Wastelander

For what it's worth, Muay Thai has a heavy emphasis on clinchwork that can be employed defensively to control people. Muay Boran, the ancestor art of Muay Thai, also includes a variety of limb control, joint locking, and takedown methods that might be of use. That would keep you from having to look elsewhere--it would just change your focus in training

You can, and many people do. You just have to make sure that they don't already have a martial arts program, and if they do, they would probably expect you to teach the same thing.

Every technique in the world is harder to make work on skilled opponents, and as bushido_man96 points out, there is a counter to every technique. Look at any match between top-tier fighters from any style and keep an eye on how many times a technique succeeds. For example, Anderson Silva--considered to be one of the greatest MMA fighters of all time--had a 63% accuracy rating with his strikes, according to Fight Metric. That means that for every 100 strikes he threw, he was able to actually land 63 of them. Does that mean that the other 37 strikes were bad techniques? Not at all! Chances are, they were the probably many of the same techniques that did land, but the opponent was able to read them early enough to avoid them. The same thing happens with grappling techniques, too.

If it helps, it helps, so I don't really knock it for people who like it, but it doesn't help me at all. It irritates my skin too much, and I essentially get a chemical burn from it.

Like Nidan Melbourne, I'm curious as to how you are going to reconcile the belt discrepancies this creates. I would guess you would bump everyone down to the remaining color below what they currently have, if their rank is not remaining on the list? Or re-test?

Well, black belt ranks are much more highly regarded--rightly or wrongly--in the West than they are in Japan/Okinawa. I know that most of the legitimate karateka I've met are of the opinion that your Shodan test should be a long, incredibly difficult endeavor. Almost a hazing ritual, of sorts. In this age of McDojoism and 6 year old black belts, I can understand the attraction of ensuring that a black belt "means something," but I feel like some people may have over-corrected. My Shodan test was difficult, and demanding, of course, but not as difficult or drawn out as those conducted at some other dojo I know of, despite requiring more skill/knowledge to pass. As far as what it means, to me, I'm admittedly torn. The rank that I hold isn't particularly important to me, except in the regard that because I teach, a higher rank is a better credential, from a business perspective. Of course, the fact that my Sensei determined that I met his expectations of skill and knowledge for both my Shodan and Nidan ranks does mean a lot to me, because he had high standards. I'm also not sure how I will feel about any future ranks I earn not being done under his watch, with his signature.

White is our standard uniform for karate, and black or brown for kobudo. Upon reaching brown belt, students can wear any combination of white and black for karate training. There isn't much real special significant meaning behind it, except that the student has put in the work and dedication to reach brown belt, which isn't easy in our dojo.

Tegumi, as in the grappling component of karate, is definitely a part of our training. Tegumi, as in the formalized drills created by Patrick McCarthy Sensei for his Koryu Uchinadi program, are not part of our training. As for how it is practiced, obviously we have many techniques that are tegumi/muto methods, and we have a number of drills associated with them. It really comes alive when we start doing kakedameshi or kata randori, however, since you get to work with a resisting partner in a free-form manner. @ OneKickWonder - those would generally be called ippon kumite drills, or yakusoku kumite drills, and may or may not contain tegumi.

Welcome to the forum

There are times when large movements can be useful, but yes, in general, our uke-waza are pretty compact and close. I have definitely noticed a trend of Japanese styles to make their movements much larger. When I did Judo, it was explained to me that we learned all the throws in very large, exaggerated forms, because under the stress of competition, your movements tend to shrink, and I did find that to be the case. That is a reasonable explanation, but the difference is that the throws of Judo still work the way they are intended if you do them larger/exaggerated, but the uke-waza of karate don't, typically.

If you want to get really confused, my style dropped Passai Sho, renamed Passai Dai to be Passai Sho, then added a different version of Passai and called it Passai Dai. Because of that, our Passai Sho looks like pretty much everyone else's Passai/Bassai Dai: Our Passai Dai, which the founder of our style learned from the Tawada family, is often called Matsumura Passai, and looks a bit different: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjnBtpyfzxA

Thank you!

The trouble with public demonstrations is that you have to make it look interesting/fun to try to entice the most people. A completely practical, no-nonsense self defense demo will showcase the effectiveness and realism of the art, but it tends to be ugly, hard to see, and not all that interesting to the untrained observer. Of course, a flashy, entertaining demo will also not get the real point across. In my experience with demos, you have to have a bit of flash/entertainment to grab people's attention, along with the realism and practicality for them to see how it works. Of course, that's if you are doing the demo to try to get people to start training. If you're doing a demo for people who already train, there is generally no need for the flash/entertainment factor.

Welcome to the forum!

There it is. Right on tract. Exactly!

Yes, I would, and have, although as a fairly tall person, I don't use it all that often. Gedan-uke/barai tends to be more prevalent for me.

I once read an article on the importance of rituals which had done some studies and found that people actually perform better if they have some sort of ritual associated with a task, and do that ritual before the task. Clothing was included as part of the "rituals" in some cases--putting on a nice suit, for example. I'm of the opinion that putting on a gi is part of many people's ritual for karate. I know that I feel I perform better in a gi. That said, I don't put the gi on for training at home

I'm in complete agreement that you should never "fully extend" or "lock" any of the joints in your body while executing a technique. I've noticed that when people pose for photos of punches, they tend to lock the arm out, for what that's worth. I will point out that it is very difficult to tell how "fully extended" someone's arm is while they are wearing a gi, especially if they have very accurate motor control, and stop their arm just short of full extension.

Welcome to the forum!

