Wastelander

Can you elaborate on the protest reason? Why are Okinawan karate practitioners protesting modern karate? What is it about modern karate that they're protesting? I'm working on a martial arts related art project with some friends, and for practicality's sake the black gi just works better for filming. The project is a bit of a tribute to many martial arts cultures, and we didn't want to offend Japanese karate by displaying a black gi. They feel that modern "traditional" karate has been driven so hard into sport territory that it is not really karate, anymore, essentially. An art that was developed for self-protection and security/law enforcement has been turned into a game of tag and dance for trophies, and I don't think they like the fact that so much material has been lost over the years because of that sport focus. If you use a black keikogi in your project, I suppose it is possible you will offend some hardcore Japanese karate practitioners, but Okinawan karate practitioners will likely not be bothered, unless the version of Okinawan karate they learned was heavily influenced by Japanese mentality. You have to remember that the keikogi is a rather new addition to karate--less than 100 years old, IIRC--and they only started using it to fit in with the Japanese martial arts culture so they could make a case for its preservation. Before that, they typically just trained in underwear, or shorts of some kind, if they weren't training in regular clothes. I doubt the Okinawans cared much what color the keikogi was when they adopted it--the Japanese are the ones who placed importance on the symbolism of the color white in the keikogi when it was developed for Judo by Kano Jigoro. Additionally, traditional Okinawan festival clothing that is worn for demonstrations of the arts, martial and otherwise, come in many different colors, including black.

Black keikogi are quite commonly used in kobudo training, because the weapons are often oiled and will stain white keikogi, and many karateka have simply taken to mixing/matching for their karate training, since the uniforms are otherwise the same. Additionally, there are some Okinawan instructors who have taken to using the black gi as sort of a protest against modern karate, and that's been spreading a bit. It's not disrespectful to the art, in any way, but of course wearing a uniform that your instructor doesn't want you to wear in class would be disrespectful, in that context. Personally, I have made my standard uniforms black, both for practicality and protest reasons. Women and girls tend to find that to be much more comfortable than white uniforms, and everyone likes the fact that they don't have to worry about the sweat stains and whatnot, as long as it's clean. I will say that I think most other colors are just unnecessarily garish, although I've seen some darker blues that are nice.

So...replacing a method of solo training with an entire other martial art devoted to partner training? That's kind of like replacing the jack in your car with a winch--yeah, the winch is useful, and with enough creativity you could use it to accomplish what the jack does, but it wasn't intended for that and it's kind of just a lot of extra work. Honestly, if your community is discussing replacing kata with Judo, entirely, I would say that they probably don't understand kata very well, probably do too much solo kata practice as it is, and don't intend for their students to train technique by themselves. I don't say that to be mean or offensive--not everyone cares about what the kata are for, or about people training outside of classes, so that may just not be their focus. Now, if the intent is to replace time spent on solo kata practice in class with time spent on Judo, I can see a case for that. Students don't need to spend an hour performing their kata solo to get better at fighting--they need to be drilling the techniques of the kata with partners, and implementing them into sparring. They should still get some time training them under instruction so they can work on fine tuning body mechanics and structure, without the chaos of another person being involved, but otherwise kata should be something you practice when you don't have a partner available. As for Jukado, I can't remember the details of Tegner's idea, but that's basically what Kudo/Daido Juku is.

I do, and I know plenty of other people who do, as well. Just because it isn't mainstream, these days, doesn't mean it isn't being done. This is interesting. You really poke people in the eyes (on purpose) and headbutt them in the face (on purpose) when sparring? Tell me more, this is really interesting, especially considering how even an unintentional eye poke usually stops a UFC match. I have never seen something like this. You make adjustments for safety, just like every other form of sparring. If you spar with gloves, mouthguards, and groin protectors, for example, you're making adjustments for safety. If you apply joint locks and chokes slowly enough for your partner to tap out, you're making adjustments for safety. If you stop elbows short, or slow them down, so you don't cut your partners open, you're making adjustments for safety. If you punch lighter to the head to avoid CTE, you're making adjustments for safety. The list goes on and on. There is NO form of sparring that is 100% realistic. In the case of eye pokes, I've done sparring with safety goggles, but honestly if you can reliably punch someone in the nose, you can poke them in the eyes at a distance by simply opening your hands, and you can get some extra target practice in on BOB or one of the handheld head-shaped targets, if you really want to. For close range, most of the time I just incorporate gouges by digging my thumb into the nerves beneath the cheekbone--it gets a similar response, without being dangerous, and if you can reach that spot, you can reach the eyes. Headbutts you just cut the striking action a bit short and then press your head into their head firmly, like you would do as part of clinch fighting. Again, if you can grind your head against their nose, you can headbutt them. To account for the impact, you can add the occasional headbutt into padwork drills, as well.

