bassaiguy

Hi Kensei. Pleased to see you here. We've bumped into each other across the web over the years.

I've read that Kyokushin is more popular in Japan today. Shotokan's heyday was the 60s-80s. I think these things are kind of cyclic. They are both excellent forms and have some commonalities. Although I call myself a Shotokan krateka I start each and every one of my classes off with some Kyokushin drills for conditioning the forearms, thighs and shins. If watch high level Shotokan guys their sparring can be pretty rough and tumble, too, so don't discount the impact of Shotokan.

And Shotokan is cooler javascript:emoticon(':lol:')

I was approached by a business partner to explore a similar situation a few years ago. At that time there was a MA school chain/franchise seeking to expand in my area. I was approached to be general manager rather than instructor. In this case I explored four options for finding qualified staff: 1) The franchise had a brief instructor training program supplemented by on-line, distance and periodic in-house education. 2) The university near where I live has programs in Shotokan karate and Moo Duk Kwan TSD. I could have easily recruited part-time instructors from there. 3) I could have advertised in general and specific magazines and employment web-sites related to martial arts and those run by state and local employment agencies. 4) I could have accelerated promotion for some of my traditional students. I think each approach has benefits and costs. 1) Easy and style-specific, but quality control is low. 2) Talented and athletic students are available, but the population is transient and I could not have recruited a stable head instructor. 3) This would have given me the broadest selection, but could have been expensive and would certainly have been time consuming since I wold have had to review resumes, interview and work-out with potential employees. 4) Since my trad program was separate from the commercial program I could have cross-graded some of my trad students, but then I'd be making a long-term student an employee and that changes the dynamic of the teacher-student relationship. I ended up not pursuing the opportunity for personal and financial reasons, but I wonder sometimes if I could have made a go of it. In the future I might explore that option again. Feel free to send me a PM if you want details on the companies I was working with or the process I went through to vet the companies.

Sent you a PM with a lead.

The Goshin Jutsu I'm familiar with is a post-WWII art made by combining aspects of Judo, boxing and Japanese Jujutsu with Western combatives. Focus is on self-defense. However, there are a few styles calling themselves Goshin Jutsu. There is also a judo kata of the same name the is focused on self-defense techniques. If you get a chance to visit or get a link I'd be interested in seeing what you've found.

I'm trying to get into my doc's office after New Year's. I'm hoping for a PT referral rather than pain meds. I don't tolerate them well and don't like to take unnecessary medication. I've been seeing my chiro daily this week and that has helped. In addition I'm doing exercises called MacKenzies that reorient the lower spine. That seems to be helping. I hate being laid up, but I guess "Go slow" is good advice. Thanks, gents.

A few weeks ago I injured my back. Apparently I have a herniated L5/S1 disc. My chiropractor says I need two weeks of intensive treatments and then we can assess whether I'll need medical intervention or should continue with chiro. Has anyone else experienced this? I can barely walk and training is definitely out of the question. What's the prognosis?

It's probably true that a lot of injuries occur as a result of improper warm-up and stretching. Some undoubtedly come with contact either from being hit or hitting or being thrown and throwing. In my case lately it seems that I'm just sort of wearing out. I'm tweaking an injured nerve in my neck more frequently and experiencing more pain from old ankle and knee injuries. This occurs on workout days and off days, sadly. I just turned 42 and while I'm not in the best shape of my life I'm probably fitter than the average guy my age. I just think that too many kicks and twists has worn out some cartilage and made certain joints kind of wonky. I'm not sure that this is avoidable if you're in martial arts for the long haul.

A friend of mine is an aikidoka and she just had knee surgery. Even in "soft" MA you can suffer injuries. I think the high number of injuries you see in judo and karate come from hard practice catching up to people in the 30s and 40s. As I'm finding out you just can't train as hard and recover as quickly as you get older.

