Wastelander

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!

I was originally taught the "push/pull" mechanics idea for hikite, and have come across many people teaching it since. While I understand how it can help emphasize the body rotation needed to generate power, I also don't find it to be necessary for that purpose. Boxers get plenty of torque on their punches without it, for example, and generally punch harder than most (though not all, obviously) karateka. I just don't see that hikite teaches or develops power generation any better than other methods. What it DOES do, though, is control the opponent far better than keeping your guard up. It also allows you to withdraw your hand if it is entangled with your opponent's arms, which can sometimes happen, so that you can strike again. Those are my two primary uses for it.

Thank you, everyone! Our most recent update on his condition isn't great, but we are still hopeful. The tumor turned out to be malignant, and there is still some of it in his brain, although the oncologist is optimistic about it. He is still asleep, and hasn't been able to wake up yet, but the doctors want to give him more time for that on his own. There are two damaged areas in his brain--the right temporal lobe and left frontal lobe. The rest of his brain tissue is healthy, and should hopefully be able to compensate for the damage. He still has a fever, as well, but they are keeping it in check.

Welcome to the forum!

I'm part of the Shorinkan because my Sensei is part of the Shorinkan, because his Sensei is part of the Shorinkan. It's a pretty straightforward process. Now, it doesn't always stay that way--sometimes people break away for their own reasons. It is nice to have certificates from the honbu dojo on Okinawa to "legitimize" ranks or titles, but as MatsuShinshii states, the lineage doesn't go away even if you leave the organization.

While I think most people here on KF know who I am, they may not know my Sensei, Richard Poage, except perhaps through our Waza Wednesday videos on YouTube. He is an amazingly talented and knowledgeable martial artist, and he has really shaped my understanding of karate, and guided my development, and he is like a brother to me. Last weekend, he went with another student and I out to San Diego to attend Iain Abernethy's seminar there. On the drive back to Phoenix, he had a seizure. Now, he has been having migraines and getting nauseous for the past month or two, but the seizure was new. We rushed him to a hospital, where they discovered a large tumor in his brain. He was airlifted to UC San Diego Health for emergency surgery, and has been in the Neurosurgery ICU there ever since. He has had two emergency surgeries to remove the tumor, and the hematoma it caused on the other side of his brain. He has drain tubes in his skull to reduce the swelling, a breathing tube to make sure the level of sedation needed to keep him asleep doesn't stop him from breathing, and a feeding tube to give him some nutrition. He has developed a lesion on his heart, and pneumonia, now, as well. This whole situation has been a huge shock to everyone--you don't expect a 32 year old professional martial artist to be suddenly taken down by a brain tumor. Unfortunately, as he is uninsured, the costs for his treatment are going to be astronomical. I have set up a GoFundMe to try and raise money to take care of some of it, so his family has one less thing to worry about, and Patrick has been kind enough to allow me to post about it here. If you can, we would greatly appreciate any donation you could make, and if you would share the fundraiser with your friends. Every little bit helps, and is truly appreciated. Thank you! https://www.gofundme.com/richard-poages-brain-surgery

Shishee is accomplished most efficiently by using chinkuchi. You can have one without the other, but chinkuchi will allow you to deliver your force as efficiently as possible.

Thank you for your post, Danielle, and happy half-birthday to the forum!

The word "kime" comes from "kimeru," which is "to decide" or "to succeed," which is more of a mental concept than a physical one. In martial arts, though, it tends to be used to refer to the lock-down of the body at the end of a strike. From my perspective, this is a matter of stopping the strike in the air, when it doesn't have a target to absorb the impact. Doing it when you actually hit things tends to reduce your power, because it is done to rapidly decelerate and stop the strike. Chinkuchi is more about the structure and alignment than stopping the technique, although a locking down of muscles is sometimes done to check chinkuchi.

It does tend to bother me that "bunkai" is used to describe what is actually "oyo," but I will admit that I generally consider "bunseki" to be part of the bunkai process. As far as I'm aware, even in Japan this is the case. Of course, with regard to kata application, I suspect the Japanese and Okinawans are using bunkai the way they hear Westerners use it. We could go with "tichiki" instead, if we wanted to be more "authentically Okinawan" by using Uchinaguchi

Tie it back, braid it up, or cut it off. I'm afraid that there isn't any magic fix for this issue

I was referring to tegumi/muto as a separate practice, rather than a component of karate, in this case. I do suspect that there was some degree of crossover over skills, but I would agree with you that such things are not part of the kata, however. I suppose Unsu could be seen as having a bit, with the drop to the floor and kicking up, but that's about it. There are a few examples of techniques done on the ground, such as can be seen in Itoman Morinobu's book, or even in the original printings of Funakoshi's. They aren't associated with kata, for the most part, though.

I tend to simplify the explanation down to positions and movements of the body that are as structurally stable and efficient as possible. Of course, you can get into things like chinkuchi lines vs. chinkuchi points, and the like.

Well I would say you are a huge leg up on us. I hate to admit this but it's included into our applications. It is taught as if you're executing the Kata on the ground. We are told that this was passed down and no one older than I will admit any differently but in my assessment someone at some point decided that a ground element was needed and made the Kata suite this need rather than it actually coming from the Kata. I will say some of the applications work and are effective but I don't buy into it being extracted from the Kata nor does my research support this. It is basically a hodge podge of techniques to get back to your feet. There is absolutely no viable techniques that would allow you to stay on the ground and battle an experienced grappler. I completely agree with that. I've seen a number of people insist that kata are passing on groundwork techniques (mostly Naihanchi), and my research does not support that as being historically accurate, nor does my experience with grappling support it. Now, there are certainly techniques and postures in kata that can be applied on the ground, but the mechanics are different. I don't mind people going "this grappling technique is like the one from this kata, but you do it this way on the ground." That's different from "Naihanchi is a groundfighting kata." There are some historical examples of groundwork techniques from karate--Itoman's book has a few, for example--but nothing nearly as involved as you see in Judo, BJJ, or wrestling. That's what tegumi/muto was for. Agreed. I assume that your reference to Muto/ Tegumi is in reference to throws, take downs, sweeps, off balancing techniques and the like and not ground fighting? If you do mean ground fighting I am definitely missing something and would love if you could point me in the right direction as my art and my research has never given me an example of ground fighting in terms of Muto/Tegumi. If this is the case I am very excited to learn how this translates and how wrong I've been in terms of my art not containing any real ground fighting skills. Can you clarify on this please? If I recall correctly, either Nagamine or Funakoshi, or possibly both, included mention of "pinning the opponent to the ground" in their description of tegumi, which would indicate at least some degree of groundwork. I could be wrong--I would have to dig through the books again.