muttley

Not always. Motobu Ryu (the family style not the one founded by Choki Motobu) comes to mind and it doesn't have any Shuri, Naha or Tomari roots. Orthodox Tomari styles have been documented. There are several Okinawan Kenpo systems that have little or no influence from Shuri, Naha or Tomari. And of course there are a handful of Fukien imports that were never blended with the local Okinawan "te" methods. Additionally, there are many modern Japanese methods that are so removed from the systems brought to Japan in the 20s and 30s they have virtually no Okinawan influence or foundation at all. These are not exactly common styles though and widely practiced (at least not where I live). Well if you go by "common styles" they often have no relationship to any genuine martial traditions at all. But my point was not to start a debate. All I was doing was providing information that you may or may not have been aware of. In "general terms" you are correct that the vast majority of legitimate Karate systems have roots in Shuri and Naha (as well as Tomari but methods unique to that village are hard to prove as they had a strong overlap with Shuri methods). At any rate I'm just glad to be on a martial arts forum where we are even discussing things like the "Three villages of Okinawa Te." Gives me hope that there are bugeisha under 30 year of age that don't think Kenwa Mabuni is some kind of adult novelty device. Under 30...I wish!

Not always. Motobu Ryu (the family style not the one founded by Choki Motobu) comes to mind and it doesn't have any Shuri, Naha or Tomari roots. Orthodox Tomari styles have been documented. There are several Okinawan Kenpo systems that have little or no influence from Shuri, Naha or Tomari. And of course there are a handful of Fukien imports that were never blended with the local Okinawan "te" methods. Additionally, there are many modern Japanese methods that are so removed from the systems brought to Japan in the 20s and 30s they have virtually no Okinawan influence or foundation at all. These are not exactly common styles though and widely practiced (at least not where I live).

Do you mean to say that all Karate practiced currently is a hybrid of Shuri-te and Naha-te together, or that all Karate practiced currently is either a hybrid descendant of Shuri-te or a hybrid descendant of Naha-te? Two different interpretations of your statement... The latter interpretation.

That's the thing though, in no way does Karate ni sente nashi mean you cannot hit the attacker first, it simply means you are not the person that starts the issue. For you to be confronted with an attacker in the street, provided you are not out looking for a fight, the attacker has identified you as a victim and has tried to engage you in a monkey dance. They start all the verbal crap or try to close the distance, you hit him, pre-emptive is far better than reactive. You've not gone against the principle of karate ni sente nashi, in fact you have epitomised it. They started the violence, you ended it.

I've recently been reading a lot into Funakoshi's 20 guiding principles (well worth a read for any practicioner). Of all 20 principles, I have found Karate ni sente nashi to be the most important of all to me. It could be due to my job, but I completely agree with this principle. The way I see it is that this is Funakoshi telling karate practitioners that they should be humble, honest and non-violent in all they do. To essentially live a life where they are externally calm even if all around them is kicking off and to never escalate a situation/be the person to offer or cause violence. This principle is still so relevant (perhaps even more so) in the world in which we live and fits in so well with the UK Criminal Law Act where it comes to self defense, by following this principle, if you do have to resort to the use of physical techniques to stop someone from attacking yourself or a loved one, you are displaying that absolutely everything that went before was you trying to de-escalate or divert the person offering the violence. I feel that in writing his 20 principles, Funakoshi has set out to every singel Karate-Ka exactly how they should be both inside and outside the dojo and displayed a heck of a lot of foresight in his writings.

That whole knife defense thing was rather convaluted wasn't it? "In the arts that teach locks and holds, they wouldn't work, they're great against a drunk"...maybe not a direct quote but that's what he was trying to say...great, apart from someone under the influence of alcohol or drugs doesn't tend to feel pain hence so putting pressure through a joint lock won't work that well. Knife defense for a start you shouldn't concentrate on the knife, it's the person holding the knife who is trying to do you harm so the simplest way is to get off line and smash him/her in the kneck as many times as you can until they are on the ground. Take out the head and kneck (control box at it is put) and the human body can't work. It's not rocket science, it's not something "special and only taught in internal arts", it's comon sense.

