CredoTe

To clarify from my previous post, while we don't make exceptions, we don't just aim for a female student's "T&A" when attacking (that would make us perverts if we did ). We aim for the usual targets (solar plexus, stomach, vitals with control, etc), but an occasional strike will land in or near their "T&A" area....

Absolutely... We make sure our female adult students understand that we're not going to make exceptions; that, just as much as we men expect women to use their "2nd nature" skills to kick us in the crotch, they should expect attackers on the street to go for their "T&A" so to speak. At the very least, attackers will do it for the shock factor, and worst, it'll turn into a rape/sexual assault. The only catch we have is for underage female students. Because of their status as minors, that changes how we are able to handle them. When sparring female minors, we instructors strictly go for solar plexus, stomach, etc when striking at their torsos...

Absolutely! Great OP... The issue you bring up is actually a core part of the reason my CI and I left our organization 6+ years ago and began our journey searching for the real Matsubayashi-Ryu of Osensei Nagamine...which, in turn, led to us stumbling upon what we would later find out is the Te (Ti)... If we weren't already experienced MAs, I fear we wouldn't have found what we did, nor would I be on the current path I'm on in my journey. Meaning, novice or intermediate students are surely most harmed by these types of instructors/schools, IMHO. Novice/intermediate students that are older/adults have a better chance than children of finding a legitimate instructor after such a damaging experience.

UPDATE: So far, we've been incorporating the part of mal103's suggestion of putting the student in question with a senior student. Sometimes we make the senior student switch places in line, other times we make the student in question switch places in line; all in attempt to avoid him getting a feeling of getting picked on by we instructors. The senior student that the student in question is shadowing has a decent rapport with the student, and, indeed, the student in question responds a smidgeon better to this senior student than to either my instructor or I. The progress has been very slow and almost like pulling teeth, but that's OK; we've at least found a method to which he's positively responding.

Congrats AdamKralic!

Absolutely! Great post, tallgeese. Those box drills are very intriguing... I've been looking for some good instant response pressure drills to add to my repertoire. These will be a great addition.

Whoa... Thank you everyone here at KF for this great honor! Congrats to all the winners!

Congrats tallgeese!

Epic Instead of a red-and-black checkered belt, when I get to 5th Dan+, I want my master's belt to be that cookie belt!

Great, powerful talk... Thanks for the share

Absolutely... I second this notion... Finding out the instructor's credibility and history is a must (don't just take the words on his Web site for granted, look into it!)

One of our advanced kyu students is 50 years old and has been doing Yoga for several years (5+ I think). Each time it's his turn to begin class with warm-ups, we end up doing a various array of Yoga stretches. I always find it a nice change of pace to our warm-ups and workouts, and I do feel more relaxed and energized...

There is a quote I've seen floating around here: "Only warriors can choose pacifism." Beat me to it sir.Karate contains the tools to fight. The person who has the tools has to be willing to use them. Without that, you can train all you want and you're still not a "fighter". There has to be a switch there that you can flip when violence is called for. Some people just don't have that capability no matter what they physically know. Great post!

Yes...! Happy Thanksgiving! Gobble gobble...

Great videos... Your bunkai/oyo are simple and direct, which means they're effective.

Great post! Great share!

The debate over whether karate is about self-defense / fighting has a long history. Currently, this debate manifests itself as "sport karate/MAs vs 'real' karate/MAs", which, in turn, foments the "MMA vs karate/MA" argument. In the past, this debate was manifested in different ways; since most of my experience, knowledge, training, etc has been in Karate, I'll focus my rhetoric there, and let others that know more than I comment on other arts. Tode / Tote / To-te Before it was known as "karate" in its modern form, the art was referred to as Tode (or Tote / To-te, take your pick). This is commonly translated as "China hand". However, in the native Okinawan Shuri-Naha dialect (Ryukyuan Hogun / Uchinaaguchi), Tode appears as Tudi and refers to the "the hand of Tang" or "Tang hand", which refers to the Tang dynasty of China. Why does this matter regarding the debate about karate being for self-defense / fighting? We better understand the debate by understanding the history / root of the art, itself; much of which is lost in translation (not just from Japanese or Chinese into English, but from native Okinawan into Japanese). To continue... The root of Tode / Tudi is Te; in Okinawan, it's Ti, or more precisely, Tii. This is translated as "hand" (as we know). The art of Ti / Tii is natively Okinawan; thus, originally had no influence from mainland Japan. Many aspects of Ti / Tii were native / unique to Okinawa (including the grappling art that's now known as tegumi), but other aspects had similarities to Tai Chi from a spiritual / philosophical sense, as well as from a martial sense. To take this further, the term Tii is derived from the Okinawan term tchi, which means "inner wisdom". IMHO, this lends to the Okinawans and Tii having more in common as a people and art with the Taiwanese / southern Chinese (Min / Yue peoples) as a result of proximity to Taiwan and its "melting pot" status. So, what does all of this mean? Tii, at its core, was both martial and spiritual. After the influence of sourthern Shaolin Kung Fu was mixed with Tii, Tode / Tudi maximized both aspects of martial and spiritual. However, disagreements and divergences over how to teach and pass on the Tode / Tudi arts arose. The prominent examples involved those that taught Tode / Tudi more as a fighting art versus those that taught Tode / Tudi more as a path for self-improvement, both groups neglecting the opposing aspect of the art. This argument over how to pass on Tode / Tudi is best exemplified, IMHO, by the feud between Choki Motobu and Gichin Funakoshi. As both were students of Itosu, neither master totally neglected the opposing aspect of Tode / Tudi. Motobu emphasized the fighting art in his teachings and kept the spiritual aspect to a minimum. Motobu was as spiritual as the next Okinawan, but thought the training of Tode / Tudi should strictly be as a method of fighting and that the spiritual / self-improvement stuff should be left to the temples. Funakoshi emphasized the spiritual aspect, teaching the art as a path of self-improvement through training, meditation, etc. Funakoshi focused less on the fighting aspect; indeed, he called the art "karate-do", rather than "karate-jutsu" or Tode / Tudi, in an effort to both re-brand it in order to assuage the mainland Japanese of its Chinese influence, and to emphasize its value as a self-improvement plan. Please note that I'm not trying to disparage either master or their arts, and many other examples exist, both internal to karate / Ti and external in other arts. Incomplete Hand-Me-Downs As time went on, and karate was passed on, practitioners mainly fell into either the "fighting art" group or the "self-improvement art" group. Due to Funakoshi's success with popularizing / modernizing karate-do in mainland Japan, the "self-improvement art" group was much larger than the "fighting art" group. The "self-improvement art" group gave way to the development of sport karate / MAs (NO! I'm not saying Shotokan is strictly a sport karate!). Sport MAs have many positive, self-improvement aspects to them; but, they're not fighting arts. Likewise, the "fighting art" group gave way to things like knockdown or full contact karate (not necessarily Kyokushin), strictly combative arts, MMA, etc. Students of these arts definitely know how to fight and beat people up, but they don't necessarily seek or find spiritual/self improvement. Both groups have their pros and cons, but both are incomplete hand-me-downs of what Tii / Tode / Tudi was supposed to have been. While I don't advocate putting religion into karate training, I do value the spiritual aspects to help improve oneself. Likewise, while I don't advocate just learning how to beat people up, a "martial art" that doesn't teach self-defense / how to fight is utterly useless. A Question to Determine Your Karate's Effectiveness A question you can ask yourself, and your instructor, as to whether the karate you're studying is teaching you how to fight / defend yourself is this: Does your Karate have any Ti / tchi in it? Remember, this question is in reference specifically to Karate, not Kung Fu, not TKD, not MMA, etc...

