Wastelander

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!

As I recall, those Shureido categories relate to both the thickness of the black cotton wrap, and the stiffness of the inner core. The deluxe heavyweight ones are NOTORIOUSLY difficult to tie and keep tied--many people wet them and tie them around something for a while to help the knot set. That one does tend to last the longest, but belts shouldn't last a lifetime, anyway--it is completely okay to replace them when they get tattered .

Drills like that are really just basics with impact, so as Nidan Melbourne suggests; find a heavy bag and work basics on it. If you need a little more conditioning, you can make a taketaba or tetsutaba (bamboo or iron bundle) to hit yourself with. If you start getting into drills that are actually applicable kata application, then you'll want to tie a broomstick or dowel to the heavy bag so you at least have a limb to work with.

My old org had them; just 7 when I started, plus 8 that my sensei's instructor based around the Naihanchi and Pinan kata, but then the founder died and his son took over and cranked out 21 more. Since leaving the org, I've dropped them all. My sensei and I thought the kata-based ones were alright--very basic, but not too bad, all things considered. The rest of them had decent techniques at the very end, but you had to wade through a bunch of childrens' karate basics to get to them. We played with different ways to get some benefit out of them--working just the endings against realistic attacks, having students break the drills and attack with realistic attacks that had to be defended against, having students break the drills to try to immediately put the attacker on the ground, etc-- but dropping them was ideal.

I have found that sometimes drills based on kata are mistaken for unrelated drills, simply because the instructor didn't explicitly state that they were related to kata. Motobu's drills are based on kata, if not verbatim. A friend of mine trains in a style that ended up having a ton of "Self Defense #..." on their curriculum because the head of the style never pointed out that he was teaching them kata applications, and most of the high ranking people in the org didn't notice the connection. The newest head of the Shorinkan started making a bunch of yakusoku kumite drills, after he took over, which were VERY obviously kata applications after 2-4 "childrens' karate" basics, and yet it seemed like very few people in the org were aware of that fact. Heck, I even see it when I post drills that are based on kata online and don't point out what kata they come from . Of course, there are definitely 1-2-3-4-5-etc. step sparring drills all over the place that aren't connected to kata, at all, and personally I think the majority (although not all) are a waste of training time. Some drills are meant to develop skills and attributes, but which are not actually directly applicable in combat, for example, and those are valuable. There are also drills that are meant to prepare you for a specific type of combat that kata isn't designed for (ie. combat sports), which are valuable. The combinations of sterile kihon techniques with "childrens' karate" applications from formal stances and Kendo distance that were largely made by people who didn't understand or care how to apply kata movements, however, do not provide anything that aren't found in drills with practical kihon/kata applications against realistic attacks from a realistic distance, and are, in fact, much worse than such practical drills in every capacity that I have been able to think of, besides forcing you to remember long combinations of movements that don't have a real purpose. I know that some of those drills were made for children, because they were safe and made students practice their basics more, but when you practice those techniques with bad applications, what's the value, really? That isn't the easiest thing for people who are now 2-6 generations into a tradition of practicing such things to hear, though, and there is a definite Sunk Cost Fallacy involved, so they tend to defend the drills pretty strongly, and continue to teach them. That's a hard cycle to break. Obviously, this is all my own observations and opinions on the matter, and I'm biased as someone who was taught and teaches practical kata application. All of my drills are either directly or indirectly tied to kata, and the development of combative skills and attributes.

Welcome to the forums!

I'm familiar with them--Motobu Choki published them in his book, Watashi no Tode-Jutsu, and there are videos of his son and grandson demonstrating some on YouTube, IIRC. Of course, Iain has also taken to using them, with some slight variations. I think they are good basic drills that feature components of several kata, as well as important karate concepts, such as meotode and muchimidi. Personally, I tend to believe that he had his students do a lot more drills than just those 12, but he had to pick ones to highlight in his book, and these were a good mix of material. We get leg kicks, knees to the body, strikes to the body, and strikes to the head. We also get limb control, trapping, deflecting, and locking. I don't have any evidence that he simply picked them from a larger pool of material because they were relatively diverse while still simple enough to teach in a book, but it makes the most sense, to me. I suppose I could ask his grandson and see what he says, but he may not know, either. Did you have any questions on particular drills in that set?

