JR 137

It's not too bad. There could be a train you could take into the city, depending on where you are and how much free time you have.

Seido's honbu dojo does their annual beach training at Far Rockaway Beach in Queens, NY. The link was to last year's event. This year's is on Sunday. I want to go, but can't make it. Black belts start at 4 am for a long meditation followed by training, then kyu level students join them at 8 am. I'm sure Kaicho Nakamura kept the beach training from his Kyokushin days. My dojo's was last Saturday. We were at a lake, so we didn't have the element of the waves. We did some kumite in the water toward the end. Very difficult to move around and throw any kicks. It wasn't serious kumite, but it did present a totally new challenge. I liked letting the juniors sweep me. If you have the chance, definitely take it! Make a family day of it afterward. Stuff like this really adds to the atmosphere of the dojo. My dojo hasn't posted pics yet. My wife forgot the camera. As for waterfall training... None around here that I know of. I lived in Niagara Falls, NY during grad school. Probably just a bit too much waterfall.

I just wear what my instructor tells me to wear. Nothing more, nothing less. Figuratively speaking, of course.

Enshin karate's Sabaki Challenge allegedly allows throws and sweeps. Haven't seen it to confirm. To YouTube...

Individually, yes. As a group is different. Our beach training is pretty much the entire school coming out, and our CI running a full class, adapted for the water and sand. Afterward, we get changed and have a pavilion picnic. We bring our families along; they watch the workout and eat with us afterward. It's a great time. I'd post a pic, but I don't have any yet. I can't copy a pic from our honbu's page, so here's a link to one... http://www.seido.com/photo-galleries/2014/2014-0803-beach-training# If you've never tried throwing roundhouse kicks in 14 oz gi pants that are soaking wet, standing in water that's about knee deep, you should try it. It's a different experience.

I guess I can offer some pretty good insight into this, as I worked as an athletic trainer for 15 years. An athletic trainer is not a personal trainer/strength & conditioning coach. An athletic trainer (ATC) is a sports medicine specialist. If you've watched sports, I'm one of the guys running onto the field when someone's hurt. I did the initial evaluation of the injury, then the follow up rehab for it, along with other things. I had about 6 or so anatomy classes between undergrad and grad school. In regards to the OP, my training is most effective in debunking myths about what's lethal and what isn't. Debunking how to cause injury. There's a ton of stuff in MA that flat out isn't true. The human body can take far more trauma than most people think. Studying anatomy is a great thing for better understanding MA. Surface anatomy is probably the best bet. Surface anatomy teaches how to locate anatomical points on the body. Finding the carotid sinus, ulnar nerve, spleen, liver, etc. Surface anatomy is all about touch, not about memorizing places from a book. Everyone's exact location of stuff is different. Knowing anatomy is great in theory. In practice, it doesn't offer that much of an advantage, really. You don't need to know where the MCL is or even what it is in order to know the if you kick someone with a sidekick or roundhouse to the outside of the knee that it'll make an opponent's knee buckle.

Bought it from Amazon Instant Video for about $5. Really cool movie. The Strongest Karate movie I saw was part 2. I think the original Strongest Karate is the same as Fighting Black Kings because Kings doesn't even say it during the movie; it say Strongest Karate in the opening segments. But anyway... Met Charles Martin at a Seido workout. Great guy. Doesn't look anything like he did in the movie though. Met Tadashi Nakamura as well at the same event. Great guy as well. At one point in Kings, Nakamura, Sigeru Oyama, and one other Kyokushin legend who escapes my mind right now (Ashihara?) were teaching together at the same dojo with Willie Williams, Charles Martin, and William Oliver as students. Imagine being in that dojo at that time? Interestingly, I'm pretty sure part 2 was made after Nakamura left Kyokushin, taking Martin and Oliver with him as his students. The minimal footage of them in part 2 has to be because of this. Willie Williams is pretty much the only one of them featured in part 2.

Core strengthening will help a lot, so long as it's done correctly. Correct exercises, form, resistance level, number of exercises, progression, number of exercises, and on and on. Inactivity worsens the condition. Doing the wrong regimen can make it worse. See an expert. The pain can be from an imbalance that you may unbalance even more. The pain could be caused by deficiencies elsewhere such as hamstring weakness or tightness, mid back weakness, hips, pelvic tilt, pelvic floor, scoliosis, leg length discrepancy, and on and on. Sometimes it's simple, sometimes it's very complex.

I agree with how can anyone truly master something that's complex. IMO it's not that they've mastered it completely; they've mastered it relative to most others.

Along the same lines, do people have a problem with calling a priest father? Is it really much different than what's being discussed here?

