JR 137

Also, have you considered Tokaido? Every bit as good as Shureido, just cut differently. People get worked up about which is better, but I honestly think they're equally good. If someone pulled the labels off and said they were the same brand, just cut differently, I don't think anyone would doubt them. A classmate had a Tokaido when I had my K-10, and the material and construction were identical to us when we held them side by side.

I understand. I wasn't sure if you were going by size charts or by what Shureido USA said. Stupid question: have you tried Kinjisan or discountmas.com? Kinjisan actually does discountmas's customer service, so they have the same phone number and people answering. Make sure to call and ask before ordering, because the website will take your order and money even if it's not in stock. Then you'll get an email a few days later (or you won't get any communication and call them a few days later) and they'll tell you it's out of stock. Trust me, they've done it to me several times. The only way I'll order from them again is if no one else has something, then I'll call and make sure they do before ordering. Then I'll hope it'll ship without me reminding them to ship it. Ok, rant over. More stupid questions, Have you considered the K-11? It's every bit as good as the K-10, just a bit lighter. I wanted a lighter version of the K-10 and it's perfect for me. It's not twill, it's canvas. Have you thought of a different brand in the mean time? I have a Ronin heavyweight, and it's a great gi for the money. Far better than the Century, Pro Force, et al stuff out there. It's cut very similar to the K-10. Had I not owned a Shureido in the past, I wouldn't have looked into anything else after owning one. It's no Shureido, regardless of what Kinjisan will tell you (they're the US distributor), but it's a quality gi. Just throwing out options. What are you currently wearing?

Are nunchaku illegal in California? The ban is state by state, not federal. They're banned in NYS too. Regardless of that stuff, as I'm sure you found out, Shureido makes great weapons (and everything else too). Their stuff is expensive, but everything I've seen and used made by Shureido was easily worth the asking price. Craftsmanship comes at a cost.

Did you call Shuriedo USA and speak to Emmy about your size? If not, call and speak with her. She'll have you measure yourself and your current gi and recommend the proper size. Either way, forget about what websites say; trust Emmy. She knows what she's selling inside and out. She knows how much it'll shrink and where it'll shrink. If you're a size 4 according to the charts, you probably need a size 5 due to how much it'll shrink. A size 5 will fit me out of the box, but after a few months of cold washing and line drying, it'll be too small. Emmy had me measure myself and my gi and accounted for shrinking. If you went through the process with her, order what she said. If the conversation was a quick "Do you have a K10 in size 4?" Not right now". "Ok thanks." Then you should call again. I wouldn't trust the overseas dealers unless you've dealt with them before. And it might take quite a while to get your gi and you could have to pay some import taxes. If Shureido USA expects to get them in in the next few weeks, it may be quicker than coming from Malaysia. There's also Okinawa Direct, if you haven't seen their website. I haven't used them, so it's not an endorsement.

Welcome to the forum. There's a lot of great people here to learn from. I look forward to seeing you around.

When it's appropriate for a student to teach depends on many things. It depends on the student, the teacher, the students being taught, and the circumstances. I started teaching on my own at 3rd kyu at my previous school, as did a classmate of mine. My Sensei thought we'd be good teachers, so he had us run warmups and assist him during class. He had us work with new students individually in class while he ran the class. As we got better, he transitioned into assisting us teaching class. We had a group of lower ranked students who were ok with us teaching a specific class, so we took turns doing so. From time to time our Sensei would line up and take class. At one point we had a group of students who wanted to take class on a night that my Sensei was at his other dojo. We took turns teaching that night. We were both brown belts at the time. There were several black belts at the time. None were interested in teaching, and honestly they wouldn't have been very good teachers. They were good karateka and were knowledge, but that's not enough IMO. I however don't think teaching should be a requirement to advance in rank. It should be a right person for the job thing. I understand the mentality of teachers who require it, but I don't agree with it. I do agree that advanced black belt ranks (near or at master level) must have some teaching experience, but there are valid exceptions.

