kensei

Few things that bug me about WKF is the drama and show of it all. If your Kata looks like a silly dance the judges need to know good and bad Waza and the tricks to make it look like some kind of play! I hate them. For Kumite the whole "I hit him so I turned and ran" should be a DQ or a full total win if the other guy gets a point when the guy turns to run. I also think that what constitutes a point should be focused on good waza not tip tap stuff....I'm not a fan of WKF stuff.

I'm in the same position now as the author of this thread. Been doing Karate 37 years and never wanted to do it for sport. Now I am in an regional organization pushing sport. Not sure if I want to stay because the EGO issues are coming back again. I find with sport comes ego.

The "ULTIMATE" aim is in the development and growth of the person...other aims will be self preservation, better health and fitness, distressing....but the ultimate aim is in perfection of character.

Most people don't actually know the history of Dan ranking and belts. First off the original martial arts used the Menkyo system, of which I wont get into here. Jigaro Kano took the belts used by swimmers in Japan to denote levels of proficiency and started using them in Judo. Funakoshi Gichin took this practice and implemented it in Karate. At the same Time Kano began giving out a Dan level to support instructors in his style, Again Funakoshi followed suit. Funakoshi actually only gave out up to the Fifth Dan ever, that was the highest he felt anyone would ever achieve. After he died the ranking went NUTS. we now have 10th Dans which was originally reserved for those that had run an organization and contributed a lot to the arts...and had died! It was an honor level only. Now you go to a Martial arts expo and you have guys that have six or seven 9th dan levels and perhaps a 10th Dan level as well...its stupid already! My instructor told me once that if I ever tested up to Godan that would be the spot to stop, why bother going farther. He was asked to grade for Rokudan and that was the last level he tested for and then he said no more. its a silly ego trip that needs to stop! Personally I don't care much about rank but others are so darn concerned with it that when Im asked about my rank I say I shower...I should not be so rank!

I have a healthy respect for Goju ryu, being a Shotokan person I have watched their Kata for some time and thought it was very interesting. I know that other styles exist and that other Kata exists outside of Shotokan Kata. This just smacks of ignorance and being kept in the dark by a instructor who probably suffered from the same. We call it the mushroom effect here in Canada...kept in the dark and fed....well you know!

actually, this is a fairly new idea of ranking. When Karate first started using Dan ranks they only had five levels. I am told that the first level showed you understood Kihon or the core of the system, the Second showed you could apply it in Kumite (Back then it was more like Bunkai Kumite mind you) and the third showed you understood Kata and its dynamics. Fourth and fifth were simply teaching levels. Funakoshi, the first real instructor to adopt the Dan levels never gave out past Fifth Dan. I don't consider anything past fourth Dan as anything but political. My own instructor has never graded past sixth as he felt that it was all about politics and he said he wished he had stopped at fifth as the sixth felt like it was more about political pressure to test and the test was decided before they showed up to start with. Far to many systems, Serious systems, use testing as a form of punishment to keep people in line, like a threat that is held over someones head. And I have seen instructors "Strip" people of rank when they don't do what they want them to do or they are upset with students. If a rank can be stripped so easy then what is the point of working physically for them? perhaps they should be purely political if you can just snap your fingers and all that hard work means nothing. To me once you earn a black belt your understanding of Karate and your ability to pass it on are what counts.

I feel bad for the group of them, the whole system is set up for a fall. The head instructors don't know good Karate and if you ever watch them doing Kata or kumite they are basically not even Shodan level in any Karate org that has decent Karate. Now aside from Karate skills, which I see as lacking, the whole group of the leadership are incredible business people. Im not kidding. If we all had the business skills they have and the ideas (granted lack of morals in most cases) that they have then good Karate would be like 7/11 stores in the states!

I write a lot about Karate history and dig deep into the written literature myself and all I have found is contradictions, fantasy and fable along with questionable historical account. Most of what we know is kind of dogma that has been created to "market" the arts to us round eyes and most of the Okinawan information I get is different than what we were brought up in the martial arts to understand as truth...and some fight to keep the Dogma so much that I end up giving up after being attacked. The truth is that we probably will never accurately go back behind the Matsumura line of knowledge to see past that. even some of the stuff that you have is not accurate. I think you would be better off finding out WHO introduced WHAT to the Kata syllabus and not what Kung fu/Quanfa style it came from. Its an interesting and fun exercises, but someone will shoot holes in it very quickly no matter what you come up with because most of the "noise" we get about anything pre Matsumura is junk and half the stuff we get post Matsumura is made up. My thoughts, more looking at the lessons that the Katas teach and not their origins.

