Wastelander

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.

You have already received some very good responses, but I will jump in to add that most of the instructors who teach on the side of a regular job--who are more likely to teach adult classes, and at a lower price--often teach out of their homes. That is what I'm doing, for the time being, although I'm sticking with private lessons, at the moment. This can be problematic, as they often don't advertise, and they often end up taking students on referral. You can try asking instructors in your area if they know anyone teaching like that, because they probably do. Depending on how desperate they are for business, they may or may not give you the information, but it's worth a try.

Welcome to the forum, and to karate!

Welcome to the forum!

Machida Karate is tailor-made for modern mixed martial arts competition, although it's still largely kickboxing in a keikogi, in my opinion. That isn't necessarily bad, but it's not my kind of karate. You're certainly right that they have blended their karate with other things (you forgot Sumo, btw), which is in-line with the original development of karate, so I'm not hating on it. I just prefer a different approach

Welcome to the forum!

I require my students to be vaccinated and/or wear a mask, and I currently teach outdoors, making risk of transmission lower, in general. We are currently going through what doctors are calling a "Silent Surge," which isn't really being talked about, so most people don't even realize how bad things are. I just can't take the risk of exposing my wife--or anyone else, for that matter.

Congratulations and many thanks, Danielle!

The thing about self-defense is that it more about mental skills and knowledge than anything else, and once you have been educated in the subject, that education can guide your physical training. You can also improve that physical training even further with exposure to contextually-appropriate pressure testing, which should not only be informed by the academic knowledge of the context, but also knowledge of effective pressure testing methods for other similar contexts. You can be an expert in self-defense training if you are an expert in these things, despite having never had to employ the skills in real life, because you're an expert in every aspect of self-defense that CAN be taught. There is no fully-accurate substitute for real life experience, and you can't teach it, so it doesn't really matter if the instructor has it, or not, so long as the information about real life experiences has been incorporated into the training. Now, all that said, I will say that I could simply be biased, since other than getting beaten up several times growing up, and only defending myself from one schoolyard bully, I've been able to avoid physical confrontations--which I do attribute to my self-defense knowledge, for what that's worth. My instructor had some real-life self-defense experience, and he also trained with a couple instructors who had been active field agents for federal agencies, who encountered their share of violence, plus his own research and reading the publications of others who shared their own experiences. I've done my best to get similar exposure, but I'm not planning to go out and purposely get attacked, either.

You'd have to ask a Matsubayashi-Ryu practitioner to get the stylistically-correct answer, but I can tell you that in the Kobayashi branch of Shorin-Ryu, the torso remains straight. That said, in KishimotoDi, you twist all the way to the side at the waist and then reset, and I have blended that into my Shorin-Ryu, at least some of the time. Kata don't have to be done the same way every time you practice, after all

I have been teaching private lessons out of my home for the past two years, although my training area is my carport, rather than indoors. I haven't been running group classes, because COVID is still not doing all that well, here, and my wife is immunocompromised, but I'm hoping to start that up this fall, and plan to limit it to 6 people at a time. It requires a bit of rotation, depending on what is being trained at the time, because a little over half the space is open, matted training area, and the rest has my bag/makiwara stand, but it's definitely doable. I always recommend DVR-connected security cameras for teaching, but ESPECIALLY for teaching out of your home. As for pricing, I use a tiered system. My late Sensei used a tiered pricing structure for group classes, and it worked quite well for him, so I carried it over into private lessons. The more lessons you pay for up front, the less they cost per lesson--$35 for a 30 minute lesson, by itself, but buying packages of 4, 8, or 12 gets you discounts. When I start the group classes, I'll be doing the same thing based on the number of classes they want to attend that month.

Personally, I don't think it will ever be left behind, entirely, but I do foresee the schism that currently exists between, broadly, three categories of karate, becoming more clearly defined, and possibly even resulting in the naming of distinct styles. Those being sport, budo, and practical karate. Sport karate is pretty broad, encompassing everything from point sparring, to knockdown and Karate Combat. The consistent feature is that success in competitive sparring is the goal, meaning that the competitive ruleset is what selects the techniques and training methods. This effectively removes the need for and importance of kata training, and honestly could just be called "kickboxing." Budo karate is all about preserving tradition and striving for the perfection of oneself. This is your typical 3-K approach to training, and typically doesn't involve much sparring, if any. There can be a competitive aspect to this, but you'll typically find that it is kata performance, because it requires the highest level of refinement. This would be the "traditional" approach. Practical karate is about the ability to use the kata as templates for techniques that are effective for self-defense, including grappling methods, and using training methods that will allow one to actually apply those techniques under pressure. Due to the context for which karate was developed, this can cross over pretty well to MMA--mainly for the clinch and cage-work--but not all that well to sport karate competition formats. This would incorporate the "classical" approach, but I could honestly see it ending up with a different name than "karate."

Welcome to the forum, and good luck with your new dojo!

Welcome to the forum!

Welcome to the forum!