Karateka have always been involved in grappling arts of various types. Originally, it was tegumi/muto, and then Japanese jujutsu and Sumo, then Judo and Aikido. Historically, this has been a fairly standard practice. My Sensei liked to incorporate grappling/groundwork into our karate training pretty regularly, but some prefer to have students cross-train, because they can get a more focused education in grappling by training with an instructor who specializes in it. Nothing wrong with that, but I do think you need to incorporate it into your sparring. I do, and I know plenty of other people who do, as well. Just because it isn't mainstream, these days, doesn't mean it isn't being done. Why do we care what karate resembles? It has always had knees, elbows, clinching, and the like, so what does it matter if it resembles Muay Thai or MMA? It doesn't magically become a different art because you fight with the material the style was supposed to have in it all along. If anything, modern mainstream karate doesn't resemble karate, anymore. "Real fight karate" is much better represented by MMA, honestly. Admittedly, contextually, it would be better if the goal was to get off the ground, rather than stay on it, but still, it's the ruleset that allows the most karate material. Karate Combat is just a reboot of the same American kickboxing you mentioned. Heck, I just watched their promo for their next season, and it was pointed out how a double-leg takedown was illegal--that takedowns is literally in the books written by the founder of Shotokan, and he wasn't even known for being that good at fighting.

i'm guessing those seminars were primarily in the US? Being in Australia, I feel like it would put a lot of people off purely because of the expenses. Yes, this is in the US, but now I'm wondering if I misunderstood your question. I thought you were asking about the cost to the hosting school? The cost to attendees is definitely not the same--generally, the host sets the price per attendee in order to recoup the costs of bringing the instructor out, and depends on both the cost and the number of training hours. For example, a seminar that's just a couple hours might be $30-60. A weekend can range anywhere from $100 to $300, depending on who is teaching. Some special seminar events, like Jesse Enkamp's KNX, can cost more like $600, but that's pretty rare.

If your intent is simply to learn how to perform the solo kata for the enjoyment of it, rather than getting into its application, then video is a pretty good way to go. The nice thing about the pandemic has been that a lot of martial artists were forced to accept Zoom and other online teaching platforms, which makes other styles much more accessible than they once were. You can reach out to schools pretty much anywhere that teach the material you want to learn, and ask if they would do online private lessons for you, and they very well might. Outside of that, though, as Zaine mentioned, you can build a network with other schools and martial artists in your area and schedule regular cross-training sessions. That type of knowledge exchange is fun and educational, and you can get into a lot of material you may otherwise never even realize is there.

It varies pretty widely. My Sensei used to charge $500, plus travel/lodging, and I charge a bit less than that, but I believe big name international instructors tend to charge over $1000, plus travel/lodging. With a big enough name, and in the right area, you can usually pull in enough attendees to cover the costs, but it can be tough.

The answer to this question is obviously going to vary from person to person, but I think it's also important to point out that some people are limited in what they are allowed to learn by their rank, and that's going to significantly affect their view on this question. For a most schools, the curriculum does not stop at Shodan, and many don't actually allow students to learn the curriculum of the ranks above them, so staying at Shodan for students in those schools would actually mean that they would stop learning new material. They could continue to refine what they already learned, of course, but that limitation is still a problem. To answer your question, though, I could have stayed a Shodan forever under my late Sensei and been fine, since he taught the full curriculum by Shodan and taught all the black belts all the same material, and it was up to us to explore it from there. He did want us to test for higher ranks, though, and I ended up earning Nidan, and being told of his plans to test me for Sandan, but my personal story gets a little complicated after he passed away. I was officially put up to test for Sandan by the highest ranking member of our dojo, who unfortunately passed away a few months later, himself. My test ended up being cancelled 3 weeks out, after about 9 months of preparation, because someone higher up in the organization found out that when I started my own karate program, it wasn't going to be part of the organization, because I wanted to alter the curriculum (which my late Sensei and I had discussed and he liked the idea of). They also refused to repay me the money I had been forced to pay well in advance to have my rank registered with the organization, despite the fact that I had not even been given the chance to fail the test. I had originally planned to remain in the organization, myself, and continue training and testing in it, but after treating me that way, on top of a bunch of other political nonsense I had to deal with in the last two years of being a member, I wanted nothing to do with it. This leaves me in a position where I am not even able to test for a higher rank, even if I wanted to. Since I have started my own program, it would be nice to be able to have that higher rank for marketing purposes, I suppose, but most potential students don't even know there are varying degrees of black belt. Several friends have urged me to pursue Sandan, at least, so I am currently looking at my options for that, but if I say a Nidan forever, that's not the end of the world, for me. My Sensei's standards for Shodan were nearly equivalent to some people's standards for Godan in that organization, and as Bob likes to say, "the proof is on the floor."

