Spartacus Maximus

Whenever I have heard of or witnessed somebody misuse or abuse martial arts I could not help feeling offended. It makes me even angrier when the person abusing martial art knowledge and skill practises the same martial art or style that I do. Anyone using martial arts to deceive or take advantage of others is wrong. Worse than frauds are those who use martial arts as a weapon for unjustifiable gratuitous violence. Thugs, bullies and other unscrupulous despicable brutes. It is quite unfortunate that the martial arts seem to attract these types. Especially if the instructor does not care to or neglects to examine what kind of people he is teaching. The worst I have ever personally witnessed was someone from my group who went out of his way to look for trouble outside. At the time I could not do anything because I was too young and inexperienced. His case eventually caught the attention of the sensei resulting in his expulsion and exclusion from many dojos because most martial arts teachers in town were friends or at least acquaintances. Word got around quick and none of them wanted anything to do with someone who would give them a reputation for training thugs. The second incident was an adult student who struck a 10-12 year old student twice. The adult was also not a beginner. This time, I was assisting while the main instructor was away. I told him to leave and not return without the instructors permission and an apology to the child. Violence is always wrong if it is unjust or used against the weak and defenseless. It is much more evil and contemptible when it is done by skilled, trained persons who know how to cause maximum damage and are aware of this. Martial skills without the guidance of morals and philosophy is but the most abject and bestial thuggery.

I still remember my very first sensei who introduced me to karate when I was just a bratty kid. I learned from him until I left for school but he taught me the value of peseverance in practise. My second teacher taught me for 5 years and was a shining example of a tireless, humble and kind teacher always ready to share his skills to anyone reay to learn. My present teacher terrifies me with his skills in karate. He has an amazing depth of knowledge and experience. If I can be just a little bit like all three of them, then maybe I could be considered a worthy student and a decent teacher.

It is well known that martial arts have rules of conduct, morals and ethics usually taught through some kind of philosophy. Whatever the origin of the arts there are some rules that are universal. Especially these two: Character development and improvement(self control, patience, respect etc) Unprovoked attacks or trivial fighting are wrong. Martial skills are a last resort response for self defense. Unfortunaly sometimes there are people who never learned or understood these lessons. What is the worst abuse or misuse of martial arts you have ever seen or heard of personally? Were you able to do anything about it? If so, did you handle the situation?

Stretching every day is the only way to maintain an increase flexibility as well as for preventing injuries. This is more important when you are older than 20 years old. If you stretch past your comfort point and do nothing the next day, you will feel even stiffer than before when you try it again a day later. The body naturally returns to its original state. Becoming more flexible requires conscious sustained efforts and daily stretching maintains the gains. Without daily stretching, felexibilty is not maintained. Someone at my dojo asked a very similar question. This man was I his mid thirties and not very flexible. He only did stretching in the dojo and was often in pain often. After he started stretching daily he finally got rid of the pain and stiffness. Just take it easy and slowly day by day doing a little more.

My lessons are semi private so there is rarely more than 5 or 6 of us being taught. Then again, I am only able to attend on weekends so I don't know how many usually show up on weekdays. The total number of regular students is no more than 20. Most are working and/or studying adults so only a small number out of those are present at all dojo days. In other dojos I trained at there was usually one or two seniors assisting the sensei with each leading a group of up to 5 students. I think between 5 and 8 students to 1 instructor is ideal. It depends on the instructors experience though. Even for someone accustomed to teaching and managing large groups, it can be very difficult to watch every one.

If a school has a contract it is because the school belongs to a chain belonging to the same owner or a franchise. These schools use contracts because they are primarily businesses. Other schools that are part of an association don't have contracts but different paying plans. The most common is a single fee for 1 year or monthly monthly tuition. Dividing payments by sessions of 3 months or 6 months is also quite common. Personally I like the idea of giving students a choice to decide what is suitable for them. I believe this retains more students than having them sign a commitment they are unsure of keeping. I don't believe having a contract keeps more students than having no contracts.

