Wastelander

We only put a couple examples up on YouTube that are easy to find. There are some clips from classes and seminars floating around that show a couple more applications, but they were posted to various social media platforms, so they're harder to find.

Thank you for sharing! Kobudo is rarely looked at through a practical lens, since most people are not carrying around bo, sai, tonfa, etc. on a daily basis for self-defense (although many of the techniques for those weapons can be transferred to other, everyday items). Nunchaku are especially neglected on this front, as they typically get more exposure as tricking implements than actual weapons. While I didn't learn these particular applications for the nunchaku, my late Sensei did teach a number of grappling techniques using them, implementing them for leverage and pain compliance, similar to what you have going on in this video, in addition to their striking applications.

I have separate belt systems for kids and teens/adults. For my youth program, the minimum time-in-grade requirements are: 10th Kyu - White 9th Kyu - Orange/White Stripe - 4 months 8th Kyu - Orange - 4 months - 2 peer model selections 7th Kyu - Orange/Black Stripe - 6 months - 2 peer model selections 6th Kyu - Blue/White Stripe - 6 months - 4 peer model selections 5th Kyu - Blue - 8 months - 6 peer model selections 4th Kyu - Blue/Black Stripe- 10 months - 10 peer model selections 3rd Kyu - Green/White Stripe - 12 months - 12 peer model selections That brings you to a total of a little over 4 years, at the bare minimum for someone to progress from white belt up to 3rd Kyu, and that's just the highest I allow kids to reach. After they are at least 14, they can move on to the adult curriculum at 4th Kyu if they haven't completed the youth curriculum, or they can join at, essentially, a probationary 3rd Kyu if they have completed the youth curriculum. As you can see, I also have a "peer model selections" requirement, which is how many times during the time-in-grade period I select them to come up in front of the class to be the example. I've found that this helps build confidence in the kids, and gives them an incentive to work hard in class. The adult requirements are different, as I only have 4 Kyu grades, and 1 Dan grade: 4th Kyu - White - At least 14 years old 3rd Kyu - Yellow - 12 months 2nd Kyu - Green - 16 months 1st Kyu - Brown - 24 months - 40 teaching hours 1st Dan - Black - 48 months - 100 teaching hours - At least 18 years old That brings you to a total of a little over 8 years to go from white belt to black belt, or potentially a total of 11 years if you progressed through the entire youth curriculum, first. You'll notice that I do require some teaching hours for 1st Kyu and 1st Dan. This is because I am a strong believer in the "when one teaches, two learn" philosophy, and I think it is good for more advanced karateka to be comfortable with at least teaching the basics. Instead of doing more Yudansha grades above 1st Dan, I simply have 1st Dan, and a Shidoin (Instructor) certification. The Shidoin certification isn't a rank, but is more like an old-school Menkyo Kaiden, and means that you have been certified to teach my entire curriculum (both the youth and teen/adult programs, as well as KishimotoDi). There is no time-in-grade requirement for this, but it is a learning and assessment process that I work out with students on an individual basis after they have achieved their black belt.

While we didn't necessarily break it down this way, my late Sensei taught very similar methodologies attached to our Shorin-Ryu. We often used the term "block" because it is what so many people are used to, but we taught that it was so much more than "blocking," and that it was generally used to deflect and control the opponent. I look forward to the rest of your breaktdown!

On the mainland, you could also reach out to Joe Swift. His account on Facebook is Dojo TokyoMushinkan.

Well, I can say that Shito-Ryu isn't very popular on Okinawa, as it's really more of a mainland Japanese style, but there are quite a few dojo on Okinawa that are open to the public. The Karate Kaikan actually has a program to connect visitors with dojo on Okinawa, but you need to register right away, because they ask for 2 weeks' notice: https://karatekaikan.jp/en/pages/experience-program-karate Aside from that, you can try connecting with other karateka visiting Okinawa and see if they will let you tag along when they go to training. These personal connections are generally the best way to go, but can be difficult if you don't already know people on Okinawa. You can start by reaching out to James Pankiewicz, who runs the Asato Dojo and BujinTV, as he has lots of connections and knows a lot of people who might be able to help you out. Alternatively ,you can ask a taxi driver to take you to a karate dojo they know about and just show up asking respectfully to train. I don't generally recommend the "show up and ask" approach unless you have exhausted your other options.

