Hi to all, I am really lost with this issue, Honestly I do not even know what "style" am I in.. I lived in a small town in northern mexico and studied shotokan karate for years, proud to say I am a 6 Kyu, my sensei always stressed the fact that out stances had to be really low so our center of gravity is also low and our feet would always act as well placed pillars.. my three belts were given by Nakayama (first one, long time ago) and Ishikawa (3 yrs) (don't know if that rings the bell to some), usually these masters came from Phoenix, AZ, USA which is very close from my town. Now, I live in Southern California, and I got really confused when I tried to join 2 schools (Garden grove and Whittier) close from my comunity, first, my new sensei was telling me that my stances were too low and that was "old style", and that I had to stay up, amlost like TKD in my opinion, next, the classes were physically intensive and usually a lot of dummy-hitting/kicking was involved, then lots of sparring, at the end, talks about techniques (10 min) and that was it.. Now, is this too "americanized"? considering the fact that most young people (I am in my mid-30s, and many of the students were teenagers) just want to learn martial arts to "k*ck a*s" only.. these dojos were just giving them what they wanted? or am I mistaken? By the way, do lower-stance karate exists still? (I certainly see very low-stances in events such as the shoto-cup,, etc) or is it just in my old-fashioned hometown where kata attention is a must and sparring "comes naturally" after learning good techniques? Thanks for your time reading this post, Speedbird
