Zimlock

Most karate would work in MMA, surely! Take a look at the kata, there are goldmines of techniques in there. I wouldn't want to lunge at a pro MMA guy with an Oi-tsuki, but I might be tempted by the odd bit of jion if I'm being grabbed.

I'm studying both now, and Aikido is complimenting my karate brilliantly. All in all it is rounding off elements that basic karate ignores and brings the whole system into a cohesive whole. Aikido starts off harder than karate - in karate you start off learning drills and carry on, and its only at black belt that you realise that you've done everything wrong and there's a whole can of worms that you didn't even realise you opened. In aikido you seem to be thrown into the deep end right at the start and that feeling never goes away.

It's perfectly normal to not know what your sensei is saying. As you train you'll pick things up. It helps to look things up too, so that you learn them quicker. Try not to lose your temper! It's all just a learning experience.

I'm not nearly trained well enough to kick with the ball- I'll need a lot more practice before I feel comfortable pulling that off every time. The risk is too great - if I damage my toe, I can't train for a few weeks! So the instep is the way to go in kumite for now.

I have this really deep-rooted urge to understand and learn as much as I possibly can- perhaps in a similar way to Aikido, I achieve such a mastery of karate and aikido and have such a deep knowledge of the body that I never have to actually hurt another person in my life.

Absolutely right! That video you posted is really fantastic. Traditional martial arts are bigger and broader and much harder to use, but they're still all there. They're still martial arts, for fighting, for defence, to use.

In WKF tournament rules, you are supposed to carry out a technique in such a way that it's entirely in your control - you could have destroyed your opponent and planted your hand through their head and killed them, but you stopped a centimetre or two away from their face and successfully pulled back without losing control of the situation. That scores a point. Generally Karate for sport is non-contact, or is supposed to be non-contact. For that reason, face 'hits' are allowed.

Traditional blocks are not always just blocks. They are arm breaks, pins, throws- if you're using an age-uke to block a punch you may find it is slow because it's too powerful. That's why we prepare by sticking our other arm out- to deflect in case we aren't quick enough, and then the age uke becomes a strike to the now exposed arm. Traditional MA require more thought. Every move is a swiss army knife and knowing where to look takes time.

A martial artist has no obligations upon them; therefore you are not obligated to tell anyone anything. Your personal journey is yours and only yours. They are about self discovery and self betterment and not conversion.

Hello all, I am new etc. I was wondering this in the shower- how often do other clubs perform Mokuso at the end/beginning of their training sessions? I thought I was going to be limited by speculation, but then I remembered that I joined this forum and I could ask!

Usually I will only restart a Kata if I made a serious mistake- like confuse a passage or feeling with another kata, or lose concentration and switch off. Otherwise I will repeat that motion, in stance, until I get it right. I might go back and forth - do the kata backwards if it's just the one technique. Usually I'll be working on one thing at a time. For example, at the moment I'm trying to stop my foot from facing outward at a silly angle when in zenkutsu-dachi. When I perform the kata I will be focusing mainly on that aspect and when I get that down without thinking about it I'll move onto something else that's bothering me. I hope that gives you an idea!

I'm not sure about anyone else, but if the 'Ryu Bujitsu' course is friendly and reasonably priced and serious then that sounds excellent! It might give you an all round base for self defence. What you'll need to eventually do is work from that to more realistic situations, of course. Kyokushin-ryu will certainly teach you how to take a punch!

When I am standing next to a white belt I usually find myself looking at them with a hopeful eye- I like to see how hard they are concentrating and how hard they are trying. If I can see that they're working really hard, then it fills me with an enormous amount of sheer joy, because it means that someone else is taking this journey seriously. And similarly, if I happen to teach, I feel the same sort of joy when people get a hang of things and start to understand them. Never for a moment do I find myself in contempt of their abilities. I wouldn't think that they are 'bad' - I simply don't see training in those terms. There are always things to improve and work on. Their belt, as has been said, I use mostly as a measure of what kata they probably know. I can immediately tell what their sort of ability is by their stance and technique, and I think it's a better descriptor than their belt. The only time I'd think that "this person is not on my level" is if I were in a kumite with them. I'd use their grade to my advantage- I'd take for granted that I could be more aggressive with a lower grade because they would probably not have the clarity of mind or reaction times that a higher grade would have. But I've been wrong about that kind of thing before and had to learn the hard way!