Spartacus Maximus

Would it be too far off the mark to state that everyone who has ever promoted themselves to any rank in martial arts did so for profit and because the prospect of gaining fame and fortune to were the main motives? Otherwise, who cares? If one just trains for trainings sake and polishing skills, belts stop being a priority. Especially if one isn’t an instructor or competitor. Personally the whole idea of self-evaluation and promotion in anything is pointless and just not understandable. The only thing that ever matters is trust and approval from a person who is doing his best to teach skills I believe in and want to learn.

There are quite a few people in martial arts who have made it a lifelong endeavour and to some of us it may be have become a “need” because we may have organized our lives with it as a priority for our physical and mental well-being as well our living. It’s easy to forget that for most people adult or not, martial arts training is not always easy to make time for with every other want and need at a particular stage in life. Education, work or both take up so much time in the average person’s life that making a choice to spend some of that precious free time on what is mostly considered a hobby can be difficult. Especially when there are so many choices and other obligations.

If your martial art has forms, it is always possible to practise shorter parts and sequences or individual techniques that only require a couple of steps in any direction. You can also just switch sides while remaining in place to replace/simulate a step forward or back depending on the size of the floor you have to work with. If it can be done in a tiny business hotel room, it can work practically anywhere. The idea is to pick anything from your martial art that can be done with the least amount of room to move around.

Everything seems more casual at my dojo than in other places. Maybe it is the same way in smaller schools where everyone knows everyone. We use a wooden rack with name plates with grade dividers and that is the only way to know if someone has a title. On the floor and among ourselves we just use our names. We know where we all stand and the head instructor is the chief instructor of the association with the title of Hanshi next to his name on the board. As there are no other instructors, only he is called sensei.

It would seem that the common expectation and assumptions are correct then. This would make the place I train an exception as every student is an adult except for two or three out of the number. And half of the student body has trained before in a variety of other systems from aikido to kendo. Maybe it falls into the non-profit category as most of the dojo income keep the lights on and the rent.

In your(general) experience and opinion, if one wishes to teach and charge for instruction either privately or opening a school, is it absolutely necessary to the financial health of the business to take children and youths? Is it possible to make it with only adults (default legal age where one resides) ? Why or why not?

Having a specific instructor training programme or curriculum is not as common as it would seem to be. There are a lot of schools where everyone is expected to do some instructing when they reach shodan or whatever level/experience determined by the main instructor. Becoming an instructor and running a school is often simply a matter of getting explicit permission and approval from one’s own instructor. The traditional process in Japan/Okinawa is to show a willingness to help teach when asked. From 4th or 5th dan, one might be asked to take over some teaching duties under the guidance of the main instructor. This is where one may have a teaching title. One must have a godan to be a shihan(teaching title), but not all godan teach. Opening a dojo requires permission and approval from one’s sensei and the head of the organization/association to which one belongs. Exceptions may be made, but they are very rare and depend on each individual dojo. For example a new dojo in an area far from the main dojo and any other school. So far at my dojo there are four, maybe five people who are at that dan level and only two regularly teach as assistant/substitute within the dojo. Nobody as far as I know has opened a school, except for foreign students. The dojo is so small in number that the regulars each have known each other for two years or more. The dan holders have their own loose association(more like a counsel where they meet and discuss finer points before going to the grandmaster to settle any doubts or disagreements. These meetings are usually casual and are open to anyone sandan and above); and have mostly been acquainted since they’ve earned their shodan.

The short answer is yes, one should ideally have some knowledge of what others are doing and learn from it as much as possible. Cross-training can be useful, but to be useful it should be done with an open mind and a frame of reference The question better question to consider should be when cross-training should be done. Anyone who presently trains in an Okinawan karate dojo, probably and unknowingly cross-trains in kobudo. The two used to be separate and taught separately by different instructors. Teaching them together as part of one dojo’s curriculum has only been the norm since the early 60’s. There are in fact two or three styles of kobudo including different weapons or tools as weapons. As far as cross training in different styles or martial arts, when carefully considered, it should ideally be attempted when one has gain a firm grasp and understanding of one martial art before venturing to learn another. It wouldn’t do much good to try to begin two or more martial arts at the same time, for the beginner will most likely either burn themselves out from over-training, become confused with seemingly contradictory details and miss what a student with experience in something else would see. Lastly, there is always the exceptional case where the different martial arts in which one wishes to train are so radically different that conflict or interference is impossible such as Aikido and karate or Brazilian JJ and Taekwondo.

