JR 137

It’s quite alright to revive an old thread if you have relevant information. Your post is completely relevant and I’m personally thankful you made the post. As a man, I understand where he’s coming from. I don’t agree with him not hitting you in sparring/drilling, but I understand. I also understand why you’re feeling the way you’re feeling, and I completely agree with you. I don’t know you nor him, but the little I know from your post, I can only say this... You shouldn’t take it personally. He’s most likely doing and saying what he was raised to say and do. And most likely so was his father, grandfather, etc. I’d imagine it’s quite hard not to take that personally, especially factoring in what you said, but this is his issue to work on. My advice is to speak with your teacher. He/she should address this student, and he/she should know how you feel. And unless you’re the only female student at the dojo, I’m sure the other women feel the same way as you do or will when they’re paired up with him. If you stay quiet, your teacher may never know and won’t be able to fix it.

Did wrestling season start yet? Updates? Projections? I miss wrestling. I was asked to help coach again this year. I’m just stretched too thin as it is to be able to do it.

I agree. When I hear of these new styles pop up, to me they most often seem like a new organization rather than an actual style. Ie someone breaking away from an organization and starting their own, while retaining most of what the former style did and tweaking the syllabus to their liking. Even Joko Ninomiya calls his art karate. Enshin karate. Ninomiya took his Kyokushin and judo experience and combined them into one system. It’s more Kyokushin heavy than judo, but there’s quite a bit of judo in there. I’d consider it a more of new style rather than a new organization. Most of the people I see starting their own style aren’t doing what Ninomiya did to the extent he did/does it. Maybe I’m off here though.

There are a lot of celebrities who train martial arts. One of my favorites, as mentioned earlier is Ed O’Neil (aka Al Bundy, Jay Pritchett). I believe black belt in BJJ. Two other favorites not mentioned yet... Dolph Lundgren, aka Ivan Drago - 3rd Dan Kyokushin. He competed in and won the European Kyokushin open tournament in the late 70s/early 80s. He was a green belt at the time and had to borrow a friend’s brown belt to compete. Tom Araya (vocals and bass for Slayer) - last I saw was a 2nd dan in Okinawan karate, either Goju Ryu or Shorin Ryu.

Welcome to the forum, nunopicado. Sensei8 said most of what I was thinking, only he said it better than I could have. Your story of why you joined is quite common in the dojo I attend. Many of the adults sat and watched their kids and asked themselves why they were just sitting there. Quite a few of them continued training after their children either got bored and left or life took them to other places like college and careers. I’m glad you’re finding it so enjoyable.

Welcome to the forum. What art do you study?

ND, I suggest that you carefully read and consider the bold, above. Consider the best case scenario that you find an Art that you love to train, and can find a way to train under a qualified teacher in that art... In my experience, high quality/deep martial arts have a progressive way of teaching, developing and cultivating the particular attributes and methods endemic to such Art. For most, its harder to unlearn bad habits, than to actually learn the correct way in the first place. It's like retrofiting a Chevy Vega with a small-block Corvette engine. It can be done, but it would have saved much time and money buying the Vette to begin with. I suggest that you search for the less public, less known martial artists in your area...those who don't have commercial dojos, don't advertise in the yellow pages, and don't cater to the masses...they are out there. Just my $.02. Yellow pages??? What’s that? What century are you living in?

I go with middleweight too. I hate those free uniforms they give out when you sign up. Some of them are practically see through. Heavyweight ones are just too heavy. I wear a Shureido middleweight (K-11). It’s the perfect balance of weight and lightness. I used to like that snapping sound. I don’t care either way anymore.

Every style and organization was started by someone at some point. Before Goju Ryu became Goju Ryu, it was some guy named Chojun Miyagi teaching a few guys in his backyard. Before Kyokushin became Kyokushin, it was some guy named Mas Oyama teaching a group of guys in a dilapidated room. I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. On the other hand, there’s been countless people who’ve started their own group and have never been heard from since. There are certainly benefits to being in a large organization. The benefit of people recognizing your rank and legitimacy by association can be there, but they’re really not the most important benefits IMO. There are pros and cons to being a part of an organization and being independent. Neither one inherently legitimizes the training. The only person who needs to see the training and everything associated with it is you. If it’s a great fit for you, train. If not, look elsewhere. When you’re on the floor doing your thing, the patches on the gi and the sign outside (if there is one) are all insignificant. To quote a guy I highly respect, “the proof is on the floor.”

Pinan 3 has a jump at the end in some styles.

A public institution, ie one receiving government money, or a business that has some sort of certification process, then yes there can be rules against this kind of stuff. A private small business? I’m pretty sure there’s no litigation. If I run a dojo and deny a student membership for whatever reason, I’m quite sure they have no legal ground to stand on if they sue. I’m sure you’re allowed to ask whatever you want. And the prospective customer is allowed to walk out the door without answering anything. If I opened a white men only dojo, I don’t think anyone can legally do anything about it. It’s not like government can withhold funding they’re not giving me; there’s no clauses in small business licenses that I know of that explicitly forbid it. They can’t seize my assets and close down my dojo because I’m a racist and sexist. Social justice has a great way of taking care of this stuff though - expose them, and people don’t come. No one training nor paying to train takes care of the problem nicely. A small non-essential business owner should be able to pick and choose whoever they do business with for whatever reasons they see fit; for good reasons, and it pains me to say it, but for not good reasons. They’re investing the time and money to run it, and they should be allowed to run it as they see fit, good or bad.

