Beer-monster

Yeah I know. There a kyokushin club near me too, but too far. In fact now that I'm home from uni and living in my sleepy little twon I can't formally train at all without spending a small fortune on buses or taxis. The only martial art practised here is Tae Kwon Do, an art which I've done before but wasnt too impressed with, an I'm too deep into two styles already to mess with a third. Besides the club is the eppitome of Mc Dojo. Perhaps I should grab a train to Kent and we could have a spar huh Telsun

Shame I don't work out. But I'm a poor student and can't afford it.

The bubishi rocks, a proud part of my martial arts library.

How did you meet your sparring partners.

Both karate style and arts. I've never really been fond of the tournament karate found in Wado and Shotokan etc, I'd like to try Kyokushinkai tournaments. I'd also like to work on ground fights and throws like in Judo, but mostly I'd like to mix both. However I'd like to ease my way into it (so that I don't get crippled frist try). Unfortunately non of my mates do martial arts and the people from my clubs at uni, never seemed interested in abit of harder sparring (we dont spar at all at Jiu-jitsu we use V's to test skills instead, I'm not sure if thats good or bad yet).

Does anyone spar regularly with people from other styles? Does anyone visit dojo's to spar? I feel that real sparring is something missing from my training of late and would like to spar with other people and other styles, but how to go about it without sounding like an arrogant git? And what rules should I use with other styles. So anyone?

Juts while karate kid is on the post, for thos who say that he didn;t do karate. The kata that allowed young daniel san to win in KK3 was Sienshin, a common okinawan karate kata. Just adding two pence

Um...just taisabaki. Nt really the blend I was looking for but a start. I understand what you mean, when I was a white belt at JJ I tried to do all the moves really fast and I suppose I came off as kind oif arrogant. But you learn to calm down and if you stick with it, have lots of fun and learn alot. Its just a part of being patient and swallowing your pride. Things that are part of the code, order and reward of traditional martial arts.

I know what your going through as I do both jiu-jitsu and karate (although it may not have been as bad as I did not experience as much over lap as you describe). My advice is to grin and bear it. Ignore how patronising it seems, and pay attention. Who knows he may reveal a new element to a technique or new way of perfroming it, which will improve your overalkl martial arts. As karate will improve your JJ. For example I find the combination of jiu-jitsu taisabaki and hikite great at setting up any technques from throws to locks. When an attack comes in a daigonal step forwards around the punch as you parry the strike, the curl it round to pull the attacking limb to your hara as you bring you back leg forwards to your front and complete the shift (hope that makes sense). The method moves you away from the attack and pulls them off balance (by removing their energy from their hara to yours) neutralising any follow up and plaing you at a potion from where you can stirkes, lock throw anything. This elemt had improved my strategy in karate techniques. Also the stances in karate improve my jiu-jitsu. When apply an armlock of wrist lock, I find that slipping into kiba datchi and zenkutsu datchi help the lock. When applying the kohono gaeshi wrist lock I pull the captured wrist to my hara and drop into zenkustu datchi, which put my weight fromward and applies pressure to their wrist while keeping on leg back for stability and making it easier to boot them. Um..what was my point again. Oh yeah, put up with it, pay attention and you can make an old techniques new.

Seems like the way we train, I do Shorinjikan JJ

Maybe. Buts its still just a polite discussion for the moment so no big deal. When it starts getting ugly, I'll stop it.

Seen very few throws in Wado (except tani otoshi in one of the oyos) but maybe at the higher grades I'll notices m ore JJ elements. But at the moment Wado seems to use some of the principles of JJ to make karate softer, so I don't really see it as a blend as claimed.

Not that its a bad style though!

I study Wado-ryu and it have see very little influence of the jiu-jitsu motions. There is some moderate taisabaki but it seems cumbersome and flawed compared to what we learn in JJ (a flick of the back foot and a shift of the body, not the sweeping steps which pull a person of balance or use of the hikite which is found in kata). Hironori Otsuka studied a form of jiu-jitsu that concentrated on atemi waza (striking techniques), and so was easier to adaptr into karate. From what I have seen and experinced Wado-ryu is a softer karate but not a JJ/Karate blend.

I'm not an expert myself, I hope to blend the styles myself but it will take some time. The method of fighting you describe seems to be more consistent with karate than jiu-jitsu. But perhaps I'm drawing too many borders, there are many overlaps and so what may look to be jiu-jitsu is found in karate. Where does one end and one begin. Perhaps we are pover-analysing it and should just fight using whichever technqiues that come through instinct. Less fun though, but probably better

How? The essence of jiu-jitsu is a sense of flow, the key to using jiu-jitsu technqiues is to catch your enemies momentum and rtedirect it into the technique. Karate tries to end the fight with a series of hard pwerful attacks, to weak parts. This would interupt the flow required for JJ. There is more to jiu-jitsu than locks and sweeps, and doing those techniques in karate would be using jiu-jitsu in a karate lesson, not using a true mix. I'm not being picky or trying to diss you. Its just I've thought of this a lot and a true blend of styles (any styles) is a hard thing to form. But I keep trying.

You must have worked something out that I haven't or are doing a weird style, coz the two are arts are a lot harder to reconcile thta that. Whats your plan.

Karate and Jiu-jitsu may have developed seperately but they came from the same source Fujian White Crane. But they must have had some influenec on each other. I'm with Major, if you have time do both. Like telsun I do both TJJ and karate am very happy. Aikido is good too, however I would learn a few strikes to go with it. Too much defence can be bad. Sometimes the best thing is to hit hard, hit fast and hit first.

karate is mixed with a lot of sport and traditions. That guy probably just went to the dojo and kicked air instead of putting in the thought to ask himself would this work. Its a thing many karateka do, learn the stuff for grading yet forget to take everything with a truckload of salt.

It shoudn't matter. Karate is karate, the differences though they be many are superficial.

Well said

Um...this is getting a little juvenile.

Um..your all insane.

However saying that, the wonderful thing about kata technques is that they don't act as a speciofic defence. That is, true bunkai are not a ' the guy attackst with this so I do this technique...' style. They are by fighters for fighters, and usually start of at a neutral point, such as if you at some point in the fight have managed to grab hold of the opponents hand. This could work at a wrist grab, attempted push, label grab or even a punch. With some training you can learn to get into a sitaution where kata can be used against a trained fighter, eg you could slip around a comitted boxers punch (afters keeping your guard up to avoid the initial jabs in the combo) grab hold of the arm and use your bunkai. Only problem is that such tecniques are either well known or illegal in most fighting tournaments.

Good idea, let me take my space age growth forumla.