Shotokannon

Hi Guys, A friend of mine runs a Karate club but he's 1st Kyu, he's had a few 1st dan/2nd dan friends of his approach him for lessons and I'm wondering, have you ever experienced this? if so, what did you do?

It turns out guys, that the new dojo has honoured my grade as a 1st kyu

You are probably not going to like this, but In the end, you have not passed your exam for a "real/full" 1st kyu yet, IMHO it is fully justified to consider you a 2nd kyu. FWIW I dislike* these "half grades" because I consider them to be a cowardly way to - hide the real number of grades that need to be taken (if there are "ho" grades between all full numbers, you are actually in a 18 Kyu system) - avoid telling students that they are not good enough to pass the exam * at least for adults, as long as it isn't used to generate revenue, it can be a nice tool to give children a better sense of progress I see your point and while it's true I've not passed a full 1st kyu grading, I HAVE passed a 2nd kyu grading, so IMHO it's a little unfair to make someone do the same grading twice, there are only ho grades from 3rd kyu and above

I do agree, but I have had a conversation with the CI and they've said that they will honor my current rank (not that it really matters!) But I'm thinking how can They if 1st kyu ho doesn't exist in their grading system?

Hi guys, Basically I've taken my grading which I passed however, I've been given a grade of 1st kyu ho, instead of 1st kyu. I'm looking at moving clubs for unrelated reasons, and the new club is saying because I haven't passed a 1st kyu grading, they can't let me train as a full 1st kyu, that I would be considered 2nd kyu and I would need to do another grading before being allowed to go forward for Shodan. In contrast, my opinion is that because I have passed my 2nd kyu grading already, it would make little sense to do another 2nd kyu grading just to get a full 1st kyu, and to that effect I believe I should be considered a full 1st kyu on that basis. What are your opinions on this? surely at any other club if you pass a 2nd kyu grading you end up as 1st kyu?

Well it's a bit of both, I still want to remain true to Shotokan, but I want to use my experience from other styles (and indeed my own experience of fighting on the street) to explore bunkai in more detail and make the Karate (while still Shotokan) more realistic with none of the nonsense you hear so much about in the Karate world, kind of "fill the gaps" so to speak. If that counts as my own style of Karate, then the question is why? Isn't teaching proper bunkai and self defense applications the whole point of Shotokan? What about the many myths in karate like the proper use of Hikite? Isn't that all part of Shotokan training?

Well at the moment I'm planning on doing it at cost, I taught many lessons at my old club since I was green belt, so I have a good foundation for teaching and plenty of interest and after all, a belt doesn't really prove anything, I believe its what you know that really counts, and I think that after having a few lessons, my students may have a lot more faith in me

Hi Guys, Does anybody know if it's possible to set up a Shotokan club as a high level kyu grade? If you've done this, what was your experience? Thanks

Hi Everyone, I am a 2nd kyu, and thinking about making preparations so that I can start my own club once I reach 1st Dan, maybe in a year's time or longer. I was wondering if I could get an insight into this from other people who may have done the same thing, I have some limited teaching experience and would like to develop that, I have heard stories that you should not begin teaching until at least 3rd dan. What's your take on this?

Hi guys, I have just moved clubs from a sport focused shotokan club to a more traditional, self defense based Shotokan Club. However, we are never taught bunkai, we are shown but we are hardly ever taught, and our sensei's justification for that is "it is not the Sensei's job to teach bunkai!". I personally strongly disagree with that statement because I believe kata is where true Karate lies, and bunkai is the key to unlocking that knowledge, so if our sensei will not teach us, then how can we learn to defend ourselves? This is a source of much frustration for me, has anybody else experienced a similar issue? What were your thoughts about it?[/img]

Agreed, I had the same suspicions but I'm fairly convinced after I had a good look through his website and did some research on the instructor, they do have a website as follows; https://www.tai-jutsu-kwai.com I can believe he may genuinely be 10th dan; the guy seems to be in his mid 60's

Hey Guys, I've been doing some thinking recently, and I've found that my current dojo is very sport oriented (We've done ippon kumite about 10 times in the 18 months I've been there), and I want to try something a little more self-defense oriented, there's a class local to me that specializes on Ju-Jutsu (chief instructor is 10th dan apparently), but I wanted to cross-train into their Kenpo classes, which incorporates a lot of self defense (gun defenses, knife defenses, etc), which isn't covered at all in my current shotokan class, and I was wondering if anyone else has had any experience of kenpo, has ever cross trained into it and if so, what was your experience? =] thanks everyone!

Hi Guys, Someone at my Dojo told me the other day that Uraken (which I consider a stronger technique than a Kizami Tsuki) won't score a point in competition because it's not strong enough, but I sometimes find it to be a bit more flexible and depending on the application I believe it can be a very strong technique. What's your opinion, do you prefer Uraken Uchi or Kizami Tsuki?

Hi Guys, This is a source of frustration for me at my Dojo, where we learn different Kata and the movements, but never the Bunkai! Granted, there are a large number of children at our club so I presume that the Club doesn't wish to be a bad influence by teaching arm locks etc, but my opinion is that I view Kata as a catalogue of techniques one could use in self defence, if we're not taught the application of such techniques then what's the point in doing them? has anyone else ever experienced this at A Dojo before?

Hey Guys, Before I ask this, I realise Kata, Kumite and Kihon are all as important as one another to make a good Karateka, but I have noticed that not every individual excels at all of those aspects of training. Myself for example; my Kumite (IMHO) is not as good as my Kata, I do like free-sparring when we get the chance to do it in our club, but Kata is my Speciality. My Question is; Which do you prefer/are you most proficient with?