Wastelander

Lateral movement and angles are definitely going to be your friend when it comes to countering people, in general. I do tend to throw front kicks and side kicks to stop people from blitzing me, but every now and then someone is able to slip the kick or has better timing than me and gets in close. It's at that point I usually step off at an angle with a roundhouse kick to the bladder (usually lands for me because their hands are up expecting punches) or I will throw a spinning backfist before stepping off-line (this one lands pretty often, too, because they see me turn my back and think I'm covering up so they feel comfortable dropping their hands into their attack). Every now and then, though, I'll end up with somebody who just DOES NOT STOP MOVING FORWARD--it doesn't matter if I hit them or move, they just keep pressing forward. On those people I usually just do my best to keep my distance by moving off laterally and picking my shots, or I'll clinch up and take them down, but I don't know if your style includes grappling or not.

You've only been training for a month. I understand that this isn't going to be what you want to hear, but you aren't going to be good at sparring after a month of training. You just need more time and practice! We don't normally have anybody start sparring until they have been training for about 4 months, and even then it takes time to get a feel for really hitting someone and really getting hit. You'll find that deflecting and blocking incoming strikes is a lot less about specific technique and a lot more about muscle memory--I find myself moving to block and deflect without even thinking about it and I can't even remember what technique I used after I've done it. You'll get that with practice, so don't worry about being "good" at sparring because you won't be for a while. The more you do it, the better you'll get, though. Just keep your hands up wherever your sensei tells you to keep them (I keep mine about shoulder height until I get into punching range and then I pull them up high and tight to protect my head) and practice drills for moving/attacking and moving/defending and, of course, spar every now and then.

1 Have you ever trained with a different style of martial arts? --Yes, I have trained with Kyokushin people, White Crane people, Kenpo people, and Kensho-Do people as well as people who have mixed backgrounds. 2 Have you ever trained in another country? --Only if Hawaii counts as another country? It doesn't? Then no, I've only trained in the U.S. 3 Have you ever trained outdoors? --Yes, I have, in front of the dojo, at couple of parks and at a couple of beaches. 4 Have you ever trained so hard you couldn't stand? --Yes 5 Have you ever had dreams about training? --Routinely 6 Have you ever been knocked unconscious during training? --No, but I did come close once when I took a shot right under the right ear and my vision went dark and my legs wobbled, but I stayed upright and my vision cleared up. I have been dropped by pain, though. 7 Have you ever intentionally lost a fight? --Of course I have. The kids would never spar with me if I didn't give them openings to try for and opportunities to win 8 Have you ever run from a fight? --I have avoided confrontation and bad situations. Does that count? 9 Have you ever cried during training? --Yes 10 Have you ever saved your own life with martial arts? --I don't think so 11 Have you ever saved another person's? --Only if using MasterPain's advice almost verbatim ("Don't do stupid things in stupid places with stupid people") has kept them from danger.

I had heard he had taken ill and had stopped teaching classes regularly. Thanks for the update and hopefully he will make a miraculous recovery.

I think everyone pretty well covered it--what you teach depends entirely upon what you want to achieve with your teaching. If you want to perpetuate your style for the sake of passing it on then you should teach it exactly as you were taught--I know people who do this and are very good martial artists, even though I don't like some of what they do. If you want to teach and art that is as effective as you can make it, then you may need to teach supplementary material that isn't normally part of the curriculum of your core art and you may have to remove "fluff". Or, as MasterPain mentioned, you could do both by stating that certain techniques are or are not part of the style and why you are teaching them anyway.

Well, I am not any of the things that you listed at the beginning of this post, but I wouldn't become angry, first of all. I've met black belts that I feel I am more skilled and more knowledgeable than, and I've met people who have been training half as long as me that are more skilled and more knowledgeable than I am. It's entirely possible that even though I don't think someone should be a black belt, their previous instructor may still have thought they should be. Now, if you are talking about someone going out on the mat and it becoming obvious that they have NO training AT ALL, that's another story. Either way, it is something you would need to talk to that person about. Again, I don't think anger gets you anywhere in this situation, but you can still try to find out if they lied to you and why, or if their instructor truly did give them that rank and they just had poor training, or if they maybe experienced some injury or trauma that is causing them to perform badly.

