Wastelander

I think you'll find that a lot of us tend to do kata when we are training by ourselves. It's a convenient training method for improving your skills while you're alone. If I have equipment, though, I'll generally go for drills that use the equipment, so it depends on what you have available.

People are notoriously bad at goal-setting, and I think that this is an example of that, along with people getting bored or life just getting in the way. I would say that most people who start training in traditional martial arts set the goal of "earning black belt," and they don't tend to update their goals as they get closer to achieving that, so once they earn black belt, they feel as though they have "finished what they started." I hear this a lot from people who quit before earning black belt, as well, saying that they want to get back into it and "finish what they started." I think we, as instructors, need to be more clear about the fact that black belt is NOT being "finished" with your martial arts journey, and help them come up with goals to achieve after reaching black belt.

I'm sorry for the loss to his family, friends, and organization.

Karate and kobudo historian, Andreas Quast, recently posted some footage of a kobudo tournament on Okinawa, and it reminded me of the general subject of sparring in kobudo: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/15EpmMsVYZ/ When I first learned kobudo, I was taught a non-contact version of kumite where you had to make contact with the opponent's weapon, first, and then you would launch a strike at the opponent's arms, legs, body, or head. If it got close enough, you scored a point, and reset, very similar to karate point fighting. Even back then, I liked the idea of actual contact sparring with weapons more, and I thought up all kinds of ways to make it safe to do so, eventually landing on almost the exact same thing you see in the video, although I never got the chance to do it. I'm curious if anyone has done this type of kobudo sparring, or any sort of sparring with weapons.

I have dislocated my right knee several times in martial arts training. The first time I dislocated it, I was just walking in a straight line down a hallway at school, which should have been a clue that I had something wrong with my joints, but I didn't get a diagnosis about that for about 15 years. The first time I dislocated it in martial arts training, I was working with a throwing dummy in my Judo class, and I was told to work on drop seoi-nage, which resulted in the dummy slamming into the side of my dropped knee. The second time, I was throwing slip kicks on a pad, and my foot slid on the sweaty mat. The third time was attempting a foot sweep at the wrong time when their leg was fully based.

Well, I know that it's quite common to solicit students to leave reviews, but I don't think most martial arts schools are astroturfing. It definitely DOES happen, on occasion, though. One of the karate schools my late Sensei had trained at as a kid did it once Yelp became big. They also left completely false negative reviews of my late Sensei's dojo.

That's great news!

You're more than welcome to do so, but here is the draft ruleset so you can have the full outline. Competition Kakedameshi Draft Rules.pdf

Thanks! Points of contact are huge when you're at close range, so it makes perfect sense that you'd have experienced that in BJJ. I know I did in Judo. The lack of respect for the strikes in my example videos is mainly because we were going light, and keeping it playful. When you ramp up the intensity, and start making a bit of impact to the face, it changes the dynamic, for sure.

