Wastelander

Thanks, Bob! I was curious as to your opinion on this, since you've gone through the ranks and organizational hierarchy to a very high level. A caveat real quick: I usually tend to read threads from top to bottom, seeing what other posters have said so far. I did not do that with this thread, because I didn't want to influence my answer in any way. I'll catch up on the replies after this post. So, when I read that section of your post, it really resonated with me. That's exactly the frustration I have with my school/organization at this point in time. For example, the GM added this series of three-step sparring; 18 of them if I recall, and the first 6 are required at the dan testings now. To me, this is frivolously adding worthless curriculum to give black belts some more busy work to do; more to memorize for testing. Compound that with the exorbitant testing fees (it would cost me more than a good car payment to test for 5th dan), it makes the thought of testing frustrating. Then you mentioned the politics; I wonder how others in the organization, especially ones that I've taught in the past who have now tested up to or past my current rank, look at me. I honestly don't care, but what does bother me is the expectation of "respecting the rank" when I don't honestly think they have more to offer than I do. At any rate, that a lot of me and my issues, but like I mentioned, your comment really resonated with me in that sense. I'm tired of busting my but to learn some new three-steps that I don't think are useful or beneficial training. The thought of exploring deeper into the style, and even learning from other stylists, really appeals to me. I like your idea, but it would definitely be a hard one to pull off. It will probably be relegated to a few stylists here and there that decide to go with this approach. There's a lot of merit in it; when practitioners start seeing each other more and more as peers as opposed to wondering where they fall into the hierarchy, then so many new things become possible. Like Bob always says, "Proof is on the floor!" I definitely think that the additional dan ranks encourage padding the curriculum. In my former organization, there was a set of 7 yakusoku kumite drills (same concept as your three-steps, but the number of movements varies) that we had to know, but after the founder of the organization passed away, his son introduced 7 more. And then 7 more. And then 7 more. These drills mostly ended with solid kata applications, but the rest was your typical long range, childrens' karate basics that don't (IMO) provide any real value besides some kote kitae. It felt like just another way to keep black belts memorizing material to earn ranks. I agree. The current CI at our school is interested in expanding our self-defense knowledge. However, ho sin sul (self-defense) is reserved for the black belt classes. How is that helpful or right? We had also talked about introducing some grappling drills, just to get some exposure to it, and to give our students some idea of how to deal with it. However, he had an issue with teaching it especially to some of the younger kids right away. Too advanced. I told him there are a BJJ white belts out there. Didn't seem to help much. Another issue I have is that the school is always worried about the next testing. I just don't care for that approach. The instructors always end up "teaching to the test," and therefore the classes are structured for learning testing material. So no exploration gets done. Self-defense should not be gatekept in that manner, IMO, and neither should fundamental grappling. You don't need to teach your yellow belts how to put a gogoplata on somebody trying to stab you, lol. For what it's worth, I had some disagreements with the other instructors at my late Sensei's dojo after he passed away, because he incorporated grappling material into his karate classes, but I was the only instructor doing that after his passing. I pushed to have grappling drills included as grading requirements to try and encourage the other instructors to include it, despite wanting to trim the grading requirements down. It's tough when you have organizational requirements that don't represent an efficient practical curriculum.

With regard to instructors, I did go with a certification for those who want to teach, as opposed to different belts. Essentially, you can earn a black belt in my adult curriculum, and if you want to be an instructor, there is more material (such as the childrens' curriculum, and the KishimotoDi material I teach) that you would have to learn, and be tested on. Rather than a new obi, you would be awarded with a shidoin (instructor) certificate. I'm sure the reduced number of belts and lack of dan grades probably would be a discouraging factor for some, so I agree that it probably wouldn't work well in a large-scale commercial school. With kids, I do have a separate belt system, entirely--also similar to BJJ and Judo--so there are more belts for children to work through. It helps to provide that tangible incentive. I just feel that adults shouldn't need as much of that as kids do, and I'd like to think that removing the additional dan grades would get rid of the "I should be a higher rank than so-and-so" factor simply because there ARE no higher ranks to be had.

