Kirves

Not in my current style.

Currently I pay 30 euros a month, that is a little more than 30 in USD (something like 33 USD currently). We have four class sessions, plus lots of outside action.

Yeah, CC is good. But they are all, very very overpriced and overhyped. I mean really, all his abs stuff and stretching stuff is just so overpriced and hyped that you'll save a lot of money without losing any quality by looking elsewhere. CC is okay but a bit expensive, but I haven't seen much competition so it is okay.

First of all, it is an American invention that "there is no proper bunkai, but you just invent it." On Okinawa, there always was the bunkai that the creator of the kata meant with every move. In old styles, they still have the style's "official bunkai" and it is taught to every student. All bunkai outside of the official bunkai is oyo bunkai, that means free form interpretation, which is also allowed as long as you are competent enough to know what kind of applications are smart in a fight. How do you get smart? By first learning the official application because it was designed by people who actually fought with the stuff. Let's take Kyan Chotoku - a Shorin-ryu legend for example here: he designed a kata. Did he teach the kata to his students and say "try to figure out for the rest of your lives, what I meant with every move"? No, he definitely did not! He taught the kata and then started teaching his students "this move is used like this or in this situation like this..." and so on. Thus, there was the style's official bunkai. Many styles don't have that anymore. But styles that still have an unbroken link to their Okinawan masters do teach it like that. Organizations like Seibukan Sukunaihayashi Shorin-ryu, Seito Matsubayashi Shorin-ryu, Yuishinkai Karate-jutsu and so on. They still teach the same bunkai as the designers of the kata did. Many of the modern, especially Japanese (mainland that is) styles were founded before studying long enough with the Okinawan masters to learn the bunkai, and that's the reason why we don't have their bunkai anymore. The reason for the drift was WW2, which ceased just about all karate training in Japan. And after the war, few went back to Okinawa for more training. They just continued what they knew in Japan. Here is an exellent page: http://home.nc.rr.com/ejconsult/karate/heian2/h2bunkai.htm It explains several sample bunkai that is for actual fighting. Remember to see the links to the picture-series of the moves. See the explanations and ask yourself "is this the kind of bunkai taught at our school?" or if you are not karate-student ask yourself "is this my idea of what karate kata training actually is or have I misunderstood the whole thing as a solo dance exercise?". You cannot say "I'm training kata" unless you do this kind of partner training. If your idea of "kata training" is only solo form dancing exercise, then you are only doing "solo training", not "kata training". Kata training always includes partner bunkai training.

Mas Oyama's "Osu-no-seishin" (=a 'never give up' mentality) teachings were not just words, but he actually made it happen in his students. Many preach it but few make it happen.

That's the heart of the problem! On Okinawa, stances were always high for practical reasons. Nobody taught low stances as they are unusable in fighting. Gichin Funakoshi taught exactly like that too and called his style Shotokan. So why do people in Shotokan now train the low stances? Because people after Gichin passed the torch, modified it so! Some people might even say it ain't Shoto's Kan anymore...

The founder of course!

If you think it won't help you, then it probably won't. You need to know what to do with it and how to do it. If you don't then you'll feel it's useless. And in that case you are right too.

Why don't they spar with the moves from the kata? And this is the sad state karate training is in today. In Okinawan styles and some (very few) Japanese styles, the bunkai is taught to you by your instructor! There's no need to run around in circles wondering what the hack... When Kyan Chotoku designed his kata, he had a specific bunkai for it, he put everything there for a reason. Then he taught that bunkai and the reasoning to his students. His students didn't try to guess what he meant - he told them. The kata was just a way for them to not forget any of it later. Some of his students designed their own kata and same happened, they taught their students how to open it, they didn't teach them the kata and then say "try to guess what I meant". In any good style, the organization's official syllabus/curriculum will have the official bunkai openly taught to each student. If this isn't the case in your style, but you have to guess your way through it, then you know that in your style, the WW2 did some serious damage. Then either study another style, or study some seminars/books/videos on bunkai (it is better to at least start with expert guidance before starting to search for your own interpretations), or just accept the fact that your kata is empty as far as bunkai is concerned. And one more thing, the reason I say "don't try to invent or interprete yourself unless you already know enough to call yourself an expert" is because the original kata (now I'm talking about traditional fighting kata here) was designed by real life combat experts. If you aren't one, don't try to pretend to be one.

