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?

I find this to be a bit of a frustration, purely from a self-defense (and to a point, competition) point of view. We follow the WKF style rules, so no elbows, knees, joint locks etc however we are allowed to use tobi geri's and tobi uchi's as long as we control properly. 2 adults sparring together are allowed light face contact (though some don't know the meaning of "light"), adults may not contact under 12's in the face with any technique whatsoever and even feints are heavily frowned upon because of the risk of of contact (and therefore injury/retribution from parents which would look bad on the club etc), so we don't do it. IMHO, I can understand why it's not allowed but it's such a frustration when you've trained that way and gotten used to it, because you go to competition and/or get accosted on the street and they hit you straight in the face!

I totally agree with you about personal knowledge and growth, I feel it will make me a better Martial Artist and more open minded.I don't run my own Dojo or anything (that would be absurd considering my grade) but I do help to teach basic Shotokan Kata and Kihon under supervision of my Sensei at the Hombu from time to time and have led entire lessons by myself. We are very Shotokan, we don't typically learn anything that isn't Shotokan, However we've had students who have come from other Martial Arts so I feel if I have at least some experience in other arts, it will help the transition into Shotokan.

Hi Guys, I've been doing karate now for just over a year and I've just been graded to Purple belt a couple of weeks ago, now that I've got a basic grasp of Karate, I feel like I should be exposing myself to other Martial arts while continuing that. The reason for this is because when/if I get to Shodan, I'd like to be able to say I have experience with other Martial Arts, speak about those arts, and could help any students from that kind of background a bit better. I particularly like the Idea of Aikido, I realise Karate is a mainly striking art so I feel like the throws, locks etc would really help just from a self defense point of view. Does anyone think it's a good idea for a Karateka to learn/know about other arts? I'd be interested to know what other people's experience of this is like.

Hi Guys, First of all I love competitions, but it's SUCH a pain to get to them if they're not local (I don't drive) and I personally always feel really downhearted because I never have anybody to go with. Does anyone else feel like this when going to a competition? It's so annoying because I love competitions and have done very well in the ones I've been to, but this feeling is always a barrier!

Ok so I'm going for Purple belt next week having done Karate now for a year, and now that I'm starting to learn some Post-Heian/Pinan Katas, and I've noticed that there's a lot of different Kamai Positions in the various Post-Heian/Pinan katas, (Tekki Shodan, Bassai dai Kanku dai etc) and I'm wondering if there's any specific reason for this? it's always intrigued me.

Our club doesn't stipulate anything specific, the only restrictions in terms of what you wear are that you must wear a white Gi, your belt must be within the club's Syllabus (the exception to this is if you're a beginner from another club), your pads and Mitts must be EKF/WKF approved and either blue or Red as per competition standard.

I believe this is a case of learning to step all over again, and practice until it's perfect as the issue seems to lie in when I begin stepping, not when I finish

Hi Guys, A few days ago I (well, my Sensei) made an interesting discovery. Over the past year I have developed an apparently very bad habit, where in Zenkutsu Dachi my feet touch at the half step as usual, then I step out as usual, however I have a habit of not applying my weight on the front foot until JUST after my foot lands. This apparently is due to the fact I don't plant my foot properly, I literally just place it there and apply my weight afterwards! Has anyone else come across this problem? If so, how have you corrected it?

It's funny you should mention this, because I recently just got my green and white belt, the only reason I didn't get my Purple was because everything was at 170 miles an hour, according to my Sensei. I have since found that ifyou break moves down, and go a little slower, one tends to think about the technique a bit more and generally perform that technique much better. Of course, on the flip side of that it's my opinion that one should always have kime, and should always mean a technique and put power into it, but there's a fine line between kime and going too fast, thereby diminishing the quality of the technique.

This is a great topic! I actually don't feel like I've sacrificed anything apart from time with my Partner, if anything I've sacrificed a lot more by choosing to work! If I'm training particularly hard however, I find that it's hard to find the time to do things like Gardening, Cleaning (though I always make time for that), DIY etc, so I do feel like I've sacrificed the time I would have spent on all that.