We've had a couple discussions here in recent weeks about ranks, and I thought I would bring up a topic that might be worth some thought, which is the abolition of yudansha grades beyond Shodan. In other words, there would be a black belt rank, but no Nidan-Judan (2nd-10th degree) grades. This is something that I have personally done with rank in my dojo, in addition to trimming down the number of kyu grades. There are a few different factors to my reasoning, here, and I'm sure not everyone feels the same. For one thing, my late Sensei required his students to know the full curriculum by Shodan, anyway, which is the requirement most organizations (including the one we were part of) have for Godan. The idea was that you would then simply spend your time as a yudansha exploring and evolving your karate, rather than memorizing new material. Of course, that makes it tougher to grade someone, because they don't have to demonstrate new material at a test, and instead simply need to show improvement in skill/understanding. The second major factor is that rank is almost always used as a political tool, and a way for people to feel superior to others. That isn't always the case, of course, but far more often than not, that is what I've observed. Third, the dan grades don't serve the purpose in karate that they were intended for in Judo or Go, where the system came from. Requiring all of the curriculum for black belt does mean it takes longer to earn a black belt, but I don't see that as a huge issue, personally--people don't have any problem training for 8-12 years to reach black belt in BJJ or Judo, for example. I'm sure many people feel the dan grades are, or should be, merit based, but I honestly see them used more as a political tool for those who have already achieved a higher rank, because the more high ranks they have under them, the better they look. Additionally, there is a definite sense of hierarchy that stacks on top of organizational hierarchy when you have multiple dan grades, where the 3rd Dans feel superior to the 2nd Dans, and the 6th Dans feel superior to the 5th Dans, etc. The trouble is that the only difference between these grades is often the length of time someone has been training, rather than their skill or knowledge, but you end up with people making "corrections" that they really shouldn't be making, just because they have a higher number on their certificate than someone else. The third factor is probably the most universal one, but it doesn't get talked about much. I think most people realize that belt ranks are going to be completely different between styles, organizations, and even individual schools. The thing is that this isn't really the case with competition-based arts, because their competitions provide a universal standard against which participants are judged. This fits well with the kyudansei, because it was brought into Judo from Go, where it was used to handicap and bracket opponents for competition, and Judo uses it that way, as well--albeit less formally. Karate, on the other hand, is made up of so many disparate systems, and without any universal competition format to judge participants by, that the dan grades really don't mean anything, at all, outside of your school. What, then, is the point, since they don't signify what they were intended to (ie, your level of skill/understanding in comparison to others who are graded with the same system). Anyway, just some food for thought, and I'd love to hear what you all think!

Congratulations!

Congratulations!

Welcome to the forum!

I'm of the opinion that martial arts training must be approached with many overlapping layers of training methods in order to account for the compromises we make in those methods, and sparring is no different. Personally, I like to spend the most time sparring with kakedameshi (sticky hands sparring), and if we're going light with an emphasis on grappling, we'll do that without gloves or mouthguards, but if we are going harder, we'll put those on. I also use "bully sparring" (one person acting as the attacker who just keeps putting on forward pressure and doesn't stop hitting), and other asymmetrical sparring methods like boxer vs. grappler, or legs vs. hands, in order to expose my students to a variety of skillsets and challenges. I also like MMA-style sparring for covering all ranges of combat, and self-defense scenario training for the highest level of realism with regard to how self-defense situations actually happen. As a general rule, we use mouthguards and MMA sparring gloves, with shin/foot pads and headgear being optional (I generally recommend against it unless they need to avoid bruising or other marks on the face, as they've been shown to make TBI worse). Contact always starts light, and we slowly increase the contact to get people used to impact, although full-contact is largely unnecessary. I only allow light contact to the head, because we don't need anyone developing TBI. Techniques that are particularly dangerous (eye gouges, knee kicks, etc.) are either done slowly or with slightly adjusted target locations for safety.

Welcome to the forum!

Welcome to the forum!

Thank you very much, Patrick, and everyone else, for the kind words, and the award! I was honestly quite surprised when I received it in the mail--it hadn't even occurred to me that I had been a moderator here for so long, already! I look forward to staying the course, and continuing to watch KF grow and evolve, along with its members.

As Bob said, I think the conditioning that Uechi-Ryu is known for is partially responsible for its lack of popularity. Both the finger conditioning and toe conditioning are rough, and most people aren't interested in that. I will add that Uechi-Ryu also does not have very many kata, and the kata they do have don't typically do well in kata competition. Like it or not, competition is how martial arts generally spread the most, and Uechi-Ryu just isn't one of the popular options for karate competition. It's unfortunate, for sure. As you mentioned, I am interested in doing a bit of cross-training in Uechi-Ryu, because I find it interesting (although I don't plan on picking up the entire style, or switching over to it). There is one Uechi-Ryu school in Arizona that I know of, and I have tried calling, emailing, and sending Facebook messages, but they never respond. I also know of Uechi-Ryu schools in other states, but they don't seem to do any advertising or promotion, so that may be part of the problem, as well.