I do the Shotokan version, Hangetsu. Although since my roots are more JKA than SKIF my style differs slightly from what Kanazawa does in the video. I commented on this video on my blog a few weeks ago. The link is on my sig.

I agree with Ossemon. We already have enough combat sports in the Olympics with Judo, two kinds of wrestling, TKD, and boxing. Dento karate is where it's at (in my not-so-humble opinion).

I should have been more specific. I'm a true skeptic when it comes to the spiritual properties of chi/ki. When I have seen high level taiji people hit really hard they have attributed it to fajing, which I think means some kind of total coordination between breath, core strength and strike (I think this what bushido-man was describing). I think this is the chief benefit of internal forms - that it allows for the development of this really amazing power to strike with great force with seemingly little effort. I spent about a year/year and half working only on Tekki Shodan, mostly bunkai, but also movement and conditioning, and I don't think I have developed anything close the fajing power (or relaxed power) I have seen demonstrated. So, what are we karate people missing?

Karate is not an internal art, but there are forms known as 'tanren kata" that are used to develop power, body conditioning and, some instructors would say, ki. Tanren kata include Sanchin from the Goju-ryu family and Naihanchi/Tekki from Shorin-ryu/Shotokan. I have very little exposure to CMA in general and have had only the most brief introduction to Yang Taiji. However, I'm hoping there might be people on the board that have practiced both Chinese internal arts and karate who might be able to comment on similarities. Clearly there is a physical difference (soft vs. hard), but are there intrinsic similarities in the way tanren kata and internal forms develop fajing/power and even chi/ki (whatever that is).

I've also read he was a Yang taiji expert. There is at least one MDK blackbelt form that looks like taiji, but I was never advanced enough to learn it. Did Hwang Kee study in Japan in the 1930s? He'd be about the right age and many Korean men did so. If we knoew which university he was at then we would know his original style and probably even his instructor. The Japanese college clubs kept pretty good records.

Good point. I remember seeing some video of high level MDK forms that looked like Chinese MA, too. Since I'm primarily a Shotokan person I was just wondering if anyone had ever established what early Shotokan instructors or schools contributed to MDK.

I'm wondering if Moo Duk Kwan/Tang Soo Do/Soo Bahk Do practitioners might be willing to give their views on historical relationships between early MDK and Shotokan Karate. I've read that Hwang Kee studied from a Japanese karate book he supposedly found on a subway in Tokyo, but has this ever been substantiated? MDK TKD was my first martial art and I earned Chodan a long time ago, so I remember that the early forms are modified Shotokan kata (Kicho, Pyog, and Patsai, at least). What other historical links are there?

If you're really interested (or have to ever do a paper on it) check out George Kerr's, "Okinawa: A History of an Island People".

I agree that Funakoshi disapproved of jiyu kumite, but he did allow it. Funakoshi's karate could be quite "hard". If you look at the pre-arranged kumite he demonstrated on film in the forties or fifties there isn't anything soft about it - I would describe his technique as whippy or snappy (if those are actually words). The Shotokai did not become "soft" until Egami's changes to the organization. Look at the difference in technique demonstrated in "Karate-do Kyohan", which is Funakoshi's text with early JKA style photographs and "Karate-do Nyumon", which is Funakoshi's text with Shotokai photographs to see what I mean. I believe that the Shotokai/JKA split (pre-Egami's changes) was due largely to social class differences. The early JKA guys were government employees, college instructors, and upper-middle class business men. The early Shotokai leaders were scholars, independently wealthy business leaders, or politically and financially connected intelligentsia (artists, writers, etc). In Japan in the 1950s (when the split occurred) the social difference between a "salaryman" and the leadership class was immense. I believe this difference partially explains the JKA/Shotokai split. I also think it speaks to the strength of the JKA - that despite being "lower class" relative to some of the leadership of the Shotokai they were willing to put everything on the line, in public, to further their vision of karate-do.

