evergrey

thigh kicks:

Yes indeed he did, as well as... Aikijutsu! There's also proto-Shotokan (he trained under Funakoshi) and Goju-Ryu. Later on he viked a bit from Muay Thai as well. My lineage learned from him before Kyokushin was even founded, and the head of my lineage had also trained in Judo and Aikijutsu before training under Sosai. He branched off from Sosai for a while, then came back to him closer to the end of his life, but still retained the earlier version of the style in how he trained his students, so when someone comes to our dojo, they can see a bit more of the early version of Kyokushin. We do throws and leg grabs (gods I hate leg grabs.)

Technique, then speed, then power, and always... RELAX. That's what my instructors tell me, anyway. Trying to actually get there, haha!

Heh, "if you break your toys, you can't play with them any more." Bruises are common in our dojo but we try to not actually damage each other beyond that. We have work to go to in the morning and stuff... Usually we do kumite twice a week. Once a month we have an event that is open to all styles of martial art, and that's usually 3 hours of sparring, maybe a bit more, though people take plenty of breaks of course. Sometimes I spar outside of class too, with one of my instructors. :} I COULD spar 4 times a week every week, if I could afford to go to my dojo 4 times a week. It's a 45 minute drive each way though.

I'd say probably about 4 hours a week in formal training. More time than that practicing.

I clean the dojo. :}

There is no way to spot lose fat. What I mean is, you can in no way tell your body "loe fat from my belly, not my thighs" or anything like that. Calories burned versus calories consumed works for some people but does not work for others. For some, it's way more complicated. Some people lose weight going low carbohydrate, high protein and fat. Some lose weight by steaming everything. Lots of different metabolisms and body types and hormone balances, etc etc etc. Generally, avoiding much sugar and starch and uber processed stuff is a good idea for anyone. Working out a lot, and working out smart, helps. Adding muscle does help the fat burn faster. For STRONGER abs, planks are great. I do crunches too. :}

Well you need to have a real opening in an effective spot, and then you need the speed to take advantage of it, haha! But if you are just moving fast with no power or technique, it's probably going to be garbage. If you're hitting in an ineffective spot, also likely garbage.

Haha, actually that was my point. :}

From what I hear, you should also only spar tournament rules for about 3 months before the tournament.

It's an ACL cadaver graft. :} My Shihan is also a powerlifter, heh! He has a number of different plans he puts people on. I am guessing that he will put me on a different one when my knee is doing better. I swim laps in the pool, as well as doing slow kicks all the way across the pool and back. To strengthen my legs, I also do kata, slow kicks, sometimes fast if my knee is up to it, and sometimes kumite. I hadn't really thought about this in terms of it being serious isolation work. Most of it's free weights, which isn't as isolating as machines, right? I really would like to add a lot of muscle, to my entire body, to help stabilize me, and add power to my strikes. I'm not too worried about getting slowed down by building up muscle. I stretch after I lift to keep them from tightening up, and my Shihan can bench press 600 pounds (3 sets of 12) and is quick as a cobra, heh!

It's to build strength for my martial art, heh! I'm female, and I don't have anything close to the muscle mass of my male counterparts at the dojo. My arms are lagging behind my legs, for sure. I use my triceps for punching, so it makes sense to me? Huge beach muscles would be pretty awesome, haha, but unlikely for a female. I have one female friend who seriously bodybuilds and has some solid muscle, but that's just one.

I think some BJJ gyms do have more formal grading though. I know there's something in a local grouping of them also, that students go through after passing, where they have to take their shirt off and go through a gauntlet of all the other students, who beat them with their belts, LOL! Dan ranking today involves an individual day for the student going up for their dan rank. Shodan has a minimum of 10 fights, but usually it's way more than that. Anyone who wants to fight can show up and fight the student going up for rank. The last one who went up for rank fought 29 people in a row. When they want you to go up for a dan rank, at this dojo, they tell you a year in advance, to give you time to get ready. Then they put you through the WRINGER! Haha.