Becoming vegetarian or vegan or any radical change of diet is a matter of personal choice. Usually the choice is for a very personal reason. The most difficult thing is compensating and balancing everything so as to not cause shortages of essential nutrients to maintain health. Depending on what foods are available it can be harder to do in one place than another. The more restrictions a diet has, the harder it is to compensate and it is a good idea to do some research to find the best solution. Get advice from a doctor or a nutritionist or read books by such experts. I went trough vegetarian phase in my university days. I was not a strict vegetarian because I only took meat out of my diet. The next thing I experimented with was the so called paleo or caveman diet. This means I ate nothing that was processed or transformed in any way. No bread, raw fruits and vegetables only, some meat and fish. As close as possible to what people would have eaten before agriculture was developed. Now I am back on a general diet but I just eat smaller portions. Usually no more than 1.5 times the size of my two hands held together.

I would never tell someone not to go on the kind of journey we are discussing here. It is an honourable endeavour and an interesting experience for future reference. There is always something to be learned or discovered by going back to the source. In my childhood and youth I dreamed about one day traveling to the Far East to learn and train at the source of karate. Even now I am still not at the end of my journey but I do not regret having taken the first step.

This is unfortunately part of the issue with martial arts as a business. It is a dirty business where honest, quality teaching is hard to find and certainly not the norm. It is full of dishonest, unscrupulous individuals, charlatans and frauds For every one that is exposed or taken to court, there are hundreds more out there profiting from their deceptive practices and abusing public trust. They are successful because there is always enough people to believe them and pay them. As long as martial arts are a consumer commodity, there will be people who will take advantage and exploit it to the legal limit and beyond. Whoever wants to profit from teaching martial arts, must be willing to sell it in a way the masses will consider appealing. The question is what is the instructor willing to do to achieve this. Dishonest practices and outright fraud are rampant in franchise or chain schools because these have money making and profit as their only purpose. The chief instructor rarely has the time to teach a full lesson let alone actually train himself. He is usually too preoccupied with his business and counting his money. On the other hand, the little guy who teaches in one or two rented spaces for a couple hours each night to a handful of dedicated students is far less likely to abuse their trust to get their money. He also likely teaches quality martial arts with a real passion for teaching as well as training himself.

I knew martial arts were for me since I was 6 years old, more specifically karate. I liked the idea that I didn't have to be very big and tall or built like a gorilla to defend my self and others.

I have trained and lived in Okinawa for a few years and also elsewhere in Japan. It is only after the fact that I realized how much karate is different from what I was seeking to and how difficult it can be to find what I was hoping to find, even in the so-called cradle of karate. I have heard and read that karate in Okinawa is not what it used to be. I learned that just because Okinawa is the original home of karate, the karate taught there is free from all the issues that affect karate elsewhere. Authentic karate is just as hard to find over there as it might be elsewhere in the world. Few teachers are free from the influence and pressure of commercial, sport competition karate. Even fewer are able and willing to teach the old way. Martial arts are hard and take a long time to learn, longer still to master. Karate training is tough and painful. My present teacher is an old gentleman who learned from the last generation of masters who still taught karate the old ways. He left his native island and kept his master's teachings. He often says that even in Okinawa karate is heavily influenced by sport competition and commercial teaching. My experience tells me how right he is. Especially when he says looking outside of Okinawa for authentic karate is just as good, and maybe better for finding a teacher. The moral is: the birthplace of a martial art does not necessarily have only the best teachers. A great master may be found in unexpected places near or far from where the martial arts first came about. This is especially true in recent times where people easily immigrate and travel far and wide. Keep that in mind in your intended quest and it will keep your expectations realistic as well as diminish and disappointment if you do not find exactly what you hoped. If your goal is to experience and gain an understanding of the culture which birthed your martial art, then you will be served. You only need to keep your mind and your ears open and your mouth shut. If you do that you are sure to come back with much valuable knowledge and a new understanding of what you are hoping to learn.

That's why rank should not be taken as a standard definition of skills. If you reach say 3rd dan but do nothing to maintain or increase your skills, eventually your ability will decrease but you will still hold your rank. It takes a lot of determination and effort to keep up skills for as long as possible.

I'm just a few years younger than you are and I would not consider either of us old. If it is any consolation, I also get daily aches and pains. Something is always sore somewhere. I discussed this with my teacher and he assured me it is completely normal. I found that training through the pain and soreness actually decreases it. It is only after training that I feel anything. Not training for a single day is more painful and makes everything feel worse. I looked into the reason for this and discussed it with my teacher. The reason is that training stimulates natural production medicating chemicals, like adrenalin. If you push yourself a little further gradually past your point of soreness, it will slowly disappear. The trick is to never stop. When a person reaches around 25 habits and physical limits have already been set. The good news is that it is not impossible to change. Endurance, strength and flexibility can all be increased with daily exercise. Your physical limits are never set forever. If something is not possible at 30, it may be possible at 40 if you push yourself hard enough. Some of the best karateka I know did not reach there physical peak of flexibility, strength and endurance until their 50's. That's what keeps me going through all the aches and pains.