Welcome to the forum. Starting at 40 is a bit too old... if you’re planning on competing in the junior Olympics Other than that, 40 isn’t close to being too old.

We’ve done kids come dressed in the costumes for Halloween. They seem to like it. I’ve never attended the kids’ class, so I don’t know if they did anything different as far as actual stuff goes.

Regarding the “Mountain” kanji, I’m sure a Japanese speaker would greatly help. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the Japanese language, it’s that quite a few words don’t translate exactly and a lot of it is context driven rather than definition driven. I was going to say that character is mountain too. I’ve seen it plenty of times, mainly in Oyama (Mas Oyama, Shigeru Oyama, and Yasuhiko Oyama). Their last name/family name translates as mountain or big mountain. The kanji is one character followed by the one listed above. For reference, it’s written on the gis in this pic: http://www.oyamakarate-sf.com/about-us.html Mas Oyama’s name is written the same way. Trivial information: Mas Oyama took Shigeru Oyama’s father’s last name as his when choosing a Japanese name in honor of him. Shigeru Oyama’s father sponsored Mas Oyama’s Japanese move and allowed Mas to stay with his family when he went to Japan. Mas taught Shigeru and his brother Yasuhiko karate as partial payment. Ironic trivia: Mas Oyama wanted Shigeru Oyama to change his name when he sent him to the US so people wouldn’t assume they were related or confuse Shigeru Oyama as the founder of Kyokushin. Odd how he took his family name in honor of his father, yet wanted Shigeru to change his name.

Not only did some teachers teach different kata to different students, but sometimes they taught the same kata differently to different students. Meitoku Yagi said Miyagi would tailor the kata to the students to address their strengths and weaknesses. Sanchin is a good example of this; he taught it with and without turns, and open and closed handed. I think it became more standardized in a sense later on in Miyagi’s teaching, but not everyone was taught it 100% the same way. Hence some Goju Ryu lineages do the turns and others don’t. I think they all currently do closed hands, but I’ve heard from several sources that this wasn’t always the case. Sanchin wasn’t the only kata he tailored, and not every student learned every kata. Yagi could quite possibly be the only one to be taught every Goju Ryu kata by Miyagi personally. This is very true. This could be stylistic changes from the teacher or structured directly to the student. I have seen sister arts perform a certain Kata many different ways. I have often wondered if this was due to the founder teaching it differently to each student, essentially tailoring it for each student, or if each student changed it based on their needs and thus passed it down. However there is one other factor in that the Kata may be influenced, or should I say the instructor may be influenced, by the instructors experience via other arts as well that leads to changes. Excellent points. I’d be willing to bet it could’ve been a bit of both, the original teacher tailoring things a bit, then the student tailoring a bit to his subsequent students. Then there’s also the teacher perhaps changing things subtly to better fit their bunkai. Or they may think a move or two should be changed to something else because they don’t like the generally accepted bunkai. Perhaps substituting a move made better sense to the teacher and/or his students. Perhaps altering a move made the concept easier to understand by the students. There are so many possibilities. To say it was one or another is probably being a bit too simplistic in thinking. I’d bet there were several reasons going on throughout the generations.

The gedan mawashi geri changes things quite a bit. For Kyokushin type fighters, it’s almost, but not exactly like a boxer’s jab in a sense. A lot of combos start with the gedan mawashi, it gets people to drop their guard, and it can be used to wear an opponent down. I’d go out on a limb and say the gedan mawashi geri and shita tsuki are the two staples of Kyokushin knockdown fighting. Master throwing them and be able to withstand them, and you’re a solid contender. I think the gedan mawashi would be a game changer in this competition. Perhaps that’s a major reason why they’re not allowing it? To differentiate themselves further?

To play devil’s advocate... Sometimes more is better. If I’m being taught a very limited number of kata, what if I don’t like said kata or it’s not the right one for me? There are kata in my syllabus that I do more or less for the sake of advancing, and there are kata I really like and can’t get enough of. If I was required to solely do Pinan 3/sandan for for a year or two, I’d lose my mind. If Saiha was the only kata I did for 5 years straight, you wouldn’t hear a single complaint.

Not only did some teachers teach different kata to different students, but sometimes they taught the same kata differently to different students. Meitoku Yagi said Miyagi would tailor the kata to the students to address their strengths and weaknesses. Sanchin is a good example of this; he taught it with and without turns, and open and closed handed. I think it became more standardized in a sense later on in Miyagi’s teaching, but not everyone was taught it 100% the same way. Hence some Goju Ryu lineages do the turns and others don’t. I think they all currently do closed hands, but I’ve heard from several sources that this wasn’t always the case. Sanchin wasn’t the only kata he tailored, and not every student learned every kata. Yagi could quite possibly be the only one to be taught every Goju Ryu kata by Miyagi personally.

