Ueshirokarate

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?

IMHO, none of the major styles suck. What sucks are some of the schools/teachers. Let's face it, it is all in the training and trainee and this varies by location. I think it is insulting to call any style a watered down version of another. I mean seriously, look at this style's lineage and influences: It has a higher level of Okinawan Masters than most Okinawan styles on Okinawa. http://americanwadoacademy.com/id2.html I have watched many, many Wado Ryu videos to get insights into my style, as it was heavily influenced by Choki Motubu (one of Nagamine's teachers and a hell of street figher) plus Kenwa Mabuni and Gichin Funikoshi (both direct students of Anko Itosu, who is pretty much the grandfather of all Okinawan Shorin Ryu styles). I started my training in the hombu dojo of a system started by the Chief Instructor of Master Nagamine's first dojo on Okinawa. The only way you can't get any more Okinawan than my dojo, is to go to Okinawa to train. Yet, I still have referred to Wado videos purely because I knew the style's lineage.

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. That and you can also injure tendons and ligaments. He should just take it bit by bit, this is a marathon and not a sprint. He'll get there unless he has some physiological issue that he is unaware of. I would suggest that if he does experience anything unusual that he should go see a physiatrist. However, if his issue is just lack of flexibility, all he needs is to work on it and give it time.

Because they lived longer?

You better be fast as lightening to try that we me, I look for such techniques as I like to grab legs in kumite. Once I have a leg, I can pretty much do anything I want to you from throwing you to delivering a devastating between the leg strike. Therefore, I personally think any kick above the waste should never be done in a fight. Many techniques in our katas are designed around grabbing kicking legs. That said, anyone can become much more flexible than they are. It just takes time and effort. If you really want to get this kick down, be patient, practice it and stretch, you'll get there. But remember, too much flexibility can be harmful in a multitude of ways.

It is absurd to think of Wado as a watered down version of anything. It is one of the styles of karate I would consider. It has a fascinating history and those who influenced its development are gentlemen I would really love to have met and trained under. Seriously, how many styles were directly influenced by two of Itosu's direct students and the street brawling karate fighter that put karate (and Funikoshi) on the map worldwide? Then you throw in influence from Ju Jitsu and you have one of, if not the most interesting styles of karate there is IMHO.

Shorin Ryu translates to Shaolin. There is a strong influence of it in karate.

Shotokan and Shorin Ryu are both base upon Shuri-te and they both share Anko-Itosu in their lineage. I do believe that most Shorin Ryu schools are slightly closer to what Itosu taught and lack mainland Japanese influence.

I am not sure which form of Bo kata your doing. There are two slightly different versions of Shiromatsu No Kon that was the traditional Matsubayashi Bo kata. In the Nagamine dojo, that was the only bo kata practiced for many years. There are now Matsubayashi based schools that have adopted Yamanni Ryu Kobudo in more modern times and some that kept one of the original versions of Shiromatsu No Kon and added others. You may wish to google that name on youtube and compare it to what you are learning. Kobudo (especially bo) is great physical training for any fighter by the way. I highly recommend becoming proficient at it.

Not exactly. Karate is from Okinawa. For most of its history, Okinawa was a sovereign nation (albeit dominated by China and Japan). The term "Kara Te", originally meant "China Hand" (the kanji can be spoken either way). It was changed to be more politically correct during a tumultuous time in that part of the world. Quite honestly, my perception of what true Okinawan Karate is, is a blending of many styles of Asian martial arts. Look at where Okinawa is on the map and you can see a ring of influence that expands beyond China and Okinawa. There are elements of Japanese Ju Jitsu and elements that greatly resemble modern day Muay Thai in true Okinawan karate. I can not speak for the Japanese styles that have a differing string of influence.

My guess is that you are the best qualified expert to answer your question and I suppose it comes down to what it is you seek by doing or not doing. In today's day and age, 300+ is a lot of students to have in a dojo. How have you marketed?

I go more for personal chemistry and how skilled and knowledgeable the instructor is, sometimes you just have to have faith and give it some time.

Generally I would agree. However, sometimes you are getting exactly what you want (and sometimes much more than that) and you just don't know this while you are getting it. I remember a black belt many years ago explaining koshi (in a very advanced way). He was visiting and it was all very strange at the time, within the context of what other teachers in the dojo were teaching. Fortunately, I listened to him, as something clicked in the way he was teaching it at the time. I could have very easily dismissed what he was teaching and I almost did, as I could not relate it to my training goals until it clicked. In other words, sometimes you don't know what you don't know.