Big business helping out other big business. the small guys are getting the shaft and I already read a lot of fighters are NOT happy with this new rule and some plan to walk out in official uniforms and strip to a different uniform or wear a bland outfit with NO sponsors on it. UFC has no employee fighters they are all independent contractors so I don't see how they can stop them from wearing what they want really.

Genreally the GKR gang are kind of brainwashed to believe that A) they are traditional and B) that their instructors have all the answers. I actually had run into one once and was shocked at how little they actually were taught and how much of what they are taugh is created as a marketing tool and not accurate at all. First they come from a Shotokan/Goju mixing similar to say Shito ryu (granted way older and before Shotokan and Goju but you get the point) and should be a great mixing of each "world" but they tend to be taught things that are not accurate. the one lad that joined us for a week of training was a black belt with a white stripe which shocked me at first when he came out of the change room. And then to find out he got his "Rank" of "Sensei" after six months of training and going into it after only having passed his Orange belt...well that was enough to have me ask him to wear a white belt for fear my black belt student may "test" him and scare the tar out of him. In the end I feel sorry for them as I have seen what one of their "Sensei" knows and does not know. Suffice it to say he thanked me when he left and said he had some real serious thinking to do before he went back to his club to teach.

Im 41, I have been training since I was 6. My hip kills me when I kick and often when I walk. I wake up and my lower back is one big block of tight muscle pain. My neck kills me and I get head aches from it, my elbow pops when I punch, My jaw (has been broken twice) clicks, my knees are sore and I can not move as fast as I used to, my ankles are sore and swell on occasion. Its all part of the craddle to the grave process and unfortunatly the more you abuse your body when you are young, the longer you have that "man Im getting old" feeling later on. Suffer though it, use advil and keep going. Dont stop till they put you in the box man! its worth it to remember you are alive and you are still pretty damn good at what you do!

N4tive, It sounds like your instructor has a few issues that he is dealing with, one being depression. Its hard to really understand depression unless you have been their. So, dont be hard on yourself. its not about you or your failing, its about a deep and frustrating issue that your instructor may be working with. Also, finances can lead to this issue. My suggestion, with your instructors permission is to find a club that you can work out at and teach what you have learned from him. Maybe a community center that will split the fees that are charged for the classes, offer to split the dues with your instructor if he comes out and teaches you and the class on occasion. I know he is against commercialization but this is one way to reach out to others, get a bit of a business going and also keep your instructor teachign and you growing. If you truely love his teaching and respect the art you are training in then you dont need to leave it, you can adjust and make it work for you. Even if you are not a Dan level you can offer junior classes and have him work with you. If he finds that some students really excel and are the kinds he wants to teach then the students and you can work with him even more on the side. You can keep the dues low and he can benefit in that he gets a cut of the teaching dues as well as possibly building a club with worthy students (ones he finds worthy) and you can benefit in getting a bit of a wage while also growing. Teaching makes you look at Karate from a different angle as well so you excel even faster and understand even more. Just my two cents worth!

Oh, this again. I have been reading about the ills of GKR for about 6 years now and I have yet to read anything good about that lot. I am not against making money off of Karate, we have all put in many hours and given up family time ext to get a Dojo or two running, but a pyramid set up from the get go sends off warning bells to me. The other thing is I would never train with them because their "Sensei" teaching class may not be a black belt! I once read that an Yellow belt was given a black belt with a white stripe and the title of "Sensei" so he could open a club. He took a four month course of "Advanced teaching skill" but from what I understand this young man was not a great instructor. Just stinks of fraud to me.