Well, let me talk about how grading is done in my dojo at present. All students are tested every day, of course. Occasionally an adult will get surprise graded. Once in a while, our Shihan, who is the head of our little organization, will just decide to grade someone up, if they are one of his personal students. He has been in Kyokushin for 45 years, and has the good judgment and experience needed to make a call like that. MOST of the time, however, grading/ranking/etc is done on a formal day when all of the different classes come together to test. There are usually 4 or 5 judges, depending on how many Yudansha are present. Kata is judged and graded on, kumite (which is longer and more intense) is judged but not given points like the kata. Everyone just watches and confers later, I believe. Our kyu rank tests are relatively short, because they've already been approved to go up for rank before being told they're going to test, though people testing CAN and DO fail ranking. That happens, not all the time, but often enough. The tests are real. Because we don't tend to have ranking last all day (all our instructors have day jobs) we just have the kata portion, which is at most 4 kata per student, but often just 1 kata, depending on the rank, and then the kumite portion. The higher the rank of the student, the more rounds of kumite they must do, and often they actually do double that amount, at least, because they must also spar the other students during THEIR kumite test. Often the adults mostly have to spar the dan ranks, lol! There are usually more black belts than colored belts present at ranking day. Actually, we often have more black belts than colored belts in class, too. It takes a long time to get to black belt, but we're fortunate enough to have a good number of loyal dan ranks. As for kyus, many wash out, over time, but the dedicated remain. My next rank, I think I will have 5 rounds of kumite in a row... unless Shihan or somebody else in charge decides they want a second piece of me, then maybe I'll fight more than 5 rounds, lol! Then I'll also fight other adults, probably, and very likely some kids as well. Our dojo is strange in that we don't get results right away. It's a throwback from the days when our branch chief/organization head (depending on which era you're talking about) went through all the paperwork and made certs and all that. Now only dan ranks get certs in our org, and tallying could be done at the ranking, but they still make us wait. I don't know why and I know better than to ask, lol! Once I didn't find out I'd passed one test until a couple weeks before my NEXT test, hahaha! That one was a bit much, I admit. That's not typical for Kyokushin though. Most people find out the night of the test. Your instructor MIGHT be able to promote you to his own rank. I've heard of that too... but no higher. I am not going to say what he should do. If I were him though, I'd see if there was some way for me to test for the next rank, or to take my students to someone higher ranked in my org, if possible. But then he's be teaching people who out-ranked him. Kind of awkward, hah! At a certain level, too, what's the rank mean? Some people just go for higher and higher rank, whereas others just keep to the rank that Sosai Mas Oyama awarded them. All kind of complicated and confusing. Back in the day, when my Sensei tested for Nidan, HIS Sensei tested, on the same day, for Sandan. LOL! Though back in the day, my Sensei had to do a 50 man kumite as a PREREQUISITE for testing for his SHODAN. Then he had to fight 5 kyu ranks at the ranking, which he had to beat, and 5 dan ranks. At that test, there weren't enough non-judges to provide as kumite partners. My sensei fought a shodan twice, and then had to fight his own sensei three times, lol! And his sensei, now our Shihan and the head of our org, is an absolutely unstoppable BEAST. He is 60 now and I would NEVER want to seriously tangle with him, hahaha! OSU

OSU, My Shihan didn't like the plan my Sensei put me on. Most people didn't, lol! So instead, since he is a powerlifter and trains people in lifting at the gym, he put me on the following plan. Understand that I have a knee injury that has been operated on and is not entirely healed yet, so I cannot do olympic squats, otherwise he'd have me doing leg stuff as well on my shoulder day. Possibly another day too. I ALSO have a chronic back injury (minor these days, so long as I am careful) and chronic tendinosis, as well as being severely overweight thanks to metabolic failure. I'm entirely unsuited, physically, for really demanding atheletics, haha. All lifts are three sets of 15 reps. Push Day: Incline press Bench press Decline press tricep rope pull down tricep some other thing pull down french press Pull day: rear lat pull downs neutral bar front pull downs seated rows cheater curl hammer curl preacher curl Shoulder day: tea cup flys rear lat pull downs again military press Also on shoulder day, I added some core work- planks and crunches, mostly. A lot of the time I also swim laps. I also do some Kyokushin practice on my lifting days, mostly kihon and kata but some toughening. I attend formal Kyokushin class two days a week as well. We work really hard at that, sweating like crazy. We do cardio and work out stuff as well as kihon, drilling, toughening, kumite, and sometimes kata if it's a really hot day or the instructors want a bit of a break, heh. Sometimes on my "off" days I'll go hiking, or work horses, or ride horses, or help someone move, or do whatever, haha. I'm a really restless person these days, and I prefer to do something active and physical every day. Not really the sitting around type, despite what my appearance makes people think. I also have to eat a very carefully measured low carbohydrate, high protein and fat (yes, really) diet because of the nature of my metabolic failure, which is known as PCOS. I have to say, this new lifting plan is doing amazing things for my muscles! I can feel muscles I was never really aware of before, and when I squeeze my arm absentmindedly, I keep getting surprised by what I find there. I've tripled the weight on some of my lifts since I started on this in late March or early April. It's really helping. Once my knee is a bit better, I'm going to start doing squats without any additional weight. Heck, I carry so much extra weight around with me already! Just the weight of my body will do a lot, at first. So, what do you guys think of this one? We're aiming for stamina, endurance, AND strength training. Of course I stretch a lot after I'm done lifting, and do a fair amount of kihon, to retain my flexibility. OSU!

