kensei

Going to toss my two cents worth in here for you Rockford, First off you should NEVER EVER say "What Style" Like everyone teaches the same stuff and works the same things in one style. I have seen Kyokushin guys that did "full contact" like they were made of glass and did not want to get chipped and I Have seen Tai Chi classes that would just about kill you if you were to go in unawair. Dont think Style, think DOJO and INSTRUCTOR over STYLE! But I digress! You will find that the whole Style thing goes out the window in most situations. I am a Shotokan guy that has trained with guys in other styles and to be frank...when it came to Kumite the individuals I worked out with were almost all the same..Kata and drills were alot different but having worked out with Wado, Chito, Goju, Kyokushin, Uechi and other styles, once the gloves are on we all kick with our legs and block and punch with our arms. It was more "how good" the other guy was over style. But to make some generalizations, Okinawan based Karate tends to be more focused on details like Joint locks and manipulations with lots of conditioning...while Japanese are more about using Kata for training the "Gas tank" and less about small manipulations and pin point striking, more about bigger movements and more striking. And that is a horrible and quickly written generalization. Totally off base here. First off the Okinawan Karate is only about a generation or two older than Japanese Karate. the traditions are also very close together because of the close cultural traditions that Japan and Okinawa have. The major differnce in cultures would be that Okinawa also allowed China to influence it slightly and Japan shunned Chinese culture for many generations. The Traditional arts are both from Okinawa and Japan when you talk about "Karate", They just tend to be a bit different in how they approach things..sometimes...depending on the style...instructor...Dojo.... Why do people think you need to do full contact sparring to be effective? I worked the door at local pubs/bars for years and we never did full contact sparring and my Karate served me well...in fact we had to take out boxers, kick boxers, TKD and full contact fighters all the time and we never had any issues. You could be in a full contact school and still be the worlds worst fighter! Its not the style but the guy in it. Having said that dont fool yourself into thinking that letting yourself get beat up at the club makes you a better fighter really. The key elements are impact training, sound fundamentals and strategies in fighting and often...Standing thier and getting hit....Not a sound strategy! Think more about styles that teach you to block/dodge/move and counter as being much more effective than one that says "Stand their and take one to give one"...trust me if that were the kind of guy I was facing on the street...I would LOVE THAT! Full contact...not always the best way to go...besides if I am going to mug you I would much rather see the guy limping along and holding his ribs with black eyes than the guy that looks fit and has a spring in his step! (read if you get beat down at class all the time your body will not heal fast enough to actually defend yourself). Again, depends on the Dojo, some of them dont really do Kata, dont really focus on the traditional side and end up being a kick boxing club with some Karate name. Kyokushin also has off shoots like Enishin/Ashihara Karate, Budokaido, Godokai, Seido Juku, Musokai, Shidokan and Seidokaikan. All of these are what we call "knock down" styles and focus more on conditioning and kumite than on form and Kata. Its strange becaue if you had not said no because it was to "muay thai" Like then I would have read your first statement and thought "oh, he wants to actually hit someone...well he wants Kyokushin then". Depends on the instructor. IN our organization (local) I teach the "normal amount of kicks" for a Shotokan Dojo with the focus on the big five! and one of our instructors who is a very gifted kicker teaches more than that and his classes are MOSTLY kicking drills ext...and yet another instructor has bad hips and asks me to teach his club the kicking most of the time while he focuses on front kicking...I kid you not! Also, some clubs/styles focus on head kicking like Kyokushin and others on more useable kicking like Uechi and Goju. And Uechi uses a "Toe Kick" that scares the living hell out of me....because it can break yoru own foot! It depends on the Style....club...organization...instructor.... Actually, having had 15 years in tournaments and about 10 working as a security staffer at a bar...I have seen all the ranges of combat come into play! The fact that you are close to someone in a bar is just common, on the street medium to long range is normal, but if you are not ready to defend at any range...well thats stupid....what are you going to do if the guy rushes you or you are in a croweded room and you can not make space? Actually, for the best system of fighting you should pick a solid striking club and also a grappling one as well, because even if most fights dont end on the floor...if you face a grappler and dont know enough to get back up and strike with him...your fight is ending on the ground...with you snoring or with a broken arm/leg. You will find styles that seem to focus on "If he swings his sword...." Wait...what? Yah, this kind of stuff is mostly Dojo driven and shows a immaturity of the instructor and the fact that they dont realize that 99.9999999% of all attacks today...Dont involve a Katana blade! However some of those techniques do translate to "if he swings his bat" or "If he has a knife". Hey I realize that finding a club is hard. Finding one that suits your personality and you have a great respect and connection with instructors is not easy. And most of us have a pre set idea of what we want. But trust me...dont think "style" think Individual club! aslo realize that you wont be as good at things as others are their and you may be better than others as well...even black belts. Remember that you are their to learn and not show how much better you are and respect your "team mates"/"dojo mates" and learn to realize that even the weakest black belt has seen more than you and may be able to coach you as well, that orange belt you think can not spar very well, may have a round kick that you can learn from them! its not what style, its your club and your attitude that will dictate your success! Good luck!