Do they allow thigh kicks yet?

"Stomp the groin" Then re-stomp the groin. I’m glad someone corrected it

Surprises are typically a very big no-no with them. Change the schedule or routine a bit, and it can be very hard to keep them on task.

I was a big fan when I was a kid. My dad took me to see the first Wrestlemania on closed circuit TV at a local arena. We used to order the major PPV events, then the cable unscramblers came out and we were in our glory (remember those? I’m dating myself ). I was way more upset when I found out wrestling was fake than when I found out Santa Claus was fake. Not even close. My interest faded quite a bit afterwards. I think I was pretty much done with it a little while after Hulk Hogan lost the title to the Ultimate Warrior. That was just coincidence though, because I was an ultimate warrior fan. I loved watching what I think was called TNT. It was the weekly show hosted by Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby The Brain Heenan. That and there was a weekly show that was like a late night talk show format where the wrestlers would come on. Can’t remember the name of that one though. Saturday Night’s Main Event was always great too. I remember being stunned when Andre The Giant beat Hulk Hogan on that show. At that point it was a given that Hogan was going to win every time. I was almost as stunned by that one as I was by Douglas knocking Tyson out, if that gives any perspective. Ah, the good old days.

Regarding autism... During my graduate physical education training, we had to take an adapted physical education class. The teacher was an expert in autism. Her wisdom imparted to us: “if you know 100 people with autism, you know 100 autistic people with different needs” or something like that. Autism is all over the place, and as such there’s no universal way of teaching autistic students. It’s pretty much all trial and error. Sorry to give such a generic answer, but it’s definitely what I’ve found in the many autistic children I’ve taught, academically and physical education. I can only say a few things that I’ve seen in just about all of them... 1. They don’t like being out of their comfort zone at all. Many people don’t, but autistic people shut down in a unique way. Finding that comfort zone is trial and error, and it’s typically easy to tell once you’ve crossed it. Physical contact is a common thing they don’t like, but it’s definitely not universal. 2. Once you’ve earned their trust, you’ll be able to get them further out of their comfort zone. Not as far as non-autistic people by any means, but you’ll be able to challenge them an appreciable amount. 3. They most often don’t understand social cues. They have a very difficult time relating to people and don’t understand relationships very well. They know roles, but beyond that is a mystery to them. I they take things far more negatively than most people. 4. They are extremely logical rather than emotional, bringing us back to number 3. Explain things to them like an adult rather than like a child. Don’t end up unintentionally talking over their head, but definitely don’t talk to them like a little kid. Show positive and happy emotion, but definitely don’t over do it. When they’re going into a fit (the more you know the kid, the easier it’ll be to tell when it’s starting), be very matter of fact and show no emotion. I have one kid with autism in particular in my science class from 3rd-5th grade (presently), who has severe anxiety over what he perceives as failure; if he gets a question wrong, verbally in class, a test, homework, etc., he’ll immediately start with “I’m a failure. I’m so stupid. I’m going to end up washing dishes in a restaurant my whole life.” I just look at him with zero emotion on my face and in my voice and say “John, you know you’re smart. You know getting one question wrong isn’t going to change your whole life. Take a few deep breaths and relax. When you’re ready, you can rejoin class.” It works. Other teachers have coddled him, gotten upset with him, ignored him, etc. None of it worked. The key is to know when they’re on the verge of a meltdown and use logic and show no emotion before it goes too far. Once it’s gone past a certain point, there’s pretty much o coming back for quite some time. The more they trust you, the easier it is to get them back to where they need to be. Another example, the same student refused to leave the room during a fire drill one day. He ran around the room screaming he wasn’t going to leave because he didn’t finish the question he was working on. I looked him right in the eyes and said “John, there’s no way you’re staying in this room. You can walk out like everyone else, or I can carry you out, kicking and screaming like a baby. Which one is it going to be?” He looked at me, and I said “which one, John, I’m not going to ask you again.” It was so hard for me to do, but I showed zero emotion, and didn’t raise my voice beyond a level he could hear it over the fire alarm. He walked out like he was supposed to. Had I coddled him or showed him I was upset, I definitely would’ve had to chase him down and drag him out. For the record, I would’ve had to carry him out if he didn’t leave willingly. Just some things to think about. The best thing you can do is speak with the parents and ask them what typically works and what doesn’t. Focus more on what doesn’t work and avoid that stuff at first. As you gain trust, you’ll be walking on eggshells less and less often.

I was going to say the bent wrist/koken block, but I’ve seen it used in bunkai as a wrist grab release. Think Tensho and Yantsu kata. Yantsu isn’t very common outside of Kyokushin and its offshoots though. I’ve seen a Shito-Ryu school do it under the name Ansan.

I do too, only my wife didn’t give the reaction I was looking for, so I stopped. I still use it one my little ones. Beyond that, just no. I tried it lightly on a heavy bag. Needless to say, I won’t be using it if someone attacks me.