Wastelander

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belt who have no idea how to actually use the classical material of the art, which makes karate look watered down, outdated, and ineffective.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.

In my opinion, there really isn't such a thing as "advanced kata," per se. I do think there are some kata which are very obviously designed for beginners, such as Chibana's Kihongata, or the Taikyouku series, which are short, simple, and generally contain the most basic of lessons. That said, those can still be done in an advanced way, turning them into "advanced kata." Pretty much all the other kata are going to be subjective as to what level they are, because different kata are easier or harder for different people on a case-by-case basis, and the way the instructor teaches them also makes a difference. Some people consider Naihanchi to be black belt material, for example, while they tend to be the first real kata that you learn in Shorin-Ryu, but the versions of the kata are very similar, so there isn't an actual concrete reason for Naihanchi to be "advanced kata" for some and "beginner kata" for others. If the instructor struggles, themselves, with correctly performing the kata and learning the applications, they are more likely to present it as "advanced" material, and if they find it easy and understand the applications, they're more likely to present it as "beginner" material. Also, the more nuance they teach for the kata, the more "advanced" it can be. If everything in kata is done the same basic way as all the other kata and drills you've learned before, it's probably "beginner" material, but if there are subtle shifts in the footwork/stances, different movement patterns connecting familiar postures, or fine details with regard to hand movements that are unique to the kata, it's more likely to be considered "advanced." There is also, as you allude to, a tradition factor involved, because if someone is taught a particular kata as a beginner, they are more likely to consider it a "beginner kata," and the same goes for "advanced kata." That's why it is important to be critical of tradition, and not just repeat it thoughtlessly. I realize this may not be too terribly helpful, but that's just my view on it. The kata are as "advanced" as you make them, basically. To answer your final question, I would say that Naihanchi still represents my approach the most, but I'm not averse to the creation of new kata, provided they are created with the right intentions and understanding. I have created kata myself, as well as guided others through the process, and have found it to be a great way to get a new perspective on the potential application of kata, as a whole, although I have never gone on to teach any of the kata we created. I've considered developing one to teach, as of late, though.

I would agree that complicated self-defense techniques are generally a bad idea, but it's pretty rare that I come across anyone in the practical karate sphere who teaches self-defense techniques that I would consider complicated. Certainly nothing more complicated than you'd find in any other martial art or combat sport, and some pretty complex things can be pulled off, even in high level competitions, by people who have trained appropriately. I would also add that the existence of Kyokushin's knockdown sparring method actually runs counter to your argument about continuous full-power strikes. Yes, they can wear down an opponent over time, but I've seen MANY Kyokushin matches where the continuous shots to the body didn't amount to anything. Full-power strikes to vulnerable targets work, but you're going to get WAY more mileage out of striking the neck and head than you are the body. I know that this originally said "Don't live in America," rather than "bad areas," but the fact of the matter is that your location has very little to do with the types of attacks you are likely to have to deal with in a self-defense situation, because human violence tends to be gendered and age-determinate, but otherwise quite consistent. Chokeholds and bear hugs are common attacks against children and women, especially, so maybe YOU don't need to worry about it all that much, but plenty of people do. Plus, there is simply no guarantee that a statistical anomaly won't happen to you, and you get put in a chokehold or bear hug. You don't get to choose what the attacker does. Plus, the "if you don't live in bad areas" argument can be made about self-defense as a whole, as avoiding high risk areas lowers your risk in general, but doesn't have any impact on the TYPE of attack you're likely to face. Making this argument basically weakens your points about training for self-defense, because if you "don't live in bad areas," your chances of even needing to punch someone go down just as much as your chances of needing to grapple someone. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this is very demonstrably false. A good punch only eliminates the need to be able to grapple if you drop the opponent with one shot before they get their hands on you. One-shot KOs against someone expecting violence (which someone attacking you will be) are rare, one-shot body KOs are even less likely, and self-defense situations don't always happen with you knowing where the attacker is and that they are going to attack you. Self-defense isn't a striking duel, like Kyokushin is. If someone attacks you, they don't have any reason to stand and bang, especially if they have any idea how to grapple someone, even without real training, and if you hit them hard, chances are they will not agree to your terms for the fight and let you keep hitting them. You wouldn't go into an MMA match as a pure striker and expect your opponent to have a kickboxing match with you, right? Same goes for self-defense. If both grappling and striking are possible, you NEED to be competent with both in order to be effective.

