Wastelander

Welcome to the forum!

Welcome to the forum!

Personally, I no longer have any interest in karate competition, but I do still support my dojo family when they compete. This past weekend was the USA Karate Arizona State Championships, which also act as a qualifier for Nationals, and we sent a team to compete. My Sensei even took a break from coaching and judging to compete, himself. Here is a video someone took of him running Kusanku Dai, with altered timing for competition. In case you're wondering, USA Karate uses the WKF "Olympic" ruleset, so each competitor is assigned a color--either blue or red--and wears an appropriately colored belt for their assignment. That's why he is wearing a blue belt. Supposedly, this is to help prevent judges from scoring people higher because their belt looks older, or has more stripes on it, and also helps the audience keep track of which competitor is which.

Welcome to the forum!

I have the same thing, and I also found that stopping conditioning--and even stopping hitting things, at all--didn't make it go away. In the end, I decided that if it didn't hurt, it wasn't a problem. My doctor didn't seem concerned, but you may still want to check with yours.

You're definitely getting a good opportunity! One-on-one training is invaluable, as sensei8 said. Enjoy it, and soak it up!

I'm 6'1" and my bo is 6'6" long. As Harlan said, if we look at proportions, you and I should be using bo that are around 7' in length. In the end, it really isn't all that important. I would recommend practicing with everything from a 5' bo to an 8' bo, if you can.

Congratulations!

Welcome to the forum! That sounds about right. I had a 4.5 Tokaido, but at 6'1" it was a bit shorter on the body than I would have liked. A 3.5 or 4 would probably be a good fit for someone your size, but everyone is built differently, so it's hard to say for certain. In all likelihood, you'll need to have the sleeves and pant-legs hemmed.

I haven't started my own style, and I don't plan to, although one day I'm sure I will customize what I teach to my own students. I'm not fond of the idea of "creating styles," honestly, and I like bushido_man96's approach better. I do know someone who started his own style, though, for whatever that's worth. What he did was take the karate he learned, changed the body mechanics and some of the movements to be more like the Chinese arts that he studied, and added a bunch of drills/techniques from American Kenpo and Filipino martial arts. He also did not promote himself to a higher rank--he holds a Nanadan (7th dan) ranking in karate, and that is the rank he goes by. I will say that people who are looking to train, or sign their kids up to train, are looking for something they can Google. Things like "karate" and "kickboxing" are much more widely searched for than specific styles. Calling what you do "modified karate" or "modified kickboxing" is going to get you more hits than "chrissyp-ryu." It isn't really selling yourself short when you simplify what you call it, so long as you are open and honest about your background and influences on the art.

I have the same pet peeve, actually. We don't use those titles in our style, which I'm happy about. My previous style did refer to the founder as "Grandmaster," but only after he passed away, which doesn't seem as bad. I do think that people can "master" something and still be learning and refining. In that, there are people that I would describe as being masters, but I would not use "master" as a title to refer to them. For example, Taira Masaji Sensei is a master of Goju-Ryu, but I wouldn't call him "Master Taira." Nakazato Shugoro Sensei is a master of Shorin-Ryu, but I wouldn't call him "Master Nakazato."

Congratulations!

I think it is human nature to be drawn to groups of people that are like us, and people we are familiar with. In martial arts, I think most of us could say that we are most comfortable with our classmates--the people we train with all the time. We are less comfortable with dojo-mates that we only work with occasionally. We are another step away from comfort when we have to work with people in our organization, but from another dojo. Once you step outside of the organization, you've removed that security blanket, and it makes people nervous. This is exactly why I think it is important for instructors to take responsibility for getting their students out of their bubble. My Sensei and I are known for going to other dojo to work out with people from other styles, and inviting people from other styles to come to our dojo. We don't do this to steal students, but to build relationships. We've never had anyone quit training at their old dojo to come train with us (or vice versa) because of this cross-training. What we have done is develop a level of comfort where people from those other schools can come train with us, and we can go train with them, and everyone can benefit. I'm sorry that ATA school would not allow you to come work with them--they certainly missed out on a great opportunity! We have had some schools refuse us, as well. Hopefully, over time, people will open up more and see the benefits of building relationships with other schools.

Welcome to the forum! Good luck in your search!

My dojo is definitely a second home for me. My dojo-mates feel like an extended family, and my Sensei is also a friend (we can keep those roles separate, though). It's a place where I feel safe from all the other troubles in life and I can focus on bettering myself, working out my frustrations, and sharing my passion with others.

John, first off let me apologize for not recommending your store, I completely forgot about it I'm sorry for that. Secondly you are right, I wasn't even thinking about the Chinese Tokaido line. I have heard that their quality is not very good and lifespan can be under 6 months on one of those, have you had any experience with them? I'm not John, but I figured I would throw in my two cents on this one. I was given a Tokaido Arashi (a Chinese-made gi line) for Christmas the year I started training. I used it for about 14 hours a week for a year and a half, and it held up perfectly, aside from a little sweat staining. I kept wearing the pants with a judogi top during judo, so I did eventually wear a hole in the right knee that was too big to stitch up, but that was after over 2 years of consistent use. The gi top was doing pretty well, but I had done a poor job of hemming the sleeves, and they started to tear. Around the same time, the upper part of the right sleeve started to tear where I had patches sewn on from my old dojo. If I had gotten the hemming done professionally, and if I hadn't put the patches on the sleeve, it probably would have lasted quite a while longer than it did. I've known people who have made them last as long as 6 years. As it was, mine made it through about 3.5 years of hard use, which comes out to about $40 per year for the cost (at the time) of the gi. I couldn't really complain--that would have been the cost of replacing torn lightweight uniforms every year!