You will find there are many arts that branched off from other arts because the founders of the new ones found faults in the old ones, even though those faults may not actually have been there. As for blocking with the forearm being "outdated" or "too traditional" I think you are wrong, but it depends on how the block is applied--modern police officers, security personnel and MMA fighters use their forearms to block all the time even if it doesn't look like a traditional karate-style block. Regardless, the training will toughen you up so that no matter how you use your forearms to block they will be able to stand up to the punishment. My advice would be to try out classes for a while--as Liver Punch said, about a year or maybe even two--and see how you like it. In that amount of time you should develop a solid base in how to move, how to generate power and how to absorb/receive attacks so even if you don't feel they do realistic enough training you won't have been wasting your time.

Now, see, this is one of those things that seems totally odd to me, because I have ALWAYS worn my gi to and from the dojo, ever since I first got a gi--normally I go straight there and back, but every now and then I do have to stop and run errands and I usually take the gi top and belt off, but sometimes I don't if it's cold or I need to carry more than my keys. It was never mentioned to me when I started training and the habit stuck because I am one of those people that hates changing in locker rooms, or even bathrooms (I am ALWAYS early to class, so that isn't the issue). I can see where everyone is coming from, but I just don't feel like it's any more of a big deal than wearing a cyclists outfit--maybe a little weird to those outside the hobby, and not something you would normally wear, but there isn't anything terrible about not changing out of it to stop and pick up a gallon of milk.

Embroidering your name on your gi is commonplace in MANY martial arts--it's extremely common in Judo, for example, and I've seen it in many karate styles. There's nothing wrong with putting your name on your gi--if you guys take off your gi periodically while training, or if you all have one dressing room, it's a very practical thing to do. I would just stay away from belt embroidery unless your instructor gets it for you as a gift.

Definitely watch how people throw it in competition and have your sparring partners emulate it and ask your instructor what to do about it. I have found that a lot of people are open for ridge hands and spinning backfists, actually. I love doing both of them off of a duck-cover-and-turn so they rush in at me and right into either of those strikes, and I know a guy who is really good at catching you with them off of a step back while my instructor knows somebody who loves to step in with them and do a sweep at the same time. There are lots of ways to land a ridge hand, so you'll have to find out what ways are landing on you so your instructor can help you with those.

In my dojo we tend to do semi-contact (continuous) unless the kids who compete in tournaments are practicing for a tournament, and then we do more light-contact (continuous) and some point matches. We hit hard enough to let our partner know they were hit, but not hard enough to cause too many injuries (although it still happens on occasion).

No apologies necessary. It was me who made you believe that the way I wrote it, so I apologize to you. I don't really consider rough-housing, joking, etc "karate". My point about "blocks" is that they are not designed by the karate gods to be "blocks". These are techniques that are either striking at something, deflecting the opponent's hit out of the way to allow you to hit a soft target, or give you the opportunity to grab your opponent. A chest block can easily trap your opponents arm, strike the inside of it or worse. A head block can deliver a strike with your fist or elbow, or merely open the door for you to grab an arm. It is a big mistake to think of these techniques as "blocks" (as opposed to "uke" techniques) and many people do. No problem--that sort of thing can happen pretty easily over the internet. I would agree that rough-housing/joking aren't really "karate" but the blocking response still comes from my training. I agree that what are generally called "blocks" are actually techniques for receiving an attack in some way, as you describe, but I suppose I'm one of those weird people who isn't that concerned with the semantics--deflecting or brushing an attack aside, jamming an attack or covering up are all still "blocking" to me even though they technically aren't . I also don't care too much if you call it a middle block or high block even when you are using it to strike or apply a joint lock or choke. We needed to have something to call a motion that does a large number of things, so we had to pick something and it ended up being "block", probably because people learned block-punch-kick omote bunkai for so long and didn't know it as anything other than a block and when ura bunkai opened up we just kept the name. It would be kind of awkward to start calling them something like "middle receiving technique" and it seems like too much work to specifically name them differently for every application when the motion is the same.

