CredoTe

I believe he would be. The scenario you describe is similar to the really old masters, whom due to age and / or other natural debilitation, cannot physically train much anymore. The sheer volume of knowledge and experience they could impart to students would be invaluable.

As I've gone through my MA career, I've become wary of the claim "this style focuses on bringing down a bigger person." I think this is a catch-line many use to reel in students. If your style teaches self-defense, it teaches self-defense; not "self-defense against bigger opponents." With that out of the way, I do think that size and strength are factors that need to be taken into account when it comes time to defend oneself. The nice thing is that size/strength are at least a factor you can see coming. You can't necessarily see someone's experience until you get into it with them. Either way, just because someone is big doesn't mean your plan changes. If leg kicks are a core technique in my self-defense, then I'll kick a guy in the leg if he is big or little. What does change is if I decide I want to stay in a fight with someone that much bigger than me. Do I really want to have to fight with a 6'8", 300 lb football player? Getting tangled there would not be fun. But, at least I can see the guy is big. I can't "see" if he is a Wrestler or Boxer. Now, when it comes down to size and strength, AND skill, that person probably has an advantage. All the components together...nasty. So, you have to decide if your experience and training can help outweigh a few of those advantages, and bring you to the fore. So, from there, some choices are to continue to train, which I think most of us would do anyway, and add something to your schedule that would help add some size and strength to yourself, like lifting weights or what not. Is it necessary? No. But, it can be advantageous. Size and strength definitely are factors in any situation, and you make a good point as to why we train the way we do to not allow an opponent's size defeat us, particularly: We train as hard and skillful as we practically can to prepare for these real-world situations. Most MAs incorporate training in some way to anticipate an opponent's size, use it against them, or whatnot. (Whether or not these are properly practiced is another matter... ) The larger / stronger an opponent is, the more our tactics change to deal with the opponent. While the techniques we use to defend against a larger / stronger opponent might be the same, as you make a good point for, our tactics must change. Which, if I'm reading you right, is what you're alluding to when you mention "do I want to stay in a fight with someone that much bigger than me." For sure, if your 6'8", 300 lb opponent were to get a hold of us we'd be in trouble... As to your last point about strength training, absolutely I agree with that...

Great OP Wastelander! I believe you shared the first video somewhere else, as well... And, your bunkai/oyo are pretty good... IMHO, the Naihanchi kata are of vital importance to Shorin-Ryu based karatekas. Not only for its many real-world fighting sense bunkai/oyo, but because it develops gamaku (power generation). First, the Naihanchi dachi roots the karateka to the earth to help develop the idea of drawing from the earth through the legs. From there, the legs direct energy to and through the hips. Not to mention that it's good strength training for your legs... Second, the hips direct what was drawn through it to the rest of the body to whatever arm or leg the karateka is striking with. It's not just hips; the hips turn the body. Your body has a "gamaku zone": think of it as extending from the bottom of your thighs just above your knees up to about your diaphragm; almost like a batter's strike zone in baseball. Your hips initiate movement of this gamaku zone, but is not the only thing that moves. The entire gamaku zone moves as a unit, like a centrifuge, and directs power to your target via your arms or legs or whatever. Third, gamaku cannot be properly developed without a solid tanden (posture / control of center). Naihanchi further develops tanden concepts first learned in Fukyugata and / or Pinan, etc. The strange positioning in Naihanchi lend to developing gamaku and tanden in that, if you can obtain good power in those strange positions, think of your power development in a regular fighting stance like shizentai or slanting shiko... Choki Motobu Osensei practiced the Naihanchi kata almost exclusively and thought they contained everything one needed to know about fighting.

Nice! BTW, do you still have the actual obi you earned in 1996? If so, and that's the one you still wear, I'd be surprised if it's any other color than a beautiful, well-worn gray... Yes. I still have my original Hanshi obi, and it's worn, but not that bad, not like the belt I regularly wear day in and day out. Awesome... Someday I'll have enough experience in my journey to have a gray-white black belt. Once I do get there, I'm still unsure whether I'll keep just a worn gray-white black belt, or if I will have another to use for more formal occasions. I have a few years to figure it out

You're probably right on target, especially regarding the text I emphasized in bold. Most things like this end up being PR moves to initiate or grow interest in something, just as you allude to.

Absolutely! Great post! We have that conversation / soapbox session with our students quite often, sometimes til we're blue in the face, that we cannot teach them drive / determination / desire... that, if they want to develop skill in MA, it's our job as instructors to show them the tools, it's their job as students to meet us halfway with the desire to train / learn how to use those tools properly.

Great find, great share, bassaiguy... Looks pretty hardcore...

Yes... For us there are joint locks; however, when we teach / train in joint locks, bars, grappling, etc, we also teach our students to turn them into breaks... That way we can apply the appropriate force for the situation.

That's great to hear! Thanks for sharing that article. When whispers of the Olympics pop up around me, I still ask, "what in the world were they thinking when they dropped wrestling?" I'll be interested, too, to see what changes are to be made that allowed wrestling to return... BTW... I'm actually with you on that...

Most of any self-defense situation is mindset; indeed, most street fights are over before they start either due to deescalation or one side psyching out the other (intimidation / insertion of doubt). As sensei8 says: Indeed, your mindset will be affected by your heart; believe in yourself and believe in your training! Remember, real-world street defense is about survival, not "winning" or "beating" your opponent!

