JR 137

I’ll say SOME of the masses outside karate knew what Mas Oyama brought to the MA... Fighting Black Kings played in some theaters in ‘76. My CI was in Kyokushin at the time. According to him, dojos in NYC filled up with adults wanting to learn Kyokushin. And then the kids - he said there were so many parents who brought their kids to the dojos and said “I need you to teach my kid how to fight like the Fighting Black Kings.” Especially in Harlem and the Bronx. The kids wanted to be just like William Oliver, Charles Martin, and Willie Williams. William Oliver had a decent student base beforehand, his enrollment reportedly sky rocketed afterwards. I’m not sure if it had that effect everywhere it was shown or not. I think it played mostly in a lot of bigger market inner-cities. I was born in ‘76, my recollection of those events is a bit shaky I saw him on Saturday and was going to ask him about it, but then I remembered that story and didn’t go there. Someone relatively recently asked Charles Martin about that movie. He allegedly chuckled and responded “that movie’s still around?”

Probably Uechi-Ryū. Uechi-Ryū and Goju-Ryu have I think 3 kata in common - Sanchin, Seisan, and Sanseiru. I think there’s a common ancestor teacher in their lineages, splitting somewhere around the founders’ teacher’s teacher, if that makes sense Uechi-Ryū is said to be the most “Chinese” of the Okinawan styles of karate. I informally worked out at a Uechi Ryu dojo for a semester in college. Very, very interesting system IMO. Quite different from the other mainstream Okinawan schools, yet similar at its core after you get away from the visual aspects. And very tough body conditioning. It’s also been called the toughest school from a body conditioning/hardening sense. If I were to choose any system out there (provided it was taught right), Uechi-Ryū would be very high on my list.

The first half of it sounds like Pinan 2 from what you describe, but the “double lateral ridge hand” and on isn’t anything I’ve come across. Is it possibly a Korean form? Not to sound the wrong way, but I’ve seen videos of several Korean forms that seem like a mashup of Pinan katas of sorts. And is it possible that you were/are doing “Korean karate” rather than Japanese or Okinawan karate? TKD and TSD have often been referred to as Korean karate. Again, it’s not a knock on Korean arts at all, it just gets confusing to people sometimes. Look up Korean forms online. You might come across it. I don’t remember the names of them, but I’ve seen Korea forms videos that look quite a bit like re-worked Pinan and other Japanese/Okinawan kata.

There’s a wide range of what’s taught in Goju Ryu. Actually, saying there’s a wide range of HOW Goju Ryu is taught and practiced is more accurate, as syllabi are usually pretty consistent. Just like every other ryuha, there’s great schools and no so great ones. It’s can be taught as an adults’ in-fighting art and as a point fighting and tournament kata art. The only way to know if it’s the right fit for you is to visit the school. Everything we say about it on paper can be correct or completely wrong. It all depends on who’s teaching, how they’re teaching it, and who they’re teach it to. A while back, I was all excited to visit a Goju Ryu school that claimed to be authentic Okinawan karate as taught by Chojun Miyagi. I walked in to see point fighting, students making kata look pretty for judges, and kids and adults all training together. And no, it wasn’t a change from their normal training routine. Needless to say I didn’t sign up. I know of other Goju Ryu dojos who are the polar opposite of that, yet they’ve got the same exact syllabus. As a side not, Seido by way of Kyokushin is a blend of Shotokan and Goju-Ryu. I’ve always liked the Goju-Ryu kata in our syllabus more than the Shotokan kata. For whatever that’s worth.

Just a point or order, so to speak... Funakoshi did not study Goju Ryu. Goju Ryu and Shotokan as we know them were being at pretty much the same time. Chōjun Miyagi and Gichen Funakoshi were contemporaries and didn’t have any teachers in common that I’m aware of. Funakoshi developed Shotokan from Shorei Ryu and Shorin Ryu. Miyagi developed Goju Ryu from Naha-Te and furthered it from what he learned in China.

