Kusotare

As my old sensei once said to me - "the day you feel at your lowest, is the day when you are most vulnerable to attack". So go to Keiko when you are at a “low ebb” and work through it. This process can only make you stronger in the end. K.

This is my point, it is not preferable and most Kenjutsu schools will target areas which will minimise contact with a substantial mass of bone. I haven't said that Japanese blades are not capable of cutting through bone, but it is a common misconception that their primary role / design intent was purely to dismember people. Toyama-ryu is quite different from most Koryu sword schools and, perhaps has an entirely different raison d’être. But that’s for another discussion maybe. K.

There's a lot of snuffing and puffing going on there! It never really existed in most of Shurite kata from which these are derived so - what's that all about?

Samurai and a standing army are two different things.

Badly

I have - and for many years my sensei always taught us to avoid deliberately trying to cut through a mass of bone. Number one, you could break/chip your sword and number two, your sword would more than likely get stuck! You mention the only target being the belly (due to its lack of bone), but what about ligaments and arteries etc.? Remember, most Edo period samurai weren't heavily armoured (if at all)! And therefore it wouldn’t take a lot for a skilled swordsman to cut a man in such a way that he would die (or be seriously incapacitated) – without damaging his sword too badly. K.

Have you trained in Koryu Bujutsu? K.

No, they weren't! K.

Actually, for what they are designed for, they are amazingly forgiving. Despite what popular info-docs might say, they are neither slashing weapons nor stabbing weapons. They are closer to surgical scalpels! They are not designed to cut through bone (no sword school worth their salt would promote that anyway) and they are not designed to cleave a man in half! They are made to make purposeful cuts to vital areas to render an opponent useless. The sharpness is down to the molecular content of the iron ore that is geographicaly unique to the area along with the method of introducing a more flexible core steel (with a different molecular content ) into the blade. BTW - a traditionally made "Nihon-to" manufactured using said tamahagane ore - would set you back about $50,000.00 these days, so you can’t compare with the wall hangers you get from the Paul Chen factory - which are just drop forged steel. K.

Cheers CredoTe I'll have to think about what I'm writing, now that I know someone actually reads it lol. K.

Hello and welcome to the forums. As I understand it, Seido Karate is a Kyokushin based system? I know next to nothing about Kyokushin (let alone Seido), but perhaps you should ask your dojo buddies. If looking for quality resource/media about a system - always ask the guys that train it. K.

Happy to corrected, but I'm pretty sure the Dai / Sho (Big / Small) is a Shotokan thing? Originally there was only Kushanku. Wado-ryu practices only Kushanku - as do most other Shuri-te based systems as far as I am aware. K.

Not if you invest some time working it out. K.

That's a side to the discussion I'd not expected! This Ryu is different to that Ryu as the other Ryu is different form the Ryu over there because.....blah ...blah....I think we all get that and understand, but ..... the same Ryu in a different organization differs? Really? Kinda of surprised and confused by that! Hello, A bit of useless information for folk that may be struggling with the word “Ryū” and how it applies to martial arts schools and, in the context of this thread, why it is important to understand the application of the word. In martial arts, the most common translation for the word “Ryū” (written in Japanese as 流) means school, which although correct, ignores the full etymology of the word. More completely, the word means stream or flow. All rivers start at their source, turn in to little streams and proceed to flow through the countryside meandering and gaining in volume as they do so. When you are part of a martial arts ryū, you are part of a metaphorical stream, in that you are learning from an instructor who himself learned from another etc., etc. - eventually going all the way back to the founder of the style (the source of the stream). As you become part of that stream – you will add to it and, when you become qualified to teach, you will pass your knowledge on to the next generation of students and thus the stream continues to flow. This is a more accurate understanding of the word. As people we are all different (thank goodness) and of course times change. Whilst the Ryū may continue to flow, it is constantly added to and therefore, over time, inevitably there will be shifts. In the Japanese martial world, you will often see the suffix “ha” written when mentioning a style. E.g. Ono-ha Ittō-ryū “Ha” in this case means a group or faction, in that although the school in question is an Ittō-ryū - it is a group founded by Ono Jiroemon Tadaaki – thus "Ono-ha". His group therefore is a tributary of the main stream – however the key thing is that the core principles inherent to the main ryū. This is exactly what is happening today with gendai styles/schools. It is inevitable that as they grow, there will be divisions and thus changes will appear however, as long as the core principles reamain in tact, the ryu will continue to flow. K.