Congratulations, and certainly very impressive!

Congratulations, and many thanks for your contributions!

Honestly, I have to say that your experience with karate has been VASTLY different than mine--the ideal, certainly, but not anywhere near the reality that I've experienced. Still, without karate, I imagine I would probably be a lonely, depressed, (more) out-of-shape gamer boy, still living in Illinois, and who knows what would have happened to my IT career if I had stayed there instead of leaving when I did. I'd like to think I would have still been alive by now without karate, but my quality of life certainly wouldn't be as good. Karate gave me the ability to speak in front of groups of people, which I was incapable of prior to that, thanks to severe social anxiety. It also helped me learn more about teaching people. Without those two skills, I can't imagine I would have gotten anywhere near as far in life as I have. Plus, I have made some great friendships, had great experiences, learned a lot of really cool/fun things, and found something I really enjoy.

Loosing the school you have been training at is always hard when you want to keep training, no matter how you lose it. I've gone through it twice, now. When I moved from Illinois to Arizona, I spent 2 years without a karate dojo, although I did find a Judo club to attend. During those two years, I took advantage of the opportunity to continue the Judo training I had started in my first karate dojo, and in my free time I researched karate, and practiced my kata, and did bagwork. I wrote little blog posts about the things I was learning and/or figuring out. The chance for discovery really kept me going. That 2 years ended when I met my late Sensei, and I started training with him as much as I could. After he passed away, I continued training and teaching at the dojo he had started for a while, but I left at the end of 2019, for a variety of reasons. I had intended to start my own dojo, but the housing market and COVID put a stop to that. That's left me training at home for a year and a half, now, which can be disheartening. Thankfully, I have been able to teach private lessons, some in-person, but most over Zoom, as well as several webinars. These give me the additional motivation to keep up on my own training, and I've been building my collection of training equipment. I can work my kata, hit the makiwara, drill on the heavybag, train techniques on an improvised kakiya/kakete-biki, and lift. When I have the chance, I get together with people who want to train and are vaccinated or in my bubble. I think that, as long as you still have the interest, you can keep yourself going. It can be hard, because you don't have the regular class schedule to rely on, and you have to find your own training partners to hold you accountable, but it's doable. Study, try to figure things out for yourself, and I highly recommend writing about it.

Congratulations, indeed, and welcome back!

Congratulations! Sounds like things are going well!

Style-wise, it's a mixed bag. You're more likely to find that sort of material from schools that teach "practical karate," regardless of the style. The material is present in all styles of karate, but they don't all train in it.

Really just when they first get their dogi, or when they need to replace a worn out patch. I wasn't sure if the other patch options might last longer, or look nicer.

Hello, everyone! I've long felt like designing a patch for your dojo/dojang/school/etc. was sort of the mark of "making it official." I created mine a good while ago, now, but COVID changed all my plans for opening. I just received my first batch of printed patches, today, and I've gotta say, it feels pretty great! These are simple 25% embroidery patches, so they are the cheapest option available, basically. Has anyone gone with the fancier printed or PVC patches? Are they worth the investment?

Welcome to the forum, and welcome back to karate!

Not exactly. Back when I was a green belt, I cut my old white belt into pieces that I distributed to a group of kids at an inner city school I did a demonstration at, as sort of keepsakes. At this point, the only belts I still have are the white belt I still use when I train at other people's schools, my Judo green belt, my Shuri-Ryu brown belt, my old Shorin-Ryu brown belt, my current black belt, and my "formal" black belt that my Sensei gifted me (new) when I was promoted to Shodan. Since I only fairly recently went independent, and the pandemic put a pause on really starting up my dojo, I haven't had the opportunity to train someone up to a belt rank I could pass on the belt for. I suspect I will pass on my brown belt, someday. The formal black belt has sentimental value to me, since my Sensei has passed on, but I may pass on my regular black belt, someday.

Welcome to the forum!

What you're describing would be akin to an ude-makiwara, but without any spring action. You can use it for conditioning, if you're careful, but it's not really a makiwara. A better bet would be to build a proper makiwara on a platform, that way it's moveable and not permanently bolted to the floor or anything.

The triangular shape is the result of making a wedge shape with your hands/arms. That's it. Some styles like to attribute poetic meanings to "unusual" movements or postures in kata, and this one is frequently related to "looking to the sky," or "scanning the heavens," but those are relatively new interpretations. Karate doesn't have any more "hidden dark ties" than any other martial art that was developed for self-defense and law enforcement--that is to say, just the "hidden dark ties" that specific practitioners might have as individuals. A good number of Kyokushin practitioners, for example, were known Yakuza, but it makes sense that a rough-and-tumble fighting style will attract such people to it.

Welcome to the forum!

Many thanks, Alex!