See a physical therapist, preferably one who deals with sports and athletes. Lower back and hip issues are too generic and broad for anyone to give truly meaningful advice. Generic, yet solid advice I gave to my athletes when I was an athletic trainer (sports med, not personal trainer): You can and should work through soreness and tightness/stifness, within reason. Don't work through actual pain; if it's painful, it's your body's way of telling you you're doing something wrong. There's a difference between pain, and soreness and tightness. Listen to your body.

This is the crux of it. People are blending two different words Master the noun and master the adjective. The former meaning someone who is in charge of something and the latter meaning someone who has acquired a high skill level in something. They're not interchangeable. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/master Exactly what I meant, yet so much more articulate. Think of master as a short form of master instructor, and bowing as a different way of shaking hands, and it all makes sense. Think of master as king/ruler/slave owner/whatever other oppressor, and it makes no sense, especially while kneeling and bowing. Just the way I see it. Interestingly, I never viewed the title master in MA as anything other than the adjective. I've also never called anyone master in English, so maybe that skews my vision of it. It's always been "Osu Shihan," not "Yes, Master."

I've always viewed certificates as something that you have to show others as proof of attendance/completion/etc. I don't have my college degrees nor certifications hanging up anywhere. It it as required to do so, I would. I've worked with teachers and administrators who had their stuff on the wall. Their mind frame was that it shows students they can do it too, being from the same neighborhood and going to the same school. My mind set is I wouldn't have the job if I didn't have the credentials. Neither way is wrong or right IMO. I view it as the same thing as my CPR cert. I have it if/when I have to show it. Just because I don't care to hang up certificates doesn't mean no one else should. I have no problem with MAists display in anything they've earned - certs, trophies, pictures, samuari swords, etc. be proud of what you've earned, and be more proud of the knowledge/experience you've gained. The only stuff I look down on is stuff that's put up just for the sake of attention and/or an outright lie. If you have a picture of yourself with Bruce Lee, don't let people think he was your teacher/training partner/etc. unless he really was. My brother in law has a pic of himself with Floyd Mayweather. If he ran a dojo, it would be a bit misleading if it was mixed in with people he actually knew and trained with. There's a place for everything.

Exactly. A teacher with flawless technique and skills is fun to watch and can inspire me to train harder. But if said teacher couldn't really teach me how to do any of it, "the show" would get boring pretty quickly. I don't pay my instructor to entertain me, I pay him to teach me. My CI isn't the best technical MAist I've ever seen. Not even close. He's good, and I'm sure he was very good in his prime. But he's the best MA teacher I've had. He's got a way about him that's humble, he can break down my flasw, tell me how to correct, and make me want to keep at it.

I don't call anyone "master" in English, I call them their title in Japanese. My CI's title is Shuseki Shihan. His wife is Sei Shihan, and there's a Jun Shihan. If it was in English, I wouldn't look at it as calling them my master, as in they're someone high and mighty, I'd call them master as a rank. Kind of like chess master or master chef, master instructor, and on and on. If you feel you're kneeling down to someone who thinks he/she's a god and demands to be called your master, find another teacher. Or ask them in a respectful way about how they view being called master. It may clarify something for you.

The egos are what'll make it a fiasco. It's a big hit to the ego of an instructor if many of his/her students aren't doing well. People start taking things personally. Some people also turn it into a competition rather than a learning experience. I'm not casting a blanket statement, but from what I've seen the MMA crowd has a ton of competition minded practicioners. More so than a lot of the traditional arts practicioners. All you need is one or two people trying a bit too hard to win (from either side) and some cheering on in the wrong way, and you'll have people following suit. The mob mentality. The CIs involved really need to set the tone and put out small fires before they get out of control.

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but it brought back some good memories... I used to bartend at a restaurant. The kitchen was full of MAists somehow. I was studying a Kyokushin offshoot and still involved in my high school's wrestling team, and the kitchen had a guys from TKD, American Kenpo, Judo, JKD, and 2 boxers. All were either actively practicing or stopped training not too long ago. A few of us got together one day at the Kenpo guy's house to spar. After word got around, our "Fight Club" grew. People started inviting friends from their dojos to come along. We even had some non-MAists come along to spar, including my brother who thought MA didn't work. One of the Judo guys had some gymnastics mats he'd bring along. The more I think about it, we were like the UFC before the UFC. It was a great time, and somehow it never got out of control. We were pretty heavy on the contact, but not all out. I think it was the unspoken understanding that if you got out of line, the next guy would put you in your place. I ran in to the guy who's house we used to go to a few years ago at a bar. We laughed about all of us moving the furniture outside to spar and somehow it never crossed anyone's mind to just spar outside instead. To be in your early 20s again...