OMG, that brings me back to when I started Karate in the late 70's. That name was in every magazine I bought about Karate...granted it was mail in rank type stuff (pay and buy a tape and you get a ranking). Villari is not and has never been to my knowledge trained in Kung fu. He trained with Nick Cerio so his back ground is Kenpo, but from what I am told many of the Kenpo groups wont talk about him and see him as an embarasment. Having said that, the only issues I have with Fred are his self ranking past the traditional 10th dan level (which is a traditional Japanese limit by the way) and his use of "GREAT GRAND MASTER" as a title. the guy did develop a self developed system, no issue with that, but when you start pusing it as traditional in any way you lose credibility. Oh, an his bragging that he developed over 100,000 black belts in a 35 year career....Mc Dojo's are not good and belt mills worse. He was always seen as a tad bit of a Joke in traditional circles and most Kenpo people say he stopped training and lost rank after that. He is nothing but embarassing to them. Now, because I dont actually have anything nice to say about him...I really hope someone does!

oh the joy of being a teacher and running an organization!

my schedule is very busy, I work full time, teach twice a week and have a family, and my daughter is special needs so I spend a lot of great time with her, but over the last 10 years my training had slipped to basically the twice a week and what ever I could get in at hom. My new schedule is much more regemented and will push me to train more, which I love! I have keys to one of the local Dojo's so I will get back to training twice a week doing Kata in the Am, the other three week days will be at the gym running and doing some weights to keep age at bay! I still go to the Dojo twice a week and teach, but I promised myself that I would do Kumite before class with who ever shows up and then again after class. I am also lucky enough to have my own Dojo in my basement that is small but big enough to do Kata , this will be used as it is now, for a few hour here hour their Kihon work outs and use of things like my Iron geta ext. Its hard to balance being the senior in the organization and knowing that when I get to a club its all about teaching and not training. I miss being a junior!

We follow the JKA testing sylabus now, but even when My instructor was not JKA ( a short period of wandering the wilds) we stuck close to the testing format. the idea is that you are testing a persons Karate skills, not their physical skills. We do the three K's and occasionally alter them slightly. Mostly start off with Testing Kata, move onto Kihon waza and then finish with Kumite. We have added several different Kata for Shodan (not just the one you pick but the ones we pick) in the past (we dont do shodan anymore, thats JKA licenced) and then our Kihon has gone from pretty basic to really crazy, When I tested under my instructor for shodan I had to do the standar Kihon and then each of the testing board members (four) made up two drills per candidate that we had to do on the spot ten times each as perfect as possible. We also played with Kumite, normally its just Jiyu Ippon kumite but Sensei used to throw in 10 step (or more, basically throw as many techniques while chasing a guy who has to block) and we have had multiple opponents one after the other and all black belt level. And of course the hidious pencil test. but no push ups, no running and no other kind of calisthenics. I agree with him and his views, we are not worried if you can do a push up...anyone can train to do push ups, but you have to work Karate to do Karate, this is not a test to see how is a good athlete, we want to gage your Karate...and through that we will see if you are in shape.

I have never understood this, I once gave my instructor heck for making a few notes in Okizaki's book and pointing out a few errors to Okizaki (Errors at teh printers not Okizaki's errors). My thought is that you dont alter a book. You can add leafs edits to it (insert notes on separate peices of paper) but editing the content is Taboo!

Stick to physics! As a "body man" (Meaning I studied sports Med.) I try not to use "esoteric" and sport specific jargon. Snap is in physics is called Jounce, and it is the fourth derivative of the possion vector with respect to time. the first second and thrid being Velocity, acceleration and jerk (no not what my wife calls me); in other words jounce is the rate of change of the jerk with respect to time. One of the biggest problems we have when teaching is using snippits from one thing and trying to force them into the other. In other words we get a tiny taste of physics (such as the equation for force) and we then end their and start throwing meaningless phrases liek "Snap" into the mix with out properly explaining it. The other issue is when we spend far to much time on physics and not enough on kicky and punchy stuff! When I teach I tend not to go to deep into this stuff, but I love finding things out like how the formula for power actually can be used to find out the total sum of Jounce for a technique....now measuring that stuff is another thing all together. Its worth looking into and its worth trying to wrap your head around it so you understand your art and how it applies to the physical world, always been a bit of a Biomechanics geek and loved it in Uni. For your paper, my suggestion is to look at some Kinesiology books and use the formulas, get to know how they apply and then explain them. It could be an eye opener for your instructor as well. Most instructors I know are great at Karate but to really explain and qualify force, snap, thrust, focus and the rest is often done in a psudo-scientific way that makes us all feel like we actually know what we are talking about...but we are skimming over the real science and just reworking Karate terms.