Great post! I agree that it is the body position and tanden that largely determine the feet positions, but to take it a step further (no pun intended), the position of the feet in a given stance is also determined by what one intends to do with their movements in the very near future (what they're intending to move into). For instance, for our Heisoku Dachi (#1) and Musubi Dachi (#2), there's no change in body position/tanden; rather, the intended application, the intention of what one is moving into, is what separates these two stances. Thank you for sharing the bit on Shiko rituals... Do you have any additional resources on the origins of Shiko dachi and/or other Tachi? I've seen a couple different explanations of what Shiko dachi means, "four thighs stance" and/or "square stance". Not sure which is accurate, but to compound the issue, in Shorin-Ryu/Matsubayashi-Ryu/Okinawan-te, the stance denoted by "Shiko dachi" is also referred to as "Jigotai dachi" (open leg or wide leg stance). Additionally, Shiko/Jigotai dachi are usually referred to as "horse stance" in many karate schools, but I don't think this is exactly accurate (it's more of a descriptive, rather than an explanation of meaning).

You are correct. Funakoshi Gichin adjusted the nomenclature of the pinan kata reversing Nidan and Shodan. K. Thanks for the clarification, Kusotare...

Punching bags, makiwara boards, punching pads. Or gear up your dojo buddy and get him to agree to be your human punching bag. Hmm I see, My Sensei doesn't let us use the Makiwara baords now because apparently people 'hurt themselves'¬_¬ Imho, People hurt themselves because they're not being properly taught/trained how to use the makawara pad. Discomfort, yes, being hurt, NO!! Absolutely! Great post

I follow... Being a fellow Shorin-Ryu karateka, I expected your tachikata to be similar to Matsubayashi-Ryu, but not necessarily the exact same. It looks like the only stance you listed that we don't have is the Hachiji-dachi. Our Shizentai dachi, Nekoashi dachi, and Kosa dachi can be found from the Shizen dachi position (#4 in my list), but Nekoashi dachi can also be found from Kokutsu dachi. The Zenkutsu dachi and Kokutsu dachi in my Tachikata drill list are done facing at 45-degree angles from front, but can easily be adapted for forward facing training.

So, if I bounce like Tigger when sparring, as long as my Kiai's come out "Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hooooooo!", I should be OK right? When Tigger bounces people (or bears or rabbits or whatever), he does so out of a low and rooted but mobile stance. Which is in my opinion very combatively effective. I had a humorous image pop up in my head when I read your's and Bob's Tigger comparisons, but I'm not a good jokester like you and others. I wasn't trying to bounce you or Bob's opinions on that...

I've been training with my Te (Ti) instructor privately for several months, now (he's been helping us for over a year). Each session reveals something new to me that improves my Karate. Tonight, however, his training produced an epiphany / "Ah HA!" moment, and reshaped my understanding of Karate. This has happened many times in the months I've trained privately with him. These "Ah HA!" moments have surely altered the paths I follow on my MA journey, for the better. But, enough of me, what about you? What have been some of your eureka / epiphany / "Ah HA!" moments that have changed or set you on a new path on your MA journey? Did they further / deepen your understanding and training in your chosen style / art? Did they cause you to leave a style / art for another?

Yeah, shodan/nidan has some pretty good fighting aspects to it (shodan in Okinawan Shorin-Ryu based styles is nidan in Shotokan I believe)...

So, if I bounce like Tigger when sparring, as long as my Kiai's come out "Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hooooooo!", I should be OK right?