burn out because of firing off a rapid volley of kicks and punches way before I was even in range. Now I find myself completely at ease and conserving my energy and applying just the right techniques at the right moment. Sure I still get walloped, but I suddenly fund that between fluid movement and increased resilience I can very often just absorb it without panicking (disclaimer, we only use light contact, about 50% force max). But then I see footage of real thugs fighting. Sometimes I see it for real. Less so now I'm getting older and don't go out to nightclubs anymore but still I see it occasionally. Look up footage of an untrained thug fighting. If ever you need reminding that people are just bald monkeys that have evolved into weaklings, just watch the average drunkard fight. Sure it's still dangerous and scary. But think about the speed and power and accuracy of your moves compared to the untrained thug. I still don't feel like a hard case. But if martial arts teaches us anything, surely it teaches us to see the truth. Mostly about ourselves. That truth is usually I guess that we're not some legendary warrior. The truth is we are just people. But the truth is also that we train a lot harder than many, and we endure a lot more. And we are everything we used to be, but with more added on. If we have to fight a drunken thug, there no guarantee we'd come off best. That's true whether you've got at least a year til black belt, or if you're 10th Dan in everything. But you know more about yourself and your own abilities than before. You know exactly how fast you can move, how much you can take, how well you move etc. Oh and if you're anything like me, then despite your best efforts, you may be still compare yourself against your peers. Except nowadays your peers are all martial artists. You're not comparing yourself to the untrained drunken idiot that wants to start a fight for no good reason. You're comparing yourself against people who have trained and fought with a clear mind and stone cold logic for years. Wow. Your post is so accurate and relatable! Turns out I ended going to a competition 2 weeks ago. I ended sparring with this annoying dude (kind of a bully) from another school, that beat me 2 years ago... but this time I got the best of him. It was especially nice in the sense that I won and I still kept humble and level headed and he was visibly upset. I almost considered not competing this time around because I felt I was in a very bad shape due to past injuries, but I improved quite a bit. Inspiring post OneKickWonder

Wow. Did JKF listen?

To the bold - I'll just say that if you are a year away from testing for Shodan and you have not improved since you have started there is something wrong. Not talking about you personally. If you have been training for "x" number of years and have not improved substantially and gained confidence in your abilities to defend yourself they is something missing. I mean, I sure I have, but I don't feel like I am anything special, if you know what I mean