JR 137

Yes you can learn in that environment. Is it optimal? Probably not. I'd rather be in a class full of people closer to my age and have the class run by someone with more experience. But it would also depend on how much I want to learn that art/style. If I really wanted to learn that art and it was the only place around, I'd give it a shot and try to keep an open mind. If it was a place on a list of places to visit, I'd most likely pass. I always say pick a dojo, not a style. This is an example of why. It could be great for someone who fits into those demographics, and not for someone who doesn't.

How was training with them? What did you do? What was the setting? That sort of thing. I'm sure there's a story in there somewhere.

Liam went to a Jesse Enkamp seminar, or one was held in his dojo. Not the "Nerd Experience" with pink belts, I believe. I remember seeing a pic of him wearing his black belt with Jesse correcting something.

Details, please??!!! I'd love to hear about your experience with Nakamura and his son!

I used therabands when I rehabbed athletes. No gimmick, no fad. They're not the be all, end all, but used properly they're highly effective. There's some things you can't do with weights. People love them for kicking, but I honestly don't. I prefer a low pulley attached to my ankle. Feels better to me, but I know people that prefer therabands. Horses for courses.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. There's days when I wonder why am I wasting my time doing something I'm so horrible at. Then there's days where I feel like I'm on fire. And everything in between. It's a roller coaster ride. Edit: My CI says this to us often - "It's easy to think you're not improving. You spar with certain people, and they own you. You spar others and you own them. The truth is you're all improving, and most of you are improving at the same rate. So if you're all 10% better this month, it's hard for you to see any improvement. I'm standing and watching everyone improve. If you stood where I am, you'd see it too." As a school teacher, I know exactly what he means.

Ninomiya is a legend. No other way to put it. I've honestly contemplated taking a vacation to Denver just to visit his dojo. I don't think there's an inherent difference between "fighting karate" and "traditional karate" as you put it. I think the difference is application and training methods. Ninomiya isn't doing anything new; the difference is his approach. There's only so many ways to kick, punch, throw, etc. What separates most systems is the when, from where, and why IMO. And I'm a huge Nakamura fan. I did join his organization:). Midori is a phenomenal MAists as well. I'd add Shigeru Oyama to your list to complete my trifecta. That generation of Kyokushin guys was just unreal; completely on another level IMO.

Interesting question. Their website slogan says (or at one point said) "Traditional Karate. Evolved." Bunkai? Not that I know of if you're referring to something along the lines of Iain Abernathy. Mas Oyama reportedly didn't teach much, if any bunkai. If he didn't, Ashihara most likely didn't, and I haven't seen anything indicating Ninomiya does either. I'd imagine Enshin kata bunkai would be more along the lines of kickboxing than what's commonly thought of as Karate kata bunkai. Kyokushin and offshoots' practitioners doing bunkai is quite rare, from what I've seen. Howard Collins has some videos that are pretty deep compared to anything else Kyokushin I've seen. But if you're one of the people who loves kata bunkai, he's nothing special. *Howard Collins is one of the old-school Kyokushin guys. He was a top Kyokushin competitor in the 70s. Edit: I forgot to mention in my first post - Check out some Sabaki Challenge videos online. That's Enshin's big competition. It'll give you a sense of what they do. Not a complete picture, but a good idea.

Enshin was founded by Joko Ninomiya. Ninomiya was a Kyokushin legend. His teacher, Ashihara, left Kyokushin; Ninomiya followed Ashihara. Ninomiya then left Ashihara. It is and isn't unorthodox. It's Kyokushin with Judo throws and takedowns. They're very big on tai sabaki - circular fighting rather than straight forward and back. The unorthodox part is Ninomiya eliminated traditional kata and replaced it with "fighting kata," which looks a lot like shadow kickboxing to me. Ashihara did the same, and I've heard the kata of both schools are similar. I haven't looked too deeply into them. If you have an Enshin school around, check it out. From everything I've seen, it's a fantastic system.

My daughter started a few weeks before she turned 5. She learned a good amount, but you have to factor in age. Compared to an adult, she didn't learn much. And you have to look at all she learned - terminology, etiquette, following directions, focus, etc. If you want the maximum physical benefits of exercise for kids that age, one word - gymnastics. Both of my daughters do gymnastics 1 hour, 1 night a week. With all the apparatus, there's no shortage of stuff to do (it keeps their attention very well), and the gross and fine motor movement skills they learn are excellent. I'm heartbroken that my now 6 year old daughter isn't in karate with me, but objectively speaking, gymnastics is so much better for her from a physical development standpoint. Heresy, I know. But it's true.

I wear a Shureido K-11 because it's comfortable... It fits me right, the material breathes better than any other gi I've worn, it holds its shape better, and it's softer. As an added bonus, it stays whiter longer than any other gi I've owned. It doesn't turn yellow and gray like cheaper gis do. I don't care about any prestige with wearing it. If my dojo made us remove manufacturer labels, I wouldn't care one bit.

