Wastelander

Different martial arts will place varying degrees of emphasis on both the "martial" and "art" portions of the term. Some tai chi is actually very hands-on and combative, although the majority may not be. If the origin of it is martial in nature, and it can still be trained in that manner, then the art is still a martial art, even if most people aren't training in it that way. At a certain point, though, I would say things become "martial-themed arts," such as XMA/tricking.

My favorite instance of alternative naming for techniques is chudan-soto-uke/chudan-uchi-uke. These are always two different techniques, but which name is applied to which technique changes from school to school and style to style, because there are two approaches to naming them: 1. Name the movement based on the direction it travels 2. Name the movement based on the part of the arm that is leading the movement I end up always having to clarify this when I'm teaching seminars, because I call the middle level receiver that moves to the outside "chudan-soto-uke" (middle level outside receiver), but many schools would call that "chudan-uchi-uke" (middle level inside receiver) because they are used to using the inside edge of the forearm to "block" things.

Thank you all, for the votes, and congratulations to all of the winners!

Welcome to the forum!

Welcome to the forum!

Congratulations, Bob, and thank you for all of your contributions to the community!

Sounds like good material to share, to me. I would certainly be interested in following along with it.

Welcome to the forum!

"Complete" is a bad word to use in terms of martial arts, because in order for a martial art to be "complete," literally, it would have to contain every possible fighting technique in existence, which is patently ridiculous. No martial art is, or can ever be, "complete." The only real way to use "complete" in relation to martial arts in a manner that makes any sense is with regard to direct transfer of a system from one person to another; was the "complete" curriculum of the system taught to the student, or not. Even then, though, we have to understand that people are flawed creatures, and also agents of change. I don't teach the exact same thing this year that I did three years ago, or three years before that. I am certain I have also forgotten things, while I've learned other things. Martial arts shouldn't be stagnant, unchanging, etched-in-stone curricula of combat, and I don't believe they ever were in the past, so we can't expect anyone to have learned the "complete" art from their teacher, because it was constantly evolving. The whole point was for the student to keep that evolution going. Now, a martial art can be "well-rounded," in the sense that it covers a wide range of combative ranges and contexts. In that sense, I would say that karate was, and for some people still is "well-rounded." Okinawa already had native fighting arts, and then it started blending with arts from China, Malaysia, Thailand, Korea, and Japan. Some people learned entire systems, as their instructor taught them at the time, and some didn't, but they all changed what they learned as they went, as well.

My late Sensei bought his on Okinawa, and it cost him around $200, IIRC. I can't say I've seen them for sale for less than that, here in the US, unless they are rather small. If a small one would work for you, I think I've seen a couple on Amazon. You could always build your own, as well?

As soon as you mentioned Matsumura Seito I had a pretty good idea. Not alot of the Okinawan based guys are doing kiko...and Ryan makes a heck of an impression with his iron body skill demonstrations! I have "known" Ryan for a long time. He and I both go back to the early days of the interwebs when websites were new and we were all on email mailing lists. I don't know if he would know me from "Adam" nowadays...it has been a while. The thing that struck me with what Ryan was (is) doing...at least that I am aware of, I can't claim to know all of his training and information...is that it seems to all be "hard" kiko. Meaning iron body and/or Golden Bell types of training. That is certainly a part of the qigong of [southern] China, but the softer portions seem to be "missing". Anyway, good to know that we both "know" some of the same people...or at least Ryan! LOL! It's a small world! I've only gotten to train with him for a weekend, when I hosted a training event, but we've had online discussions for years and years. He's somewhat more withdrawn from the internet in the past few, though. As I recall, he does incorporate internal kiko methods, but he ALSO practices Tibetan hatha yoga, and some related methods, so how much of a blend he does is hard for me to say. It'd be best to ask him directly.

His name would not be Ryan would it? It would, indeed! I actually suspected you may already be familiar with him--if you're not him, yourself, with the wonders of anonymity on the internet . In all fairness, I haven't had a conversation on kiko with him for many years, so my memory on it is a bit hazy.

