Blade96

Traditional Shotokanka, that is why, i think. and what i hear most of is people saying about ma as 'its all kung fu' rather than 'its all karate' and dont gimmie that 'they must have got it from kung fu panda' lol that movie is still pretty recent

Hoi! Our stance isnt that wide lol You must mean like in zenkutsu dachi stance when moving forward for example oi/gyaku zuki etc in which stance is more the long wide low stance you're describing. But generally ours kumite stance is about shoulder width. Why? Because one needs to be able to lift our front leg up off the floor comfortably and quickly (as for say mae geri keage/kekomi, , yoko geri keage/kekomi, and so on) If our stances was too wide or too narrow than about shoulder width this would either be impossible or just very hard to execute. There - my 2 cents for this morning

i plan to compete all the time! just did one tournament though so far. a kata competition.

LOL! interesting. I could if I wanted to, poke the ferret and tease my sensei about that =] but i wont as I said i dont get involved in the my-ma-is-da-bomb-yours-is-garbage type stuff. But another question. Even if they did use the term karate because the word is universal, I know they wanna give their potential students a word they can understand, but is it still kind of twisting the truth because these arent 'karate'? so to speak?

Just a question on something my Sensei said. Maybe you can tell me if he's right or wrong. I was gonna post this question on a few different MA forums to see different responses from different people. I was talking about the fact I trained in kempo for 2 months last year and i had a black gi. I named the kempo sensei and my shotokan sensei who knew of him and his family said "He's a fraud. Kempo is chinese. and karate is japanese. He calls his schools and advertises as "Kempo Karate" and thats just fraudulent and isnt even right." Is this true what Sensei says? I only did kempo for 2 months and really dont know a whole lot about it. But I did say that I felt and still feel that school had some characteristics of a McDojo.

Get some of your dojo/dojang/ etc co-workers to train with you. I don't have anyone around else who likes MA. But I do have a few dojo friends. I always train with my Sandan friend. but outside the dojo - dont have anyone.

and all this is why I avoid 'so-and-so's ma is the best-yours-is-garbage' type comments/threads/posts like the plague. Even my own sensei gets into it. He's like 'you know shotokan is the best other ma came from shotokan' Well you'd say that anyway, I told him, him being a 7th dan. My own personal opinion is that one kind of ma is right for one person but wouldnt be for someone else. I don't think any ma is 'the best' But I stayed right out of it and didn't dare argue with Sensei

only ran into my sensei once outside of the dojo.......and no, he didnt bow first.

This is good info, thanks.

This is me

yeah this is good stuff you wrote. btw you're welcome =] Just to make it clear....Its not only us who wear white =] just to let anyone of other styles know they too can jump in

Dag, I must 've been doing neko ashi dachi about a month ago and didn't even know thats what i was doing..... because my sensei never told me.... just kept telling me to keep my heel up off the floor....and saying my name right in front of the other students without explaining what i was doing or why but from reading this it looks like thats what i was doing Still dont know if thats what i was doing. to this day he never told me

Lots of luck! btw a friend told me before my first test Butterflies are good. Because it means you understand the importance of a test. Make friends with your Butterflies

Its ok you can name me I did ask the question why white =]

ok so a good way to practice the 'horse stance' like your your riding a horse is to put your feet a little bit past shoulder width and sit on your hips with your bum cheeks sucked in like your holding a piece of paper between them. this is how my sensei discribed it. now when you practise this practise it at home and LOOK at your feet or get two sticks and line them paralelle to each other. i swear this technique will have you nailing this stance when i do this stance my sensei said i'm 'as solid as the rock of Gilbraltar' LOL. when you do stances enough you can feel without having to look down, much as a hockey player can 'feel' where the puck is on his/her stick without having to look down you can feel that your legs are in right position.

i went to a kempo school, that had some mcdojoish characteristics. (although i believe the sensei and his family who own the business are legit ma's but as it is their livelihood some things are mcdojoish) Not like the shotokan school I attend now.

with the colors of our belts you'd think they'd put blue before green cause the blue one is brighter. and therefore going with the gradual darkening. but no they put green before blue in our system who'da thunk it.

Elmer Fudd vs Yosamite Sam but tell me, anyone know why the color white = traditional Shotokan? Why do we wear white? All I know is that its a tradition. but what does white actually mean or represent?

yeah i like the hook kick and mawashi geri. with mikazuki geri i think i'm better at soto than uchi.

I been practicing shotokan for 7 months almost a year and got my yellow belt and my sensei would have said something like that, focus on doing a correct mawashi geri first and the height will come I learned to a mikazuki geri last night and my sensei said it wasnt bad for my first try. I'd try get a correct mikazuki geri before a height one. doesnt matter if you can kick as high as yer head. if it isnt being done right, then the fact you can kick that high wont matter.

the best way to rectify this is to practice 'contract and expand' example being: on the 4th count of heian shodan you spin right? well just before it ((punching chudan age uki)) bring your feet together andbend you knees slightly for balance turn then go into gadambari(( picturing it)) Here is a Youtube of Nidan for you ((notice at the very begining he brings both feet together. That is called contrating. do that be for you turn)) Thanks I meant spinning the big spin after the Nukite in Heian nidan when my feet are kind of wider apart and going right into the shuto. My shodan says I rise up too much when you're supoposed to stay at same height. I find it hard to spin that much when my feet are that spaced apart without rising up a bit to keep balance. btw I'm ok with heian shodan. Maybe its just where I only been doing nidan for a month and still getting used to it. Thanks for the help though.

My sandan friend taught me that 'The View of the Sky' (kanku dai) is the parent kata, and its 65 movements contain a little of every heian kata. Its also the longest kata we have.

when I did kempo karate for 2 months last year i had a black gi, everyone did. The yellow belts there combined with a black gi reminded me of a bunch of bees. i can't find my black gi now though......

Absolutely! I'm famous for it - hehe, I love to use japanese terminology so much I even forget the english - ("whats a uchi uke? oh ya - inside/outside block") Sometimes when sensei isnt there and the BB's would even be wrestling with the words Like couple of weeks ago one of my shodans was tryig to remember the word for 'turn' and none of them remembered and I gave it to them 'mawatte' and then the BB's would look at each other and shake their heads 'this yellow belt knows more than us - what the -' its funny lol btw I love watching Kanku Dai 'The view of the sky' I love watching when my Sandan friend is doing it. He taught me about that one. Bassai Dai 'extract from a fortress' is gorgeous as well. Though my brown belt friend doesn't like that she has to learn it, lol.

I wear....... the usual boring white gi Because its tradition. And I respect that tremendously.