Nice! BTW, do you still have the actual obi you earned in 1996? If so, and that's the one you still wear, I'd be surprised if it's any other color than a beautiful, well-worn gray...

Absolutely, I'm addicted to the MA... I train in and teach Matsubayashi-Ryu (Shorin-ryu) in the central Ohio area (town west of Columbus, Ohio, USA). My instructor and I are partners in the dojo we run together; he is CI and has 38+ years of experience, and I have 24+ years of experience. We teach 3 adult classes a week (1.5 hours each), 2 youth classes a week (1 hour each), and 1 little kid class a week (45 min); plus many after-hours and private hours spent helping students, providing one-on-one for struggling students or for those trying to make up some missed time, etc, all for no additional charges. We believe in what we do, and we believe in giving our students as much as possible without charging an arm and a leg for it.

Whoa! Thank you everyone, and thank you KF! This is a great community, and I've learned a lot from all of the great folks here at KF! A hearty, warm bow to all here!

Looks like everything was able to be worked out. Good to hear

Another that's worth searching for is "tegumi", which is the grappling, locking, etc art that's a part of Te (Ti).

Thanks for the background info and great share Kusotare

Great post...100% concur!

AH! Kobayashi-Ryu... duh! Thanks for the correction Shobayashi was Chotoku Kyan's line... I forget myself sometimes...lol Great video share... your performance was very focused and determined... Actually, the Te (Ti) expert that has taken me on as a student (I mentioned in other threads) has adapted his Naihanchi kata to the Kobayashi way even though his core style is Matsubayashi like me. After all, Chibana Osensei was a great Te (Ti) master... IMHO, the Naihanchi kata are some of the most important foundational / conceptual kata in all of Shorin-ryu based systems...

True. But why are there not that many people using Hapkido as their primary art? probably because not many people are aware of Hapkido or there may not be a school that offers it in their local area. where i live there are no hapkido schools are within' of a 1 hour drive of my house. Yep... What's the "norm" is going to be a reflection of what's prevalent in your area. Most of the MA's in my area are either TKD or Karate, but boxing, krav maga, and MMA/bjj gyms are sprinkled throughout. As tallgeese alludes to, practitioners tend to cross-train when they feel that their particular MA training or core art is not giving them everything that they want.

Welcome to KF! We look forward to the wisdom and experience you add to the pool.

Good video Wastelander... BTW, so I take it your branch of Shorin-ryu is Shobayashi-ryu (the term used to designate between the line from Matsumura and the line continued by Chosin Chibana and his decendents)?

In addition to what Wastelander mentioned, I would only add that those who tend to perform kata with speed in mind tend to perform kata very sloppily and inaccurately. As an instructor and practitioner, I would much rather see a more natural paced kata that contained correct technique while all the foundational concepts were maintained (tanden, shime, gamaku, tenshin, etc)...

you say that the colors don't matter. But i am curious what the colors are OK since you insist... Jukkyu (10th Kyu): white Kukyu (9th Kyu): yellow Hakkyu / Hachikyu (8th Kyu): blue Shichikyu / Nanakyu (7th Kyu): green, in class for ~1yr or more Rokukyu / Rokkyu (6th Kyu): purple Gokyu (5th Kyu): purple Yonkyu (4th Kyu): purple, in class for ~2yrs or more Sankyu (3rd Kyu): brown Nikyu (2nd Kyu): brown Ikkyu (1st Kyu): brown, in class for ~3 yrs or more, must wait at least 1yr to test for shodan It's not pretty, but there you have it

Well, I've been at it for 24+ years and I'm still with my CI... We're business partners in our dojo... So, I don't know. I would love to someday be out on my own, dojo speaking... I think sensei8's comparison to children growing up and leaving home to experience life is probably the best analogy to this.

That makes sense up to a point. But I'm not going to limit my students abilities based on what I can personally do. Some students are going to be faster than me, some have stronger arms, some be able to do more sit-ups, some have greater stamina, etc. That's why I believe in pushing students to do there personal best, not my personal best. I agree with you as I teach juniors 3 days a week and i can't do kicks properly due to having bad knees and hips. But i still am able to teach the kids to kick well. And I have students all the time asking me to teach them more advanced syllabus and they are more than ready to learn it. I'm not saying that we try to make our students do our personal best or only what we can do. We do want them to do their personal best. Rather, whatever we train our students in, we, as instructors / black belts, must be able to do it alongside the students. If you are unable for any medical reason, that's different. Those of our students, black belts included, that have medical / physical limitations, we still push them as far as we possibly can (within reason) to make sure they don't use said medical / physical limitations as excuses to not improve. When students have recoverable medical / physical limitations, i.e. an injury that heals over time, we push them bit by bit until they're fully recovered. Then, when they are fully recovered, they have no excuse to not be pushed towards improvement. Until I'm so old and feeble that I can't move and need a walker (God willing I live that long), I refuse to be the type of instructor that walks around grasping the front of my belt with both hands commanding students to "do as I say not as I do". If I can't perform an exercise, technique, movement, etc, then I have no business teaching it / commanding students to do it. For instance, ideally, instructors should be able to do more sit-ups; but, at the very least, if they can't do more, instructors should be able to do sit-ups correctly with the students while the students are being commanded to do them. I realize there are exceptions, but...