Jason Scully has the best "solo" drills you can do for BJJ: Yes, I have a ton of such drills I know and can do. Really was looking purely to practice specific techniques like Omaplata, Americana, etc.

I like blunt and bladed instruments. Oh, and boomsticks. Handguns are probably the most efficient way to go, but I'd take rokushaku bo over a broom stick any day. I have much more practice with it.

Thanks for that. I am currently planning on training two days a week when possible. I still have to keep up my karate and then there are the things in life like family and work. There are plenty of conditioning type drills I know through my CMMACC certification and my work on things like the TRX and heavy bags allowed me to walk on the mat for the first time in years and pretty much be in good shape to role. I will certainly follow your suggestion and ad the shrimping type drills, which to date I have only seen video of. My biggest challenge is training to better learn technique. So I will certainly try your suggestion and use my large rubber mulch filled sand bags like a heavy bag and check out that book. I just ordered the Jiu Jitsu University book. By the way to you BJJ die-hards, my experience with BJJ and Judo has convinced me that if I had to choose one art, it would be a stand-up striking type one. It is freaking hard work taking someone to the ground and getting them in a choke or arm bar.

I am a karate guy. However, I am taking BJJ and find it just a heck of a lot of fun. I suck. I know practically nothing, but want to obviously change that. With Karate, I know how to train alone. I haven't a clue how to with BJJ. What do you guys do? Do you need a grappling dummy? They are very pricey.

I think the real question is, what are you trying to accomplish? I can give you a hundred books with all varieties of exercises that are each effective in their own respective way from barbell movements to Zumba. However, without a goal and some sort of progressive plan to reach it, exercise no matter how effective is pretty worthless. For example, you can do twenty push-ups (arguably one of the most efficient and effective exercises in the world) every other day for a year. Where have you gone? Does this make you capable of throwing harder punches or forty push-ups a year from now? No, it wouldn't. You would be in exactly the same place you are today. What if you rotated in twenty sit-ups on odd days? Net effect would be that you would be a little better trained, but would still be in the same place next year. What you need to do, is define what your specific goals are. Saying you want to get more explosive is not a goal. It needs to be much more specific and have a time frame (i.e. I want to have a stronger upper body and be able to do 70 push-ups by May 31st). Once you do that, find a variety of exercises that help you meet your goals and then develop a program of progressive overload with these exercise. Look at the 100 push-up program for an example: http://www.hundredpushups.com/index.html Following this program, you will be far ahead of where you would be by doing the twenty push-ups I mentioned earlier. That said, it is a program that is limited to one compound movement and does nothing for many aspects of your conditioning. Don't worry you're not alone, most people will jump from exercise technique to exercise technique thinking one is more effective than the next, or that they are missing out because they aren't doing that exercise they see others doing. This is a mistake. Most people would benefit the most from grabbing a core group of exercises such as push-ups, squats and pull-ups and then sticking with them for some time and increasing the intensity from session to session.

Traditionally, the more deadly applications of kata technique have been reserved for higher rank students. There were many things I did not learn and was not exposed to, until I was Ni-Kyu rank. You may or may not agree or believe me about this more conservative aspect of traditional Okinawan karate, but that is the way it is in many such schools. There is babysan applications in karate kata which are on the surface and then there are the real applications of karate kata and a whole bunch of uses for the movements in between. You must understand the history behind Okinawa to understand why techniques can be such a mystery to so many practitioners. For the most part, most karate throughout the world is intermediate level karate at best. It was spread by the soldiers stationed in Okinawa after the war. Okinawans were desperate for money and found karate was a marketable commodity, so they began to teach it to these guys. They were also the foreign invaders to their land, so they didn't teach them everything, so thousands of half-informed GIs went back to their respective countries and opened dojos teaching babysan karate. Additionally, it was tradition on Okinawa for only the most senior student of the style/system to know all the applications of the katas. So not even the instructors of these GIs knew everything. So while you may not "buy" hidden techniques, the reality is that there are many techniques that are just a complete mystery to many karate students for these reasons.

Welcome.