Welcome to the forum! Yamashita Sensei's best friend, Shiroma Sensei, actually lives out here in Phoenix

Personally, I would like to say that a person like that would not be allowed to have gotten so far in their training, to begin with. That said, I would agree with everyone else, so far--they can leave, and the dojo can get a fresh start.

And it will be that way for some time!! All of you are in my prayers daily!! Please excuse me for asking this, and I mean nothing but respect... What's to become of the Peaceful Warrior Martial Arts & Healing Center dojo now?? For the time being, we are going ahead with classes in January as normal. He wouldn't want us to stop. Those of us who are instructors will have to sit down with Tiffany, though, and figure out where to go from there. I don't think anyone wants the dojo to close, but we may have to downsize to a smaller/cheaper space at some point. It's hard to keep such a large dojo going with only part-time instructors.

Thank you, everyone. Today is a very hard day for all of us.

Historically, yes, we do know that styles were comprised of a very small selection of kata. The "Holy Trinity" of Shorin-Ryu, for example, is Naihanchi, Passai, and Kusanku. These are the koryu kata of KishimotoDi, which only has one additional kata--Nidanbu--that was developed by Kishimoto Soko to highlight some connections between the three. I will say that, between KishimotoDi, Motobu-Ryu, and Matsumura Seito, we have very strong evidence to show that the three Naihanchi kata were NOT originally one long kata, as one Western historian had suggested (which took off as fact, for some reason). The kata that became Naihanchi Shodan was a standalone kata. Nidan and Sandan could have been developed by either Matsumura or Itosu, depending on the version of history you are looking at. The founder of my organization, Nakazato Shugoro, said that Itosu made them, and that is what I tend to believe, based on my research. The presence of Naihanchi Nidan in Matsumura Seito could suggest that Matsumura Sokon developed it, but Soken Hohan also trained with some students of Itosu, and could have picked it up that way. How many kata is "enough" is going to be very subjective. What are your goals in training? What are your goals in teaching? What is your emphasis when working the kata? How good are you at memorizing movement? Etc. If you want your students to quickly learn self defense skills, then a smaller curriculum is going to be more efficient, as you can put more time into less material. That will also allow you to develop a very deep understanding of the kata from both biomechanical and application perspectives. On the other hand, if you want people to go compete, or you are interested in the preservation of material, then you may study more broadly, and collect more kata. Or, maybe you just like having additional kata for reference. My style has a lot of kata--16 proper kata, or 19 if you include Chibana Chosin's three Kihon Kata--and I know more than that, because I came from another style originally, and have picked up extras along the way. At last count, there were 33 kata that I can perform. From a practical perspective, I recognize that this is too many to truly study in-depth. That said, I tend to focus on in-depth study for a smaller, select group of kata, and use the others for reference and supplemental study. From a curriculum perspective, I would be happy to trim down the number of kata we have, significantly, but I also find value in some of the other kata I know, and it would be hard for me to drop them. The Pinan kata, for instance, I would be totally fine with dropping--we have plenty of that content in Passai, Kusanku, and Chinto. I would also be fine dropping Itosu Passai and Kusanku Sho, in favor of keeping Tawada Passai and Kusanku Dai. I would keep Chibana's three Kihon Kata, but I really consider them more like line drills than kata, so I wouldn't include them in a "kata list." I would be happy to drop Nakazato Shugoro's Fukyu no Kata and Gorin no Kata. This would drop us down to 7 "older" kata. That is much more manageable, from a curriculum standpoint. Of course, then I would have to figure out how much value there is in the other kata I have learned, and whether it would be beneficial to include them. Taikyoku? Gekisai? Sanchin? Tensho? Seiyunchin? Wansu? Anaku? Enpi? My KishimotoDi kata? There is a lot to consider. Personally, I think I would include the KishimotoDi material, which would bump it up to 11 kata, and then maybe save Tensho and Seiyunchin for students who could benefit from them, which would make it 13. It's still quite a bit more than the old styles, but I think there is a balance that can be struck between deep study and broad study. I also think that each student should find a small selection of the kata from their curriculum to be their tokuigata (specialty forms), which they focus on the most. For me, it's the Shorin-Ryu Trinity, but someone else might like Chinto, Gojushiho, and Seiyunchin the most, because they fit those kata better.

I respect your opinion but disagree a great deal. I do agree it’s not always needed just as you pointed out people hitting hard without full body rotation. However I was also taught to perform a roundhouse with my heel pointing at the target for maximum power, because of the hip rotation. Obviously it’s not always needed but can be very effective, and this is how I see the reverse punch. Where I really disagree is when you say it doesn’t generate power better then other methods, I mean I agree that it’s true, but I disagree with you throwing it out based on this. Perhapse the methods you use to generate power with your hips in your style aren’t any better then other methods as well but you certainly don’t disregard them as very useful! As I said I learned and tech many techniques involving movement of the feel and whole body where using the pulling hand to control or even pull, won’t be as effective. At any rate, I believe this was a real intent in this technique that you have echoed it being overlooked. This was kind of my point in my post, so not shocking. Hope Mr Poage is ok, I know he’s not, but I hope he will be! Take care. I didn't mean that the body rotation wasn't important--just that pulling the hand to the hip to accomplish it wasn't necessary. I'm not necessarily "throwing it out," but I don't really emphasize that usage of hikite when I teach. I mention it, but find the other uses to be more useful, so I emphasize those instead. When teaching students to generate power, I'm much more concerned with the legs, hips, core, and shoulders than the hands. Thanks for the well wishes!