Practically every school does every kata differently from each other. The differences can range from very minor to very obvious. The more you train and the better you know your own kata, the easier it is to see the differences and the more dramatic those differences seem. That being said I haven’t seen anyone do something completely unrecognizable, except a few instances where the founder of a system heavily tweaked/reworked a kata. I can think of two off the top of my head - Kyokushin’s Kanku and Gojushiho. Oyama kept the name Kanku for his version, but changed Gojushiho’s name to Sushiho, which is an older alternative pronunciation of 54 steps (Gojushiho is also translated as 54 steps). If the Pinan/Heian katas are unrecognizable, something seems amiss. When they’re performed, it’s usually quite easy to tell that’s the kata being done. There are definite differences between groups, it I haven’t seen anything unrecognizable. Some schools will switch 1 and 2 (shodan and nidan, sono ichi and sono ni), but I haven’t seen anything too crazy going on. The largest deviation from the mainstream Pinan series I’ve seen is Seiyu Oyata’s schools, and even then they’re easily recognizable. Any video of what you do?

I've been doing some reaserch on this point, as my club is about to fold (see post in Karate forum), and I get the feeling from the input of others and post which relate to transferring belts from club to club, that in the real world, even in clubs ilaffiliated to the same governing body, that your belt is only really good in your own club and it's most likely that anyone starting another club is highly unlikely to take their belt with them. Seems almost to be considered an arrogance to assume you are any rank, even if it is officially graded and signed off, which makes me wonder what the point of having any official certification of grades in the martial arts if they are not going to be recognised outside of your own club. Of course I could be wrong on that, but that's the impression I get. It all depends on the organization and the MA itself. Karate is pretty tricky as there are so many styles of it that curricula don’t match up very well from one place to another. Goju Ryu schools do different kata than Shotokan. Shotokan does different things than Wado Ryu. Wado Ryu does things differently than Kyokushin. Following this line of thought, you could be a 3rd dan in Goju Ryu and theoretically not know any Shotokan kata nor other standardized stuff. Even the kihon is somewhat different. If a student didn’t know any Shotokan kata nor standardized stuff such as 1-step kumite, should that student be given a 3rd dan in Shotokan because he/she earned a 3rd dan elsewhere? On the flip side of that, if a student earned a shodan in JR Ryu and there are 30 affiliated JR Ryu dojos, then said student’s shodan rank should be honored at any and all 30 affiliated JR Ryu dojos if he/she decides to train at any of those. I’m a 2nd kyu in Seido Juku. My 2nd kyu would be honored at every other Seido Juku dojo. So being from NY, if I moved to Hollywood, CA and started training at a Seido dojo there, I’d pick up right where I left off. I’m sure the CI would make a phone call or the like to confirm my I’m not lying nor hiding anything shady though. But my 2nd kyu wouldn’t transfer to the Shotokan dojo on the other end of my town because I don’t know their curriculum for that rank. Other MA have things far more consistent. As far as I know, Judo is pretty standardized everywhere. If you’re a sandan in Joe Smith’s Judo club in NYC, you’re a sandan in practically any Judo club. Don’t hold to that, but that’s the impression I get from judoka I know. BJJ is very similar as far as I know too. You’ll be scrutinized formally or informally, but if the student is being honest, their belts transfer pretty seemlessly as they’re pretty much all on the same page. Besides the student, rank and any other credentials are only as good as the person and/or organization granting them. Have a 6th dan under a person such as Mas Oyama carries a bit more weight overall than having a 6th dan under someone no one’s heard of. That person no one’s heard of may have very high standards and his students may be better than anyone else, but there’s going to be more scrutiny than coming from someone well known. Fair or unfair, that’s just the way the world works, inside and outside of MA.

