Kirves

I don't think you'll be a good martial artist by learning from a book or a video. You won't learn subconscious timing at all. You know, that is when suddenly a fist is speeding at your face, your subconscious takes over and makes you sidestep, block and counterattack. You can't practice that without a partner. If you get a partner, it would still be good if someone was overseeing what you do wrong, in the details. But if you are interested in a particular art that is not available where you are now located, you can get started alone. Learn all the katas and other solo forms of the style really well by heart. Learn all the vocabulary, tactics and train the kumite techniques by yourself. Get fit. Then when you move to a new town where the art is available, you will learn faster. Also you may join a similar style for some practical training too, while training the style you want at home and waiting for the time you can access a dojo of the style. And finally: many styles offer seminars and camps for weekends or several days. Those are a huge help! Go to 5 or more seminars a year and you are in a whole new game. That way you can really learn. Go to seminar, get real hands-on training. Then while waiting for the next seminar, solo-practise and memorize the stuff you learned in all the previous seminars, plus books and videos. Eventually (in 5-10 years) you'll get so good, an instructor in a seminar will ask if you were interested in starting a training group in your neck of the woods. And maybe find an email-penpal who is doing something similar. So you can tell about your training, and encourage each other.

If you have an Ashihara Karate school nearby, go check it out. It is excellent! Do you know Kyokushinkai? Ashihara is derived from that, but concentrates more on self defence (less competition, more throws and street wise techniques).

In dojos I've been to, sensei has meant the teacher. Sempai has meant an elder (=more advanced rank) student when he's guiding you. In Japanese culture sempai often means someone who has more experience and is guiding the newbie a.k.a. kohai. For example, when you go get a new job, you are the kohai and the person who's done the job for years and has been assigned to show you how it's done, he's the sempai, the tutor. Hope this helps. And the term karate... Karate is really just a blanket term covering most Okinawa-te based arts. There are lots of different styles with their differing techniques, methods, tactics, philosophies and application. During the first few years you won't notice much difference between two styles but when the basics are down (you're approaching the black belt) you will see the difference. Some arts use very linear tactics, some very circular, some use hard methods, some soft, some don't use throws and locks, some do, etc. Some have hard contact sparring with protective gear, some don't use gear, some dont use contact sparring, some don't spar. The list of differences between styles is endless, but they all start by teaching the similar basics for a few years. The car metaphor was good. Karate as a term is like car. There are different karate styles. There are different cars. There are karates for purpose A, purpose B and purpose C. There are cars for purpose X, purpose Y and purpose Z. Some cars fit more to certain purposes than others. But my god, go ask a Ferrari enthusiast if Corvette is better, you get a huge argument! Same with karate, ask if some style is better and you'd better duck! If the school just says "karate" call or go there and ask what's the style. If it's unknown to you, ask "Oh, never heard, tell me about it." Then come to the web and search around for info on that style. Shotokan is a Japanese style (all karate is originally from Okinawa but after WWII some teachers went to Japan and thus some styles have been later found there) founded by Gichin Funakoshi. It uses lots of wide low stances and steps, too low and wide for practical use if you ask me (ask someone else and you get a different answer) and they use quite hard and linear methods. Wado ryu as a contrast, uses short stances, soft circular blocks, soft jujutsu derived methods of locking and throwing, while Shotokan guys tend to block hard and continue with merely hard punches and kicks till the end. This just to give you a short over-simplified two style comparison. There are lots of styles (dozens, if not hundreds) so you understand how difficult it is to answer quickly. Some styles (Uechi-ryu, Goju-ryu, Ashihara) often look from the onlooker as if the karateka moves little and goes up close to use knee strikes, elbow strikes and take downs. Other styles like Shorin-ryu, Shorinji-ryu, SHlTO-ryu, Shotokan, etc. use larger movements, trying to stay a bit farther from the opponent in order to use long range punches and kicks instead of going up close unless so required. But all this is too oversimplified! Educate yourself, go to a library and get books on different karate styles. PS. I capitalized SHlTO-ryu because otherwise the forum software thinks there's a dirty word in it...

Well, I have just found out that my school is not official member of the federation and does lots of things very differently than the official schools.

I'm new here.