wayneshin

Just got my third Arawaza Opal. Beautiful gi.

One of your Instructors has posted a quite extensive GKR Kumite curriculum on youtube. I think it is called GKR National squad Kumite curriculum. It has 15 or 20 clips and many combinations which are obviously designed to be suitable for your style of fighting. I looked through a few of them and its not too bad. Its well demonstrated and well explained. The same person (User name "toanthony") has also posted an excellent compilation called "Best of WKF kumite" so if you search that on youtube you should be able to find the other. Good luck with your competition.

I have to say at this point in your journey you probably don't know what you don't know. The main issue people have with GKR is that many of your instructors are not black belt and instead wear a black and white belt and have little experience. These people are working for little or nothing. Money is filtered up through a hierarchy. Having said that I also know of decent people in GKR who are just as passionate about their karate as I am.

I'm going to answer from a point of view of point sparring because that is where my experience lies and you are studying shotokan. As previously mentioned practise your feinting. I often show the analogy with my students of dodging a ball. I put one of them on the wall and say when I throw this dodge. Its pretty easy the first time but the second time I hold the ball and fake a few times. Dodging has suddnly become more difficult. So - How to feint. In point sparing a feint is essentially a movement into you oponnents range (or close to) There are a heap of ways your can do it but the simplest to explain is to touch (or pretend you are going to touch) the front glove. Key points to remember. 1. Be spasmodic 2. Watch the reaction. 3 Be aware that if you step into range they can also attack you. Maintain awareness. Good luck with your comp.

My original Black Belt frayed and frayed..... and then fell apart (it was 22 years old at that point.) So my answer is no - I would prefer to still have my original belt unfrayed. Seven years on and I have three and I wear whichever one is closest at hand.

Part of their development???? That their is the reason for so many breakaway styles. If I need a Sempai to help me teach a class they get paid.

There were a series of "The Ninja" books by Eric Van Lustbader that weren't bad. Also Marc Olden wrote quite a few books with martial arts themes "Gaijin", Dai-Sho", "Kisaeng" and a few others that I liked. Amazon will give you a synopsis of these books.

Not so much duorng training but I think I can beat all for stupidity. This was about 25 years ago and just got home after a particularly torrid session. Thought a hot bath would be just the thing. (Yes I know now - cold - but this was the 80's) Filled my bath up with hot water... still not hot enough. Boiled the kettle and added that... getting better. another kettle load would be good but by know I was getting impatient. So I grabbed the kettle.. sit it on the SIDE OF THE BATH and hop in. The kettle boils.. I lean over and switch it off then knock it off the side of the bath and into the water with boiling water spilling all down my leg and burning me quite badly. Pretty painful but all I could think was what if I had knocked it in the bath BEFORE I TURNED IT OFF.

The problem may not be the 5 year old children learning karate, but a lack of understanding of how they should be managed. Far better ways to keep children interested than giving them push ups.

For kyu grades I never fail students. If they are not ready they don't attempt the grading. Telling them they are not ready is the challenge but that can be phrased far more constructively than letting them grade and failing them. While martial arts may not be "the proving ground for political correctness" it is also not neccessary to shatter somebody's self esteem. For Dan grades the same applies however their is a higher onus on self responsibility in preparation. Occasionally someone will fail a component and we will usually give them the time and support they need to resit that particular component when they are ready.

There was a pretty extensive (and at times heated) debate on this subject recently on another forum which involved a number of posters who seemed to be pretty involved in WTF. The argument was that the hands were down because Elite practioners tend to use more footwork to avoid kicks rather than blocking. I guess from my prespective I wouldn't want to block a full power kick with some sort of evasive movement anyway. Re the punching - I had a look at the WTF rules. They allows for punching, it seems to me a clear case of referee bias against them. They just don't score. Be interested to see whether as the electronic guard gets used more if punching becomes more widely used.

Its definitely pretty normal andprobablythe main reason why people form their own schools. Depends on what your geting for our money, eg Insurance, Curriculum ie Intellectual Property, Advertising and promotional items, Professional memberships, Goodwill of school name. Does the Instructor attend the gradings. If you are getting these things then you need to determine if they are worth what he is taking away. We have structure in our organisation where the umrella organisation is non profit and takes a percentage of grading fees and cover things such as those mentioned above. each individual club is then run as its own entity (if that makes sense).

Its really quite simple - It needs to have a social element to it. If it doesn't you will struggle to keep them involved. I have two teenage daughters - both Black belts 18 and 15 and both went through this about 12. I also run a pretty successful teen program at my club and probably have 20 odd teenage Black belts who have continued to train. We started a dedicate teen program a few years ago with the focus on creating bonds between the teenagers. To me this is a really important area because in the years to come it is the teens who are the most likely to need some self defence skills. So the question is - do they have friends at the club. What can you do to enhance these friendships.

If you heard it pop it is probably a pretty decent tear, not just a strain. Go and see someone (Doctor. physio) Otherwise it should be RICE for a few days then light stretching as it starts to recover

Your mum is important. Next time you see here smile sweetly and pretend nothing happened. You'll get over it and so will she. IIRC you're in your teens. Won't be the last argument you have I have two teen daughters. They both fight with their mum and five minutes later they are best friends again.