It's easy to kick someone in the head - just pull their head down I struggle with kicks when using them in combination with my hands due to my lack of hip flexibility. I'm not talking about high kicks; throwing a roundhouse kick to the thighs or knees while punching requires decent flexibility. Not solely to get the kick up there, but to be able to get it there quickly and throw it with authority while keeping your stability and power while also punching. Think jab, cross, roundhouse to the thigh, cross, hook. A lack of hip flexibility will make a huge difference in the amount of time it takes to transition into that kick and recover, then continue with the attack. Flexible people can do this seemlessly without any tells; a person like me has to compensate a bit, causing a break in the flow of the combination. I'm working on it. If I was flexible enough to be able to kick someone in the head without much compensation, a kick to the thighs wouldn't require much, if any leaning, would be very fast, and hopefully very strong. Flexibility is good.

Hands take quite some time to heal due to lower blood supply compared to the rest of the body, and the constant fine use of them (hands require so much more fine motor control than any other part of the body). I know this is only the Internet, I have little information to go with, and I haven't physically seen your hand, but I initially thought game keeper's thumb. There's a ligament on the inside of your thumb the connects the base of your thumb to the base of your hand; it's like the MCL of the knee. If you grab your thumb knuckle (where it attaches to your hand) the inside part is where the ligament is. Technically it's the UCL of the thumb. If completely torn, it requires surgery to fix. The longer you wait, the more complicated it is to fix. Get to a physician asap to make sure it's not that. If it is game keeper's thumb, it won't go away nor really heal. It'll feel better until you twist the wrong way.

As a lot of people have said, minimum time in rank should be a guideline rather than set in stone. There's valid arguments both way, but something I keep coming back to is no matter how well you teach, you can not teach experience. You can't give a student experience. The student has to acquire that experience, and the only way to acquire experience is time. The quality of the students' experience will differ though.

Nakazato Shugoro Sensei was truly a living legend. A master's master. The MA world has lost a pioneer. There aren't very many left of his caliber, unfortunately.

Uechi Ryu is very different than Shotokan and Kyokushin. Traditionally, they're very big on iron body conditioning, open hand strikes, and very few types of low kicks. They like using the toes and ball of the foot, and just like their hand strikes, digging into your muscle rather than the way a fist or instep would hit you. Of all the styles of karate, Uechi Ryu has been called the harshest in the conditioning aspect. As Nidan Melbourne said, there's only seven or so kata in the system. They're far different than what Shotokan and/or Kyokushin guys are used to. Actually, they're very different from the old-school Okinawan schools too. Search for videos of Uechi Ryu kata on the net, and you'll know what I mean. As with everything out there, there's good and bad. I've got a serious man-crush on Uechi Ryu, but both schools I tried an intro lesson at left a lot to be desired. They were very toned down shells of the Okinawan practicioners I saw in videos. Yes, videos and real life aren't exactly the same thing, but I was expecting the upper ranks to be training a lot closer to what I was expecting than what I saw and was told. Uechi Ryu has had some splits relatively recently. The use of Uechi's name has been closely guarded by his family, and former several big names in Uechi Ryu have been asked to not call their art Uechi Ryu. For example, Shinyu Gushi stopped calling his art Uechi Ryu, and started calling it Pangai Noon (as did others). Here's an interview with Gushi that'll shed far more light onto Uechi Ryu than I can... http://www.dragon-tsunami.org/Dtimes/Pages/articleg.htm Like everything, there's good and bad out there. Visit the dojo and see if what they're doing is what you're looking for. With Uechi Ryu, keep a very open mind. If you haven't seen it, it's not like what you'd expect to see (hopefully in a good way).

Lex, I'm very happy things are going well for Angela and the rest of you. I pray that it continues. I felt exactly what sensei8 posted, but he's far more articulate.

Welcome to the forum. I've been enjoying your posts so far. Keep them coming!

It all depends on the school. Some have "sold out," some haven't. Some grant 1st dan in less than 2 years, some take significantly longer. There's everything out there from non-contact MA to full-contact. Rank doesn't make the MAist; the MAist makes the rank. Some people think lineage is very important, others not so much. Lineage at least gives one an idea of the standards the MAist was held to when promoted.

from my knowledge a very small lineage of Ryuei-Ryu practice this kata, or a shito-ryu usage. As far as i am aware the WKF only permit kata that come from recognised styles (mainly Goju, Shito, Shotokan and Wado). Wayneshin may be able to assist with this, as he is a state and national coach in Australia. A few Kyokushin kata were recently included on WKF's approved kata list. Off the top of my head, Garyu was one. Garyu was created by Mas Oyama, who wasn't really renowned for his bunkai. I think the WKF added kata from other large schools such as Kyokushin in an attempt to get more involvement in the various karate schools who were trying to get their rules passed for the Olympics. One of the Kyokushin organizations (Shin Kyokushin) was a big challenger to the WKF for the Olympic karate rule set. They were opposed to Matsui's endorsement and help to get WKF rules approved for the Japan Olympics. Shin Kyokushin and IKO1 (Oyama's much debated successor, Matsui) have been bitter rivals for quite some time. But that's a Kyokushin politics thread.