I went with Meister brand puzzle mats for my home dojo. They've held up well in a covered outdoor space for about 2 years, now, and were the best bang for the buck I could find. They'll be pretty firm when you first get them, but they soften up a bit with use--not too much, thankfully! The only real issue is that they aren't a 100% consistent thickness, and sometimes they can warp a little (admittedly, it gets to nearly 120 degrees here, so that may not be a problem for everyone). I haven't found either of those things to be a real issue in training--they're just aesthetic. I got mine on Amazon.

What do you mean by "curriculum black belt" and "instructor black belt?" It's a good thing this post got brought back to life--I completely missed this question! I actually ended up tweaking this, a bit, but the idea was to have a black belt rank for those who learn all of the adult curriculum that I established as being required, and another black belt rank for those who want to be instructors, which would require them to ALSO know the youth curriculum, as well as the Bugeikan material, so that they were equipped to teach everything that I teach. I ended up just going with one black belt rank, and a Shidoin certificate for those who learn the rest of the material and want to teach. I see what you mean here. What you are suggesting sounds like a separate instructor certification. That's exactly what I ended up with, yes. After thinking it over, a separate belt didn't really make sense to me, since it just amounted to a certification, anyway That's an intriguing concept; how long would one have to train before becoming a candidate for black belt? What are the distinctions between youth and adult curriculum? To be a candidate for black belt, you must be at least 18 years old, and with the time-in-grade requirements, it comes out to around 8 years of active training time, and 100 teaching/assisting hours, because I consider teaching to be a valuable learning experience, even if you aren't planning to teach. Those looking to go for the instructor certificate have to put in 150 hours of teaching/assisting time. The adult curriculum runs through the three Kihongata created by Chibana, then the three Shorin-Ryu Naihanchi kata, Tawada Passai, and Kusanku Dai. For black belt, they then need to learn Shuri Sanchin, then select either Chinto, Gojushiho, or Seiyunchin to learn from me, as well as going out and learning a kata from another system, and making a kata of their own. Of course, application goes with all of the kata. The youth curriculum isn't vastly different from the adult curriculum, except in how it is broken down, and the fact that it goes through the first three Pinan kata (with the last two optional) before getting to Naihanchi, while the adult curriculum starts with Naihanchi and doesn't use the Pinan kata. This would mean that an instructor candidate would need to learn all 5 Pinan kata, and associated application--much of which can be found in Passai, Kusanku, and Chinto, so it won't be new, but they'll need to be able to attribute it appropriately. Ideally, they'd also pick up all three of the "optional" kata for black belts. The Bugeikan material consists of Shuri Sanchin--which I already require for black belt--and the four KishimotoDi kata, which are Tachimura no Naihanchi, Nidanbu, Tachimura no Passai, and Tachimura no Kusanku. It's a LOT of material, and that's honestly pared down from what I personally know. A total of 23 kata, if you count the Kihongata as kata (not everyone does), with application, for the instructor certification, compared to just 12 for black belt--four more than I needed to know for my own black belt test, but 10 less than I actually knew at the time

In my first dojo, I did end up attending a weekly class where we were taught how to teach. I think I ended up going for a little less than a year, before I moved. It was basically a class where everyone took turns running some aspect of the class, with prompts from the Chief Instructor. Someone would run the warm-ups, and someone would teach some basics, and someone would teach a kata, and someone would teach a drill, and so on. It was basically a big roleplaying exercise, because we all already knew how to do all of these things, but those of us not teaching were supposed to act like beginners. Sometimes, we acted like kids, as well, by slacking off, or being distracted, or misbehaving. As we went through the session, we would pause and breakdown how things were done well, and how they could have been done better. This was only open to people who had already been helping instructors with classes for a while, so everyone had at least started copying what they had seen their instructor do, so we had a basis to start from. All-in-all, I think it was a very valuable program. After I moved, and switched styles, my Sensei didn't do a class like that, but he did have more advanced students help newer ones, and then at brown belt start teaching a class a week, so that they got experience doing it. He would, of course, keep an eye on the class, and help out or provide advice, as needed. It was more of an on-the-job-training kind of thing.