My thought would be that every instructor emphasized different aspects of the arts they taught, and not everyone who trains karate is interested in kiko, today, so it stands to reason that not everyone would have been interested in it in the past. I have a friend who learned kiko from one of his Okinawan instructors (can't remember if it was Matsumura Seito or Ryukyu Kempo), and what he's explained to me seems pretty well systematized, so some lineages certainly have it. That said, I haven't seen many other people from his lineages doing it, so it would seem that only the people with an interest really took it on.

Welcome to the forum!

The name sounds like it would be translated as "30 Hands," although without having kanji, it's hard to be certain. I can't think of any karate kata by that name, nor was I able to find any other martial arts forms with a name that in any way references "30 Hands," from any style. From looking at it, I would say that this was someone's new creation using bits and pieces of existing kata, since every piece of that form is found in other kata, almost verbatim. I would also guess that it was invented specifically FOR tournaments, as it starts at the front and then moves backward, which is a fairly common practice when creating competition forms, as you do not have to back away from the judges after announcing yourself in order to start.

Welcome to the forum! I do believe we have a Kyokushin practitioner or two on here, or at least people who have experience in it. I've just got Kyokushin friends, and have occasionally visited them for sparring and such, myself.

Depends on what you plan to do, but for me, it would be sparring gloves, mouthguard, groin protector, and a pair of Thai pads, or some other kind of striking mitts. If you could do mats, that would be ideal, but for bare minimum, this would cover the vast majority of partnered training. You have the safety equipment to spar with, and pads you can use to work your techniques and combinations with full power, to make up for the fact that you won't be going full-force with everything in sparring. Throws and takedowns will have to be done with control, though, or skipped entirely, without mats to fall on.

I mean, essentially you have rank in whatever your instructor says you have rank in, whether it makes sense or not, lol. To me, if you are training two different styles, and being ranked in one while doing some cross-training with another and blending that in, you're still ranked in just the one style. If you're training two styles that have been fully blended together into one style that you are being ranked in, then you have rank in just the one style, not its parent styles. If you're training in two styles that are completely separate and distinct from each other, you have rank in whichever of those you're being tested for rank in, so either one or both. With your situation--and I may be misinterpreting this--it sounds as though you are training two separate systems, but the ranking is done as a whole? With that being the case, I would probably say that you have rank in two styles, even if that only comes with one belt and certificate, so long as that certificate of rank says you trained in both of those styles. Semantics are weird

There is always the possibility that there are simply no active Shotokan practitioners in your area. If that turns out to be the case, I would encourage you to seek training in another art, even if it means "starting over," so to speak.

I'm afraid a Google search is probably going to cover more ground than asking here, just because Google is much bigger, but I'm sure if someone in the area is a member here, they'll chime in when they see your post. In the meantime, you might look into things like Nextdoor, and see if anyone else in your area knows somebody, or would like to join you for training.

It's really up to your instructor. In general, though, it's pretty rare that anyone cares that the labels on the keikogi and obi match. I don't think most people buy the same brand of keikogi and obi, to begin with, because of pricing, fit, and customization options.

I've been fairly quiet about having left, unless organizational topics come up. I considered writing a public announcement about the whole thing, but it just seems like a bunch of unnecessary drama. I'm sure that, eventually, someone in the organization is going to come across a post or interview where I discuss it, and it will cause drama then, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. The payment for rank is definitely a limiting factor for a lot of people (including myself), so I totally get that. The man who officially put me up for Sandan after my Sensei passed away had actually put off his 6th Dan for several years for that very reason, although he did end up paying for both the 6th Dan and a Shihan license, in the end. It's honestly always seemed strange to me that rank costs more as you go higher--the tests tend to get progressively shorter (or nonexistent, eventually), and you have less and less to prove over time, so what are you paying for? Not the time of the testing panel, certainly, and not to prove you are dedicated, since you would already have been training for quite a long time.

Looks like Shinzato Masahiro is listed as a legitimate 9th Dan in my Okinawan Shorin-Ryu Karate-Do Association book, although it looks like his lineage is tied to Miyahira, rather than directly through his father to Chibana. Still, Miyahira taught solid Shorin-Ryu.