An interesting question, this is. I think that it is an essential duty for an instructor. A sensei who is meets and greets his student personally shows that he is approachable and that is one of the main qualities of any kind of teacher. In fact, I cannot recall a single dojo I have trained in or visited where the sensei AND sempai did not greet each student or visitor or did not make time for discussion either before or after training. Some sensei even go above and beyond. I wonder how many CI go out for drinks with their students(any of them, not just black belts) or have supper together after training every weekend. Each time someone shows up early, sensei is always there training and offers a cup of extra strong coffe or tea and biscuits. The most interesting discussions I have had were in these times before and after practise. Even visitors get the same greetings and sometimes join us.

I am a traditional karateka, so I will be drawn to look at hands for any sign of regular and sustained impact. Even if there are no obvious marks such as hardened callouses, it tends to show if someone regularly strikes something with their hands. Besides that, MAist usually have a keener awareness and manner of moving that is different from regular people.

The very idea of instant instructor qualification with no previous training reeks of a scam. Considering how long it takes to become proficient at something and have the minimum depth of understanding to actually teach, this is ridiculous. What if it were not martial arts? Let's say something like this: Instant qualification in Medical Science. No experience or degree required! Only one short accelerated course with guaranteed certification! Would you trust some guy who took that course and called himself Doctor? Hardly anybody would be fooled by an offer like that. So why is it not as blatantly obvious when it comes to instructor qualification in martial arts? I cringe just picturing the abysmal quality of so-call instructors produced by these types of course. They may as well just give out certification to any buffoon who can make poor imitations of Bruce lee yelps while waving their arms around like an epileptic having a fit. Whoever thought of this scam and actually gets people to pay is surely having flatulent fits of belly laughs all the way to the bank

How a person practises their martial art is determined by experience but also by the level of mastery. Personality also has an important role. Everyone learns by first imitating their teacher. Only after the foundation and basic principles are mastered, a practitioner begins to personalize the system. For karate this usually happens after a decade of practise or between 4 and 6th dan. Teaching is different from practise or application. To teach a system means that the teacher makes a conscious effort to transmit that system's fundamental principles, basic techniques and exercises exactly as he was taught. If any radical changes are made or parts left out, it can no longer be called the same system. As long as you teach the core of X-ryu, you are teaching X-ryu.

That is exactly my point. The tackle is an offense tactic made for football wich is a sport and has nothing to do with martial arts. It works in football because it was made for football. It is similar to the shooting technique used in cage sport fighting but it is not the same thing. Cage fighting also has certain rules that determine and limit possible countering techniques. I just gave examples from what I was taught and shown by my teacher(s) and from my experience as the unofficial punching bag that I was throughout my school years. As for every counter, timing and optimum range are the most important factor of success. Notice how many times I mention these in my examples of counters. I would be interested in Sensei8's ideas on possible counters.

A football charge or tackle is probably the easiest attack to see coming and counter or just avoid. Unless it done from behind and by surprise. The simplest counter is a well timed kick to the head or face as soon as the attacker lowers his head to charge and come into kicking range. A head grab and knee into the face or solar plexus is also good if done as soon as he is within range. With a frontal charge/tackle it is also possible to side step and use the momentum of the attacker to trip/throw directing him into the nearest hard object such as a wall. Very painful and requires very little effort besides timing and that is easy to get with practise. Even grade school kids do this to each other. Besides that, a headlong charge or tackle as done in football(aimed usually at the lower body waist/legs) is really not an intelligent fighting technique. Once started it is nearly impossible to stop midway to change moves or even see what the target will do because the head is down and tucked in.

Maybe my thoughts on this are somewhat bias because I am not a kyokushin karateka. Or perhaps the karate I am learning is too different. Although I admire the kind of physical endurance necessary to accomplish such a feat, I do not see any interest or point to it. Standard sparring bouts are usually less than 3 minutes and are stopped after one scores a certain number of hits or knocks the opponent down/out. Street( is there a better word) situations are usually over within a few seconds. Where or how the 100 man kumite would be relevant, I have no idea. I would be more interested in an exercise to test things like: Threat awareness, timing of techniques, striking focus/correct power generation etc. You don't have to spar a hundred men non-stop to see how much endurance you have.