My former sensei moved the dojo a few times when I was training under him. In the final location he had no choice but to use jigsaw mats. We didn't like them much at first as they were a bit slippery and just felt different under our feet. The more we did intermediate self defenses (the same ones we currently do in Seido), the more we liked them. The more we swept during sparring and moreso got swept, the more we liked them. It was great for the guys who didn't want to get swept due to injuries, and it was great in that we didn't have to be as nice to each other when sweeping. In a perfect world, half the dojo would be matted and half would be hardwood floors. I'm sure there's variation in the mats between manufacturers.

I completely agree, Danielle. My point was just to dispel the myths of breaking X material is comparable to breaking Y bones. I haven't done tameshiwari in quite some time. I miss it. It teaches a lot of good things. Everyone (well, all strikers) should do tameshiwari a few times in their career.

I love the bolded part. We're all truly works in progress when it comes to MA, and pretty much everything else too. Sounds like you've found a great sensei and dojo. Those mistakes you're making, they'll get corrected through practice and experience. But they'll never be perfected. And guess what, down the road you'll find yourself telling a new guy the same things you're being told now.

Yeah, I hadn't even got to that part yet in my suggestions. But this is another issue with simulating human tissue to strike. People move and, not only that, but they are weirdly shaped and oddly supported so you can never be sure of what you are striking.Think about a punch to the ribs... I lift my arm up and bend to the opposite side, completely exposing them and giving a huge surface. You punch hard. My ribs will break As you punch toward my ribs, I bring my arm down (but don't block the punch) and bend to the punching side to kind of ball up around where you're going to punch me. You punch exactly as hard as you did in the first scenario - it's going to take a lot more force to break my ribs vs the first scenario. Bending to the side helps slow down the impact because there's more soft tissue covering it, and by bending like that increases the surface area your fist hits, so there's less pressure. Our brain instinctually does this; we have to train to not go into the fetal position. And we train to not stand there with our ribs exposed. Another example - Catching a water ballon with a single stiff hand will break it; catching one with both hands and keeping your hands "soft" and having some give will keep the ballon from popping.

One flaw I always find in these "it takes the same amount of force to break a rib as it does to break a single pine board" type analogies is this... Humans move. They have quite a bit of give. Ribs compress, the defender braces for impact thereby spreading out and slowing down the force, etc. Hitting a pine board that's fixed/locked into place such as on top of concrete blocks will break easily. A pine board on top of a pillow? No so easy. A coconut on the ground will smash far easier that one that swings on a rope. If you equate a coconut with a skull, a coconut attached to a neck is going to be far harder to break that a coconut that can't move and disperse that force. If I have all my weight on one leg and don't see a kick coming, my tibia will break far easier than if I lift my leg and allow someone to kick my shin with the same amount of force and pressure at the same exact location. Using arbitrary force amounts, if it takes 100 Newtons of force to break a "fixed" tibia (doesn't allow any movement), it'll take multiples of that to break my tibia in actual fighting where I can move, fall, etc. It's the same concept as throwing an egg against a wall vs against a bed sheet. And that doesn't take living bone vs dead and dried up bone into account.

Saiha. To me it seems brutally effective and simple. No movements that seem like they'd only work if the stars and planets are aligned a certain way. Honestly, If I trained Sanchin daily the way I think it should be trained (see Uechi Ryu Sanchin testing) and worked on perfecting applications for Saiha everyday, I'd need very, very little else IMO. Not that that wouldn't get monotonous after several years though.

Congratulations Safroot!

I think you misinterpreted his post, sensei. His scan (in parentheses) was unremarkable. Unremarkable means nothing wrong, negative, etc.; aka what you want to hear. Tears of joy, not tears of insult.

Happy birthday Liam!

Check Amazon streaming. It's available in the US; not sure what's available in South Africa, or if you have amazon streaming.

Keep up the great work! You've got this!

Keep fighting the good fight, tubby. It truly inspires me and I'm assuming everyone else that reads your posts. Best of luck with the follow up. I'm quite certain you'll handle the results admirably, regardless of if they're the results you want to hear or don't want to hear.

Why are you skinning cats? Do you have something against them? What did they ever do to you?

Another factor in this is correct mechanics. They've got the mechanics refined for the technique. Mechanics are everything. Mechanics are why a 150 lb person can punch harder than a solid 250 lb. person who's never thrown a proper punch. It's even more apparent in kicking. How do you improve your mechanics? Practice. There's no substitute for hard work. How do you know how to correct your mechanics? A good teacher to see the faults and tell you how to correct them. How do you implement those corrections? Practice. Without an expert eye watching and giving feedback, you can only go so far. It's the same with all aspects of MA. Same thing as "why am I constantly getting hit?" You need an expert eye watching and giving corrections. You implement those corrections by practicing. It sure ain't easy. Furthermore, an instructor can tell you how to correct pretty much anything. It's on the student to listen and practice what's being taught. The old saying "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink" echoes in my head all day at work - I'm a school teacher. To bring it full circle - why do your teacher and the senior students look like they've got full control of everything they've doing? Easy: years of practice. Edit: I feel like Allen Iverson in his famous "practice?" press conference.