Rank really only means something within the dojo and/or organization granting that rank. I’m a 2nd kyu in Seido Juku. I’m quite sure my 2nd kyu would only directly transfer to another Seido Juku dojo if I left my current dojo for some reason. Unless I was kicked out or somehow I was given it fraudulently, I don’t see why another Seido dojo wouldn’t honor it. But outside of Seido, nope. And I wouldn’t expect it. I’ve seen CIs address students with prior experience’s ranks a few different ways. And they’re all at the CI’s discretion... The student starts at white belt and earns every rank like everyone else. They more often earn ranks faster because of their experience, but it usually settles out to a normal pace eventually. The student wears a white belt for a time period until the CI has a full grasp of their abilities and promotes them to where he/she feels they fit curriculum and ability-wise. The CI allows them to wear their belt, but basically keeps them at that level until they’ve earned a promotion in the current school. So if you’re allowed to keep your brown belt, you’d wear that until you’ve learned everything in the curriculum and met all standards of being promoted to the next rank, which is usually shodan. That’s not very common though. All of those approaches are fine if it doesn’t hinder the school and the student. Any approach that hinders what’s truly important isn’t good.

You get extra resistance in the water. Your arms and legs have to push the water out of the way vs the air. They’re quite useful in the rehab setting. Take someone with ACL reconstruction; they’ll be able to run on an underwater treadmill before they’ll be able to run normally because the bouyancy in water counters the pull of gravity, thereby significantly reducing the impact on the knee. Same for a lot of injuries. For general working out without an injury that benefits from it, I have no idea why. Edit: I guess it would be cooler than running outside in the summer.

I’ve used underwater treadmills in the rehab setting. They’re great for rehabbing injuries. Stuff like post-operative knee rehab mainly. My time with them wasn’t extensive by any means. Unless you and your students have some kind of serious issues with impact and really, really love running, I don’t think it’s the best piece of pure exercise equipment out there. I’ll ask an old boss of mine his opinion. Then again no one asked to go running on it for fun. Factor in costs, and I don’t see it as a beneficial thing. Some PT places have them. Perhaps ask to use one for a fee? It’s a huge investment. If you want no impact running, an elliptical machine should work out (no pun intended) and save you a lot of money and space, even if you get a commercial grade one.

I just read through this old but good thread. Thanks for digging it up, G95champ. A lot of people listed what I consider advanced kata. I guess it keeps my brown belt self in check. My 5 favorites in somewhat order... Seiunchin - I did this as a shodan during my previous stint. I love every part of it. It’s waiting for me when I earn shodan again. Saiha - This kata just flat out makes sense to me. More so than any others I’ve done and seen. Simple (in the whole grand scheme of things), yet IMO brutally effective. Sanchin - If I only knew Sanchin and Saiha, I wouldn’t feel cheated at all. I love the rooting, tension, and the “checking” and conditioning. Some styles such as Uechi Ryu say everything you need is in Sanchin. I don’t think that’s too far off. Pinan 5 - A lot of stuff going on in this one. A great tournament kyu kata and bunkai kata IMO. Tsuki-No Kata - Not a very well known kata. I started learning it a few months ago. I’m really just starting to feel comfortable with it. Developed by Seigo Tada, founder of Goju Ryu Seigokan, they call it Kihon Tsuki-No Kata, meaning basic/fundamental punching kata. That name hits the nail on the head. A lot of transitioning and punching from different stances. Since I’ve gotten half way decent at it, I’m starting to like it more than Pinan 5.

While it’s true that a lot of high ranks are political promotions, “political” needs to be defined IMO. Quite often, that “political” means what the person has done for their art and organization, and for the MA overall. Someone who’s continually trained very high quality and deservingly high ranking MAists, and has spread and furthered his/her art and organization is typically worthy of being promoted to a high dan rank without any negative connotations of what people consider a “political” move. Add to that most very high ranking MAists are advanced in age and have been through many, many physical tests, and a “political promotion” isn’t a bad thing at all. As far as Bruce Lee studying and pulling elements of multiple arts to create his own MA is concerned... While it’s true he did that and did that effectively, Bruce Lee is a bit of an anomaly here. Just because he did it the right way doesn’t mean anyone nor everyone can. Nor should they. I’m certainly not saying no one else should nor anyone who does so must be at his level, but citing Bruce Lee is a like an average boxer citing Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson saying ‘hey, he did it’; it doesn’t quite hold up very well. Keep in mind Bruce Lee didn’t train in Wing Chun for that long. He studied under Ip Man (and his students) from 13 or 14 years old until he was 18 or 19, so 5-6 years. He was allegedly quite good and trained hard for long hours daily, but he didn’t “complete” the system nor was he considered a master of it in the traditional sense. I don’t know if Lee was ever formally authorized to teach Wing Chun at all to be honest. I’m not saying that to take anything away from him; just stating facts here.