You should realize that mixing "grappling" and "striking is nothing new (despite the modern hype around "MMA"). Truth is that karate before the early 1900 had lots of grappling in it and Judo has striking within the style and came from Japanese Ju Jitsu which is chock full of both. By the way, Parker Shelton trained judo and matsubayashi concurrently starting in the early 1960s and still runs a school teaching both. He is an amazing martial artist, even today.

Thanks for sharing! I've never heard of this, as I'm not really a karate guy, but this is super cool. It's extremely reminiscent of various types of training you'll find in TCMA (Traditional Chinese Martial Arts). Well it originated on Okinawa (like karate) and probably has a strong influence from TCMA. We should all keep in mind that China, Far East Asia, Okinawa and Japan all traded with one another for a very long time. Martial arts from these regions all have one another in them in some way. Okinawa was kind of a backwater, but is situated as kind of ground zero for Asian martial arts, as it is relatively close to China, South East Asia and Japan. So elements resembling arts such as Muay Thai, Chuan Fa and Japanese Ju Jitsu can be found in traditional Okinawan Karate. So naturally, you can also find similar training methods as well.

Hojo undo is far more complex training that that and involves much more than "isometric" work. Here is a short video on it which will give you some idea. However, there is far more to it than what is just in the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBK5QZ-YsTs

My suggestion is to bravely step up and speak to your Sensei. I do not know him, but I do know the Matsubayashi method of training, which is a very heavy emphasis on kata, with some pre-arranged fighting drills, bunkai, etc. The system's founder Shoshin Nagamine greatly frowned upon tournament fighting. That said, Matsubayashi training has proved itself through competitors such as Parker Shelton and Bob Yarnell, who were both national champions and the latter was a Black Belt Magazine instructor of the year. As I mentioned earlier, these guys were competitive with Chuck Norris and other national fighters of their day. The system moved far away from tournament competitions in the late 70's and has not really ever returned to it, with the instructors preferring to follow Shoshin Nagamine's wishes. That does not mean you can't attend a school and work diligently at learning karate. All true Matsubayashi schools I have come across do an excellent job at training the student's body to move with karate techniques naturally without thought and react to an opponents actions. Once you get to the latter stage of San Kyu level, you will have a solid foundation within you. You start to really advance in your skills above this level and if you are interested in really fighting, you can use your skills to develop fighting tactics (i.e. putting series of moves together to fight with). You will need a like trained and minded partner to work things out with. You're 16 and have plenty of time to do this. A school like yours will really give you a very solid foundation in the fighting arts, if you are patient with it. I myself have about seven years of formal class training in Matsubayashi and now have both some judo and bjj training. There is no denying that the traditional method is highly effective in many, many ways. Really the only issue I have with traditional Matsubayashi training is the fact that the grappling aspects in our katas is often ignored or under-served. Therefore, I do believe that it should be supplemented with judo, bjj or a similar style where you train throws and ground work. On Okinawa, many practitioners have experience in some form of grappling. This is probably why grappling in kata is not focused upon. Even Shoshin Nagamine was a black belt in judo. That said, from a fighting standpoint, I would much rather strike a guy and be done with it, than have to bring him to the ground and wrestle (especially on concrete). At the end of the day, you must ask yourself what you truly seek. To say your interest is MMA is a bit pie in the sky. Are you looking to learn both stand up and ground fighting, are you looking to eventually compete in the UFC, or something in between. First define what it is you are actually looking for and when you do this speak with your sensei. Also be realistic with your time frame. Unless you are training full time, it is going to take you far more than six months to learn to fight effectively.

I live in the same region as the OPI drive nearly a half hour to train where I do Just to give your some perspective, Masterpain and myself live in an extremely sparsely populated area in Illinois. The nearest reputable mma gym is 35-40 minutes away, the nearest traditional bjj gym is close to and hour away. We train out of a school that is based in Kempo Jujutsu. We also have set up contacts in different places so that occasionally we can visit mma classes, bjj classes, kyusho jutsu classes etc. Always keep in mind that the more people you come in to contact with, many of them will have something to teach you. I would give up alot of things to be 45 minutes away from BJJ instructor with the lineage of Matt Serra. Make sure you don't take this for granted. I live in the same region as the OP and I drive close to a half hour to train where I do. I visited the OP's dojo's website and noticed they seem to have dropped Koryu Uchinadi from the schedule. I wonder why.