Not in any sort of wide-spread way, like Kyokushin and its derivatives. Goju-Ryu does have iri kumi (close fighting), which is very much like knockdown, but most of the videos I have seen labeled "iri kumi" don't look like it, so I gather it isn't really common in Goju-Ryu. Some Shorin-Ryu and Uechi-Ryu people do it, but again, it isn't common. That kind of sparring just isn't as much an integral part of any other style. It's really what Kyokushin was made for.

I started training in karate because there wasn't a Japanese swordsmanship or kendo school in the area, actually. I have always been a nerd, and I really found myself drawn to Japanese culture through films, anime, and manga. That, coupled with my pre-existing interest in medieval European arms and armor, led me to being very interested in Japanese swordsmanship. It didn't hurt that I was out of shape, and I figured it would help me in that department. I looked around, but couldn't find anything, except for a karate school that also taught Okinawan weapons and Japanese sword after you reached yellow belt. I started in karate, and ended up getting hooked! I did work on weapons, but I found myself much less interested in them than the empty hand material.

If a dojo is not fulfilling your needs as a martial artist, and the instructor can't (or won't) change anything that needs changing, then you will need to go somewhere else. Before you leave, I would recommend talking to the new chief instructor to see if he can rein things in, or at least explain why he does things the way he does. If you do leave, hansenator is absolutely correct--finding an instructor that fits you is better than searching for the ideal martial arts style. Out of curiosity, what happened to your old chief instructor? You said you got a new one, but never said what happened to the old one. If he/she simply stopped running the school, perhaps you can arrange lessons with him/her? Of course, if he/she moved away, that wouldn't really be feasible.

As time passes, new masters develop as old masters die--we can only hope that the new masters expand on the knowledge of the old, and don't lose too much. I have noticed that some of the modern masters are trying to spread their knowledge a little more widely than they used to, but it's still not a huge number of masters or huge amount of expansion. Shinjo Kiyohide Sensei of Uechi-Ryu and Taira Masaji of Goju-Ryu, in particular, have projects going on for this purpose. I've also seen some expansion in knowledge sharing amongst Shorin-Ryu masters, as well. As far as lineage and organizations go, I don't know how much can be done to preserve them when they are headed by on person, as cheesefrysamurai mentions. The Shorinkan, for example, has been headed by Nakazato Shugoro since he founded it. He is still alive but, at 95 years of age, he has passed on the running of the organization to his son, Nakazato Minoru. So far, I don't think anyone has broken away from the Shorinkan because of this, but I suspect there will be a schism when Nakazato Shugoro passes away. The same thing happened when his sensei, Chibana Chosin, passed away--his top students all started their own organizations and claimed to be the true successor of Chibana. I'm hoping that Nakazato Shugoro's approach to succession (appointing his son with the approval of the Board of the Shorinkan) will keep the splintering to a minimum, but we'll see how things turn out.

I will say that, even on Okinawa, karate has been changed. My KishimotoDi teacher actually told me that he knows a very old man on Okinawa who learned old-style karate before WW2, and that man said that they changed karate after the war to be more like Japanese karate so they could sell it to the Westerners stationed there. He actually admitted that he forgot almost all of the old-style karate material because of that. It can still be found, of course, but it's not so easy to come by. Sometimes the organizations don't keep their websites updated very well--Crowder Sensei may not have his dojo, anymore, or he may simply not have a website. If you Google him, you can find phone numbers that are supposed to be for his dojo. At worst, it will be a wrong number. You can try looking into other organizations, as well. There could be Goju-Ryu, Uechi-Ryu, or other Shorin-Ryu organizations that have instructors in your area, but they may not have websites or advertising for their dojo. You can also try contacting other martial arts schools in the area--a lot of them will know each other, and might be able to get you in contact with the kind of instructor you are looking for.

It isn't terribly common, but it does happen. It's much more rare with adults than children, though. My Sensei has taken belts away from three students, that I can recall--every one of them under the age of 9. Kids go through a lot of changes as they grow up, and martial arts can contribute to that in a positive way, but only to a point. Hopefully your instructor has followed up with the parents to discuss the issue.

My guess is that you are overthinking it--I was overthinking everything leading up to my shodan test, last year . Good luck!

Thanks for the feedback, everyone! We use quite a bit of tuidi (seizing hand) techniques in our dojo, so we certainly work at close range a lot. That said, we don't use kakidi/kakete/kakie all that often--maybe once or twice a month. The majority of our tactile sensitivity drills are more ballistic, like the ones bushido_man96 linked to. Personally, though, I have been working on developing my tactile sensitivity in a variety of other ways, using both equipment and partners: While I never had a problem using our kata applications prior to starting this kind of supplemental training, I have certainly seen improvement because of it. Just last week, I had a very experienced (40+ years of training) partner comment that my locks had gotten much smoother. I think the more I work on it, the more I will see improvement. In addition, as I think Mark B alluded to, the kakidi position is an excellent platform for learning the concepts of a technique, and how to apply it by feel. This is, in my opinion, something that is very important. I've seen people learn all kinds of great, old school karate techniques, and then they can never find a way to fit them into live training. I think the reason for that is their lack of ability to "feel" the technique. I will say that I don't have any problems with kata applications that are based solely on realistic attacks, in the vein of "moves for this" and "moves for that." If they are drilled thoroughly and practiced in an alive manner, I think they can work quite well. I've met quite a few karateka who practice this way, and have had to use it in real life, and it worked just fine. I do think that this approach is much more limited, however, than developing a "feel" for the technique.

Glad you can get back on the mat!