Welcome to the forum. Looking forward to seeing you around.

Happy birthday, Zaine!

Your best bet is to ask the prospective instructor. He/she should be able to tell you all you need to know about the system/organization. I'm pretty curious about that last line - not all in the dojo thinks it's good to take classes in something new. Why not? Do they realize that either you do something new, or nothing at all? Do they realize that a lot of the old-school big names in karate also held dan ranking in judo and/or jujitsu?

Welcome to the forum. There are a lot of very good people here. And it doesn't matter how long your break was; it only matters that you're back at it.

I just don't agree. I think a teacher is always necessary to pass down information and knowledge effectively. Not at least in the sense you mean it, as in right there with you. If chuck Norris made videos and sent them to you don't you feel you could learn a great deal from him? Also, as for feedback, it's the easiest way BUT with today's technology of being able to video yourself and compare, it's not the same as it once was. In fact I'm an iPhone user, I do all my videos on iPhone. There's programs (apps) for everything. You can video yourself in slow motion, you can align your video with another, countless ways to correct your "form"! It's easy to say it will be harder, but to me it's absolutely doable and a teacher isn't required. There are students that I teach hundreds of times and to be quite frank about it they still just don't get it. There are students I teach one time and one time only and they get it. The student who my teacher thousand times would probably not be successful learning on their own, for the students that gets it after lesson one would have a much better success rate learning on their own. Again I have personally witnessed many bad teachers and I think it's fair to say there are more that will get you into trouble then will get you where you want to be. Often people think that they want to learn from the guy who is exceptionally fast and has exceptional technique because they somehow think that's going to translate to them. Many of us though that being able to perform technique and being talented is far from the same thing as being able to successfully translate that to your students. I'm going to give a history of Tang Soo Do, because you can google it, but you won't see a history that says simply it's a Korean variant of Shotokan Karate but it is. I watch many videos on the two because I'm Tang Soo Do I have learned plenty of applications to forms, BUT Shotokan has many more, part of that is because they simply focus on deriving more fighting techniques out of the forms, which are where Tang Soo Do forms come from of course. Hung gar King fu is this way, they really focus on what they can derive from forms. I enjoy this very much, and it's one of the greatest areas of interest to me. Videos and books provide me with a great deal of ideas and often specific techniques. I'm not boastful, and consider myself humble and secure as a person. I will say though that I have always had an easy time picking up techniques, as a 16 year mechanic I often joke with my wife calling myself the mechanic in class. I'm not a real flashy kicker, I'm not very strong, but I do have some qualities such as being able to understand leverage, angles, distance, and timing very well this the "mechanic" term. Maybe it's that my mind is geared towards it, maybe there is such a thing as mechanically inclined, I don't know, but I do know I can pick up a technique that I see others struggling with. Maybe a person who can't pick it up easily will have a hell of a time trying to pick it up from a book or video, but somebody who gets it a little easier certainly can pick up techniques from books or videos, I can tell you for a fact that I have done so and been complimented on those techniques in a studio. Training from no experience from the ground up? This may be different then what I'm saying, so I think there are limits to learning this way, especially from scratch. We're actually closer in opinion that you think (I think). Someone with plenty of experience, such as yourself can easily learn from video, books, etc. What you're doing is seeing others' methods, viewpoints, etc., and incorporating it into what you know. You take what fits, and you discard what doesn't. For every video or book you've taken from, I'm sure you discarded dozens of others. You've got a valid informed opinion. You're not a kid sitting in front of YouTube watching a Kyokushin kata channel and imitating it thinking you're really learning karate. You're not buying Mas Oyama's This is Karate book, practicing everything you read, and telling yourself you're near black belt level because you did all the kyu level kata (and possibly correctly if you video yourself and critique yourself) and did all Oyama's techniques. Lets just say someone did all of that, and actually looks presentable; do you think they'll be able to put it all together once they actually walk into a dojo and and have to spar someone? Technology has changed just about everything. There are online MA courses where you video yourself and a teacher from the system videos you back with feedback. That's not self taught because a teacher is correcting things. Not as effectively as in person and in real time, but it isn't self taught. Ashihara karate has an online course, or at least did at one point. The guy in charge of it had some great insight on it on another forum. He felt it most benefited people with previous experience that had a solid foundation in karate, and having a partner to work with was the most important thing. He also said that he had a dojo owner as a 'customer' who left his old organization and wanted to learn and teach Ashihara karate, but didn't have anyone anywhere near him to learn from in person. There was a lot of back and forth video analysis, and the guy went to visit the dojo in person after some time (I'm pretty sure the dojo paid for him to come visit). He said it was pretty effective, but there was still a good amount of polishing of techniques to be done. I guess you really have to define what self taught truly is. From scratch with no prior experience? Or a person such as yourself incorporating things into your knowledge? You also have the benefit of having students to try things out on. A YouTube MAist may or may not. And if that one has someone, how good is that partner? Two guys with no formal training watching YouTube videos and then putting on sparring gear and going at it isn't going to be very productive. Hopefully they don't hurt each other too badly.