Your statement that "fist fighting was far more common than it is today" is most likely true, in a broad sense, but I don't agree with the proposal that this means karate is "supplementary training for 'the guy who can already fight.'" I'm not sure where you got that idea from, as I have only ever heard that from people who train in MMA and have little to no actual karate experience. I can't think of a single reputable instructor or historian of karate that has made such a claim, and if we are looking specifically at the history of Okinawa and the development of karate, this is simply not the case. The form of combat that the majority of Okinawan people had exposure to and training in was tegumi/muto, a folkstyle no-gi submission grappling sport, meaning that if karate were supplemental to anything, it would be the ability to grapple, largely on the ground. Untrained people certainly got into fist fights, but there was also a saying in Okinawa that went something along the lines of "if you see people fighting with closed fists, move along, but if they fight with open hands, watch and learn." Despite how it is presented in the modern day, karate is much less about punching than people realize. We must also bear in mind that karate was developed by nobility for three main purposes; self-defense, law enforcement, and security/bodyguard work. None of these contexts is really best served by learning how to fist fight, and the people involved in developing these arts were not the sort of men to get involved in fist fights, more often than not. COULD you use the sparring format you propose to teach students "the bare instinct of how to 'fight,' with more traditional karate techniques being taught along side it as...supplementary knowledge?" Honestly, I don't think so. What I DO think you would get out of it is the development of grit and the mindset of aggression, which are definitely beneficial for people who want to learn to fight, and I think that's really what you're getting at, but I think the skillset developed by the format is too limited to actually teach someone how to fight effectively. It also doesn't matter how many other techniques you teach if this is the only type of sparring you do, because if you never use the other techniques in sparring, you'll never develop the skill necessary to use them, so all you will ever use is body shots. I realize that I'm not telling you things that you want to hear, but I truly don't think you're going to get the benefits you're looking for out of the format you've proposed. There is no singular sparring method which is perfect for pressure testing karate, which is why my late Sensei and I employ a layered approach where we employ multiple different sparring formats to develop different skills and attributes, and to cover gaps left by the compromises and limitations of each format. I'm not saying that you shouldn't spar the way you've described, but it has some glaring flaws that need to be addressed by other forms of sparring. I also don't think removing protective gear is beneficial, at all. If you want extra conditioning, do body conditioning bareknuckle in controlled training exercises, as it is traditionally done. Wear protective gear for sparring, not just for insurance purposes, but because it increases the safety, health, and longevity of those involved without significantly reducing the effectiveness of the sparring.

First of all, welcome to the forum! You sure are coming out swinging with this subject! What you are proposing is essentially pre-Queensbury bareknuckle boxing, with the slight modification of not allowing punches to the head instead of it simply being uncommon due to the danger of injury. That's fine, but it's not karate. The way I see it, Shotokan and Kyokushin both significantly diminished the effective curriculum of karate by focusing almost exclusively on kicking and punching in their sparring, to begin with. You are then proposing to take one of those arts and strip it down even more so that it is just punching the body. At that point, you're just doing bareknuckle boxing. Everything that makes it karate is gone. You essentially admit that you understand this when you point out that it isn't a style of karate, and that it can be slapped onto any curriculum. I am in no way trying to offend you when I say this, but it sounds, to me, as if you DON'T actually want to train in or teach karate. Nothing in your post suggests, to me, that you actually value the art, as it is. You just value full-contact fighting, and you don't like how people are doing it. I'm afraid I will have to contradict your position on protective gear and the value of body-only sparring, as well. The fact of the matter is that protective gear allows for more consistent sparring without injury, at all levels of contact, whether you like it or not, and sparring without punches to the head develops very bad habits that will carry over into every form of fighting you try to do. As others have already mentioned, you will also have a hard time dealing with insurance as a full-contact school that uses no protective gear. I just don't see enough value in this methodology to outweigh the issues, and I certainly don't see why it should be attached to karate, at all.

Yes. My late Sensei made use of heavy bags, sometimes double-end bags, and plenty of strength and conditioning equipment. I don't currently have the ability to put up a hanging bag of any kind, but I do still make use of a lot of strength and conditioning equipment. I incorporate some degree of strength and conditioning at the beginning of my classes, just as my late Sensei did, but class time is mainly for actual martial arts training, so real dedicated S&C workouts are probably only once or twice a month. Students are expected to work on that on their own.

Depends on the severity and the cause, for me. If it's mild, I can generally use mint or ginger to calm my stomach. If that doesn't cut it, I take dramamine, and after that I can take Zofran or Fenergan, but those are prescriptions. If the nausea is caused by migraine, I have Ubrelvy to stop the migraine and reduce the symptoms, but that's also prescription.

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.