I would suggest from a purely self defence pespective less is more. Mastering and understanding the five Heian kata should give you more than enough from kata. Certainly learning higher kata from a book or CD will only give you the asthetic moves.

The problem there is that you don't always have the choice in the matter of whether or not a fight goes to the ground. The fact of the matter is it may happen, and its best to be able to deal with it when it does. I had an incident at work about a month ago, and I had no plans to end up on the ground, but with multiple sets of hands on someone and struggling, combined with a Taser deployment mishap, I ended up on the ground. Not by choice. It can happen, even if you don't want it to. Best to be prepared when it does.Totally agree. Please re-read the last sentence of my post.

It probably depends on what you are getting at your school. I would have thought BJJ a reasonable suggestion. Dependant on your level you should be learning throws, sweeps and takedowns as well as some limb control and locks. I don't believe there is really any genuine ground fighting in karate. IMHO you shouild never take a fight to the ground anyway. Just be able to cope if it takes you there.

go through the latest NAS results - in australia or the UK and you will see that GKR students regularly achieve outstanding results.... http://www.nationalallstyles.com.au/media/nas/pdfs/tournament-reports/nationals/2010/national-titles-2010.pdf Respectfully, America has the World Superbowl for Football, not too sure about other sports, But how many Non American Teams take part??? Yeah sure you can get a tournement and call it all styles but its up to the organisors what clubs etc they invite. Now if this is genuine and some GKR fighters do win, just ask yourself are they pure GKR stylists or have they been bought into the "family" from other styles. There are a few "offshots" of GKR in the UK now and they practice a "Shotokan/Goju Karate" but the good ones that I've seen are originally from a different style and looked at the money side of the business rather than the art!!! You Tube is full of examples where you can compare a GKR stylist against another person from Shotokan or Goju Ryu performing the same kata and being completely outclassed. the best is a female GKR 2nd Dan performing Bassai Dai and being outclassed by a brown belt from Shotokan. Kancho Sullivan can be seen being outclassed by a lower blackbelt in sparring although its "Non Contact" OMG how would Non Contact help someone defend themselves in the street. NAS is an Open tournament and quite big in Australia but nowhere near the standard of AKF (Australian Karate Federation). There are numerous examples of AKF fighters doing well in NAS (last years female champion of champions) but not so much vice versa.

Sorry but thats not really correct. WKF only has one rule set for kumite. It is based on scoring techniques being Ippon, Nihon and Sanbon (1,2,3 points) and is quite specific as to what scores each. Hand technique are Ippon, Body kciks are Nihon and Jodan kicks or techniques perfomed while your opponent is flat on the ground are Sanbon. WKF moved away from the Ippon/Wazari in about 2001 because it was far too subjective as to what constituted an Ippon. Another slight rule change took place in 2009 again to remove subjectivity and a further change is proposed for 2012. lA number of organisations still use what is very close to the old WKF rule set.

From a purely business perspective as a school owner encouraging my students to enter tournaments offers little to me or my club as a business so it seenms unlikely a club would be encouraging tournament paticipation for business reasons. Tournament competitors (and their parents) can be very demanding or your time and often need addiional personal attention to reach that next level. They don't pay any more than anybody else and are of very limited value in promoting the school. However I still encourage (never push) students who are interested to compete. Why. Because I like tournaments and they can be fun for the students. Also networking with other clubs can be of benefit.

wayneshin: That is all I want for this to be a positive experience and to have fun and learn. I always tell him regardless of the outcome, I am proud....I would like to see him enjoy it more and worry less. I guess I will have to do better about taking our own food - most of the tournaments serve hot dogs or pizza - not good for an already queezy stomach! Thanks for your insight! Good luck with it. My boy is getting better with his nerves but we still need to work on it. We now always take our own food to tournaments or it is chips or hot dogs. Sandwiches and a variety of things they can snack on over the course of the day. We never used to but quite a few years ago my daughter was diagnosed as a coelliac so when we had discussions with the nutritionist we used that opportunity for advice about this sort of thing. On the Gatorade issue- thats what is is made for - to be a suitable fluid replacement duirng sport. I'l go to the other end of the scale. My eldest daughter - who has been on the National team for 5 years is an experienced and successful competitor. She goes through at least 2 litres of water over the course of an event as well as 1 - 2 bottles of Gatorade - depending on how many matches. (She is almost 18 and sweats a bit) I would suggest you get him water and Gatorade. Drink mainly water in the lead up with a little gatorade. During events/matches my kids all have both on standby and drink whatever they prefer. Gatorade is good but you can certainly drink too much of it. For a 12 year old maybe one bottle and a bottle or two of water through the event depending on how much he sweats and how many eventss he has.

My 11 year old goes through this as well. He always feels sick on the morning of the tournament and it is a battle to get him to eat anything. is problem is compounded by the fact that I coach a reasonable group and his older sisters are both National team members - he feels a large weight of expectation. Nutrition is important (and FWIW cereal in the morning then over the days they should graze. sandwiches are good small amounts of rice, pasta, muffins, bananas, trail mix) BUT overstressing that he must eat this and he must eat that only plays on my sons stress levels so i try to downplay everything and make sure he knows that it is for fun and we will be proud of him regardless. I love to see him do well but most of all I want it to be a positive experience for him.

I have the Adidas and the Tokaido and also an Arawaza Opal which I pefer by a fair margin. It is feather light and very comfortable.