Solid post!! Attacks from the rear (and from the rear doesn't just mean from dirrectly behind, it is anywhere outside of the subjects periferal vision - try it, walk from the point where they can see you to the left, in an arch to the point where they can see you from the right...it's a huge space!) The way I teach it is that the most important thing to do is react, remember fight, flight or freeze... If it's a one handed grab, spin, face, it's now no longer an attack from the rear, you can see what you are faced with and evaluate before doing something else such as a shin kick or strike to the face etc. If it's a two handed kind of strangle hold, get the arms up, bodyweight down (to the beginner teach a drop into kiba-dachi - apologies to anyone from another art but that is what Karate uses to teach shifting bodyweight down), now look for what to do next, again, turn, not only do you face the attacker more, you also help to open up airways a bit. After that, what ever you do needs to be natural.

Having read some of the posts on this thread (sorry, there are 11 pages to get through!) here is my two penny worth: Traditional martial arts (in my view) get frowned upon purely because people do not understand them. People find MMA easy to understand - it's like WWE but without the costumes and make-up (and a bit more "real"), it's sport, there are rules for it. The same thing goes for Judo and TKD now thanks to the Olympic legacy of these arts (however, despite not having looked at the history of these 2 arts, I can almost gaurantee that Olympic Judo and TKD are nothing like the "traditional" system that was used way back when). My art (Karate) is, in my view a traditional art, although I haven't studied a "traditional" style of it (all styles of Karate nowadays are hibreds of Shuri-te and Naha-te are they not?) People don't understand the history of an art like Karate, how and where it developed from, that it is a form of civilian self protection, not strictly a Martial Art (it was never used by an army in battle), it's techniques, when performed correctly are very dangerous, it's practicioners do not use these techniques in every day life as they would have to spend a lot of time arguing the necessity of using them. Karate was never meant for sport, was never supposed to be used for competition or for a "sqaure go", it has always been a form of self protection for it's practitioners and I for one hope that these traditions continue. You can mix tradition with modern (I am off to a club tonight with any luck that claims to do this, and claims to teach Karate as a self protection method). For this to work, you need to teach the traditional techniques and spirit (which is what Karate-Do is all about) alongside such things as self defense law (obviously this is dependent on area), in the UK we should be being taught where we stand in a civilian self protection situation and how The Criminal Law Act 1967 Section 3(1) relates to this as well as Common Law etc. We should mix the traditional with the practical, instead of learning how to do head height roundhouse kicks and telling students that this will work "on the street", we should be teaching knee strikes, shin kicks, headbutts (the dirty arts)...head height roundhouse kicks worked for Terry O'Neil, but he was an exeptional kicker! That's my stance on this argument...sorry if it's a long post, lots to get off my chest on the subject.

What is my belt?....Something to hold my trousers up with

A lot has been said about how Karate is great for self protection, however, karate-ka practice this at Karate sparring distance which, when it comes to it, is poor for self protection. Yes, sparring distances do vary from style to style (Shotokan generally being quite a large distance, Kyokushin being much closer etc), which generally leads people to believe that Kyokushin is "better" for self protection. Looking at this from a self protection point of view, does this mean that Kyokushin is indeed better for self protection than for instance Shotokan? In my opinion (having sparred in both styles), yes Kyokushin is good for defending oneself from close distance, however...those who train in Shotokan become comfortable at dealing with people from further away, therefore the moment someone comes in closer than the Shotokan practicioner is happy with, they are more prepared to deal with them aren't they? Doesn't sparring at a greater distance make you more prepared to deal with an "enemy" if they shorten that distance? Has this post made any sense to anyone else? Sorry if it's more of a ramble, but I've just had a rather harsh 12 hour shift.

Quick question for the OP, what style is it that you are training in?

Practice, practice, practice...that's the key. You will struggle initially due to the alien motions you are learning. By practicing hard and often, your body gets used to the new motor functions needed and it eventually becomes 2nd nature. It's perfectly usual and I've seen it in numerous beginners, don't worry about it. Best advice, take the basic punches (forward punch and reverse punch) as well as lower block, upper block as well as inside and outside block, practice them as often as possible (some suggest 100 times a day) until it becomes a naturally flowing movement.

Thanks for the response, I do feel something of a sham, I should have still carried on my learning where I could but time was one issue I have no control over. Now to decide which dojo to return to.