Black belt ranks are a strange thing. On the one hand, in Japan/Okinawa, the Shodan rank isn't a big deal, since it just means you have learned the basics in your system, and it isn't uncommon to achieve it in 2-4 years. On the other hand, because of the way karate was introduced to the West, the importance of the Shodan rank was inflated, and the length of time to earn it was extended, so it was more common to have to train very hard, learn more material, and spend 5-8 years training to earn it. On the other-other hand, we have McDojos and belt mills cheapening the accomplishment of earning the Shodan rank to something you just pay for in advance, and we have Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu establishing the belief that a black belt means you have mastered the art and takes 10+ years to earn. That's a lot of very different perspectives on what a black belt rank means, and what it takes to earn. There is no universal standard across all arts, of course, but there also is no universal standard WITHIN any given art. Judo and BJJ usually use competition success as a fairly objective benchmark for their ranks, but outside of that, you're generally going to be seeing very different standards in every school, even among schools that do the same style, or which are part of the same organization. Any rank only has value within the school it is issued, and to a degree within the organization it is issued, but that's about it. Now, all that said, I personally do not like the idea of giving minors black belt ranks. Regardless of how Shodan is perceived in Japan/Okinawa, I am in the US, and the way we look at Shodan tends to be more akin to the way Sandan is seen in Japan/Okinawa. Plus, my late Sensei had the same requirements for his Shodans that the organization we were in had for GODAN, minus the minimum age and time-in-grade requirements, and it generally took an average of 8 strong years of training to earn a Shodan under him. He did issue junior black belt ranks a couple of times, but the youngest person my Sensei ever tested for a proper Shodan rank was 17, and that kid tested right alongside me, having to do the exact same test as a full-grown man in his mid-20s. I would say that it's pretty rare for a 17 year old to be able to do that, but it's possible, and I'm willing to make the exception here and there, but as a general rule, I prefer not to promote anyone under the age of 18 to Shodan. I want my students to have an adult level of understanding, skill, and maturity to go along with the rank.

Well, I can't really speak to the organization as a whole, but I've known some folks who trained in Shidokan Shorin-Ryu, and I actually just took an online seminar with Nakayama Takafumi Sensei of the Shidokan. I get the impression that most Shidokan folks do affiliate with the honbu on Okinawa in a similar way to what I saw when I was in the Shorinkan (founded by Nakazato Shugoro, another of Chibana's senior students). They get the broad curriculum from the honbu, but are able to add what they see fit.

It is my understanding that kata oyo, and the bunkai process by which you derive them, weren't taught all that much by Funakoshi Gichin, and which were almost entirely left behind by Funakoshi Gichin's son and his contemporaries, so that by the end of WW2 pretty much everyone doing Shotokan wasn't learning oyo or bunkai. After WW2, the Okinawans needed to rebuild, and teaching karate to the soldiers stationed there was one way to get the money for that, but many of those soldiers had friends stationed on mainland Japan learning Shotokan, and so that's the sort of karate they wanted to learn. At least some of the Okinawan instructors during that era stopped teaching kata application because their students simply weren't interested in it. They also tended to issue those soldiers yudansha grades between 1st and 3rd Dan during their tours of duty, with the expectation they would come back to Okinawa to continue their education, and that's probably where the "bunkai is for black belts" thing really came about. Most likely, those soldiers just didn't learn kata application while stationed on Okinawa, and only picked it up later, and so they assumed it was black belt material, or they made their students wait until black belt to learn it so they could market it as some sort of "secret knowledge." Now, personally, I think this is a terrible approach, even as an attempt at retaining students. We all know that most people who train in martial arts who make it past the first year will still end up quitting when they earn their black belt, and that happens regardless of where you stick the "secret knowledge" of your curriculum. All this ends up doing is producing a bunch of people who trained in karate long enough to earn a black belt who have no idea how to actually use the classical material of the art, which makes karate look watered down, outdated, and ineffective. On top of that, it is cheating the individual students out of valuable skills for self-defense! My late Sensei taught application right along side the kata, and I do so, as well. This has left just about every student we've ever had with not only a better understanding of the art, but more appreciation for it, and an awareness that there is more to karate than point fighting tournaments and Kyokushin.

