Kirves

You mean "kote kitai"? (striking arms / limbs together for hardening them) We do blocks in predetermined drills to strike the forearms together.

I didn't mean to imply you did. I was just responding about their misconception. Sorry if it didn't come out that way.

warning: They just haven't been taught proper bunkai. That claim is always done by people who have no idea what they are supposed to do with the kata, then they make up reasons for themselves to justify kata training. Go study some authentic old school Okinawan style and you'll see what I mean. Try Jundokan Goju-ryu, Seibukan Shorin-ryu or Yuishinkai Karate-jutsu and you don't have to make excuses for kata training, it will all become clear. When Sensei Miyagi designed his kata, he did not hide movements into it and tell his students to try to guess what he means. He taught the bunkai that he meant with the kata. After WW2 the Japanese didn't bother studying with their Okinawan masters and they lost the bunkai knowledge, then they made the excuses. But on Okinawa they still train the old way: with proper bunkai of the kata designer still known. The greatest misconception of karate kata is that the bunkai should be guessed or designed by the student. Each move that was put into the kata by the master, was also taught by the master. In old schools this is still the way it is done. You are taught a kata, and you are taught the bunkai that the kata designer meant along with it. No fuzz, no mystery. No Dillman-B.S. just plain self defence.

That was my problem too, but now it's fixed. Thanks Patrick!

You spelled Kotka correctly (Kotka means Eagle by the way). Sauvinen is ok for a last name, but it can also be misspelled. Hmmm... Okay, if you insist, you can be a "semi-finn", LOL!

Yeah. Sadly, some foreigners try to import the McDojo-ism over here too. I know one turkish Tangsoodo/Taekwondo instructor who is the epitome of McDojo-culture, right here in Finland. Well, at least we are still talking about a single case anyway. PS. Nice to see more finns here. There was one semi-finn here before, but you seem to be the genuine article, as far as your name is concerned. I've seen your name on sfnet newsgroups too. How did you find this place?

Can we start with the bug reports yet?

I have two suggestions: 1. See if you can get someone train with you once or twice a week. Even for an hour or something. Then do kata, bagwork and other stuff (fitness too!) on your own. 2. Read Loren W. Christensen's book "Solo Training".

Why? Because they are useful! How are they useful? Depends on who you ask. Some people will show you how they work in old school Okinawan karate when you need to keep the balance low and throw your opponent off balance. Others in modern styles will say it helps strengthen your legs and teach you proper body alignment and power generation. Other people will say that when you panic in real life fight, you use short cuts in everything you do, so if you train in the "proper" way, you use too small movements in real life. If you exaggerate your moves in training, you'll shorten them in real life to the proper size. Who of these is right? That's what you have to find out. Maybe they all are?

Tai chi is a kung fu style.

Yeah, but he did it in an era when kata training meant bunkai training, not the kind of aerobic solo dancing waving your arms in air, like it usually means today.

Wow, I just accidentally happened to surf onto Eurosport the other night and there were Kyokushin fighters beating the crap outta each other! I ended up watching the whole show and it was nothing less than the 7th Wold Open of Kyokushinkai! There was even Dolph Lundgren doing tameshiwari (breaking) show before the finals. It was nice to see such an event broadcasted around the world.

A huge difference is also found in the spirit. Kyokushin thrives in it's spirit of Osu-no-seishin.

Kyokushin is Kyokushin, no matter who teaches it!

An excellent Kyokushin kata-site: http://www.kyokushinkata.com/ They have videos and picture series of all the kata.

In one Kyokushin school, which has a 10 kyu ranking system for the mudansha (under-blackbelt), they have the basics of ibuki-breating for 7th kyu (blue belt) and the kata Sanchin for 4th kyu (green belt) level.

Too many reasons.

I thought I'd let everyone know, that I quit karate altogether (after only couple weeks since joining a new club for trial period) and joined an MMA club, which studies vale tudo and submission wrestling. Many reasons for the switch.

Gsus, how difficult is it to understand. Kata, as a solo pattern, as a notebook of techniques, is as dead as Matt Thornton's instructional videos. They are just a way to remember and instruct techniques. But training at Matt's gym, does not mean sitting and watching his videos. Nor does training in karate mean doing solo patterns (= reading the notes).

No, I alone don't hold the secrets. The problem is that most kata taught today is taught in the Japanese manner, not Okinawan. But go see Okinawan styles and you may get a wake up call. Most karate clubs in the world teach kata with tournament style, the rest teach with Japanese post WW2 style. Only few (Okinawan Goju-ryu, Seibukan Shorin-ryu, Seito Matsumura Shorin-ryu, Uechi-ryu, and few others) teach it the Okinawan ti-chi-ki style. You make the mistake that all Americans (at least online) seem to make. You think that when you do solo pattern training that is kata training. No! That is solo pattern training. Kata training involves partner and non-coreographed fighting. You cannot, I repeat CANNOT say you are training kata, if all you do is practice a solo dance. They did not learn to fight on Okinawa like that and neither will you. On Okinawa they trained ti-chi-ki, with partner, with full contact, and non-coreographed. That is how you learn to fight. That is kata training. Solo training is just the notebook of what your style contains, but reading the book is not training it. It is just reading. Training means take your partner and do ti-chi-ki drills and kumite with the stuff you get from the notebook (=kata solo pattern).

Exactly! It has nothing specifically to do with ninjutsu. It was a broad term used to categorize fighting arts. It was used quite synonymously with terms like jujutsu, yawara and so on. All ninjas studied fighting arts, so they studied taijutsu/jujutsu/whatever_you_call_it. Morihei Ueshiba decided to call the unarmed stuff in his art taijutsu. Masaaki Hatsumi decided to call the body moving mechanics of his art taijutsu. Many koryu bujutsu ryuha use the term taijutsu interchangeably with jujutsu. It is just a broad term that doesn't mean any specific art in Japanese, it just means "body method" and is used quite synonymously with many other terms.

Kyokushinkai is Kyokushin-kai (kai = organization), so he did not forget it.

Matt Thornton has never seen kata training. He has only seen solo training. And that is because 99% of modern schools only do that. I fully agree with Matt on this issue. If we are talking about kata training, or ti-chi-ki, as it is called in uchinanguchi, it means sparring with the stuff against fully resisting opponents.

Sure, they don't focus on it as much as some other arts. But nevertheless, when they aren't practising for an upcoming tournament, they use strikes too.

Ha! I told you what to do. If you don't know what a sprawl is then you'll find it out easily by simple googleing. After the sprawl, it is hard to give an exact technique to do, as it varies according to how you and your opponent are aligned and what he does. Guillotine is a common move, as well as taking hold of his upper body by hugging him from neck and under one armpit.. But you really should get instruction in some form, now that you know what to look/ask for.