Wastelander

We will allow people to spar on their first day, if they'd like, but only with a black belt or brown belt, whose job is really to run them through drills that feel like sparring, more than actually sparring with them. We don't have a rank requirement for sparring in our dojo, but we do make a judgement call on a student-by-student basis as to when they can join the "general population" in sparring. Sometimes they are still white belts, and sometimes not.

Welcome to the forum!

What you are seeing is the natural disconnect between the Japanese-created long range kumite and the methods transmitted by the kata, which are (as Dani_001 suggests) intended for close range fighting. Enpi-uchi, shuto-uchi, some forms of uraken-uchi, takedowns, uke-waza, etc. are really meant for use when you are up close with your opponent, tangling your limbs with theirs. If you try to bounce in from long distance, tag your partner, and bounce back out before they can tag you back, you'll never have the opportunity (or need) to use these methods. They aren't necessarily more dangerous, provided your partners know what you plan to use in sparring, and know how to react safely. Since kumite, in training, is meant to be a training method, try not to worry about winning and losing--there are no winners or losers in training, as it is not a competition. Tell your partner that you plan to try working with close range methods, give some examples, and then work toward that goal. You will probably do very poorly with this, at first. The more you do it, though, the better you will get.

I learned the "lockdown" knot in Judo--it's much more prevalent in grappling arts than in striking arts, although my KishimotoDi instructor also uses it. As it stands, though, I generally just do the standard square knot with the back crossed, instead of overlapped. I was originally taught to do the full overlap in the back, but it's less comfortable for me, takes longer to tie, and doesn't really add anything to my karate.

I fairly regularly teach classes that include people who earned their black belts when I was a child, or even before I was born. They outrank me, and have more experience than me, but I just teach what I know, and it works out just fine. They leave the ego at the door, and I pretty much give them free reign to explore and modify the drills and techniques as we go, to suit their needs.

Welcome to the forum!

Welcome to the forum, and back to karate! I actually have a friend who teaches KishimotoDi in Malmo

Congratulations!

Welcome to the forum!

Belated welcome to the forum!

I'm in agreement with Nidan Melbourne on this one--it looks right to others, but it doesn't feel right to you, and that means you have to form down, but need to work on internalizing it and developing the details. That's the kind of thing that happens when you're a black belt

Welcome to the forum! We do have a Chinese Martial Arts section, where you might find some assistance in Chinese methods of conditioning the hands. To be fair, many karate practitioners who chose to condition their hands actually use Chinese methods, as well

Kata does not teach kickboxing--if it did, it would look much more like you are thinking, I suspect. Instead, kata teaches something more akin to clinchwork. That is, it teaches close-range fighting techniques, many of which involve limb control, grabbing and striking, and takedowns of various sorts. Of course, the kata are cleaned up versions of these fighting methods, either to build proper structure or just to look nicer. As JackD mentions, the stances you see are much more transitional than they appear in the kata. If you want to see the stances of kata in competitive fighting, look to the clinchwork of Muay Thai, the cagework of MMA, and the standing components of arts like judo and sumo. They don't stand idly by in a proper front stance, or horse stance, or cat stance, but they absolutely use them where appropriate for structure, control, and application of technique. You'll also notice a good number of the arm movements of kata, as well, just by the very nature of fighting at that range. Obviously, it isn't 100% crossover, because karate's approach is not identical to any one of those arts, but the similarities are clear, if you know what to look for.

I can kick the head--and have knocked people out doing so--and yet I rarely throw head kicks, unless I'm doing them the old-school way: https://www.instagram.com/p/BLjbWcjDkuN/ In all seriousness, though, you do not need to be able to kick high to be a karateka. If you do want to be able to kick that high, then that's fine. Without seeing you kick, it's hard for me to say whether it is truly a flexibility issue, or whether it is a mechanical issue.

For me, learning the bunkai unlocked the kata, unlocked the intensity needed, unlocked the intent for movements I didn't understand and it gave the understanding of why this stance with this strike, why a certain timing is necessary. Without bunkai, it's strictly a blind performance. It's essential for me. Kata is one of those situations where it's way more than meets the eye. The only way IMO to perform it well (not necessarily for aesthetics) is to understand the application. I see what your saying here, I really do. What I'm trying to help others understand is that there are some systems out there in which applications aren't taught with the forms. The ATA forms were designed as teaching tools for the techniques assigned to each level, and thus, each form gets a bit more difficult physically. They weren't built from a self-defense application aspect first. So for me, trying to discover ways of training applications is a bit of a different adventure.This is important to keep in mind--there are some forms, primarily newer ones, that were never intended to be used to transmit self defense methods. It can still be interesting to try to work out applications for them, but some just aren't meant for that. There are also some newer kata that were designed to transmit modern sport fighting methods, and those will be rather different from self defense oriented kata, as well.