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My primary art is Shorin-Ryu (Kobayashi), founded by Chibana Chosin, although I specifically learned the Shorinkan version, which was founded by Nakazato Shugoro, one of Chibana's senior students. My secondary art is KishimotoDi, which is a pre-karate Shuri-Te system passed down to Higa Seitoku by Kishimoto Soko from his teacher, "Bushi" Tachimura, a contemporary of the more famous "Bushi" Matsumura Sokon. Both of these styles teach Naihanchi, but quite differently. I also originally started in Shuri-Ryu (Robert Trias), which contains Sanchin and Tensho kata, originally taken from Goju-Kai (Yamaguchi Gogen), most likely, and then altered, but after leaving Shuri-Ryu I altered them to be more like the Jundokan Goju-Ryu (Miyazato Eiichi) versions through my own research. Shuri-Ryu also teaches Naihanchi, likely either taken from Shindo Jinen-Ryu (Konishi Yasuhiro) or Motobu Choki's books, or both, and I learned the Naihanchi Sho kata of that style. In 2020, I also learned the Shuri Sanchin kata of Motobu Udundi (founded by Motobu Choyu but made publicly available by Uehara Seikichi), which is taught at the Bugeikan (founded by Higa Seitoku). For what it is worth, I have also dabbled in the Sanzhan/Samchien forms of Five Ancestors Fist and Feeding Crane. Naihanchi: In Shuri-Ryu, I was taught Naihanchi in a wide, low kiba-dachi, similar to what is often seen in modern Shotokan. We were taught to make the feet double your shoulder width apart, pointed straight forward, with femurs pointed as far to the sides as possible, and thighs parallel to the floor. This stance was meant to be rooted and basically immobile, both to build leg strength and to make it so an opponent can't move you around, which was almost certainly a modification made by Robert Trias, as both Konishi and Motobu used variations of Chinese-style mabu (horse stance), which is nowhere near as wide or low as the stance used in Shuri-Ryu. From a Shorin-Ryu perspective, I was taught that Naihanchi-dachi angles the feet inward, with the feet about one shin and one fist apart from each other, although that varies from person to person, as does the degree to which the feet are turned inward. The knees are slightly bent, and the legs should be springy--not so tense as to prevent movement, but with enough tension to keep the hips, knees, and ankles aligned. This stance was, as far as we know, invented by Itosu Anko. In KishimotoDi, we use shiko-dachi instead of Naihanchi-dachi, which is the older method of performing Naihanchi. We are taught to point the toes out at angles in-line with our femurs (not specifically 45 degrees), and our feet should be one shin and one fist distance apart. There has to be enough tension to control your level changes, as we sink and rise in the stance, so it is not locked. Itosu Anko's older students, like Hanashiro Chomo and Yabu Kentsu, taught Naihanchi in shiko-dachi, and even Funakoshi Gichin used shiko-dachi for Naihanchi Nidan and Sandan, although his Naihanchi Shodan was done in a Chinese-style mabu (horse stance). We also see some Matsumura Seito (Hohan Soken) practitioners using shiko-dachi in Naihanchi. It seems that, before Itosu created the inward-turned Naihanchi-dachi, everyone doing Naihanchi either used shiko-dachi or a Chinese-style mabu, which later evolved into the Japanese kiba-dachi. Sanchin: The Shuri-Ryu Sanchin kata has three "levels" to it, and I only learned the first one, so I can't speak to them all, but the one that I learned (to the best of my recollection, as it was many years ago) was to have your feet shoulder width apart, rear foot pointed forward, front foot pointed as far inward as possible, with the heel of the front foot in-line with the toes of the rear foot. The knees were supposed to be close to touching, and you were supposed to relax on the inhale, allowing them to touch, then tense everything on the exhale, causing them to pull apart, slightly. I know that the second level much more closely resembles the Goju-Ryu version, and the third level looks more like Shotokan's Hangetsu (Seisan). As I altered the kata to be more like Goju-Ryu, I found that the feet needed to be a bit further apart, and the front foot was generally only pointed inward at a 45 degree angle. Some still pointed the rear foot forward, while others turned it inward, slightly. Regardless, the knees were not so close together, and didn't touch as you relaxed during the inhale. Tension had to be maintained to the point where the stance did not collapse at all, but then a high degree of tension was exerted on the exhale. This is effectively almost identical to Itosu's Naihanchi-dachi, just with the feet on a 45 degree angle line instead of a 180 degree line. I suspect that Itosu based his Naihanchi-dachi on this version of Sanchin-dachi, based on his training with Nagahama. When I learned Shuri Sanchin, the stance was once again smaller, with the feet about a shoulder width apart, and the front heel in-line with the ball of the rear foot, but both feet point forward, knees slightly bent. There is not much tension used in this version of the kata, so the stance doesn't really change at all from that. You just have enough tension to keep the shape, and that's pretty much it. From the perspective of Five Ancestors Fist and Feeding Crane, the stance was wider, with the feet probably around a shin and a fist distance apart, or a shoulder-width-and-a-half. I don't remember the feet really being turned inward, at all. In fact, the stance was more like a wide zenkutsu-dachi (front stance), with the front foot pointed forward, and the rear foot being pointed either forward or slightly outward. There was enough tension in the stance to hold the shape, but relaxed enough to be able to explosively move the hips for power generation. Both styles do not perform this kata as a dynamic tension kata, the way that most Okinawan styles do. Overall Kata Similarities: I would say that your observations are generally accurate, in my experience, at least when comparing Shorin-Ryu to Goju-Ryu. Once you branch out from there, the stance starts to no longer be similar, and the use of tension is often different. The Chineses styles of Sanchin are also considerably more nuanced and complex than Okinawan versions, although I would say they are probably on-par with the nuance and complexity of Naihanchi. The Sanchin kata on Okinawa seem to be considerably more stripped-down versions of the Chinese versions, with the focus shifted from combative applications to structural development and breathing (although there ARE still combative applications for Sanchin), while Naihanchi retains its combative applications and tends to put less emphasis on the structure and breathing than Sanchin (although it is still part of it). We also have no extant versions of Naihanchi kata in any Chinese arts that I have been able to find, so we don't really know if Naihanchi came from China, or whether it was developed on Okinawa, and if it DID come from China, we don't know how much alteration was done.