Taught again at the club in question last night and some interesting things came out. First the young lad is not their anymore. Once he saw the hesitation he moved to the next Shotokan club down the street as it were and put the same request in to them. and from what the instructor told me the kid was granted a test. He also was not keen on the whole "if you test you are part of the club" feeling he got. He just wanted to pay and get graded and leave to train on his own again. Apparently it was not a financial issue as the guy drives a SUV that is as big as my house and apparently throws money about like nuts. Even offered to pay double for the testing fees. He did not like the idea of waiting to test and that our Dan ranks are done by our national instructor out of Ottawa and he would have to wait at the least if Granted permission to apply to test. In the end I feel that we did the right thing, we are not a belt factory with gradings done every Friday! We put alot of stalk in our Dan rankings and we feel that while each individual is graded against themselves, we want those grading under our name to be solid members of the club.

I teach the Karate my instructor taught me, I learned about respect from him, and I will always continue the way he wants me to. I will always be an student no matter if I am a instructor or not.

I put myself in a unique situation or position. I dont take money for teaching or anything having to do with Karate really. I only ask that I get respected by students, juniors and seniors( who do take money). I put a TONE of weight on who a person is, if they respect me and show respect, if the are good people...I teach them and I will suggest they test under my instructor. If they are bad people in my mind or behave with a lack of respect...they dont get tested...period. when a student grades they represent me and my club/organization, I will not let some one with poor character represent me, and if we are so opposite then I am sure at some level they wont want me to test them and become part of my lineage to begin with. the young man in question was self taught, wore rank he had not earned and wanted me to suggest he test for Shodan or he wanted me to actually test him and confirm his rank, of which I could not. I explained this to him and the instructor said he went to another club in the city and was actually granted "honorary Shodan" by a instructor. Sorry but I refuse to provide those I dont know with rank that I dont think they earned. Does he have the skills of a Shodan, dont know. Does he have the time in, well I think he did about two years of solid training so not really. Does he have the athletic ability...he appeared to have it but wanted everything right now. I stand by my choices not to test him. Respect is a two way street as is respect for rank and a special relationship between instructor/senior and student/junior.

In Gracie Jiu-Jitsu it's a similar case. We believe your students are a reflection of you. If a student doesn't, in generalities, share your beliefs when it comes to morality, you shouldn't promote them. Here's a video of Relson Gracie discussing it:He discusses it in the first 5 minutes or so. Gracie BJJ is like any other business, anything to get their names out their and recruit. Well, at least at the home club in Cali. And that is not a poke, I totally believe that attaching your names to big names works to get your name out their. I started BJJ on the side a few years ago, and to be honest I have struggled with it for a while. I started learning the combatives program (well put together program...but not as good as the Gracie Barra program) but stopped as soon as I saw some of the athletes that the Gracie family started associating with ,specifically Rhonda Rousey. One of THE most disrespectful people I have ever seen on TV. but the Gracies lap up the attention taht she brings and they opened their doors to her. The ironic part is that she is a student/associate of Gene LaBelle who is an associate of Gokor, who in my mind would school the Gracie boys in grappling anyday of the week...but she went with the Gracies and they took her in because of the whole feeding off each others media ability. Rhonda proved that its not really just about the art with GJJ and frankly I dont want to be associated by association with her at all so I moved on to Gracie Barra...but a few political and "less than nice" things happened their and now I just train on my own, sticking to Karate and keeping my nose in my own "books" as it were.

I often tell the story of one of my own students who tested, and passed, his Purple belt (he was a kid of 16) and after testing at camp my instructor came to me and told me the kid was caught yelling at his mom and grandmother and acting like a...well child. Now the child had passed the test requirments but failed his charactor component. I was embarassed and while we had announced the student had passed at the lunch along with the others who had tested I was then told to go to him and his mother and explain that he could not pass with attitude like this, we drew back his rank and failed him. Point is that when you test and rank with a club or association you reprosent that organization and if you act like an child and throw fits you are only making that organization look bad, ergo your attitude and rank are a big part of testing.

One of the main reasons I did not "grade" the student, other than needing my cheif instructor present to do so, was that I did not know this kid....And I had a feeling about him. See he also was not wearing a white belt, I faild to mention this prior, my appologies. He was wearing a very expensive looking Black belt wiht his name on it. Apparently he felt that he could self grade and then get confirmation froma legit school at some point. I also asked if he was joining the club and would have suggested we grade him down the road, but he indicated he was not staying....this was simply his way of validating his rank after years of training. After he the class he left and I was left scratching my head, I had never seen this before and figured it may be common place or something in other parts.