Spartacus Maximus

It is the purpose of an instructor to get students to develop skills and help them practise effectively so that they can improve said skills. Communication is essential to teaching and anything in about an instructor’s attitude or methods that makes it difficult to communicate will have an effect on how is learned if anything at all. Ideally this means that an instructor must find the best way to get each student to understand. With a larger number of students it may not be possible, so the only solution is for a teacher to teach in a way that a majority of students will understand....eventually. Even the best students will not catch on to everything the very first time it is shown or explained. This is certainly not limited to karate or even physical skills. The ability to do this is what makes the difference between a mediocre instructor and a great one. Not all karate experts are masters, the same as not everyone with a Doctorate degree is a professor or able to be one. Plenty of highly skilled people out there couldn’t teach a monkey to climb a tree.

There does not seem to be much of a purpose to attempting to number the fundamentals or basics. Maybe it is something that some instructors do to break down their curriculum to make it easier to teach. It is probably better to just remember that the simplest things are usually the most important and that in order to improve one’s skills it is important to have a good grasp of these before starting something else.

“Chinkuchi” along with the associated concepts of “gamaku” and “muchimi” are not usually known outside Okinawan karate. Even in Okinawa few sensei go into detail on these concepts except for a few seniors. They cannot be blamed though, because explaining these concepts is not easy and requires an advanced knowledge and understanding of physical anatomy(musculature and skeleton) as well as body-mechanics. After a mere 5 years of training it in under an Okinawan sensei who insists on it, all attempts to put it into a coherent explanation are simplistic at best. All that can be said with this level of understanding is that “chinkuchi” is a method of power generation that involves simultaneous use of “dynamic tension” in stabilizing muscles of the body’s core; and optimal structural alignment.

The initial impression this video gives is that it is utter nonsense. Further consideration makes one wonder what exactly was the point and the purpose of this match-up. One was clearly a classically trained point-fighter and the other didn’t seem too sure what he was supposed to do. Perhaps some of it can be explained by the fact that he was against a woman.

There are certain parts of karate philosophical/moral concepts that are often misunderstood and misinterpreted. “Sente nashi” translated as “no first strike” is one of these. The problems often comes from a combination of mistranslation from Okinawan/Japanese to other languages; but more importantly a misunderstanding of the cultural and historical contexts in which the people who formulated these ideas lived, trained and taught.

Any serious karateka will spend a long time training the fundamentals and practising basics to refine them continuously. Why 27 movments and how was this number determined? What exactly is counted as 1 movement? One could reasonably argue that this will slightly differ depending on the karateka and the karate concerned.

There are but a few things that can completely and utterly destroy a long-term friendship. Most disagreements can be overcome if there is enough time and a will to do it. When the only possible thing to do is to move on, it should be without any negative feelings like anger or resentment. It can be hard to accept that someone is somehow different in attitude, priorities or other ways. If one truly believes in the other’s quality of character, it ought to be possible to part ways but remain open to catching up and renewing the friendship whenever and if ever it becomes possible again no matter how far each party drifts away.

A thought that often comes to mind is this: A teacher may make every effort to teach everything possible, but the student may or may not be able, or ready to fully understand what is being taught at the time it is taught. This, despite the teacher’s intention to give full and complete knowledge. A student may not be able to “know” a concept until much longer after being taught and only “get it” later. This is why many practise for years and then one day realize “so, this is what sensei meant”.

One of the differences between now and a few generations ago is how much exposure to martial arts and access to information and media about the subject an average student has. For good or bad this has an important influence on student’s attitude towards training, their goals and motivations.

There is a quote somewhere(a translation of a book about the man or by himself) from Motobu Chōki where the notorious karate expert explains the “no first strike in karate maxim”. The anecdote involves Motobu being repeatedly pestered and threatened by a very aggressive and belligerent man at a social gathering. Motobu ignores him and keeps on partying until the man shows up armed with a large blade. At the point Motobu tells the man to step outside and when he does, Motobu kicks him in the back. This could sound extreme, but the Motobu’s point specifically states that “no first strike” does not mean that one should wait to be struck before responding. It means that the best defense can be a pre-emptive strike when an attacker’s hostile action is clear and imminent. This is where a good sense of observation and reading body language plays an important part. The problem is that few ordinary folks learn and train to recognize the signs of an imminent attack.

The original question was about martial arts students in general. It is interesting to note that many a contributor’s post describes issues with children or youths. Maybe this can be attributed to the number of children/youths involved in martial arts compared to adults. How are things similar or different with adult martial arts students?

Knowing how Okinawan karate was practised and taught earlier in it’s recent history, it is highly likely that several techniques have been adopted and shared from one “system” to another. If one goes back even further, there are some techniques that have been directly from Chinese systems and still very much recognizable as such when compared. Even within a single system, every instructor will have unique influences that depend on how, when and from by who they were taught. Practically every single head of each style of Okinawan karate on Okinawa has has experience in another style besides the one they teach. The longer they have been active, the more this is likely. Many consider that the instructor is more important than the style and may change from one to another for this reason. In the end it matters little if something is from another system. If it works, is useful and goes well with everything else, why not?