Your first example of "practical kihon" is literally the basic application of the first movements of the first kata that I teach, which is called, appropriately enough, Kihon Ippon. I mention this because the kihon-waza are all present in kata, and the kata already put them into combinations for you, in most cases, so I just teach those applications in that manner. I have, of course, broken some things out for extra repetitions, such as a variety of parry-pass drills, as well as a sticky-hands uke-waza drill, and blend those into my other platform drills (kakie, for example). All of it pretty naturally forms connections as you work in this manner, and my students have picked it up pretty well.

What a fantastic idea! The videos you showed of it being drilled in a typical class session further piqued my interest. When I used to train shorin Ryu, I wish we had done that more frequently. At the belt level I was at, I was taught the bunkai for my katas, but we didn't consistently drill them in flow sessions as you did in those videos you provided. We went on to the next activity after performing the standard compliance drill with a partner. I can imagine the concepts in those videos being done by the best fighters on world stages like KC, WKF, Kyokushin, etc. Thanks! It was just one of the sparring methods that we used to develop the skills to actually apply the applications we worked from kata, but I find that it's the best option for a continuous, symmetrical sparring method that forces you to use skills from kata, so it's the best option for competition, IMO. IIRC, Taekwondo actually adopted this back in 2008 for the Olympics. It's been highly controversial, from what I understand, and it's implementation has changed the way competitors fight, but not necessarily for the better. I can't say I would be inherently against it, but it would take some definite research and beta testing.

Competitive kakedameshi (you can read a bit more about it here: https://www.karateforums.com/kakedameshi-and-why-karateka-should-do-it-vt52563.html) would be my preference, for sure, but it's not easy to score. I've been playing with ways to do that for several years, now, but I don't exactly have a large testing pool, either. The two main ideas I've tended to come back to are either a Judo-like scoring system, or a full-contact format with supplemental scoring system. Judo-Like Scoring: For those who are unfamiliar, and trying to look up Judo scoring, I recommend you look up the rules as they were pre-2008, as those are what I'm used to, and that's my frame of reference for this. In general, though, you would set criteria for what is an automatic victory (ippon), what you would have to successfully pull off two of to get an automatic victory (waza-ari), what would be counted as effective techniques that were not good enough for the higher scores (yuko), and what would basically just be a tie breaker (koka). If you wanted, you could also just break that down into whatever arbitrary point denominations you like--5 points, 3 points, 1 point, and an advantage marker, for example. Resetting fighters to their starting positions would only be done if a stalemate is reached for too long. This has flexibility in the level of contact you allow for the strikes, and which locks or takedowns you want to allow, so it could be toned down for those who want something safer, or ramped up for those who want more of a challenge. The trouble with this is that it requires referees/judges who are skilled enough to quickly identify and score the techniques being used, which isn't something as easy to onboard people for as, say, WKF's point-sparring criteria--I got qualified for that in an afternoon, without any real interest in it, but I can't say that would work for kakedameshi. Full-Contact with Supplemental Scoring: This is basically just MMA that has a restricted range, and emphasis on a particular approach to fighting. You can win by KO, TKO, or submission, and if neither competitor achieves those, then the match goes to judges who scored the match, which could be done with something as involved as the Judo-like scoring I described, above, or something much simpler, with criteria like "Landed more significant strikes" and "More successful takedowns" with point values assigned. This would allow for much easier refereeing/judging, but you are going to have a lot fewer people interested in doing it, because it hurts and carries more risk than a lighter contact approach.

Yeah, every school I've trained at has broken classes down by rank, and since they had the same ranking system (more-or-less) for children and adults, that resulted in mixed classes a lot of the time. You tended to have fewer children and more adults once you got about half-way to shodan, but it was still kids with adults. When there were enough adults that they didn't have to partner with children, that wasn't really too much of an issue, in practice, but it can definitely make some people feel uncomfortable. I have separated my youth and adult ranks and curricula, entirely, and while I'm still only running private lessons, I do intend to have separate youth and adult classes this fall.

I'll second battle ropes, but also Tabata intervals of bagwork; 20-30 seconds of high intensity striking, 10 seconds of rest, repeat.