Okay gang, it could be nutrition, it could be dehydration, it could be over exertion...and I really hope it is as simple as that....but we are not doctors and we dont have access to you and your tests. The truth is it could be a heart issue, blood pressure issue, tumor (hate saying that one for sure), innner ear issues it could be that your favorite smoothy before working out is made by a guy that also handles raw fish and you got sick from that...we dont know. What I do know is that you should talk to your doctor, monitor your self in class and also let your instructor and perhaps family if they train with you know that you are going through this stuff so they can all keep an eye on you. But first and foremost, dont be shy about taking a break during training to get your feet back under you and GET THEE TO A DOCTOR to get checked out. One of my seniors was having fits becuase he would get vertigo when he trained. He left it a short while but then it happened when he walked up stairs or exerted himself in any way. He went in and an ultrasound found a aneurysm that could have killed him. He had a mesh graft put in and was fine. Moral of the story.....when you feel less than 100% you go to your doctor first!!!!

Man, I am in the wrong business....wait...Im in that business....GEEZ! Okay, for one thing their should never be a Dojo that charges so much that you have to miss out on things in life like RENT and or HOME PAYMENTS... Our club teaches twice a week and a kid pays about 35-40 bucks a month...and includes free access to two other clubs that also teach twice a week...you could train five times a week for $40! No contracts so you can come and go as you please if you dont like the instructors ext. First thing off the bat I take a better look at some places when I hear "Contract". some are legit, but most are a bit scammy!

My Karate Gi has the JKA logo and JKA MANITOBA under it on the left side. My old Judo Gi has some Japanese Kanji on the left breast as well. Simple and straight forwards. My BJJ Gi has seven patches on it, two on the pants...very different and took a long time to get used to them all.

These can be dealt with as two different situations. My first step would be to address the saftey issue with the instructor, let him know that as a Parent you find that lack of common sense to be unacceptable from an instructor...then let him know what you think of this guy from your point of view as well. If it came to it, I would have been so ticked off I would have gone into the next class Sir Godan is teaching in and let him know that his practice is unsafe and you may have to contact authorities about this if it continues. To be as simple as possible I dont think people like this should be teaching and your instructor would be smart to address this as a "thank you, but you are not welcome back" situation!

If this is a community club based program you should also contact the community club about the situation. if its a private club, easy enough to tell him his services and presence are no longer needed. and the fact that he had the steam to put down the Dojo head...well thats grounds right their for a very public excommunication!

Hi, I have read your whole post and I am shocked you all stayed that long. First off unless you are invited to take the class and teach it is a big breach of ettiquite to do so! The Godan started off right away breaching the respect of others by jumping in and starting to teach with out the instructors permission. If it were My dojo I would ban the guy and tell him if he were to train in my club again...he would be expected to wear a white belt to show his level of understanding of Karate! His total disregard for others health and feelings shows a immaturity of charactor. As an instructor, guest or otherwise, we are here to motivate and to assist, not to rip someone appart and leave them feeling like walking out. The FIRST thing I would do is report the night to your instructor as they have a right to know what was going on. The gent should NOT be allowed to teach anyone! If the instructor is fine with this teaching method he can expect to lose lots of students! I had a similar experience 15-20 years ago as a flashy new Shodan walking into a class taught by a fairly famous Canadian Karate guy, who basically taught like he hated everyone and everythign about Karate! I did not leave but my instructor was watching and after class he said to all of us that he would never have the other guy back and that the style of teaching that this person showed was a perfect example of...what not to do when teaching. I am on your side here, this is not Karate! That guy has issues!!!

Shotokan-Funakoshi Sensei......Nakyama Sensei.....Yaguchi Sensei.....Dingman Sensei....Me Tones of other styles but I always see Shotokan as my main style. The only other one I can figure would be my Sambo lineage because it was a family art (Grand father taught us a bit) Vasili Oshchepkov.....Anatoly Kharlampiev........Frank Lukazewich.....me. I stopped doing Sambo when my grand father passed away and took up Judo...but after getting Shodan gave it up....now in my 40s I am taking up BJJ but pretty much sticking to form and keeping Shotokan as my main working style.