Yes. I'm mostly checking if is a legitimate school. The problem with "fake" schools appears just after 2 or more years of commitment. Before that not much can be noticed. Is there any way to check if Shinzato has trained with Tokuda and Chibana. In Brazil we have a lot of problems with fake schools. In Chibana page inside Shinshukan website (https://shinshukan.com.br/site/choshin-chibana/ ) we can read the following Mestre Chibana teve mais de 5000 alunos e entre eles o Mestre Katsuya Miyahira que foi seu auxiliar e Mestre Yoshihide Shinzato (10º Dan), este considerado o mais importante Mestre fora de Okinawa, fundador da União Shorin-Ryu Karate-Do do Brasil e da International Union Shorin-Ryu Karate-Do Federation, entidade que é formada pelas mais importantes federações do estilo Shorin-Ryu do mundo todo. Freely translated by me: Master Chibana had more than 5000 students and among them Master Katsuya Miyahira that was your auxiliar and Master Yoshihide Shinzato (10 dan), the latter considered the most importante master outside Okinawa, founder of Brazilian Shorin-Ryu Karate-Do Union and International Union Shorin-Ryu Karate-Do federation, institution formed by the most important federations of Shorin-Ryu style around the world. I could not find any reference to this International Union Shorin-Ryu Karate-Do Federation, except from websites in portuguese, that could be only echoes of the original Shinshukan website by it's own students. I would go further the portuguese wikipedia article Chosin Chibana (https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choshin_Chibana) makes reference to Yoshihide Shinzato. While the most complete article in english (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%8Dshin_Chibana), makes no such reference. It looks like the portuguese version was crafted only to endorse what is on brazilian websites. In the page about Yoshihide Shinzato (https://shinshukan.com.br/site/yoshihide-shinzato/), it list some titles, among them there are: 8th dan World Karate Federation, 9th dan Kobudo Shin-Shu-Kan, 10th dan Okinawa Shorin-Ryu Karate-Do, 10th dan Karate-Do Hanshi and Kobu-do Hanshi. The Shorin-Ryu wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%8Drin-ry%C5%AB) do not list Shinshukan as a legitimate school. By any chance, any of those institutions provides a way to see all granted degrees, specialy the very high ones as 8th, 9th and 10th dan and Hanshi title? Is there any way to verify those informations? I had my share of problems with those kind of school. When reaching high degrees you start to notice the lack of consistency in techniques, also you become isolated, and, if for some reason, you need to change schools, your degree isn't recognized anywhere else. You could probably contact the WKF, as they are a large organization, but I would argue that being ranked by the WKF means little to nothing in terms of legitimacy, beyond the fact that they are willing to follow the WKF's guidelines for competition. I could take a look at my books at home, sometime, and see if he's listed as a student of Chibana anywhere in them, but just because he isn't listed somewhere doesn't mean he wasn't. That said, he most definitely wasn't one of Chibana's senior students--Miyahira Katsuya, Nakazato Shugoro, and Nakama Chozo generally being considered to be the inheritors of his system. With that in mind, his 10th dan ranking certainly didn't come from Chibana, although that doesn't make it illegitimate, either, as a great many legitimate Okinawan instructors have been promoted to 9th and 10th dan after their instructor's passing by vote of their contemporaries, or an overseeing organization of some kind. I have to slightly disagree with you on that. Martial arts has lost it's combative usability in modern days. It's mostly for health and tradition. For health I can pretty much run in a mill and that would be ok. By ignoring the historical side we are losing (roughly) 50% of what a martial art can offer. I get what you're saying here, and you're not wrong, but my point was more that you are unlikely to train there for any length of time if you don't like the way they train, and it doesn't line up with your goals, regardless of its history.

Well, I would say it exists, because you found it and it has a website. If you're asking whether it is "legitimate," I'm afraid I can't say much about that except that Shinzato apparently trained with Tokuda and Chibana, so he should have learned fairly solid karate. You'll have to see if you like the training, though--that's more important than the historical aspects!