Luther and Bullthar - Very interesting posts and points. I definitely respect your views. I'm all for official videos from organizations. I'd love to see Kaicho Tadashi Nakamura and/or his son to release official Seido videos. Someone from Seido made a history of Seido video with their blessing. Turned out very well (except that it was chopped up into 5 min or so increments). I think official videos are the way to go and can pretty much only help. Kyokushin has some great videos on YouTube. Not sure if they're pirated or not, which is a whole other ball of wax. YouTube search Kyokushin kumite training. There's a great one that's about 90 minutes long with Hajime Kazumi. There's some great combos that I'd love to work on with heavy bag and incorporate into my sparring. I haven't asked any high ranking black belts and/or CIs, but I'm assuming it's a quality control and/or privacy for others issue and not a secret society thing. At least if they're rational anyway.

For all those that hold the belief of never washing your belt... What about after beach training? I just participated in my first beach training session. It was a great time. Push-ups and sit-ups in the water, kicks, punches, kata and even kumite in the water. And all of those on the sand too. Kneeling and standing meditation in the water and sand. As the nearest ocean beach is at least 2 hours away, we were at a lake. Ocean would have been even better. Maybe I'll try to make the honbu's beach training at the ocean. How sanitary would my belt be after that? I just threw it in the washer (after hosing it off) and thought about this thread as I was doing it.

I see a few issues with it that may not be why your org doesn't want it... 1. There's no quality control when people post this stuff. When you post it, you're representing your organization. Unless there's zero mention of the style and absolutely no representation of it - gi patches, t-shirt, poster/banner in the background, etc., you're representing the organization possibly without realizing it. Get a few people who aren't too good or are making mistakes, and the entire organization doesn't look good. 2. If putting some stuff up is ok, where is the line drawn? Some people like to video everything and anything and post it. I've seen black belt promotions that are posted. A huge no-no IMO. Does the poster have everyone who appears' permission? What if you videoed your kid, and mine is right next to him/her in class? I don't want my kids on YouTube unless I post it myself. 3. The bickering and insults in the comments are out of control. This comes back to representing your organization. Look up anything on YouTube and read the comments. Try to ignore them when they're calling you and your style every name in the book and then some just for fun. I think it's easier for an organization to make a blanket no statement than try and set up restrictions/regulations. I'd have that policy if I were in charge. The only way I'd allow it is if there were zero references to the organization, due to the above and so much more. That's just me though. From what I've heard, my organization isn't too keen on YouTube videos.

My theory is that Funakoshi and others took grappling/throws/chokes out of the curriculum to make it a distinct MA when pitching it to Japan's authorities. If there was cross-over between karate and other established arts, it may have gotten dismissed by saying "that's close to what we have now, why bother?" I read something that hints to this in either Kano's bio or Funakoshi's. Can't remember which one or where. But it was one of those a-ha moments for me.

Take it to a tailor/seamstress and see what can be done. Tokaido gis are too good to throw away!

If you read about the history of karate and its founders, just about every founder and even the more modern systems/schools' founders have experience in judo or jujitsu. Why most don't formally include the most basic throws, locks and chokes in the curriculum is something I've been wondering/questioning for years. Some teachers with experience in judo/jujitsu will teach a few here and there, but won't test on it or make what they've taught a formal requirement. If I were to start my own karate system, there'd be a few of the basics in the formal curriculum. People would say "that's not karate," then I'd point to literature of where guys like Funakoshi and Miyagi studied judo, and say no more.

Was Kevin Rooney a great boxer? What about Angelo Dundee? Cus D'Amato? Was Phil Jackson a great basketball player? John Wooden? Bobby Knight? Was John Madden a great football player? Bill Parcells? Bill Bellichek? You don't have to physically be the best to be able to pick apart skills, explain them, then get out the most from the person. You have to have an eye for it, be able to break it down to simpler components, come up with a strategy, and be able to effectively communicate it all. Some of the best coaches of all time weren't very talented or physically gifted. In fact, most weren't. Their proof was on the floor; their athletes on the floor were their proof. Teaching MA is just like coaching. You're teaching physical skills (amongst other things). The truest measurement of teaching ability is the success/growth rate of the teacher's students' abilities, not the teacher's own abilities.

IcemanSK is right on IMO. I hold a master's in counseling, but never practiced, but what he's saying is textbook without being textbook. Involve your wife as much as possible, but remember who's most important. Do you want to risk unrepairable damage to your marriage? I have no reason to doubt you'll do exactly as you say you'll do, so please don't take it that way. This is definitely an issue that your wife should work out with a counselor. It's not as simple as it seems. What you're seeing is most likely superficial, the issues run deeper, and those need to be confronted. If you address it as "you're sick and need help" (in a nice way of course), you won't get anywhere. I'd suggest addressing it as a way to strengthen your marriage even more. Please don't take everything I've said as gospel. All I know is what you've written here. Just some friendly advice.