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Obligatory: I am not a lawyer, and you must refer to the laws in your country/region/state/locality/etc, because they can be VERY different depending on where you are. Where I live, now, use of force in self-defense is justified if the victim sincerely believes there is a credible threat to their safety or the safety of someone else. This means that, in your hypothetical scenario, use of force is justified if you sincerely feel that your safety is threatened by the aggressive man invading your personal space. Generally, deadly force is only justified to stop grievous bodily harm or death, so it would not be appropriate to, for example, stab the aggressor in this scenario, unless they were larger/stronger, supported by a group, or had a weapon of their own, and you felt that your only way to stay alive was to end their life. You may have to testify to this in court. It's also important to bear in mind that, legality aside, maiming a person or ending their life with a weapon is VERY traumatic, and you will almost certainly need mental health services after the fact. As for the techniques or weapons you use, there is generally a force continuum that should be in place in your self-defense skill set to appropriately deal with threats, because if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and if all you have is a firearm, everything looks like a target. People like to say "there are no rules in the streets" and "better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6," but there ARE rules--they're called "laws"--and if you end up in prison, you didn't make it home safely, which is the whole point of self-defense. The force continuum that you use is going to vary based on your training, but for me, I like to group things as follows: Low-risk threats (verbally abusive, escalating speech, shoving, etc.) - Escape and evasion, or restraint using pins and joint locks Medium-risk threats (punches, kicks, headbutts, etc.) - Escape and evasion, or strikes, throws, joint dislocations, and strangleholds to disable/knock out attacker or deescalate threat level High-risk threats (significant physical disadvantage, group violence, weapons, etc.) - Escape and evasion, or purpose-built and improvised weapons, strikes, throws, joint dislocations, and strangleholds to potentially kill or disable/knock out attacker or deescalate threat level Now, escape and evasion isn't always possible, and sometimes even when it is possible, it may not be the best course of action, such as in the case of a home invasion where you need to protect your family from the threat. Additionally, everyone's lines between those levels of threats will vary, based on a number of factors, not the least of which will be physical characteristics and level of training. The more physically gifted you are, or more well-trained you are, the more intense a threat generally needs to be for you to consider it an escalation. Someone who is 5ft tall, 100lbs, with zero training, could see a threat as high-risk that someone who is 6ft tall, 200lbs, with 10 years of training would consider to be a low-risk threat. Of course, your level of awareness is also going to come into play, because someone with a heightened sense of awareness could notice a knife in someone's pocket, or someone circling to get behind them, raising the threat level to high, while someone with a lower level of awareness might completely miss those things and mistakenly believe that they are in a low-risk situation.

Statistically, the vast majority of male-on-male violence is made up of punches to the head, and I have seen many Kyokushin fighters struggle with defending head punches because of the emphasis on punching the body in their competitions, even though knees and kicks to the head are allowed. I expect this ruleset would have the same result.

I have personally tossed around and dropped Kyokushin 1st, 2nd, and 5th Dans, while I was a 2st Dan, myself. These sorts of generalizations and style-vs-style claims don't hold up, and don't serve any real purpose.