JR 137

Serious training is when someone is training hard and putting forth a high effort rather than just going through the motions. Go to a gym and watch people on an exercise bike. Some are reading a magazine or watching tv. Others are actually sweating and putting in work. Same difference.

YouTube Red announced they’re going to make season 2. Apparently they’ll shoot in the fall and release it in 2019.

I’m also a school teacher. There are teachers who quite frankly have no business teaching, teachers who are truly outstanding, and everything in between. There are horrible students, excellent students, and everything in between. I hate saying there’s horrible students, but it’s true. Some people just don’t want to be there no matter what’s being taught nor how it’s being taught. No matter how good they are, no teacher is going to be able to teach every single student to the same high level. There’s too many differing teaching styles, learning styles, and personalities. To say students are visual learners, auditory learners, and/or hands-on learners is over simplifying things. I’ve found the best way to get students to learn is to get them to buy into what’s being taught. Showing and explaining why they’re learning what they’re learning goes quite a long way IMO. When I fail to do that, I typically have students who are just going through the motions. When I do that, they’re typically not just learning something for the sole sake of passing a test. Even the hypothetical best teacher ever isn’t going to be the best teacher for every student. In MA where you have a choice of teachers, it’s about finding the best teacher for you. A lot of that comes down to compatible personalities.

As others have said, the belt is just an indicator of rank. Rank is just a combination of an indicator of where you are in your school’s curriculum, your level of experience in your school, and where you stand in the pecking order, so to speak. Quite often the belt and the rank are a bit inaccurate. Some people are far better than their rank indicates, and others are below the average in ability for their rank. A lot of people think the belt automatically indicates ability. I used to be one of those people too. I learned pretty quickly that my new black belt didn’t bestow any new abilities onto me once I stepped into my first class as a black belt. I was still JR making the same mistakes I always tried to correct. And a lot of new mistakes too.

I just finished watching the entire series last night. I liked it. It was quite entertaining. Without getting into the plot and the various events... I thought they did a great job developing characters. But in doing so, it slowed the overall story down a bit IMO. Not too much, but enough for me to say so. It seems like a great thing for a first season if they continue it. If they don’t continue the series, then IMO it wasn’t the best plan. If they continue the series I’ll definitely watch it. I like that the characters are complex, realistic and relatable. There’s no pure “good guys” and “bad guys” in the main characters. When it starts out, you’re rooting for one guy to fail and another to succeed, then you change your opinion the opposite way, then you start wanting everyone to get along. While the characters are polar opposites on the surface, they’re quite close the deeper they get. You feel empathetic and sympathetic for them. Johnny drives the storyline. He seems like the type of person I see a lot of in my work as a school teacher - he’s genuinely trying to do good, but he keeps getting pulled back into not so good things by people and circumstances around him. He doesn’t know how to distance himself from the negative feelings, emotions and circumstances surrounding him. He distances himself a bit, then somehow gets pulled back into his old ways. Repeatedly. Johnny’s students need him just as much as Johnny needs them. He’s learning just as much from them as they are from him. His students are pulling him away from his negativity, but everything outside of that is pulling him back in. He’s learning maturity from them, yet everyone outside that group is reinforcing his old ways. Just when he’s cleaning himself up and you think he’s finally on the right path, his past comes up and kicks him down; he reverts to his old ways. Again and again. Daniel’s also flawed. You see things looking great on the surface, but things are going wrong where it matters most and is hidden from the outward persona. If you’ve watched the first two episodes, definitely sign up for the free trial and see the rest. I figured the first two would be great and the rest wouldn’t be, resulting in some sort of con job to get people to sign up, but I was wrong. The rest of the episodes are better than the first two IMO.

MatsuShinshii, The entire series has been available since day 1. Without YouTube Red, you can only see the first 2 and previews for the remaining episodes. With YouTube Red, the entire series is available. I signed up for a free 30 day trial and watched them all. I’ll cancel soon before I get charged the $12.95 per month or so.

Congratulations lllearner!

Congratulations Devin!

Let's say you have someone who is fairly low in grade, but understands how there's no such thing as technique, just principles from which techniques can be built on the fly. That person can see a hundred different uses for a basic low block for example, and they can put all those principles together naturally as they move. But they can't seem to learn the lingo, and they struggle to remember the sequences of forms. Conversely, you have someone who can perform any form to competition standard. They can speak all the lingo. They know all the history. They can perform a jump 360 roundhouse to head height. But ask them to improvise or gods forbid, actually fight, and they have nothing. Would either of these two hypothetical extremes qualify as a martial arts expert? The first example is far closer to expert than the second one. An expert can look at something in his field that he hasn’t seen, and understands how it works, why it works, how to fix it, and how to adapt it. Real world example: my father has been a mechanic for about 50 years. He hasn’t seen every part of every car. Yet he can look at a car he hasn’t ever worked on and easily figure out how to fix just about anything that’s wrong with it. And he can look at a lot of other mechanical stuff and come up with a solution far quicker than someone without as much experience. The second guy is not much more than a memorizer, so to speak. He’s memorized everything he’s been taught and performs it exactly as taught. He lacks any real why or when to do something when it’s not scripted for him. Real world-ish scenario - he’s a person reading lines of a play in a monotone voice and no expression, rather than actually acting the part and making it his own. Anyone can memorize a pattern. Barring physical limitations, anyone can make movements look nice if they truly dedicate enough time and energy to it. There’s a night and day difference between making something look great and actually being able to do it when it’s needed.

There’s always 3 sides to the story - yours, mine, and the truth. Doesn’t mean either of us are lying; just that our interpretation of facts gets clouded by emotion.