Rank only has meaning within a dojo or an association. It is just meant to be a teaching tool that was developed to teach large groups of students. Ranks are markers to remind the teacher of each person's approximate level of knowledge based on established standards and material. Even within the same dojo, not all shodan ranked students will have exactly the same skill level and understanding. What they will have in common is a general understanding of their system, its basic techniques and main concepts. Just like highschool graduates: all of them earned their diploma, but not all have the same grasp of the required credit subjects Outside of this context, only actual skill level matter and that is not something that can be easily shown by a given rank. I had a 3rd dan in my ryuha before I re-started the same style under a different sensei. I knew and could perform all the kata in my system as well as having a basic grasp of applications. None of it mattered! My previous rank was not even considered and just like everyone else I had to start all over. Only one person in my dojo had no previous rank and training. A year and a few months have since passed and I don't even think about what rank I used to have or which I have reached. Only my teacher tells me what skills I gained so far. My skills are different from others and so are my weak points. I do not know or concern myself with what the other 2nd kyu students can or cannot do well. Focussing on personal advancement and efforts is more important than considering rank. Also, the proliferation of self-appointed pompous sounding ranks should be something to keep in mind. It perfectly illustrates how subjective the notion of rank really is.

The only way to teach and be student is to get your teacher's approval and permission to teach what you have learned. Obviously it is necessary to have reached a certain level of proficiency before considering this. If you do get your teacher's approval, take it a step further and make sure to get him involved in your teaching. Ask for his input on how to teach or explain key concepts. Consult him whenever you have to answer questions from your own students. Organize training sessions with your group and his. If you can do any of those, everyone will benefit and your teacher will appreciate your efforts to pass on what he is teaching you.

I do not care much for the term 'warrior' and I am nearly certain that the use of this word in the context of martial arts arose from the difficulty of translating and interpreting cultural concepts in them. Warriors are not the same as soldiers. The soldier is a professional who fight for an established power and it's ideals. A warrior is an ordinary man who takes up arms to face a direct threat to his social group. Only the most basic human social organizations still have warriors nowadays. Anyways, I think that what is meant by 'warrior spirit' is a strong sense of mental toughness and moral justice combined with strict self-discipline and determination. Martial arts training encourages and develops these qualities through concentrated efforts over time. These qualities are more applicable to everyday life than any type of physical conflict context.

If you think something is too tough or too difficult for you before starting, then it is too tough. Such a self defeating mindset will make you fail without ever having tried. Karate training was never meant to be easy. The question is wether or not you are determined to take the first step. Outer toughness is impossible without first having inner toughness. In martial arts, the mind and body must always work together. The two follow one another and depend on each other, but the mind must lead. Mental toughness and determination to persevere through difficulty, or pain or initial failures will make you strong but the lack of it will make you quit. Make up your mind and follow it. Others can give you suggestions, advice and even encouragement but the will and decision are yours alone. If you have neither it will not matter how much others push you.

The general public is comfortable with familiar labels for foreign things and concepts. It is in our nature to categorize things that share similarities in order to make easy references and explain them to more people. Not too long ago, even the term martial arts did not exist or at least not with the meaning understood today. Judo was probably the first Eastern martial art/sport to be introduced to the West. So for a long time, everything was referred to as Judo. Karate was next and for decades that was what people called "martial arts that use hands and feet". Karate became a familiar term to ordinary people, so taekwondo was sold as "karate" or "Korean karate". This is the result of commercializing martial arts and has been going on ever since the first dude who figured he could earn a living by teaching. If you want to sell a foreign concept, people will need to have an idea of what it means before becoming interested. Circa 1920-1950 Judo/jiu jitsu=Eastern martial arts 1955-1970 Karate=Eastern Martial arts 1970-1990's Karate=kungfu=eastern martial arts Mid 90's-now Martial arts=exotic and deadly fighting methods from East Asia This sounds very basic and is indeed a very crude and shallow generalization, but it is exactly what the public thinks. The only people who have a more accurate reference than this are this who are interested and involved in martial arts.