Contact definatly has its purpose. However before defining how much contact should be acceptable it is a good idea to clearly define why there should be any contact. For a drill or training bout meant to practise a set techniques, full hard contact is not necessary. In this case the point is not to knock each other out, but to correctly apply a move. Contact without some level of risk is not possible there will always be a certain level of risk.The question is how much risk is reasonably acceptable by everyone involved. Obviously contact along with the level of risk must be adapted to fit the skill level of the participants. Protective gear is worn to protect against accidents, not to replace common sense for safety in the ring or the gym.

Besides conflicts of interest, parting ways can happen without any intention to do it. It can be the result of uncontrollable circumstances affecting the student or the instructor’s life. Unexpected change which make it impossible to continue regularly training. In cases like this a student has few choices. Find another instructor, start learning another system or quit. The choice is not hard to make if practising martial art has been part of one’s life since childhood. Having only one instructor over decades of training is not the norm or at least not as common as it might have been before. Considering only Okinawan karate, most of the reknowned masters of the 19th and early 20th centuries each had at least two if not three different teachers who taught them long enough to leave a strong influence in the way these experts taught their own students.

Nothing described in the OP is found in Okinawan karate schools. Power generation comes from the core area and short direct movements are stressed. Sine-wave and knee spring seems to be something exclusive to modern Taekwondo and similar Korean arts. Perhaps the change might have been at least in part to make TKD different from Shotokan.

It depends what “breaking away” really means. There are really only two, fundamental reasons why someone might leave. It is either a matter of ego or “politics”. As for the traditional and cultural aspect, in many Asian martial arts as well as in general culture one’s teacher is always one’s teacher. “Sensei” or “sifu” means much, much more than just”teacher”.

It is a good idea to be open and forward about what one does, but only when a genuinely interested person comes ready to learn. Other than that it would be wasted effort. Why spend time and energy try to show or explain something to people who are uninterested beyond a superficial level? The majority of “regular folk” have no need to be exposed to martial arts because information is already readily and easily accessible for whoever is interested enough to look. The internet, books, magazines and countless other media more than thoroughly cover the subject.

If flashiness and impressing an audience with a performance are what define one’s ideal of skill in karate, what one does has become a performing art, a dance show to dazzle and entertain.

Thinking in terms of function and practicality, the reason for the jump seems to be more significant than how high one jumps when doing a jump-kick. Just as with regular kicking techniques, one should seek to develop the correct mechanics and form. Once this is achieved, increasing power and height will not be difficult. In addition to this, it is a good idea to train just jumping by doing squat-jumps or similar excercises.

if reputable quality is what matters, it will be very hard to find a gi that is not made in Japan. There are quite a few Japanese brands and they all have one thing in common:quality! Shureido is a prime example and their products are made to last for years. Pakistan made gi are known to be cheap, but as the pictures clearly show, there is a reason. Poor quality and shoddy craftsmanship from mass-production under questionable conditions.

There are several reasons why an instructor might hold back on teaching something. One is that teaching must follow a progression and attempting to teach everything at once is not a very effective or practical way to teach. It is a much better strategy to focus on what the student’s level of skill and understanding allows. Some instructors only teach the most fundamental and basic principles and expect their students to discover variations and details through training. Others will cover these concepts in depth whenever they judge the student has the level required.

The answer to the question is that it depends on two things:a personal interest on the part of the martikal artist and motivation by how often that martial artist is in contact with people, especially martial artist who are of the native region and are native speakers of wherever the martial art originated. An American who learned a Chinese system from Americans in America and has never met or trained with Chinese practicionners is very unlikely to use any Chinese except perhaps some terminology. Personally my own experience mirrors that of Sensei8. Okinawan karate system, learned and trained mostly in Okinawa and elsewhere in Japan. In cases like this, understanding and speaking the instructor’s language and that of dojo mates is essential. Pursuing fluency beyond dojo talk was a choice that came with necessity.

The primary purpose of a school is a place to learn and the role of an instructor is to teach. The “pageantry” only becomes an issue when it is done without rhyme or reason and when it starts to disrupt, impede or distract from effectively teaching and learning martial arts.

There does not seem to be any unanimous agreement on what is or is not included in “pageantry”. For some it might include any and every aspect of school/dojo protocol, ranks. For others the defenition extends to everything that is “foreign” such as terminology or concepts tied to the cultural view point of where or when the martial art came from. It might also include everything that is not strictly physical, such as martial arts ethics and moral thinking with regards to when or why one must or must not use the techniques learned. Doing away with pageantry is a well and good, but it makes little sense if one replaces it with another kind of something similar.

This is a question mainly for those who have been training or teaching for at least a decade. How are students different and how are they similar to when you first began teaching or training?