My Sensei used to win k-1 style full contact tournaments... when he weighed 115 pounds and the next lightest guy was 140 or so. Part of what really helped him was weight training, to get as much strength as he could as a force multiplier. It added some mass, but not much. He had to use speed, technique, and strength to make up for it, and develop really thick skin. Back in those days, he became very tough, and they called him "tank." But no, it certainly does not happen overnight.

OSU, you're welcome. :} May I ask why you ask? Just curious!

Lift weights and eat a lot of protein, and some carbs too, to compensate for the extra energy required, or you won't gain anything. You will want protein every 4 hours to ensure that you build muscle. And learn to be quick and maneuverable and work your angles.

OSU! I think it depends on which organization you are talking about. I BELIEVE it used to be in our org that a Shodan could rank someone to 1st kyu... but I think they had to have authorization to do that, and ranking had to be authorized by the branch chief. I could be wrong though, it all seems to have gotten a bit muddy, factwise, at this point. I know that in the old unified Sosai-still-alive IKO days, any Shodan or above had to be signed by the branch chief, and then mailed with the fees and paperwork to Sosai Oyama himself to approve and make a certificate for. The certs were hand-signed and watermarked and stamped, and all dan ranks had a number that was entered into the record books. Now, well... it's kind of a case of anything goes, just depends on the school and the org.

I'd like to add that I respect different styles. I don't like to see people get scammed in pyramid schemes, so if I hear about something like that, I will pass along what I heard, and what I have observed... with a big disclaimer if I don't have enough direct experience to say for certain. I respect that people practice martial arts for many different reasons. I respect that not everyone is crazy like us Kyokushin folks. And that's fine. Self defense? Yes, we do learn some of that at my dojo. We aren't actually very knockdown tournament oriented, for a Kyokushin dojo, either, because we have a lot of law enforcement officers, and it's OWNED by a LEO, so he has integrated a lot of broader self defense stuff, with the aim of helping students and fellow officers have a better chance of staying alive out there. Do I think we have the market cornered on self defense, or "realistic" training, or the best full contact knockdown fighting? Naw, there's many ways to do that kind of thing effectively. Do I sneer at people who want to practice a martial art without so much risk or bruises? No. I will certainly give my opinion about what I feel is the most effective method of training. It's just my opinion. It doesn't mean I'm looking down on everyone who doesn't train that way, or that I do not respect people who train differently. I do kind of wonder about why you're talking about respecting the way others do things, and then spending a bunch of time shooting down the way some people do things? If that's not right for you, hey that's just fine! I'm not telling you that there is a one true way and that you HAVE to do that, or even that you have to think it's anything other than insane. But I'm wondering, what are you asking for here? Even in my dojo, there are plenty of people who only ever go in for light contact. Mostly other women (I'm training for full contact knockdown, but most women don't tend to want to) but also some men. We respect people's boundaries. There is no bullying here. Buuuut like I said, I was responding to someone talking about how sport karate caused people to train poorly because in tournaments they pulled their punches. I thought that by "sport karate" they meant the tournament side of karate, not a specific style, or specific style of tournament. I was simply illustrating that not all tournaments involve pulling punches. Come on man, I'm not prejudiced! Some of my best friends are Aikidoka! So see right, I can't be! ;}

Well, my post was in reply to how sport karate involved punch pulling. I didn't realize it was a style called sport karate. I was just stating that there are tournaments (considered the sport side of things) where people are not trained, by the sparring, to pull punches. *shrugs*