Since you quoted me it seemed like you were directing it me, so I apologize for the misinterpretation. I agree that you can't just know what a person behind you is doing and spin around to block them, but I do have to slightly disagree with you on the idea that there is no such thing as a "block" in karate--I think that there can be, but it's not usually the most effective thing you can do. When coworkers/friends/family/my wife jokingly punch at me I will usually block it, and that's all--either a palm block, a swim block or a backhand block, typically--which works out just fine because I don't get hit and they don't get hurt. If someone were attacking me, those reactions would probably save me from getting hit once or twice, but blocking is not the most efficient use of my energy when it comes to self defense because it does nothing to end the threat unless I manage to block so hard that they hurt themselves and give up, lol. I would much rather deflect an attack while countering than simply block and wait my turn to attack the attacker.

Oyata Sensei used to have my instructor run Naihanchi with turns back when he did Ryukyu Kempo--every time he did a step over his own foot he pivoted all the way around--which I think works great for working techniques against attacks/grabs from the rear. I tend to agree with you that turns all the way around can be for defending against attackers that come up behind you, but sometimes they can also be throws or joint locks--there's just all kinds of fun stuff in kata! Like all aspects of kata, they are techniques of body movement put in there to give your body muscle memory of fighting techniques that work in given situations. Try this out, do a body turn while you are holding an uke from the front. Kata is not designed to illustrate fighting against multiple opponents. To think multiple opponents in bunkai, is Mickey Mouse bunkai stuff in my opinion. I never said bunkai was for fighting multiple opponents, I said "attacks/grabs from the rear". People have most certainly been documented to come up and hit you in the head from behind, or grab your shoulder to turn you around and punch you, or grab your arms to isolate them if there DOES happen to be another person that they are working with to attack you. Sure, you will probably get hit before you know they are there if you are attacked from behind, but at least if you have built some muscle memory for responding to being attacked from behind you might be able to initiate some sort of defensive response other than freezing up and letting yourself get beat on. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about, not the "kata is for fighting eight guys at a time" thing.

Oyata Sensei used to have my instructor run Naihanchi with turns back when he did Ryukyu Kempo--every time he did a step over his own foot he pivoted all the way around--which I think works great for working techniques against attacks/grabs from the rear. I tend to agree with you that turns all the way around can be for defending against attackers that come up behind you, but sometimes they can also be throws or joint locks--there's just all kinds of fun stuff in kata!

Thank you very much for the feedback, and I'm glad that you enjoyed it!

So people tell me, but I feel a lot older than I am--I've dislocated my right knee twice and it aches fairly often, I throw my back out just by standing up out of bed (or sleeping, in some cases), I grew up with asthma and my lung capacity has never seemed to improve even though I'm in better shape, I'm tired all the time because it takes me several hours to fall asleep at night (if I'm lucky), and it turns out that I have to have surgery in a few weeks to repair two hernias. For being 24 years old, this month, I certainly seem to be falling apart . I've been in better shape for the past 6 years I've been training than I've ever been before (currently ~175lbs and 15% body fat and training regularly) but there has never been a point in my life when I could keep up with your average 13 year old. In other words, I've BEEN working on it and haven't really gained much ground . Thanks, though!

It has nothing to do with being competitive and everything to do with being effective. A body scissors can potentially crack ribs, yes, or it could possibly rupture a person's liver, spleen or pancreas and cause them to DIE. That may not be a common problem, but it has happened in the past, as I recall, which is what got it banned in Judo. Aside from that, though, it really isn't a very effective way to submit someone unless you do have very strong legs, and even then they could lock your ankle, slam you onto the mat or simply turn sideways and throw your legs over their head and pass to side control or mount (which is what I have always done on people who do body scissors because they don't know how to use guard). You all need to find a legitimate place to actually learn how to grapple. As for telling you things to look up online, that would be like aiding you in hurting another person by doing something you don't know how to properly and safely do, so I won't do it.