Allow me to throw this one out there... Is always using titles a Japanese karate thing? Both organizations I've been in are Japanese. My first organization was headed by an American, but was previously a direct student of a Japanese instructor (Tadashi Nakamura). My current organization is run by Tadashi Nakamura. Nakamura was born and raised in Japan, and sent here to the States to spread Kyokushin until he left Kyokushin in '76 and founded Seido Juku. We always refer to and address someone by their title. Even outside the dojo, unless that person has asked you not to. Yudansha have specific titles corresponding with their dan rank, i.e. all 4th dans are Sensei, 5th dans are Kiyoshi, etc. Nakamura is Japanese born and raised, so this isn't an instance of a non-Japanese person doing things he/she thinks is Japanese. Kyokushin is the same, albeit with some different titles at different ranks. Other Japanese systems I've seen are similar in this regard, including ones without Mas Oyama in their lineage. Everyone that's commented here comes from an Okinawan school, except Bulltahr, who's in the same organization I am. I really haven't thought of it until now, but is the strict use of titles a Japanese thing, whereas the more informal (for lack of a better word) use of them an Okinawan thing? Or is it more of a Mas Oyama thing? How strictly does Shotokan adhere to the use of titles? Wado?

They replaced it with Krav Maga

Thanks for the compliments. I don't see it, but I'll take it:) In the long post, I forgot the most important thing: None of that is possible without a teacher and/or partner! You can't simulate someone hitting you. You can't fight someone who brings out the worst in you and magnifies your flaws if you're not fighting anyone. Practicing a kata a million times certainly won't reveal those flaws. Hitting a bag won't either. I've been hitting a bag for several months now. It's really improved my hand speed, power and combinations. It certainly hasn't helped my reaction time nor my ability to see something coming and react appropriately. I visualize an opponent every second, and it still hasn't helped in that regard when I've got an actual opponent in front of me. I hit the bag at my local YMCA. I've had a lot of people compliment me and say things like I must be a great fighter. I always smile and say something along the lines of "Thanks, but that bag doesn't move out of the way and try to hit me back." Being self taught is (hopefully) better than nothing. But without a resisting partner, how good can you honestly get? Only as good as a guy hitting a punching bag that doesn't make him miss and hit him back. I've been in too many fights too. Not sure if that helps or hinders my view. I think it helps.

What Bulltahr said. With the utmost respect, I think you're taking the By-Laws too literally, whereas you should be focused on the By-Laws' intent. Yes, the positions need to be filled. But more importantly, they need to be filled by people who are 100% committed to the job and not by people doing it out of obligation or guilt. People declining to do the job tells me that they're confident in your decision making. It also tells me it's too soon, and they're still grieving. As far as I can see (from reading your posts for some time now), you're not a dictator type. You put the needs of the organization above all else. Keep that outlook, and everything will eventually fall into place. It'll probably get worse before it gets better, but eventually everything will be as it's supposed to be.

I think Kaicho has only given that title to two students. My CI was telling me that there was a gentleman here in the States that was a 5th dan, but was much older and had much more martial arts experience than the rest of the 5th dans at the time, and therefore gave him the title Seishi to differentiate him from the rest. My CI said he was the only one given that title, and he passed away several years ago. Obviously he wasn't the only one.