Wastelander

You won't find one that will do what you want for "around 100" unless it's used and a friend is selling it to you. My Panasonic HDC-SD90 does a pretty darn good job recording movements in martial arts and records at 60fps in high definition 1080p, but it cost around $500.

In Shuri-Ryu we normally used a Shuri fist (fist with the index finger laid flat on the meat of the thumb) but we also used the vertical fist as a technique to slip through someone's guard or sometimes for striking the solar plexus. After training longer and trying out different things, I use it almost exclusively for backfists and hammerfists because it keeps the thumb from putting pressure on my index finger during backfists and it keeps my thumb tucked out of the way for hammerfists.

I notice that you replied to an old article that Shorin-Ryuu wrote. I can't say that he will respond to that because it hasn't been replied to for 4 years. You would really be better off sending him a PM through the link I provided you to his profile.

I had to do some searching but I'm pretty sure their dojo closed. From what I could find, Shorin Ryuu (http://www.karateforums.com/member1917.html) and P.A.L (http://www.karateforums.com/member3353.html) on this forum may know them more personally, so you could try asking them.

Honestly, the final confrontation was completely unnecessary--the police had been called (and arrived almost immediately after he had been choked out, from the looks of the video) and the man had not made any credible threat of imminent bodily harm to anyone. It is good that people who were ready to act were present, but in looking at it I don't feel that his actions were necessary at the time that he performed them. That's just my opinion, though.

I don't have personal experience with either brand, but I have met several people (including my instructors) who swear by the Shureido gi (which are embroidered where you want, by the way). I have heard that they come a little big and as long as you wash in cold water and line dry it shouldn't shrink much, so I would think you should pick the 165cm one.

I understand where this point of view comes from, but have you ever broken boards before? I find it to be fun and a great stress relief to hit something and have it break, so I do it for the fun of it. We really hardly ever do board breaking at my dojo--maybe once a year--and it's usually just for fun/demonstrations or if a group of students is having a particularly hard time with the idea of striking through a target.

If you look down the board you should see that the board is not perfectly flat, but is ever so slightly bowed in one direction--that is called the "crown" of the board. Hold it so that the board curves toward you. If you can't tell, or the board turns out to actually be flat, then what DWx explained is also a good way to determine how to hold it.

If those are good schools then either one of them should fulfill that list of things you want out of karate. As far as kumite being softer, that's hard to say--if they only do point sparring then yes, but some karate schools do have hard contact or full contact sparring. You really need to visit both school and watch a class or two and participate in a trial class or two before you make your decision. You, personally, will need to make the determination of whether the instructor and the training methods at each school work well with you.

Montana and bushido_man96, you two would be very good judges and I wish there were more like you, but I must have missed those competitions--the competitions I have been to tend to have kata judged on speed, control, flashiness and exaggerated stances. I'd gladly run my kata the way I want instead of trying to make it look like a "competition kata" but the only times I've won are when I am in my lowest stances, doing my highest kicks, doing a loud kiai on the strongest-looking techniques and doing the occasional tension technique.

Judging in kata competition is always completely subjective--one day with one set of judges you might win 1st place and the next day with different judges and the exact same performance you could be in last place. Long, low stances and exaggerated techniques do tend to bump up your score, and so does throwing in the occasional slow motion or tension technique or loud kiai. I will admit that I have done all of these things in kata competition, by the way . It can be fun to see all kinds of different kata being run in all kinds of different ways, and sometimes you can even pick up on useful bits as long as the people running them aren't exaggerating to the point of losing the kata completely (although I have definitely seen that happen).

There was a Kudo/Daido Juku dojo opened in Portugal back in 2000, according to the organization's website. What they do is basically Kyokushin and Judo put together. Maybe you can contact them for help finding somewhere to train? http://www.ku-do.com/eng/index.html

There is no shame in your decision. Often when people decide to quit training karate it is because they aren't getting what the want out of it, but that is usually because they do not yet see the value of what they are learning as far as how it applies to what they want to learn. The things that you are wanting, however (other students your age, sparring, competition and effective self defense basics) should be evident in a dojo fairly early on and if those are the things you want and your current dojo doesn't have them, it's time to move on. I'm not sure about Kyokushin but I want to say Portugal has a decent Shotokan presence but I could very well be wrong.