Really? You make people tap out with a body scissors and full nelson? You need to find a BJJ, Judo, Sambo or any other proper submission grappling school. I can tell you to Google how to do armbars, keylocks and heel hooks all day, but without someone who knows how to do them properly teaching you it is pretty unlikely that you will be able to do them very effectively.

I am well aware of where Shorin Ryu comes from. I suggest that you do some research on the men I mention before going further on this thread. More importantly, it would be ridiculous to think that there was no Japanese influence on the development of karate, even when Okinawa was a sovereign nation pre-Meiji Restoration. Heck, it is well known that Anko Itosu went to Japan to study at one of the premiere iaido schools of the day. Are you going to tell us that he never had any Japanese Ju Jitsu lessons? Now, now, Ueshirokarate--we don't want to discourage newer students from participating in conversations about karate, and scohen.mma is still an orange belt, I believe . He is relating what his Sensei said, and it isn't technically incorrect, either. Shorin-Ryu practitioners of the past DID incorporate training from Japan, but that still does not make Shorin-Ryu Japanese any more than learning Shogi and applying concepts from it to chess makes chess Japanese (forgive me, because I am bad at analogies and that's the best one I could think of ). I think that all he meant was that Shorin-Ryu, for the most part, remained based in Okinawa and continued to be practiced in the manner in which it had been taught in the past and was not transplanted from Okinawa to Japan and modified to suit the Japanese like Shotokan was over time.

What do you mean? How can it be harmful? If you overstretch in such a way that you increase your flexibility more than your muscular strength can resist to maintain a safe range of motion you are more likely to have joint dislocations. The way that I was able to build up to high side kicks and roundhouse kicks was actually by working a LOT out of a low horse stance--it's a combination stretch and strengthening exercise.

Hanshi Nakazato of the Shorinkan still moves pretty fluidly and swiftly for a person in his 90's, and Hanshi Perry is very smooth, very powerful and very fast and he is in his 70's. That said, I do believe that kata like Sanchin and Tensho, which are not part of the Shorinkan curriculum (although I can't speak for other branches of Shorin-Ryu) but are part of Goju-Ryu and Uechi-Ryu, certainly contribute to fluidity over time as they require the practitioner to utilize fluid motions while under tension. I don't really buy into the idea that different styles make people age better or worse, however, because I think that it really comes down to how you train more than what you train. Sure, things like Sanchin and Tensho may help you keep fluid movement as you age, but that doesn't necessarily mean that other kata or exercises couldn't accomplish the same thing.

Thanks! I know my Sensei wouldn't have passed me if I didn't deserve it, but I still feel like my form suffered because I felt miserable and, according to everyone in attendance, I looked about like I felt, so I think the fact that I refused to give up, pass out or throw up may have helped

So you're learning from DVD's and having someone double-check it for you, without any partner work or sparring? What credentials does your "Sensei" have, because it doesn't sound like any training program I have ever heard of from any reputable martial arts instructors. That said, Kenpo is very effective when taught correctly, so it can most certainly prepare you to defend yourself.

Hello everyone, This is an article that I originally wrote for Mr. Kruczek's OKI Blog website that I have since fleshed out and reworded in order to better clarify my ideas. I understand that, as a mudansha who has only been training for 6 years, I am nowhere near a point in my life and training where I understand everything about the art that I practice. This is merely my own personal philosophy on martial arts training, so I don't want anyone to feel as though I am preaching to the choir for the sake of hearing my own voice/reading my own words, or explaining something that I have no right to explain. This is how I currently envision training when I think about it, and I am curious to hear what others with more experience have to say about my thought process and personal philosophy. Thanks for checking it out! The Karate Tree