Welcome back!

As of now, karate is a demonstration sport (I think that’s the term). Every host country gets to add 5 (or so) sports of their choosing. Japan choose karate, baseball/softball, I think some form of skateboarding, and some form of rock climbing. There’s probably another one thrown in there too. The demonstration sports receive medals like the others, but I don’t know how official they are in the history books. If any of those sports do exceptionally well, it may replace a regular struggling sport in subsequent Olympic Games. Very, very few demonstration sports make the regular Olympic roster. I’m pretty sure it gets covered like everything else, but I highly doubt it’ll be a prime time event. Basketball, track & field, gymnastics, and swimming certainly aren’t going to take a back seat to it. Personally, I’m pretty disappointed they went with the WKF and their rules. I completely understand their decision and on paper it’s the right decision, but I’d have much preferred to see knockdown karate like Kyokushin rules. Far more entertaining to me, and I highly doubt the start-stop format is going to have mass appeal. Add in the annoying hand raise, back turn and yell to influence judges’ calls, and I see a lot of people changing the channel.

I really try to wrap my head around people saying the old-school karateka only had one teacher. I hear it time and time again, yet history contradicts this time and time again. Funakoshi, Miyagi, Otsuka, Mabuni, et al all had more than one teacher. A ton of older Japanese karateka also held dan rank in judo. Many practiced iado or other sword arts. Funakoshi and Kano were friends; what are the chances they didn’t work out together? Granted, Judo and kendo are and/or were taught in the Japanese public schools, but these gentlemen’s training went further than their graduation from school. Personally, I think you should have an art or style within that art as your base that gets studied very deeply; and you should train in other arts to complement it. Does any one art truly, beyond any doubt at all have all the answers? Even if it did, wouldn’t studying a complementary art help you better understand your own art? You don’t need to be a mathematician to be a physicist. But having a very solid understanding of math will inevitably make you a better physicist. You don’t need to be a godan in Judo to be a solid karateka. But understanding judo’s principles (or the like) and being proficient in them will help you better understand some more advanced karate principles. Maybe I’m off on that one though. I’ll let you know when I cross that path I’ve just never understood the point of belt collecting. Take Michael Jai White with his 7 or so black belts. How much depth of knowledge does he really have? Are 7 lower black belts equal to a master-level rank? Is he an advanced student, or just really, really good at the basics? Anyone know the highest rank he’s achieved in any of those 7 arts?

Textbook Dunning-Krueger Effect. “In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people of low ability have illusory superiority and mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. The cognitive bias of illusory superiority comes from the inability of low-ability people to recognize their lack of ability; without the self-awareness of metacognition, low-ability people cannot objectively evaluate their actual competence or incompetence.” Taken from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect The opposite is also true - the more you know, the more you realize how much more there is that you don’t know and is over your head.

6.5 years during my first stint. 3.5 years currently, so I guess 10 years total. What have I learned that’s unquestionable... There’s no substitute for hard work There’s no substitute for consistency in training There are no secret techniques that’ll make me invincible Belts, ranks, and/or titles don’t prove anything; “the proof is on the floor” (thanks sensei8) The more experience I gain, the less I’m impressed by 95% of the people out there and the more I’m impressed by the other 5% of the people Oh yeah, and just when I think I’ve got things finally figured out, it’s back to the ole’ drawing board. Outside of MA, in my 42 years of life, I’m only really sure of 2 things... There is a God. I’m not Him. The rest is subject for debate.

Congratulations!

Very good link and article. I’ve seen a few of his videos. And read some of his exchanges with YouTube warriors. He’s not all over all of them, but I wonder why he gives a few of them the time of day. He’s definitely a passionate guy.