That's good then, because there are loads of folk out there that believe they are "trained", when they are not! Realising that fact could cost you your life! K.

How well do you understand that though? Do you understand that chances are, your karate would be about effective in a self defence scenario, as a fire guard made from chocolate?

It's not surprising you found Isshin-ryu kata somewhat lacking in combative methodologies. It's a gendai budo that is a synthesis of many styles. The combative intent was lost decades if not centuries prior to its incarnation. It's good you are trying to reverse engineer your new found SD expertise into what you learnt in the Karate dojo, but I kinda feel you may be wasting your time as, chances are, they were never there in the first place. K.

I teach what I consider traditional Japanese Wado-ryu Karate. When talking to prospective students, I make it very clear from the off that what we do in the dojo IS NOT self defence. So you aren’t saying anything to me that I wasn’t aware of a long time ago. So, why do I continue to dedicate a large part of my life to something that from a self protection basis doesn’t work and I know it doesn’t? The answer to that is not easy to relay in the written word, but it boils down to the fact that I enjoy what we do and I enjoy the constant challenge of trying to improve by getting better at it. This is the essence of Budo NOT whether you are better than someone – be that in a self protection scenario or in a competition. But that’s just me and the path I chose to take. Other traditional Karate-ka have taken what they do in traditional Dojo and applied to more real life scenarios. Some do it better than others and one of the best is a guy called John Titchen imo. He’s traditionally trained in Shotokan karate and uses that as a base for his SP system he calls DART… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPXQgJV1KiE&list=PLhcLRLwER_th_Ig4cx3ompMXx5g-rWBga There are others who do it quite well also, but IMO it’s a bit like reverse engineering if you take that approach. I’d rather train with folks like Rory Miller if I was being perfectly honest… But that’s the great thing about martial arts – its different things for different folk. K.

Hello and welcome to forums. I'm gonna have to let others answer your post as I've never heard of the folk you mention. That aside, can you tell us a little more about yourself. Are you a martial artist? There is an intro board on this forum K.

As has been mentioned in other threads - the martial art done in most dojo these days is practiced as Budo. Budo is not self defence. I’m inclined to agree with rucass in that if you really want to learn how defend yourself very well in the most expeditious way possible - go to a group that specialises in Self Protection. With that in mind –the OPs question about doubting your MAs effectiveness comes down to your definition of the word and you expectations of same.

Why 5 times? Is that just an arbitrary number or is there some science behind this I don't know about? K.

Did you visit the Forum I mentioned?

Hi muttley, You are correct, they were designed to be trained alongside each other, however in most modern karate groups these days - they are trained in stages. And, of course, the great thing about them is that when you have trained them all - you can go back to the first one and understand it a whole lot better (hopefully ) This then gives you the platform to be ready to learn the kata that they derive from.... K. ps muttley - did you get my last PM?

Pinan Nidan. It has some complicated principles to get your head around! There's a reason you start learning it first. k.

Hi, Just so you know, "Shorinji Kan" is NOT a traditional Japanese system. For starters, if it was a traditional Japanese Jujutsu - chances are it would be spelt correctly! . That aside, what the Jitsu foundation do, is largely made up of Judo techniques with a bit of Aikido and weapon work thrown in. The Jitsu foundation is a very large organisation, and like many big groups you get good instructors and students as well as bad ones. So its very much a case of caveat emptor!!!! I see you're UK based, if you PM with your location I could probably recommend some Jujutsu clubs. Alternatively - train with a good Judo club. K.