Turning it into a competitive format is certainly the challenge, because it's easy to do when no one is keeping score, but if you want it to be a competition, you have to set up scoring criteria and there have to be people trained to be judges and referees. I actually suspect that, even if it took off as a competition format, it would not draw many spectators--it's too close range to see what's going on from the stands, so unless there are knockouts allowed it's unlikely that many people will want to watch it. Just as Judo and BJJ are primarily watched by people who practice those arts and their families, I think kakedameshi would be similarly watched only by karateka and their families. If it's done right, though, it could certainly become a feeder for MMA competition. For what it's worth, I have actually taught a couple seminars on kakedameshi, and even sell the recorded video from one of them on my website. I've also tried to get focus groups put together from karateka around the world to test out competition rulesets, but they have proven to be inconsistent and eventually fall off the map. For gear, I use MMA-style gloves, mouthguard, and groin protector, with shin guards and headgear being optional. At such a close range, head kicks are unlikely, and we know that headgear is more likely to increase your risk of TBI, so shin guard and headgear don't really need to be used, IMO. As for the points system, it gets a bit complicated, since there are so many things you can do in kakedameshi. If we made it so you could win by KO, most people would never participate, because it's just too dangerous, so while we could have a full-contact circuit where that's allowed, it probably won't attract many competitors. Semi-contact and light-contact divisions would probably be more popular. We also have to consider the fact that instant-win conditions (such as KO, submission, or ring-out) and higher point values will attract more focus from competitors, causing them to emphasize those aspects more than others. If we want kakedameshi to actually pressure test and represent karate, then that needs to be taken into account. As a quick overview, I've proposed 5 minute matches, with the winner being the person with the most points by the end of the time, and a 1 minute sudden-death round if there is a draw. You can also win if your opponent taps out. There are penalties for breaking away from your opponent, because you have to maintain at least 1 point of contact with them at all times, as well as for stalling. Disqualification occurs after 5 penalties, or if you injure your opponent (including KOs outside of full-contact divisions). Points are awarded for achieving dominant positions, landing strikes, successfully manipulating the opponent with joint locks, and successfully knocking the opponent to the ground. You can also earn points for keeping your opponent on the ground, as long as you are in a dominant position, and you can earn points by getting back to your feet when your opponent is trying to keep you down. 1 Point - Strikes to the limbs and body, immobilizing the opponent's arms, disrupting the opponent's posture with a lock/sweep/attack to "vulnerable points," and successfully preventing a downed opponent from standing back up 2 Points - Strikes to the head, successfully defending a throw or leg-reaping takedown, successful takedown where both participants fall, holding an opponent in a lock or stranglehold for 10+ seconds, and regaining top position on the ground 3 points - Successful takedown where tori remains standing, successfully regaining the feet while the opponent is attempting to keep the fight on the ground, successful takedown from the ground against a standing opponent which results in tori getting back to their feet or taking top position on the ground, and pushing your opponent out of the ring. These are still in the workshopping phase, of course, and I actually have a more detailed write-up I've used for people testing it out. My hope with the scoring is that it will emphasize trying to keep yourself off the ground and engaged in the fight standing up, and from the little feedback I've gotten so far, that seems to work. The biggest issue is preparing judges and referees, because they have to keep a close watch on what's happening and try to keep score (a click counter is best for that). Since that basic premise comes from Chinese pushing hands competitions, that makes perfect sense. I actually include a provision for that in my ruleset, although it isn't an instant-win to push your opponent out of the ring.

Definitely an interesting read, and resonates with concepts that I learned and how I teach, as well. Thanks for sharing!

I actually wrote a fairly lengthy post on kakedameshi here on KF about 6 years ago: As far as the competition ruleset, without getting into the weeds, the gist of it would be to award points for strikes, joint locks, strangleholds, and throws/sweeps/takedowns, as well as ring-outs, keeping your opponent on the ground, or getting back up while your opponent tries to keep you on the ground. Of course, if knockouts and submissions are allowed, then the points become less important, but the majority of people will not participate if knockouts are an option because it isn't safe.