If you train kata only as a solo form, then it won't help much (except maybe greases your technique musclememory a bit). But if you train it the old Okinawan way, i.e. partner training with bunkai (ti-chi-ki) and oyo and free sparring, then it will help tremendously. The whole point of a kata is that it is the collection of the self defence methods of your system. It is so sad that people who have kata in their systems, have forgotten all the applications and do kata for nothing. Then they learn newly devised self defence tactics separately as they aren't in touch with their actual art and it's self defence tactics as they are documented in the kata. I suggest you do some searches for books on kata bunkai ("Bunkai-Jutsu", "Shihan-Te", "Five years, One Kata", and so on) and attend some seminars by people like Pat McCarthy who seems to hold it as his task to inform those who have been with empty kata without knowledge about what it contains.

Hi there! I have already been involved in discussions where you were part of, so I'm bit late, but welcome anyway!

Hi! BJJ (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) and Sambo are two excellent options for grappling training.

Hi there!

Welcome! Good to have more black belt level knowledge added to our pool here!

Welcome! CLF is fun, though I don't do it anymore.

Isshin-ryu is an Okinawan style, which means it derives all of it's self defence drills from the old proven methods stored in kata form. And it also means that kata training (= form training) has a meaning for the Isshin-ryu fighter, not just the Isshin-ryu martial artist (some people teach kata just as an "art form" and "solo exercise" and don't know much about it's place in fighting training where two people open the kata's ti-chi-ki). I would rate Isshin-ryu to be quite safe. If you aren't terribly overweight or anything, you don't have to prepare for the beginner classes, but if you like, you can always work on your cardiovascular fitness.

I disagree with a lot of it. But it was a good article. Seems it was written by someone who only knows the way kata is practiced in Japan (mainland). I prefer to study it like Okinawans did (and still do).

The question is: what is perfect? If the choke is perfect, but your body alignment towards me is not, then it is possible. But if you mean perfect as in there are no weaknesses in your position in the situation then it may not be possible. But how many people get it 100% perfect all the time? In free fighting or even street fighting there are so many variables that something, your toe, your clothing, your ankle, your hands, your groin, your hip alignment, the surface we are on, the angle we are positioned, or the shoes we are wearing or the jewelry or weaponry involved, or the other attackers, or what you may reach, it all varies and it is nearly impossible to guarantee that every choke ever made is always perfect. So, when attacked with a choke, see if there's some minor detail you can use to your advantage. Or by all means, learn to submit by reflex if that's what you prefer. PS. If every choke technique ever made was always perfect, all the BJJ tournaments, or NHB events would be quite boring. The first opponent who gets the hold wins. End of fight. Even people like Gracies have to try several holds several times as even they don't get it perfect every time.

Yes, two min rounds, no rest periods. Earlier it was done 50 fights a day, so you didn't actually have to have a 100 opponents. In the seventies it was changed to 100 in one day.

Yes, you feel when the actual choke is happening, but there is so much more to a good technique: where are his feet, his hips, his fingers, his head, how are you aligned to him (i.e. where are YOUR feet, hands, elbows, hips, are you standing, on ground, etc.) and so on. Even if the actual choke is right on, he may have a weakness in his position that you can take advantage of.

Buawhahahahaa! Someone's bubble might get burst if he decided to waste his time anyway.

How do you know he did it properly? He may have a weakness somewhere if you look for it. Most muggers on the street aren't exactly bjj-chokehold experts...

So, you don't want to learn any counters to a choke? Someone applies a choke hold on you and you immediately give up? What's the point then? Do you recommend this for self defence too or only for tournaments?

But if a tkd guy punches, the wc guy often will stick. This is the basic premise of the wc mantra "receive what comes, follow what goes, free hands charge straight": 1. receive what comes: meet the attack, get in touch with him 2. follow what goes: don't lose contact, if the attacking limb retracts, your limb sticks to it (hence: "sticking hands") 3. free hands charge straight: when contact is lost, attack immediately with the limb that lost contact So, if wing chun is done properly, stickyness should be one of the main tenets when at least one party in the fight does wing chun. If that is the case, you need to study more until that isn't the case. It's like saying "you can always beat a kickboxer by kicking low when he punches". Of course one must learn how to protect the downstairs while being buzy upstairs, wing chun teaches that too. Usually they brag about being able to attack with three limbs at the same time, not to mention their "universal solution".

Wing Chun (and this goes double for Wing Tsun) is often taught and marketed with a lot of "we are the best" type of hype (see Kernsprecht's book "On Single Combat" for an example of what kind of hype/propaganda I'm talking about) and this is often done to such a degree that it is easy to forgive a rookie to actually buy it all. I guess it is also used as a confidence booster, as the tactic used by wing chun (go right in when attacked, no matter what the attack) requires a kind of ultimate confidence in your technique and ability, so this hype will build that kind of confidence in the beginner.