I guarantee you that both the axe kick and ridge hands are controllable techniques. The knockouts aren't as accidental as you think. I agree with you on the ridge hand, never said it was not controllable, however I disagree with you on the axe kick. You bring your leg up as high as you can and drop it...well you can pick your target but that kick is going to land and it is not going to be friendly. Show me how you are going to stop it a half inch or abouts from the target to show control...you are going to hit someone....and if your target is the shoulder but you nail the back of the head on a bent over partner...well it aint going to be nice. I suggest that you either talk to or train with the TKD people where the axe kick is a staple technique. They land axe kicks on each other all the time in a friendly way without hurting each other. How? They don't drive their hips into their kicks when they don't want to hurt someone and hey make contact with the area between their calf and heel, rather than their heel. There is still some contact, but to those on the receiving end it feels like a slap. Sometimes the make contact then drive their hips in and push you to the ground just to make a point. But it's an intentional push intended to not harm you. Control for snapping techniques such as front and round kicks is "pulling" your technique so that there is often no contact. Control for power techniques like side kicks, back kicks and axe kicks is "pushing" a target after making soft contact. At least that's how it's done in my neck of the woods. ah, so they change the striking surface, which is the biggest change for power I can see, in place of the thick and hard heel bone you hit with the softer calf...this I can see!

Looked fake to me, a good fake...but fake!

Exactly, I have told parents that try and "Teach at home" what we do at the club...and make a mess of it or try to "add to it" is "you send your kid to me to learn and you pay good money, please leave that to me"...and try to get them to join as well.

one of our clubs runs a tiny tigers program for 7 and under and they dont worry about testing at all, if they are working on testing then they move ot the normal class....and we have a long time between ranks for them...six month minimum. at that age Karate should be about FUN and FUN alone not ranking anyways.

Im in winnipeg

Shirai Sensei of the JKA also has a sub system he works that he calls Goshin jitsu as it is a pure self defense system he has based on Karate. He explained in an interview that the modern Shotokan has removed much of the more dynamic self defense moves and has left a very direct attack and counter style. While this is effective it is not always the best route to take so he created his sub style to practice with his students. Also, he used the term because it basically means "Self protection" and many styles have systems or even Kata (as in a few of Asai Sensei Kata and a Judo Kata) that focus more on self defense training. I think breaking away from the main systems or createing a whole new system is more a method we see in the west as they want to sell new ideas and lets face it GOSHIN JITSU kind of sounds cool!

I guarantee you that both the axe kick and ridge hands are controllable techniques. The knockouts aren't as accidental as you think. I agree with you on the ridge hand, never said it was not controllable, however I disagree with you on the axe kick. You bring your leg up as high as you can and drop it...well you can pick your target but that kick is going to land and it is not going to be friendly. Show me how you are going to stop it a half inch or abouts from the target to show control...you are going to hit someone....and if your target is the shoulder but you nail the back of the head on a bent over partner...well it aint going to be nice.

It is not my job as a Karate intstructor to teach your kid how to be a good person, it is my job to enforce Dojo rules and A) Show them how to behave and B) expect that they dont act like animals in the Dojo or they will be dismissed! I can not make changes in a few short hours a day that parents will A) undo at home or B) counter all together at home. If I expect a child to not hit someone and the father/mother encourages agressive behavior in thier child then I can not expect my hard work to pay off at all....parents have the most influence on children no matter what. In our clubs if you are caught fighting outside the club and it is not seld defense then you are gone! If you are not respectful in the Dojo then I give one warning, talk the parents and if things do not improve right away I excuse the child. I have had two instance were a child was rude and hitting kids in class, I both cases I spoke with the parents and let them know that they get one warning for this behavior then they can not come to classa anymore. The first case the mother broke down and said the dad had left and the kid was unrully ever since, but she spoke to the kid and told him to smarten up...in a not so pleasant way..the kid still trains with us and the mom was very happy I put my foot down and forced her to realize how bad it was. The other time it was the father who got in my face after class and told me that I was out of line, I calmly said that it was not the right environment for his kid obviously and he could use the door as it opens up to the inside of the club and the outside of the club easily. The father left and never came back....I was told by a student that he threw his kid into Hockey and the kid was the team goon (muscle)! You can not fight the family dynamic, we can not say we are here to fix people at that level, especially kids. Karate can work magic if the road to the destination is not blocked by parents or really affective outside influences.

I can agree, but I think some techniques are better reserved for higher ranks to use. I wouldn't allow for a 8th kyu to use a ridge hand but a 3rd kyu I would allow under the conditions that they are using the technique with sufficient control so as not to take their partner's head off. I totally Agree. At Black belt level however one should know what techniques they can do with control and which they can not and act accordingly.

Yes, some techniques like the axe kick should be removed because they are SO dangerous that they can not be controlled, but ridge hands and even spear hands.....if you can not throw a controlled ridge hand then you should not be doing Karate at all!