If memory serves me right, Miyagi had one other student that is mentioned: Julie’s father. It is mentioned in the first part of “the next karate kid”.

The lesser number of students present at one time means that the instructor will notice more details and give more feedback. More time can be spent on getting something just right, focus the bulk of teaching on one or two things to improve. In a group of 20 students if your off by an inch, you’re off by an inch. The instructor might not notice right away or have time to get to you because there 19 others. In a group of 5-10, if you’re off by an inch, you’re off by a mile. The point is that there is an ideal number of people to teach at a time. When that number is exceeded, quality teaching decreases.

Coïncidence or not, my dojo colours match the traditional colours of the rykyuan kingdom as seen on their ships from historical records: white, black and red with gold/yellow trimmings.

It depends a lot on the culture of the dojo one belongs to. Outside of Okinawa where the dojo culture is quite casual, many dojo’s have a very quasi-military style. Japan’s militarism at the time karate was introduced there and the fact that most first generation non-native instructors were also military men explains why it is so common for titles and rank to be insisted upon. Personally, using “sir” always seemed unnecessary and misplaced without being in the military. The only forms of address in and out of the dojo was whatever they were in plain English or whatever language was used. A school teacher and a martial arts instructor were called the same thing: “Mr” or “Ms”. Anyone close to one’s age, used first names. I have trained under mostly Okinawan instructors and they have always been very casual with titles except for the regular forms of address “last-name+san” in Japanese. In Japan and Okinawa it’s normal, but in other places it’s normal to use what is usually used there in the local language.

The bar is way too high! None of the original actors has anyone that could take their roles today. Remaking the original scenario and script is always possible and nerved hard to achieve. It will probably be better simply because techniques and technology has improved a lot since the 70s. Unfortunately, despite all the improvements and advancements in film production, a production is always dependent on the actors. There are a lot of remakes that are successful, it it’s almost always due the actors.

I second that, with two thumbs way up!!!. The movies are or my generation and kept me stuck on karate and Okinawa too. I don’t care if some of it is a bit off martial arts wise, I still very much enjoy the show and can’t wait until I can binge watch the new release.

Good memories! I used to own the entire series both the manga books and the animated episodes. All I have now are the movies with real actors, starring Sonny Chiba. It was a popular series in the 80’s and 90’s. If you are in a good sized city in Japan, I strongly suggest visiting “book off” or other used manga/DVD stores. I found most of mine there and some more under a huge pile of junky old books. Also a few more were gotten off adds in personals and fan magazines.

Everything depends if one belongs to an organization or association. Most do belong to one and are or ought to be pursuing their own training. As a shodan in any martial arts, running a dojo should be left to the judgment of whoever evaluated one the grade. In short, one is allowed to do whatever their instructors say they can. Traditionally and usually when the main dojo is in Japan and Okinawa, a minimum of godan and the system/style head. There are almost no exceptions if one wishes to start a dojo. Outside of Japan, it is more common for a lower dan to operate and teach independently within their organization for Japanese/Okinawan arts. Either way, shodan is a very low and unusual level to be teaching independently, ie: in one’s own dojo apart from doing it where one trains under the supervision of one’s own instructor. Going against this is very much seen as an arrogant, prideful gesture and is usually seen as grounds for being removed from one’s organization. In Japanese it is called “Hamon” or disowning. This is where a chief instructor or style grandmaster decides to completely erase his connection and relationship to a dan ranked student for serious offences often related to dojo politics, face/honour or shameful and criminal behaviour of a student. Personally I witnessed this three times in under twenty years of involvement in Okinawan karate. The first time was for embezzlement of association fees for personal gain, stealing monies owed to the organization. Second was for teaching without explicit permission. More recently all dan grades of my small dojo were informed of the disowning of an 8th dan for heinous, unspeakable crimes against his step-daughter. I have personally never seen my instructor so angry and deeply saddened. It just proves that it is not always possible to see into a person’s true mind. And it is a reminder that one can never truly know what goes on behind their eyes. In the end, what one does with one’s training is one’s own responsibility.

People usually take up learning martial arts for a reason and are usually inspired by something. The only thing that truly matters from an instructor’s point of view is that no matter their inspiration or reason for starting, students keep coming and train as long as possible. The media can be a good way to spark initial interest in martial arts, but on its own it is not a very strong inspiration. The other thing to keep in mind is that a student’s reason for starting may wildly differ from the reason(s) for staying and pursuing martial arts over time.