Having been back to training for a period, I was forced into taking something of a sabbatical through injury (got a bit of plantar fasciitis which laid me out for months), a rather large workload (lots of call outs recently) and a few other things. Trying to combine my training with everything else that was going on (and gaining an interest in rugby) was hard. Anyway, I am back and wanting to go back to training again (remember all the stuff from when I first decided to return to karate after many years - well this has been about 6 months). My question is to those who run their own dojo's, would you welcome someone back who has just dropped off the radar for no apparent reason? My job will (hopefully) be changing soon from prison officer to police officer and I think that some additional training could be useful in my self awareness etc. I think I may need to find a full time dojo that trains every night instead of one that trains only 2 nights a week so that I can train on rest days dependant on shift etc. Unfortunately where I am located these are few and far between.

Wow, thanks guys (and girls). Member of the month eh...honoured.

I really thought it had some good points to the story (as it's historical fiction if you like). Like I said, the fight scenes were pretty good too which helps.

I've been spending this evening mainly watching this film on youtube. Pretty good, well choreographed fight scenes and some fantastic swordplay! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI0D4vq2KRY

I haven't yet, not had much time of late thanks to the demands of work, will have a look at it tonight

Yes I did thank you. And I am still in a state of confusion as to where to go next. Seriously annoyed that there are no Shotokan Sensei's here who want to look at the style from a different perspective (ie not the way it's been taught for the past decade or so), but reluctant to try anything too different! Going along to look at a Kyokushin dojo tomorrow night, just hope they take it easy on me to start with, don't want any broken bones just yet! And as for Pinan/Heian kata, they are among my favourites when studied alongside each other (and with the benefit of hindsight). Strange how when I first learnt the kata's individually I never thought of them as part of a whole.

Mine would be Godan, I love the dynamics of it, the power in it's moves, it's just fantastic. I have to say however that I love all Pinan/Heian Kata and that as has been mentioned by others (not on here), that Itosu invented the series as a whole and not as seperate kata (the entire series put together forms the whole).

It's not BJJ I am looking at studying, it's "traditional" Shorinji Kan system of Japanese Jujitsu. This is the website of the group of clubs I am looking at training with: http://www.jitsufoundation.org/JuJitsu.asp?Page=Are_you_starting_jujitsu

yeah you also probably didn't get out of line like some kids do , I seen a kid get nailed in the chest hard with a tennis ball for horsing around , from there on he started horsing around only after class , that's a life lesson you play when your not supposed to and will get checked " your gonna have to mine someone someday " its better to learn that at a young age then when older. ...'kids' do get of line, what happens next is up to the parent not a stranger! A person in a position of 'apparent authority'. Witnessing something like this and doing nothing about it does not make it 'ok' either. Sure correction is needed, but a physical attack...nah! This was abuse, this was bullying, this is not a discussion, but fact! In most of the dojos I have attended or watched 'punishment' given when things go wrong is given to all, in the form of pushups, situps squats, even isolation......etc. This then brings in a much better correction cycle Peer pressure! The problem either stops attending, or the problem learns, and all through none contact. MA is about self discipline, balance, confidence mental attitude and self control it is not a means to make abetter bully. I completely agree with what you have said there Hawkmoon. This instructor has stepped over a line in his actions. He assaulted a young person for what? To prove a point that he reigns supreme in his dojo? Sorry but the martial arts do not need egotistical maniacs like that. I don't know where this dojo is, but here in the UK I believe that all instructors working with children have to be enhanced crb (or is it DRS) checked, I would suggest that this instructor has no right teaching children and needs to be told so.

I have decided to try a bit of Aikido to go with my Karate. The club I am looking at studies Tommiki Aikido, I have only ever done 2 or 3 sessions of Aikido previously a few years ago. The main reason I want to try out Aikido is to learn more about taisabaki and using the opponents force against them. Anyone mixed these 2 forms before? If so, do they mix well?

From the here and now, I would love to have the opportunity to train with Geoff Thompson, Peter Constadine and Iain Abernethy. All fantastic martial artists in their field but all very practical and pragmatic in their teachings and just what I need. It's just a shame they never seem to come to the South East (Kent) in the UK! I would also LOVE to learn to hit and kick like (not to mention grow a beard like him)Chuck Norris so I would have to jet out to the states and train with him.

The Perfect Weapon - Jeff Speakman, fantastic martial artist.