I haven't taken a blow to the throat in training that I haven't absorbed with the muscles of my neck, but before I trained I did, once. My windpipe was visibly dented, albeit not very far, and I ended up squeezing the sides of the dent gently until it popped back out. That was probably one of the most panic-inducing moments of my life, I'll be honest--I couldn't talk and it was very hard to breath.

Is there a particular reason you want a LIGHTWEIGHT gi that is 100% cotton? It's much easier to find a 100% cotton middleweight or heavyweight gi. The problem with 100% cotton lightweight ones is that they tear apart really easily.

I don't think there is anything wrong with martial arts being practiced as a leisure activity, so long as it doesn't get lose its effectiveness as an art so that the people who want to practice seriously are able to do so and all can benefit from it. As to your questions, I haven't had a dan ranking yet, so I'm afraid I can't address that one. I have failed a kyu ranking before, though--I failed my sankyu test the first time around. I also have known several other people who haven't passed kyu ranking exams and I know at least one, but maybe two people (I can't remember for sure on the second one) that failed their shodan exams. I think part of the reason that there is a high rate of passing is certainly because of lowered standards in some schools, but I think in other schools there is a high passing rate because instructors are only testing their students after they KNOW that the student can pass, and that assures a much higher likelihood that the student actually will pass.

Pretty much any martial arts supply company will have those. Century is the most common and is reasonably priced: http://www.centurymartialarts.com/Uniforms/Lightweight_Uniforms/6_oz_Lightweight_Student_Uniform.aspx

I haven't trained anywhere near as long as many people on this board--sensei8 included, of course--but the longer I train the more I find that styles are very restrictive and that everyone develops their own way of training their respective styles. I've come to terms with the fact that things will change over time based on who is teaching the art and passing it on, and I believe that I will one day pass on an art that is different in appearance from what I originally learned, but still true to the vision of the art.

Crescent kicks really hurt my knee, so I don't really use them in sparring and we only have one crescent kick in one kata in our curriculum, anyway. I do use crescent kicks from the ground, though--that's about the only place that I, personally, find them to be useful.

Wow! I really hate politics in martial arts! I'm glad you were able to be reinstated and absolved of any accused wrongdoing, sensei8. I can think of plenty of reasons that the President of an organization would need to be expelled but I highly doubt you would qualify for that, given your knowledge and attitude toward martial arts.

Well, that depends on your definition of "nice" but HandmadeSword.com has some good ones that look nice that fell well within your budget--mine was $250 from that site and works well for kata and some light cutting. For a REALLY nice katana, custom forged ones are the way to go and I know people who make them, but you're looking at probably double your budget and a wait for them to make it

As pretty much everyone else has said, a heavyweight gi is hotter and more durable, but I would also add that they tend to be more expensive. If you KNOW you are going to be training for a long time then the investment in a good, heavyweight gi makes sense, but if you don't know for sure if you'll stick with it then you would probably be okay just buying a cheap middleweight gi.

I agree that you need to learn control, but that's because I believe that EVERYONE can benefit from developing control. That said, what exactly did she expect when sparring in a Kyokushin dojo? It's a style known for full-contact, knockdown fighting, so she can't honestly expect the same type of control she's used to from a Shotokan dojo. When I went to spar with some Kyokushin folks I fully expected that their level of control and contact was going to result in me getting hit a lot harder than I had been hit in point sparring and probably at least a bit harder than the contact sparring I've done. You can't walk into a dojo that trains a full-contact style and expect them to tap your gi for a point unless you work that out with your partner in advance.

But if it's just broken down kata, why not call it Kata. Even call it kihon. Why displace it from the rest of the art and create a new label? Well, I don't feel that it particularly matters what you call it. Most people who train martial arts are recreational martial artists and they don't really care what it is called as long as it helps them reach their goals (fitness, self defense, competition, etc.) and so if you told them they were going to work kata and then just had them work a small piece of it against an attacker, maybe they would make the connection and maybe they wouldn't. If you tell them you're going to work self defense techniques and that the techniques they are working come from kata, they don't have to make the connection because you just told them what it was. I suppose it is kind of silly, but that's just the way I see it

We do have specific "self defense techniques" that are just short response drills to certain types of attacks, so in that way we do compartmentalize. That said, just about every technique in those drills comes from kata and we do explain that. The idea behind this is that it can take a long time to break down a kata and become proficient at its application and being able to use the application in self defense, but we can teach some basic defensive techniques from the kata that they can use right away.