Kinda like Master Ken’s kill face?

In an interview, Meitoku Yagi claimed that Yamaguchi came to him several times for kata instruction after Miyagi’s death. Yamaguchi was apparently interested in preserving Miyagi’s kata as much as possible, and he considered Yagi the foremost authority on Miyagi’s kata. The Miyagi family gave Yagi Miyagi’s belt and gi following Miyagi’s death, thereby officially recognizing him as the head of Goju Ryu. As to how much Yamaguchi actually trained under Miyagi, that’s the subject of much debate. What is clear is that Yamaguchi was chosen by Miyagi to be the head of Goju on mainland Japan.

It premiered May 2nd (yesterday). Anyone watch it yet? Are all episodes up, or are they releasing them periodically?

Happy Birthday, Mo

Perfectly stated, Bob.

MatsuShinshii, I love the posts you’ve made in this thread. Every now and then, I want to start practicing the stuff I did when I was a shodan. My favorite kata was Seiunchin. I loved bo kata and bo yakusoku kumite. Every time I see the yudansha doing this stuff in the dojo, I can’t help but think “why can’t I do that? I’ve already learned it. How long do I really have to wait? Why am I wearing a (currently brown) kyu belt when I earned a black belt before?” Then I think “stop being an idiot. My time to test for shodan will be here soon enough. Perfect what I’m doing now rather than thinking about the past and the future. I’ll be so much better when I test (in about 18 months if there’s no setbacks). What difference does having a black belt around my waist make anyway; I’ll still just be JR.” Then I just shut up and train. Reading your posts here puts it all into the right perspective. No matter how many times I tell myself and others who are itching to promote, it’s always so much better and more reaffirming hearing it from guys like you.

Congratulations DaveB.

I watched a bit of the first one. It didn’t do much for me after the effect of good production wore off. Maybe I didn’t like the particular fighters’ style of fighting? I’d rather watch Kyokushin or Enshin’s Sabaki Challenge. Hopefully Karate Combat will grow and more fighters will step up and deepen the talent pool.

Full contact all the time is silly. But it should go in cycles. So for example, is you are training for a fight or a tournament, the contact level goes up. And every once in a while you raise the level just because. Full contact, or at least some level of it, is the best thing you can do for self defense. I have said this before, but I will reiterate it again: No matter what your style is teaching, if you cannot and have not applied your technique against an intelligently resisting opponent in an adrenalized state, then you cannot really do it. Aliveness is key. I fully agree here. There’s a time and place for everything. Every karateka should have at least some full contact experience. Not every day like some organizations/systems are notorious for, but some. People get too comfortable with the light and even moderate contact after a period of time. During sparring, they’re not trying to defend as hard simply because they’re not being hit hard. Full/hard contact gives you that reality check. Sometimes you come to the harsh realization that you don’t hit as hard as you thought you do. You realize that these “death blows” aren’t exactly what you thought they were. You realize that the multi-step attacks get stopped dead in their tracks far more often than not. It’s a wake-up call. Then you go back to lighter contact, and you easily recognize the techniques that your partner pulled would’ve knock you out if he followed through. You realize that that kick that stopped short of your face would’ve knock your teeth down your throat if he didn’t control it. You learn you really do need to keep your hands up. There’s too many lessons to be missed by not going hard every now and then. The more you’ve done it, the less often you need to. It’s definitely not for everyone, but IMO it is for everyone who’s serious about training. Without it, everything’s hypothetical. If the time comes where you actually have to use your training, nothing’s going to be hypothetical. Nothing’s going to be pulled.

I’ve heard the selfie with a famous person has replaced the autograph. Then again, you could have Royce Gracie autograph your screen

According to Shuseki Shihan, “Tie it either way you want.” According to that same conversation a few years ago, there’s also no official side to have the “advanced” kyu patch on, nor the kanji for black belts. Some wear it with the name and dan stripes on the right, others have it on the left. The only official stance on those is wearing it on the outside so it can be read, rather than with the underside showing. Yeah, I get a bit OCD about little things and have to ask. The answer is almost always “just look presentable.”

Macchio and Zabka were apparently at my organization’s honbu (headquarters) dojo for a photo shoot. No idea about any specifics. I don’t have Facebook, but a classmate showed us all the post tonight before class. We had a few good jokes about it which carried over to class. A few “sweep the leg” and “no mercy” were said during sparring. https://m.facebook.com/worldseidokaratehonbu/?__tn__=C-R

I only have a few books. The books I have aren’t for learning techniques, as I find that next to worthless. The last one I bought and read was Joko Ninomiya’s Sabaki Method book. I really like it as a strategy guide of sorts. The parts that I paid attention to are his use of angles and getting into and out of the “blind spot.” The others I have are mainly for historical or philosophical purposes. I also have our founder’s books, as they’re reference for some of the stuff we do. I really want to get Mas Oyama’s holy trinity of books - What is Karate, This is Karate, and Advanced Karate. I’ve borrowed them from my former teacher, and my current teacher has them on his shelf at the dojo. Great books, but very expensive nowadays.

Happy Birthday, Noah!

One can “impractical” techniques for practical purposes though. I spent a few months training with a RyuTe Renmei group one summer. We did high kicks, spinning kicks, etc. during line drills, which aren’t part of the curriculum nor used in any other context. Immediately after saying the kick he wanted us to do, he’d ALWAYS say “for flexibility and agility purposes only!” I never saw anyone kick above their own waist nor do any spinning/jumping kicks in sparring there, so I guess the sensei sufficiently made his point