OSU! (Dear mods- all of the following images are mine, and hosted on my server.) I was really happy with my dojo this year at World Oyama Fighter's Cup! Lots of great people there, old friends and new. Everyone fought well and displayed great sportsmanship as well. It really gave me hope for the future of knockdown to see so many people from so many different organizations coming together, having a good time, and supporting one another. We only had 4 kids enter this year, but they all got trophies. Two trophies for first place, one for second (he might have gotten 1st if he has been proportional to the other kid, who was at least a foot taller than him, and probably easily had 40 pounds on him, heh,) and one for third. http://www.niceboots.org/~evergrey/Kyokushin/0612/kids2.jpg In the full contact knockdown lightweight division, our *7th kyu,* Taka, got third place! I'm very proud of him... he has only 2.5 years of experience, and there were I think 10 people in lightweight total this year. Compare that to Toshiki Sensei (of Yamaki Dojo) in 2nd, who is a tournament veteran and has been training for 15 years! Taka had to fight in the qualifiers, and I think he really surprised most people there at the tournament. He won 3 fights, and lost one, to the guy who took first, I believe. That gut was BRUTAL, and an infighter. http://www.niceboots.org/~evergrey/Kyokushin/0612/winning5.jpg Heavyweight, well I don't know these guys really, but I believe 2nd place was taken by a *6th kyu* from Sensei Callahan's Kyokushin dojo in LA. Note that the third place guy has a green belt... there were plenty of black belts in both knockdown divisions. GO GO GADGET KYU RANKS! http://www.niceboots.org/~evergrey/Kyokushin/0612/winning7.jpg Here are all the fighters in the full contact knockdown division who didn't jet out the door before the group picture, and their coaches/instructors. http://www.niceboots.org/~evergrey/Kyokushin/0612/aall.jpg Here are two instructors from our little org. One broke his arm at open sparring, or maybe in the class after that, blocking a jodan mawashi geri. The other had an unfortunate knee twisting incident while getting kicked by Taka during open sparring, and tore his meniscus. We called them the Gimp Squad and everybody wanted a picture of them together, lol. I love that everyone at my school has a healthy sense of humor. http://www.niceboots.org/~evergrey/Kyokushin/0612/agimps2.jpg My friend Gabriel (of Yamaki Dojo) and I. He worked out with us on Thursday, and we had a lot of fun together. We sparred after class, and I got a lovely bruise on my forearm, haha! Big fun. Sorry I threw you into the wall! http://www.niceboots.org/~evergrey/Kyokushin/0612/gabriel.jpg Sensei Hill of Seattle Kyokushin and I. He won his division, I believe. http://www.niceboots.org/~evergrey/Kyokushin/0612/ahill.jpg A surprise for me was seeing Duval Hamilton, who came up and introduced himself to me. REALLY NICE GUY, really good people. He does the knockdown fighter podcasts, and is the publisher of OSU! Magazine, a great magazine for knockdown fighters that I am going to be writing for regularly. I think it is published quarterly for now. http://www.niceboots.org/~evergrey/Kyokushin/0612/aduval.jpg Shihan Yamaki and I. I think he might be smiling a little bit here, not sure. HE'S SO DREAMY! Also, really patient and nice and TALL. http://www.niceboots.org/~evergrey/Kyokushin/0612/yamaki2.jpg The women's division actually had I think 9 women enter this time. Big improvement, both in number of participants and WHEN they held it. This time, instead of their fighting happening in the far corner during the children's division, they got to fight during the grown-ups portion of the tournament. Maybe someday there will be full contact knockdown for them without bubble wrap too! I and many other women would be really happy about that. I talked to at least two other women who would have entered had there been a knockdown division for women, instead of the padding everywhere "semi-knockdown." Of course, I don't know how many of the women who entered semi-knockdown would go for true knockdown... but a number of them looked pretty hardcore out there! Overall, I had a great time, and I am so very proud of my school! OSU!

Might be. Like I said, I haven't experienced GKR in person. This is just what I see online. :} In the end, you of course must make your own choices. We can only give you our perspectives and experiences. I hope that you do find the best style for YOU though. OSU!

Also, one of these guys is apparently the head of the style. PS, yes, do read through the thread that is on martialedge, the third search result down. Lots of stuff from former GKR students who have gone on to different styles. The last post on that thread, on page 27, an employee of the company posts on there. I bolded that, because he referred to it as a COMPANY, not a martial arts style. That tells me a lot right there.

I recommend that you do a google search on go kan ryu, if you have not already, and read some of the threats on the second search result. Maybe the third too, though I haven't read it. Does GKR participate in tournaments with contact outside of their own style? That would be a good way for GKR to prove itself better. It tends to have a reputation for being a pyramid scheme. I, however, have never met a GKR practicioner in person, nor have I trained with them, or sparred with one, so I cannot say, myself, whether or not I think that it is any good. Kyokushin has the reputation it does because it has tested itself publicly against other styles, time and time again, and proven itself... as well as holding to very high standards overall. There are some dojos that are exceptions, but not many. OSU!