When I said "JKA-style," I didn't mean that it was purely the JKA doing demonstrations, but that the JKA's videos and demonstrations influenced karateka from many different styles, and many of them picked up that approach to kata bunkai for their own training and demonstrations. This has resulted in many, if not most karateka, today, only knowing the types of kata applications seen in those old JKA videos, whether they were part of the JKA or not. Regardless of the intent, there are a lot of people who take those applications as gospel, even today, and refuse to acknowledge other interpretations. I believe that is the result of the JKA's overall culture, more than anything. With regard to the UFC, it was designed to make the Gracies' BJJ look good from the start, so it isn't exactly as good of a measure of effectiveness as people like to believe. The rules had a bias toward grappling, they didn't make much of an effort to find good fighters from other arts, and they set up the brackets to try and avoid Royce having to fight someone with solid groundwork. The first thing to really cause an issue with BJJ wasn't Muay Thai, either, it was wrestling (by way of Japanese "shootfighting," at first), which brought on the "sprawl and brawl" era of MMA, since the BJJ guys can't do much to you if they can't take you down. Muay Thai started to take off after people had begun incorporating wrestling into their training, but karate and other traditional martial arts had already been pretty heavily torn down in the MMA community for its failures in the early UFC events even though, again, they didn't actually try to find high level fighters. Karate Combat is just American kickboxing from the 70s with a little extra grappling allowed, and while American kickboxing was based on karate, it and Karate Combat are both still based on the Kendo-inspired kumite developed by the JKA in the years following WW2. The karate represented in American kickboxing and Karate Combat is stripped down to its most basic striking techniques and a couple sweeps and takedowns, so it is missing a majority of the curriculum the art is supposed to posses, making it a poor representation. Additionally, Karate Combat stopped requiring fighters to have a karate background, and that has resulted in kickboxers from other arts coming in and not only competing, but winning at high levels, because it's kickboxing, not karate. If it were actually representative of karate, then kickboxing from other arts wouldn't be winning championships, because they wouldn't have the techniques and tactics necessary. I totally concede that self-defense and mutual combat are different contexts, and that most people don't understand that, but I also realize we will likely NEVER get them to understand it, so the only way to restore karate's reputation is going to have to be some form of competition. Like it or not, competition is how martial arts spread and grow. For what it's worth, you can actually use most of karate's repertoire under the modern MMA ruleset, despite the differences between self-defense and mutual combat. The trouble is that there is nothing about the MMA ruleset that forces you to fight like a karateka, and there shouldn't be, because it's meant to be a broad, open ruleset for all styles to participate in. Personally, I think there SHOULD be a competition format that is actually designed for pressure testing karate, and I think kakedameshi is the best option for that. Yes, it's still mutual combat, and you aren't reacting to untrained ruffians trying to mug you, but it forces you to fight at close range using the techniques of the kata. If you want to represent the self-defense side, you could always do something like the "random attack" tournaments that somebody has been running in Europe for the past several years, but I don't think that will win over many people considering what martial art to study. I could certainly be wrong, but we'd have to give it a fair try.

There is a difference between telling people what your titles are and referring to yourself by the titles. I don't tell people "I'm Sensei Noah," or "I'm Renshi Noah," I tell them that my name is Noah, but they can call me Sensei in the dojo, and I can tell them I hold a Renshi title if that is relevant.

As I see it, the issue isn't with people having these titles, it's with HOW the titles are applies. There's nothing wrong with calling an instructor "Sensei." There is nothing wrong with people having Shogo (Renshi/Kyoshi/Hanshi). There is nothing wrong with people having Shihan licenses. The issue is when I introduce myself as "Sensei Noah," or "Shihan Noah," or have when people call me "Renshi Noah." I realize that the nuances of this are cultural, and so many of us will not have an inherent understanding of how to use the titles, but that just means there needs to be education. "Sensei" and "Shihan" are both appropriate titles for someone to use to refer to someone who is their instructor, although only someone with a Shihan license can be called "Shihan," and they can still be called "Sensei," even if they have a Shihan license. Shogo (Renshi/Kyoshi/Hanshi) are appropriate to use in writing, such as official organizational documents, or business cards, or event announcements. They are used like "PhD" or "MD" for doctors.

Honestly, I am of the opinion that most of the material in classical karate would actually be right at home in MMA competition. The trouble is that there are no feeder systems for classical karate to enter that realm of competition. Shotokan has the massively popular point-fighting system, and Kyokushin has the also-popular knockdown system, both of which are competitive rulesets that can feed into MMA, but classical karate doesn't fit into either of those systems, so when classical karate practitioners enter into them, they suddenly look like a Shotokan or Kyokushin practitioner, instead, because the ruleset dictates it. What we would need is a competition ruleset that is widely accepted by people who do classical/neoclassical/practical/pragmatic/etc. karate which also sets you up to go into MMA competition. That doesn't currently exist. I've been trying to get competition kakedameshi off the ground, but people are unreliable, and prone to staying in their comfort zones. Agreed! Unfortunately, not everyone gets to see the proof on the floor, because they expect to see it in competition, rather than in the dojo. They also usually expect video evidence, despite the fact that not everyone records every single session of their training and catalogs it to be able to reference exactly what people want to see when they ask for it. I think the film industry definitely set us up for that first failure, along with formal JKA-style demonstrations of "kata bunkai." Traditional martial arts definitely doesn't market itself properly to attract people with an interest in MMA, but I wonder how much of that is cyclical. I know a lot of karate schools tried to rebrand for MMA in the early to mid 2000s, and that failed miserably because most people had already been convinced it didn't work in MMA by that point, so they stopped advertising for it. Personally, I don't like Karate Combat--it's just American Kickboxing 2.0. From what I've seen of the competitors' training, it's pretty similar to what I see from all sport karateka, TBH, with the exception of the people who come in from other kickboxing arts despite the "karate" marketing of the organization. Most folks doing classical/neoclassical/practical karate are doing the same things, as well, just using different techniques than what would be allowed in a kickboxing match. This is why I see so many people say "karate is fine for a beginner to get started, and then you move on," which is wild to me, considering that karate has far more depth to it as an art than any combat sport. I don't say that to speak ill of combat sports, either--the technique selection and tactics used are simply fewer in number, not to mention the fact that kata provide nearly infinite opportunities for reinterpretation of the art. Like I said above, too, people's style disappears when they go into a competitive ruleset because they are fitting themselves into the ruleset, rather than competing in something designed for what they do. Shovel/oblique kicks have shown up from many a "former" karateka, as well.