A great point...but its kind of like the local TKD club...when they first opened in the 80's they were "KOREAN KARATE" and tried to draw in members with that pearl...then when aikido took off with Segal they started teaching "KOREAN AIKIDO" in the form of Hapkido with their Korean Karate....Years later when Judo was more popular here because of the oly's they billed their Hapkido as "KOREAN JUDO" and finally now that MMA is big here they teach...wait for it....."KOREAN MMA". I kind of think that they are just marketing different and adapting the teaching to capture as many students as they can and most have a three to four year period between complete turn overs in students so they must reinvent themselves. Sad because we have been teaching the same Kata, Kihon and Kumite since the 80's and nothing has changed...we have a bigger club too!

I dont feel any techniques should be "banned" out of what they may do...all Karate techniques can cause damage if done by a moron who is not controlling them. It should not be that you can not do A,B,C or D...but rather that the contact should be light enough as to not do damage and to use common sense. In our club the brown and black belts go at it pretty good and to be frank we have our injuries. I have a log of my injuries and it looks like I am a pro fighter at this point with the number of ouchies I get. But the fact is that we respect each other and look to produce great techniques but not hurt each other. At my Sandan testing I went with a senior and we both were hurting after the testing...but not more than we do after regular sparring....but not so bad that we are not at it again the next day! KO'ing a 13 year old.....Really, what kind of control does that show for the guy throwing the axe kick.....well some techniques are much more dangerous because you can not stop a decending kick easily, but then you throw it so you can angle it away when you make light contact with the person or something...and if you know you can not control it...dont throw it. We do all techniques from the Kata in our Kumite and more! the point is to teach respect and control and safety to all members....We also follow the old pro wrestling rule that if you hurt us in training...we give you a receipt for it down the road

Well, posted a few and now its time to introduce myself I guess. My name is James and I am a mod on other sites as well as a shotokan instructor with more than 30 years of training in Canada. I have my Black belts in Judo and Karate and have trained in Hung Gar, Kendo, Sambo, Uechi Ryu, Goju Ryu, Aikido, Tae Kwon Do, Muay Thai, Tai Chi and my latest is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. No matter what I train in I always stick to shotokan as my core style because it makes sense to me and I study now not just to keep healthy but also because I have had the same instructor for 3 decades and he is an inspiration at 71 that makes me think I can train just as long, If I am smart about it. I run several blogs and I also write a online article about MMA events and fighters. I have written three small books that are out of print and count myself as a bit of a Karate historian as well. I am the happy father of a little girl with special needs and work in the insurance industry after years as a physical therapist with sports teams and private walk ins in my own clinic. I hope I can contribute a bit here and enjoy ready others ideas. J

Goshin Jitsu is a term used for "self preservation/defense" in Japan. It was hijacked so to speak after world war two to describe a form of Jujitsu that tried to take element of Judo and Karate and mixed them. Modern Goshin jitsu does not exist in Japan really, it is more a term used for self defense training. In North America several groups have adopted this name for its style and have created a system that mimics the current trends in martial arts to draw in students. When Aikido was very popular in the 80's the system undertook a kind of standing Grappling training and then when Aikido died down it took on a more Grab and strike approach. Now that Jiu Jitsu is popular in the modern mentality the group has turned to a lot of ground fighting skills to train. The group will say "well we always had that" but the fact is that they only started teaching different skills when they were made popular by others. Is it a belt factory? Well I dont know about that but I do avoid any style that changes with trends.

Each Dojo is different. I work out at three different clubs (teach at all three as well) and each is so different. My instructors two clubs are very basics oriented. You know your stuff when you leave the door and the work outs are almost all Kata (forms), Kihon (basics) and Kumite (sparring) but at a junior level its more the first two K's. the other club I go to and train at is my juniors club, and the club is not all about the "three K's" as it were. they do a lot of conditioning and impact training with pads and such. I find that the level of technique is not as good but teh students enjoy the work outs and stick around while getting in shape. The thing is that you may show up next week and have a pure Kata class to learn your forms. You never know, thats why going for a single class only tells you a small bit about the instructor only. You should try it for a month. if you had hated the instructor then you dont go back, but if you like him, give them a bit of a chance to see how the program progresses.

First off you should look at not passing a belt as needing more time in a particular level...not as a failure of a person. Also, children should be in Karate, it has many lessons that they can learn that are missing today. However an adjusted belt system may be needed as we have way to many 10 year old black belts.

Kyokushin to me is more sport Karate and less real strategy, but the full contact aspect makes up for any weakness in strategy (no punching to the face bugs me) and shotokan has more attacks and defenses but is not as impact oriented. Both are very good and both have strengths and weaknesses depending on how you train and with whom!