Lowering standards or, rather rearranging the material into smaller parts is nothing new. The first time this probably happened historically was around the early 1900 when “tou-di” or “Chinese boxing and its ryukyuan adaptation” became known as karate. This shift in standards and curriculum is a direct result of a once secret or semi-secret self defense technique taught largely one on one or one at a time to teaching to groups and training in groups with more and more students. As telling experiment, it might be interesting to ask this question to the chief instructor or founder of one’s organization, especially if this person is culturally native to the art being taught. Personally, all those who ever taught me admitted at some point that if they kept the exact same teaching methods they were taught with and taught exactly as their own instructor taught them, they might have only about 3 or 4 and no less than five truly dedicated students who Everyone else would run away or claim excessive hardness. They sure would be getting enough students to earn a living from teaching martial arts, though. That’s probably one of the reasons my instructors all had a day job or several and karate was something left for weekends and after work.

Although creating kata isn’t something done to my knowledge, it is a grading requirement from 3rd dan to come up with logical and possible creative interpretations of existing kata. The only limit are the main principles and guidelines. Within these loose boundaries, almost anything that could or might work is acceptable.

The reason why so many if not all karate styles have 10 dan levels is because when karate was introduced to Japan from Okinawa, its structure was copied from what had been established for judo by the founder, Kano. Kano became friends with Funakoshi and other Okinawans teaching on the mainland. He was instrumental in spreading his new evaluation system to karate as well as all others Japanese martial arts, which had previously used an older system better suited to much fewer students. In Okinawa, before the kyu and dan systems became the norm, an instructor knew each student personally and evaluated them by how long they had trained. Techniques were much less codified and curriculums weren’t as clearly defined as they are today. Instructors just taught whatever they knew and in as much depth as possible. Students learned whatever they could, and were encouraged and introduced to different instructors if and when necessary. Experts were masters of two, at most three forms. Nowadays this is very rare and in some cases even frowned upon. This is too bad, because there is so much to learn between styles.

It is easy to understand why some might think the traditional training clothes are obsolete. If the majority of East Asian martial arts maintain them it is mostly for the sake of uniformity. Originally the martial arts “uniforms” were based on the everyday clothes people would have worn in those countries around the time martial arts were developed. One must not be too preoccupied with uniforms or training clothes. What really matters in the end is whether or not one can effectively apply the techniques of whatever system one is learning regardless of what clothes one might be wearing. The best way to do this is for students and instructors to take or make time to train in plain clothes or whatever they habitually wear.

The particular lineage I belong to has several “main dojo’s”. One in Okinawa, two on mainlaind Japan, one in USA and two in Europe! The chief instructor of each one are all direct students of the same instructor who approved each one before he passed away in 2010. This makes things very complicated for students of these instructors if they want to open a dojo. If a direct student of the mainland Japan instructor moved to North America or Europe and wanted to start teaching, there could be problems because the same style and organization are already represented there.

Training outdoors has its advantages such as adapting to the kind of ground where one is most likely to be if ever self defense is unavoidable. In the other hand training outdoors, especially in public places it might be difficult to avoid distractions or unwanted and unsolicited attention from anyone who happens to pass by. As for myself, I do enjoy outdoor training but take great care to find a spot where few people are likely to pass by.

Up to tenth dan as with the majority of Okinawan karate organization. Each dan grade is technical and requires evaluation of some kind. Never heard of anyone being given any grade just because they’d been there long enough. There is no such thing as everyone’s progress is different.

At present both applications and kata are taught together. The instructor teaches this way and so does everyone under him. It wouldn’t make sense to differ from this, as knowing what each move is supposed to be and how they work is key to understanding what skills each kata is meant to train. It may seem overwhelming and take more time to learn, but it is more productive and efficient than just learning the sequence of moves and waiting until shodan or later to start learning applications. As far as adding grades so as to divide the existing ones, it seems like a reasonable idea. All his students who teach under him at their own dojo have more belts. It’s all the same material, but taught at a different pace. Most of my peers are from the same cultural background as the instructor. One of the most important things about teaching is that the teacher must adapt his teaching if he is to bring out the best of it in his students. Maybe it would be a good start to set a milestone(rank/grade/new belt colour) for each kata and bunkai/applications sequence drills. All kata in the curriculum can already be divided in three or four parts. Except of course the kihon kata, which are much shorter. The only difference would be having three or four short tests instead of just one long one before each kyu. Does it sound reasonable?