Welcome to the forum, Fat Cobra. Nice screen name, BTW. Ryu Kyu Kempo is a bit broad. Without me googling it, is it George Dillman’s Ryu Kyu Kempo, Taika Oyata’s, or something else entirely?

I'm not a black belt yet. In previous clubs I've been in, that didn't matter. Prior to joining TSD I only ever graded once in another style, and that was a kung fu school where they didn't traditionally have grades, but had decided to experiment with it for the benefit of us western sorts. I trained for years in wado and never graded once. Yet in these other styles, I was treat as a martial artist with ability judged by seeing what I could do rather than the belt I wore. All that changed when I went to TSD. When I started in had no intention of ever grading. Yet now I am nearing black belt purely because, to my surprise, they actually withhold techniques from you until you reach certain grades. This concept was alien to me and I'm still not at ease with it. Especially when you see a senior Dan grade showing off a technique I learned at white belt in aikido. I'm at an age and experience level now where I'm starting to think about teaching. I realise people will then expect me to have a black belt, so I will continue to earn it somewhere, but wherever I go next, I really can't be pestered with being limited to the most basic techniques until I get to the higher grades in whatever I do next. Withholding techniques is a double edged sword of sorts. It makes sense and doesn’t. If someone is capable of performing and applying said techniques, then there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be taught them. The reason to withhold them is because the student isn’t ready for them. If there’s no foundation, the techniques are meaningless and useless. Case in point - Suparinpei is said to be Goju Ryu’s most advanced kata. If a teacher wanted to, they could teach it to a beginner student. But what would the outcome be? If they’re a good athlete, maybe a pretty looking kata? What’s the understanding going to be? Unsu is Shotokan’s most technically difficult kata. Same question.

In addition to what others have said... The long-term is truly a leap of faith. What seems fine and good during visits, even a dozen visits isn’t truly indicative of how things will be years down the road. Unless you observe every single level of classes for a long period of time, you truly won’t know IMO. You can make a good guess and hope for the best, but that’s really about it. Then there’s other issues too. Perhaps for the first several years they’re teaching exactly as you think they should. Then the culture changes. Maybe the CI has an epiphany and realizes he/she’s been going about it the wrong way all these years. Maybe the CI is getting tired or losing motivation. Maybe he/she is stepping back more to slowly allow a transition of new instructors who’ll replace him/her eventually. Maybe the CI will unexpectedly get sick and can’t go on. No matter how set in his/her ways the CI may seem, things can change. All you can do is make an educated guess as to how it’ll go in the long run and train. If you over think it, you could easily suffer from “paralysis by over analysis.”

I don’t know Denver’s geography nor anything about getting around the city. But if I were in Denver, there’s one dojo I’d absolutely have to visit - Enshin Karate’s honbu dojo. Enshin is an offshoot of Kyokushin karate with elements of judo. Think knockdown karate with clinching and throwing mixed in. Their concept of tai sabaki (body movement) focuses on circular movement to get to the opponent’s “blind spot.” I have a man crush on Joko Ninomiya (founder and head instructor) and his system. I make no two ways about it. Everything they do appeals to me. Unfortunately there’s no Enshin anywhere near me, so I’ve only seen video, read books, etc. Ninomiya is an absolute legend in the world of Kyokushin and knockdown karate. Even if you’re not interested in karate, his dojo is a must visit IMO. What you see them doing may change your mind. http://enshin.enshinacademy.com The website isn’t the best I’ve ever seen, but don’t judge them on that.

To those with that keep their hands open because it’s faster - closing your hands doesn’t mean they need to be tightly closed. Rather than “making a fist,” just loosely close your hands. Imagine having something in your hands that will fall out if you open them, but break if you squeeze. My high school football coach used to make us run sprints with potato chips in our hands every now and then. Same concept. Just because your hands are closed doesn’t mean they need to be closed tightly. Just tighten them up right before you block. Same thing if you were going to punch, your keep your fist loose until right before it makes contact. I need to remind myself to close my hands when not punching too

Greetings and welcome from a fellow upstate New Yorker. I’m in Troy (next door to Albany).