I've seen one or two gi that have a pocket for a mouthguard, but that's obviously too small for much else. I could definitely see the benefit of having one normal pocket in the pants, but I do think adding more or bigger ones would be inviting people to carry around phones or keys on the mats, either by accident or on purpose.

Fraud is definitely a concern, but it is frustrating that many people seem to feel there is a link between popularity and legitimacy. This is something I have seen time and time again in the martial arts world--people who think that if an art is legitimate, it will be popular, and if it is popular, it must be legitimate. I have actually faced that quite a bit with regard to KishimotoDi, personally. All I can do is keep publishing information and putting out video content, and encouraging others to do the same. I don't think you have wasted your time, at all! It is definitely sad to lose a rare art, however. The "not knowing what you don't know" aspect of the knowledge bell curve is pretty common! Yeah, not everyone is a writer, or thinks they have much of value to write, even if they do, but books absolutely help. I'm sure time and resources are barriers to entry, but there are usually options available to learn at least a little bit of what there is to learn about rare systems if you really want to. Uchi-deshi programs are definitely rare these days, and I think most of them are in fairly popular styles. Maybe that will change. Cross-training is absolutely important for a well-rounded martial education, but it's really unfortunate that competition seems to be the only way for a style to gain mainstream popularity. I understand why, but the combat sports communities have done a good job of convincing people that traditional martial arts don't work in modern combat sports, so people with an interest in competitive fighting aren't likely to seek out traditional arts. With regard to KishimotoDi, specifically, it shares 3 of its 4 kata with other Shuri-Te lineage systems, but it is quite distinctly unique in movement and power generation, so the crossover isn't as significant as you will see in modern karate styles.

I'm not aware of any pronunciation guides for karate, specifically, but you can find lists of terminology pretty easily, and then use Google Translate or Jisho.org to look up the words and listen to how the words are pronounced there.

I'm sure that availability plays a role, but at the same time, I would say that Hakutsuru material wasn't very available in the 90s, but people sought it out pretty extensively. Personally, I don't think keeping Tachimura no Passai private for direct students is really a barrier to entry for the system, since the other 3 kata are available to be seen publicly, but I suppose everyone has different ideas about that. I definitely don't expect people who are new to karate will seek out rare systems, because as you say, they don't know anything about karate styles. It's always going to be people with experience who seek out rare systems. I will admit I didn't consider the relocation complication. You're right about that. People definitely do want to be able to transfer their rank and experience when they move, so they don't have to restart. Yeah, I've heard and seen that issue on Okinawa. Most Okinawan youth seem more interested in western activities, like baseball. There have also been seasoned instructors on Okinawa who have said you can find better karate in the west than on Okinawa, these days. It's unfortunate, and will likely result in the loss of knowledge and systems.