In another thread someone asked about the difference between Shotokan and Shotokai karate. I've had a bit of experience here, so I thought I'd offer a suggestion. Originally, there was Funakoshi's karate in Tokyo, which he just called Karate, but which his followers and admirers called Shotokan Karate-do. This means Shoto's house or style of karate-do. Shoto was Funakoshi's pen name when he wrote poetry and calligraphy, so it basically meant Funakoshi's stye of karate. It was also the name of his private dojo which was destroyed in the firebombing of Tokyo during WWII. In the 1930s these guys formed a group called the Shotokai, which meant Shoto's club or association. All well and good. After Funakoshi died in the 1950s his followers split on what to do. Since he left no heir (his son had died of TB) there was a big disagreement. Briefly, those guys who wanted to teach for profit, sponsor tournaments and develop a more modern karate-do along Funakoshi's lines formed the Japan Karate Association and developed what we know of as Shotokan. There is some dispute as to how much of Funakoshi's actual, old style, karate was in this mix because there was also some influence from kendo and Shito-ryu and also a huge influence of the teachings of Funakoshi's son, Gigo, who had essentially formed the JKA core syllabus before he died. Those guys who did not want to teach for money or who had personal issues with the JKA crew stuck with the old Shotokai association. Throughout the 1950s there wasn't too much difference between Shotokan and Shotokai Karate. Then, the person who had been Funakoshi's senior student (other than his dead son), Shigeru Egami, went off the rails and developed his own variation on the Shotokan theme which emphasized extreme fluidity and some unique deep stances and (IMO) strange punching techniques. Since Egami was the senior man in the Shotokai group he took the whole Shotokai group in this direction (except for some renegade Shotokai guys who got ticked off and quit the Shotokai). Since the 1970s the split has become quite distinct. HOWEVER, as if this wasn't confusing enough there have been a number of other fractures along the way. Some groups refused to align with either the JKA or Shotokai. The most significant of these is probably the Gima-ha Shotokan sometimes known as Kenkojuku. Gima was an Okinawan student of Funakoshi and has his own lineage which IS Shotokan even though it bothers the big groups to admit it. Also, one of the original JKA instructors to come to American, Tsutomu Oshima, broke from the JKA early on and his group, the Shotokan Karate of America, preserves an older and unique lineage of Shotokan. Finally, the JKA itself split in the late 1980s and early 1990s and although it has recovered there are still off-shoot organizations that practice various branches of karate that are still thoroughly Shotokan-style even though they may have made changes to their kata syllabus and drills. So, short answer, Shotokan is hard style, Japanese karate dominated by the JKA (except when it not) and Shotokai is soft style, Egami influenced Shotokan (except when a lineage of elder Shoto-guys pops up and says it's not). Clear as mud, right?

There's this: Guess who's Shotokan.

Last year I affiliated my school with the National Martial Arts Association. It is a small American organization that has roots in karate and jujutsu going back over 40 years. It is not the most widely known group, but I like the people I deal with and they don't gouge you with fees. PM me if you're interested.

My favorite version is Mas Oyama's Tekki Shodan. Funny, since it is not in the Kyokushin syllabus. I can't post it now b/c I'm at work, but I'll try to put up a version later.

I did a fairly lengthy martial arts related project for my masters degree several years ago. The results were published in two papers in the Journal of Asian Martial Arts (which is no longer published, sadly). I'm in a PhD program now after taking a few years off between degrees and I'll be doing research on a MA related topic. PM me if you want and if there's enough interest maybe we can set up a study group or support group to trade papers, edit drafts, etc.

I've been doing Shotokan for 20+/- years and I loved the experience I had x-training in Kyokushin. I've brought back some conditioning and movement drills to my Shotokan classes. Given the choice I still prefer Shotokan - but that is just a personal preference. I look at this way: Shotokan is the freight train of karate - I'm going straight through you and you won't stop me, while Kyokushin is the tsunami - it'll overwhelm you. For my simple mind and limited abilities Shotokan seems to work.