It sounds, to me, that you're worried about the "slippery slope" problem. Not being on the board, I don't know how granular your organizations guidelines are, but I would think it would be possible to write the bylaws in such a way that the slippery slope was prevented, or at least diminished. For example, creating the guideline that instructors be allowed to accept students under 16, but that they cannot be forced or in any way coerced to do so, and making it mandatory would require unanimous approval by the board. Something to that effect. As I said, I don't know if that's something that could be done with your organization or not. Personally, I don't see modernization as inherently bad, nor do I see much benefit in carrying on tradition for tradition's sake. There are certainly some problems with modern practices, though, and some benefits to traditions. I don't see a problem with allowing instructors to take students younger than 16, provided the rank guidelines stay the same. Adding some ranks before black belt also isn't that big of a deal, as long as it doesn't become a Crayola box of 16 colored belts. We use the Jun-Shodan (basically Shodan-Ho) rank for students who are excellent, and know all of the black belt material, but are 1-2 years too young to test for Shodan, and we've only done that 4 times. I also don't see any problem adding classes that focus solely on self-defense, because that's valuable and important material, and can keep students engaged in the rest of the system. There is always going to be the possibility for abuse of any system, and because we teach, which is providing a service, customers have some level of impact on what we do. Even if we don't rely on teaching for our income, it's possible to simply not have any students if they aren't accommodated to same degree. That doesn't mean you have to bow to every bit of pressure, though, so as long as the organization supports the instructors' rights to teach and reject students, that should be fine.

Congratulations, Brian, and thank you for everything that you do! I was hoping to be able to make it to the livestream, but it was during my work hours and I wasn't able to get away with a webcam at the time. I hope you enjoy your dinner!

Well, that is certainly an interesting turn of events! Honestly, though, I can't say I'm all that surprised that it turned out that way--many instructors have already decided that a person is going to be promoted before they ever test, so the fact that your instructor had already filed your promotion suggests that he already knew you would pass. High praise, in my opinion. Congratulations!

It sounds to me as if you've made up your mind, already. You simply don't want to continue training in Goju-Ryu at your current dojo. You have to do what is best for you, so make the switch. That doesn't mean you can't still be friends with your current sensei. Maybe someday, after you've gotten the competition bug out of your system, you'll switch back.

Welcome to the forum!

Welcome to the forum, Gus! I'm glad you have decided to come back to karate--too many people try karate as a kid and don't get the fullest/best experience, and miss out on something great. It's awesome that you've kept going with other martial arts, too! As it turns out, I know of three solid karate schools in the LA area: World Budo Arts, Santa Monica, CA Kaizen Dojo, Torrance, CA Machida Academy, Lomita, CA World Budo Arts is a joint operation between Tom Callahan Sensei (Kyokushin) and Vassie Naidoo Sensei (Goju-Kai). They train very hard, and do knockdown-style sparring, but are friendly people who will work with you at whatever level you need. Kaizen Dojo is run by my friend William Ford Sensei (Shorin-Ryu), and he also has a BJJ instructor that teaches classes there. He teaches traditional Okinawan karate, with a somewhat MMA-ish approach. Very nice man, too! Machida Academy is kind of an obvious entity in this list--it's run by Lyoto and Chinzo Machida, both of whom would be familiar to you. I have not personally gotten to train with them, but I do know a few people who do, and their feedback has been nothing but positive. From what I gather, you would be learning Shotokan karate with a blended self defense/MMA approach.

Well, personally, I would say to stay with your current dojo and ALSO go train kumite at the other dojo, if that's what you want. Of course, you also seem to be taking the opposite approach to my own, when it comes to karate. If you are not happy with training in Goju-Ryu, and you are wanting to develop skills that are not developed in your current dojo, then you should switch to a school that fits your needs.

In my experience, not at all. They don't even know the difference between judo and TKD, most of the time. That's one of my biggest complaints with Olympic karate, and why I don't think it will stick around

My style has drills that are essentially like ippon/sanbon/gohon-kumite, but they vary greatly in length, so we can't really number them that way, so we call them "yakusoku kumite." Originally, Nakazato Shugoro created 21 of them, but pared it down to 7, which are the ones I first learned. His son has since added 21 of his own. The original 7 are generally longer than the new ones, but the formula is the same--do the very basic ippon/sanbon/gohon-kumite stuff for a while, then end with a practical fighting/self defense technique, albeit still done against a karate attack. I like the endings--particularly in the new set, as they all come from kata--and we actually regularly break out the endings as their own drills in our dojo, working them against realistic attacks with resistance. Most people do not do this, however. Personally, I hate the rest of the techniques in the drills because of the same reasons you point out in your article. I think time is better spent on realistic drills, just slowed down and with expanded distance for beginners. Now, I will admit that I happen to support the idea that "non-directly-applicable" drills can develop useful skills. With that in mind, I do think that these types of drills, despite not being directly applicable, do still teach concepts of distancing/timing/reactions/etc. It isn't a matter of them teaching those concepts for a particular context--just that it teaches them, at all. Even so, I am in complete agreement with you that they are an inefficient method for conveying these concepts, if we are training for practicality. I have to practice and teach ours as long as I am in the organization, because they are required. It doesn't mean I have to like it

Personally, when I am asked to teach a seminar, I ask them what type of material they would like to be covered. Do they want to learn a new kata? Do they want to learn drills, and if so, what kind? Do they want bunkai? Etc. From there, you can build a curriculum for it. Now, sometimes they will come back with: "whatever you want to teach!" That can be a little frustrating, but usually I mix some fundamental drills that may be different from what they do, and move that into kata applications, which I can either connect to kata or not, depending on their experience with the kata.