Right. I believe that's basically McKenna's point--some people, today, have taken to calling karatedo a "bugei," when it has never historically been considered a bugei. It could have been, had the Japanese known about it, but even then it wouldn't have been called karatedo, but more likely Todi, Ti'gwa, or Ti, with or without the "-jutsu" suffix, depending on when it was imported and by whom. The art we know of as karatedo is and always has been a budo, because that's where the "-do" suffix came from, and the budo culture of Japan was inserted into karate on purpose. Karate-jutsu, Todi, etc., were largely not classified as anything, they just existed as their own entities and everyone knew what you meant when you spoke about them. As to Ezomatsu's point about McKenna's background, I suspect they were just adding context to the source material. I have followed McKenna's work for a very long time, and I have found him to be a thorough and earnest researcher and translator with a strong understanding of karate, its history, and its culture. This experience with him and his work is why I feel I understand the points he was trying to make in this particular article.

Congratulations! I was promoted to 4th Dan, myself, in December of 2023, and that came as a complete surprise, to me

We all know that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of martial arts styles from Okinawa, and there have almost certainly been many which have been lost to time. Today, there are still a few rare styles which I would say are at risk of dying out, and I think this is partially due to a shift in mindset among karateka over time. From what I've gathered, it seems like from the 80s through the early 2000s, karateka were very interested in learning the oldest, most rare styles and material they could find. This includes the Hakutsuru (White Crane) craze that resulted in a bunch of people fraudulently claiming to teach it, and several kata being made-up for profit. Sometime after that, though, it seems as though karateka lost interest in seeking out older, rarer systems and material. I can't help but wonder if the Hakutsuru mess had something to do with that, but I can't say for sure. I am curious to know if anyone else has seen or felt this shift in interest? The reason I ask is, of course, largely driven by the fact that I personally train and teach a very rare style called KishimotoDi, which I generally consider to a system of Shuri-Te, but not karate, as it hasn't undergone the modernization process popularized by people like Itosu and Miyagi. It's a small system, with just 4 kata, and it aligns perfectly with what past masters wrote about the Ti/Todi of the past. It's something that I find incredibly interesting, and valuable to my understanding of karate, and yet it seems that almost no one is willing to even try learning it--they basically say they've never heard of it and ignore any opportunities to learn more about it. Motobu Udundi had a bit of a popularity boom back when Uehara Seikichi began teaching and demonstrating it publicly, but you will be hard-pressed to find people teaching it, today. Even when people have heard of it, they seem to see that it doesn't really resemble karate and decide to ignore it. To'on-Ryu is a sister art to Goju-Ryu, and yet I rarely hear any Goju-Ryu practitioners talk about studying it. Kojo-Ryu essentially died out for a brief period of time, and now there is a bunch of political conflict surrounding it, but it's still an old and rare system, and yet people seem content to let it live in Mark Bishop's books and nowhere else. Have you seen a drop-off in interest when it comes to rare systems and material? What are your thoughts on why this might be happening, or how we can promote these systems and material to help prevent them from dying out?

I didn't get the same impression that you did regarding the terminology. The way I read it, he's very specifically talking about terms used to refer to karate, and the fact that bugei, while it has existed in the Japanese lexicon for a long time and has been used to refer to martial arts, has not historically been used to refer to karate. Instead, karate has been almost exclusively referred to as a budo (bearing in mind that karate, as a term, only really existed after 1905, and wasn't mostly-universally adopted until 1936), with a few exceptions prior to 1936 where it was referred to as karate-jutsu, specifically. I also tend to think that the "apologist" bit is mostly just encouraging people to ignore insults and understand that karate doesn't have to be about fighting. The way he words it suggests that karate has never been about fighting, which I would not say is strictly true, but I would say that during the lifetime of the art under that name that has definitely not been the most important aspect of it for quite some time. A great many Okinawan masters have said, time and time again, that they consider karate to be a budo, and that the most important thing about karate is how it improves character and health. Even Itosu pointed out that it didn't have to be purely for self-defense.

There are very few companies offering embroidery that only shows up on one side of the belt, which is necessary in order to put different embroidery on both the front and back of both ends of the belt. I've never actually seen a belt that was embroidered on both sides like that in real life, but I have seen some examples online. Most were either the exact same embroidery on both sides so that they don't have to worry about which direction they put their belt on, as Bob suggests. Some had Japanese or Korean on one side and the English translation on the other. That's all the examples I can think of. It's very much not a typical practice.