Wastelander

Congratulations!

Congratulations!

GKR is a touchy subject. From what I understand, they often hire instructors who have trained in other arts, so a big problem is consistency in instruction. Some of the instructors have a solid martial arts background, and are very good. Some have just a couple years of experience, and are not. In the end, if you like the instructor and enjoy the training, that's good enough. If it isn't realistic/practical enough for you, then you can always do some research and find somewhere else to train.

Here is another way of looking at it: If you didn't know they were supposed to be jodan, how effective were the kicks at the level they were thrown? If the form was good, and the speed and power were there, then it's probably just a flexibility issue. I know some people who physically can't kick to their own head height, but you wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of one of their kicks thrown with ill intent. There are some things I don't worry too much about when I'm evaluating skill levels of martial artists, and being able to kick to head height is one of them. For what it's worth, I suck at hook kicks and crescent kicks. If I were being evaluated by my ability to throw a hook or crescent kick, I would rate quite poorly!

That's the way we do it, yes. That said, I have also trained at a judo club that promoted based almost entirely based on competitive performance. I was told when I started training there (as a green belt) that I knew more than enough material for a brown belt, but I would have to be beating brown belts in competition to be promoted from green to brown. I'm a perpetually bad competitor, so that never happened

The "meaning of rank" is really a tricky subject, because every instructor has different ideas of what constitutes a yellow/green/black/etc. belt ranked student. In addition, standards aren't always "standard," because instructors will make exceptions for a variety of reasons. For example, people with physical disabilities may not be able to spar well, or execute some techniques correctly, but they have put in the work and studied hard to learn about the things they can't physically do. Conversely, some people with great amounts of physical talent may be promoted due to their effectiveness in training or competition, despite having limited knowledge.

It hasn't happened to me, personally, but I've seen it happen several times. I always recommend that people wear compression shorts under their gi bottoms, and compression tops under their gi tops. They wick moisture away and reduce gi burns, if nothing else, and have the added benefit of covering you up if your pants rip or come off.

That is a good tutorial--thanks for sharing! I learned that transition from side control to kesa-gatame in judo, but we never went back to side control from there. sensei8 - As he mentions in the video, he isn't actually pulling his opponent's tricep. If it's done the way I was taught, you're actually locking their elbow to your stomach, so it's actually the turning of your body that pulls their tricep. Kind of like if you're working tuidi--the locks are difficult/impossible to make work if you're just using your arms, instead of your body. Does that sound about right?

But it didn't leave ink spots in your gi, did it? No, it didn't. Of course, the area you would write it on doesn't really come in contact with the rest of the gi.

From the descriptions of tegumi by Nagamine, Funakoshi, and others, I would say that Shima bears very little resemblance to it. Many of the sweeps and throws found in Shima probably come from tegumi, but the fact that tegumi was not restricted to a belt grip, and included groundwork and submissions, means there is very little left of it in Shima. I have actually had some discussions with people who have done extensive traveling and training in Okinawa, and they said that Shima and tegumi are separate. According to them, Shima is a popular sport, and many judoka compete in it. If you go to smaller villages, which do not have organized Shima competitions, you can find them still doing tegumi. These peoples' descriptions of it match those of Funakoshi and Nagamine--it sounds pretty much like no-gi submission grappling! As far as the value of this, I think it is fairly evident that it has great value for the karateka. Many Okinawan karate masters cross-trained in tegumi, and recommended their students cross-train in grappling arts like judo, once tegumi declined in popularity. That, in my opinion, is where the Okinawans got their grappling training from.

When you're taking punches to the body for conditioning, you need to have a partner you can trust, who has control. Start light and work up to higher levels of power--be sure to communicate to your partner so they know when to stop increasing the power! Also, I do work on conditioning the entire core, but I recommend palm heel strikes to the liver and spleen, instead of punches.

I know of several martial artists who have had severe ankle, knee, and hip injuries that required surgeries to fix. They didn't let it stop them--you just have to stop long enough to heal. When your doctor says you can start training again, start slow.

Congratulations!

Some of us get our names embroidered in katakana at the bottom of the lapel, where the brand label goes. If you were to write it, there, I suspect it would be fine--it's a pretty standard thing to do for most karate styles. Writing it instead of embroidering it is a little unusual, though. I can't say how that would turn out after washing. I did write my name on a gi in Sharpie, once, and that was okay for a while, but it did bleed over time until you could barely make it out.

Our style is a known style of Okinawan karate, and belt ranks in our dojo will be recognized in the honbu dojo in Naha. I would say that is pretty legitimately "Okinawan karate." That said, the instructors at our dojo bring in a variety of other training experiences and knowledge, which give our karate a different flavor. Some of those experiences are other Okinawan karate systems, but others aren't. That doesn't make it something other than Okinawan, in my opinion, because Okinawan karate has always been an amalgam of people's experiences with a variety of arts. We follow some Japanese and Okinawan traditions, but we aren't Japanese or Okinawan people, and we don't pretend to be. There is a mixture of Japanese, Okinawan, and American culture in our dojo etiquette. Again, I don't see this as a problem because I'm not tied down to practicing strict adherence to a single culture.

I actually thought the same thing... I wonder if there's a connection between these two specific forms (Gojushiho and bil Tze)? From looking at videos of the form, itself, I would say that they are not related. Of course, that doesn't mean that they don't share some applications

Looks like Gojushiho\Useishi, to me Thanks for sharing!

1 - Yes 2 - Don't worry about it I don't do Shotokan, so I don't know if you need Bassai Dai to pass your test. If you do, then yes, you should be worried about executing it properly. Well, as properly as you can, anyway. As far as "excelling amongst the others," that isn't something you need to worry about. Rank tests aren't a competition with the other people testing--they are a competition with your self. Do the best that you can, and don't give up. Good luck!

Ah, that makes a lot more sense! I practice a different branch of Shorin-Ryu, so I highly recommend you refer to CredoTe's information, because he practices the same system. Best of luck to you!

I go through 2 or 3 kata, with low intensity, in the mornings. I wouldn't call it a "workout," though .

According to that website, they teach Krav Maga and Al Tracy's method of American Kenpo. You will find this to be vastly different from Shotokan, and while some of its techniques can be found in Shorin-Ryu, the way they move is different. That's just from my observations, though.

Unfortunately, I think that martial artists are doomed to debate terminology and semantics until the end of time--somehow, none of us can agree on any of that stuff! This is my personal definition of what a "martial art" is:

Ah, yes, we call that Sanchin-dachi, as well. Thanks!

Thanks for the feedback, everyone! CredoTe - My branch of Shorin-Ryu comes from Nakazato Shugoro, not Higa Yuchoku, although I'm certainly familiar with him. I'm also familiar with Onaga Sensei and a little of his method, as I've had discussions with some of his students. My own personal exposure to Ti (aside from what has been passed down in Shorin-Ryu, of course) has been through KishimotoDi, which has some significant differences from Onaga Sensei's Ti. I could be wrong, but I believe that Parker Sensei's Shorin-Ryu lineage comes from Toma Shian Sensei and a bit of training with Taika Seiyu Oyata. He also had some Goju-Ryu training, if I'm not mistaken.

I actually use the word "receiver" whenever I translate the name of an uke-waza online, or when asked. While my Sensei knows that this is how "uke" is translated, he grew up calling them "blocks" (even though he learned to use them for other things) so he still calls them "blocks" in class. I also originally learned to call them "blocks," so in the dojo, that's what you'll hear, for the most part. I would totally be on-board with switching over to "receiver" though!