I had a somewhat unique experience with this, in that my late Sensei required his students to know the ENTIRE curriculum for Shodan (this was the organization's requirement for GODAN). This meant that I had no new curriculum to learn after I reached black belt, which is not the case for most karateka, although eventually the organization did add some more required drills that I then had to pick up. My Sensei's idea with this was that black belts should spend their time both refining and exploring their karate. He would give corrections, as needed, but more often he would provide food for thought, and point out possibilities, so that you could then work through that on your own and with partners. He wanted you to be coming up with your own interpretations for how kata could be applied, and your own drills, and your own training regimen. He also wanted his brown and black belts to teach at least one class a week, because teaching actually helps you learn in a brand new way, and he would even join in as a student in those classes, and just follow along with how you ran the class. Personally, I think it was a great experience, and it set me up well for his passing, but I still wish I could be training with him, to this day.

What do you mean by "curriculum black belt" and "instructor black belt?" It's a good thing this post got brought back to life--I completely missed this question! I actually ended up tweaking this, a bit, but the idea was to have a black belt rank for those who learn all of the adult curriculum that I established as being required, and another black belt rank for those who want to be instructors, which would require them to ALSO know the youth curriculum, as well as the Bugeikan material, so that they were equipped to teach everything that I teach. I ended up just going with one black belt rank, and a Shidoin certificate for those who learn the rest of the material and want to teach. That is actually a very good way to look at the USA. I know a lot of Europeans have a hard time realizing just how big the USA is, and I generally describe it very much as you have. I think that part of the variety and flexibility, though, comes from the very individualistic mentality that tends to be fostered here, for better or worse. We're very opinionated, and want to do things our own way, lol.

Welcome back!

I'm assuming that the reap is o-soto-gari (major outer reap), judging by your description. For what it's worth, this is taught in Judo to children on a regular basis, and all of my instructors have taught it to children, as well. The trick to it is training the entry extensively, and you would likely need to remove it from your one-step drill for that. I generally start them with practicing it in the air, then on a person, but only the entry, then work the entry 3 times before doing the sweep, and then they can go straight through from entry to sweep. At that point, it could be put back into the drill. Now, I don't know if the double-step trip would work better for getting students prepared for the reap, but I can say that it doesn't sound like there is really a learning phase for the technique outside of the drill, and that, to me, is probably the biggest issue. They're kids, and they're trying to remember an entire drill that ends with a completely new technique--that's a lot, all at once. If they were more familiar with the technique in isolation, it would be easier to put into the context of the drill. Just my two cents, anyway

Sanchin is a bit of an odd one, for me. I learned it, originally, in Shuri-Ryu, where there are three different "levels," progressing from a super-compact version, to a fairly normal version, to something more like Hangetsu. I only learned the first, super-compact version, and I can't say I enjoyed it, at all, although I felt pretty good about how it helped me with my stability and muscle tension. A little while later, I picked up Tensho during a seminar that my Shuri-Ryu dojo held, and I found that I really enjoyed that much more. After leaving Shuri-Ryu, I did some research and worked with some Goju-Ryu folks to get my Sanchin and Tensho (as well as Seiyunchin) more in-line with Goju-Ryu, and I enjoyed Tensho even more. Sanchin was better, but still not my favorite. Since then, I have learned Shuri Sanchin, which is really only practiced by the Bugeikan and Motobu Udundi, and while I still don't like it, I try and keep up with it. Tensho, though, is my go-to for structure, grounding, and breathing.

I would agree. Not everyone has the same limitations, of course, but the human body has rules by which is develops, and there is only so much progress one can make before the body starts to degrade. There are tons of variables that go into that, of course, but I would say that is a pretty well-understood expectation in combat sports.

This was absolutely an abuse of power, and I would honestly report it to someone higher up in the organization, if that's an option for them. Failing someone just "to see how they handle failure" completely invalidates that instructor's testing process, IMO, and does nothing but make the student feel terrible.

I charge $35 for a 30 minute lesson, which is a holdover from my previous dojo, because that's what they charged, but I discount the per-lesson cost for paying up-front for more lessons, so a bundle of 4 is $130, 8 is $240, and 12 is $330, coming out to $32.50, $30, and $27.50 per lesson, respectively. It's important to note, however, that how much an instructor charges for private lessons is going to vary wildly! There are so many different variables that go into that; whether it's the instructor's main source of income or not, how long they've been training, how hard it is to find what they're teaching, what the average household income is in the area, what other schools are charging, how you want to approach teaching long-time students, etc. The list goes on and on.

I would, yes. You can either get ones that attach to a wall or frame, or you can get the ones that you just put into a stack of weight plates. They are pretty versatile, and are a good way to mix things up.

I agree with the typical powerlifting and Olympic lifting exercises, but I will also add that I LOVE landmine barbell exercises, and kettlebells can be a fun addition, as well.

Thank you for all you've done, and for sharing with us!