JR 137

My father and both his brothers were TKD black belts in the 60's. Reportedly, their TKD was like a flashier kyokushin (less emphasis on thigh kicks, more on high kicks) but not as hard contact. They did plenty of contact, but not bare-knuckle. They grew up in Beirut, Lebanon, so that may have something to do with it. I've worked out with one of my uncles several times. After coming here, he took it up again 15 or so years later. He didn't last long, saying "That's not TKD, it's a tag game sport." I still mix it up with him every now and then. Me being 5'8 220 lb and him being 6'3 275, it's an interesting match up for me.

Thanks for sharing the video. Seems like it worked out pretty good. Funny, I didn't have than in mind when I was saying dodgeball; I was thinking the kids throwing at each other with multiple balls, but that definitely works and can be more manageable. Not sure if you have a store called 5 Below near you. It's a $5 and under store. I got my daughters a ball that's about 2 ft in diameter and is pretty bouncy. Get a ball that sized and play the same way you did, only have them try to punch, kick, use traditional blocks, etc. at the ball. They miss, they go off to the side and do the technique they missed with a certain number of times. One drill/game leads to the next. Take any game and change a detail or two, and you've got an entirely new game in the students' mind.

How many tournaments/matches have you competed in? If it's only a handful, don't be too hard on yourself. There's no shortcut to experience. No matter how much you train in and out of the dojo, there's no way to truly prepare for true competition against fully resisting opponents that you don't know. That doesn't mean your training isn't valuable; on the contrary it's essential. It just means it can't be truly simulated. Football teams run plays countless times, and coaches will even put crowd noise on speakers cranked up to 11 while they're practicing them. Come game time, not every play goes smoothly. Bas Rutten had a great line - (paraphrasing) dojo training is like walking on a curb. Anyone can walk on a straight and relatively wide curb. Competition is like putting that same exact curb that you've walked on 1000 times 100 feet in the air without a safety net. All the stuff mentioned previously can definitely help. I'd suggest trying some meditation. But ultimately, there's no substitute for experience. Compete more, and it should get easier.

I think most people who've achieved black belt and continued training realize how unfulfilling chasing a rank ultimately is. You work so hard and build up this idea of what a black belt is (insert any dan rank you wish) and everything that comes with it (performance and "privilege" wise), then after you achieve it you realize you're still the same person the day before that belt was tied around your waste. I chased rank my first time around. I chase improvement this time around. I want to be better at 39 than I was when I left at 25. I'm testing again tomorrow; not sure if I'll promote to advanced blue belt, skip that and move to yellow, or skip that one too. I honestly don't care what rank I come out as. I'm exited for the test simply because it's an extra hard workout with about 20 or so black belts from shodan to rokudan who will push me hard, yet be supportive and offer constant encouragement and respect. The ones who are chasing a high dan rank are almost always motivated by greed. They've got a notion that an 8th dan is more credible than anything below it and will ultimately get more students to pay more money. Apparently the higher the rank, the more DVDs and books are sold, and you can charge more. Nonsense. With all that being said, rank is important. It's easy to say you don't care about it, but what if it were taken away? What about who's awarding it? Do you pay much attention to someone who was awarded any rank (high dan or kyu) by a person notorious for mail-order type ranking? Of course not. Would you pay more attention to a person awarded a master level rank by someone like Funakoshi, Oyama, or more recently Demura? Of course you would. While rank and who awarded it isn't the be all, end all, it's still more important than we sometimes think it is. I know I said I don't care what color belt my CI ties around my waste tomorrow, but I kind of do. But I don't at the same time. Weird, huh?

Solid post!! The Hombu sends Senior Ranks to visit each and every Shindokan dojo for a wide variety of reasons, but the primary reason is to make each CI and its instructors accountable for not what they teach, but how they teach it. These type of visits were started by Soke, when he and Dai-Soke, then Kaicho. Greg and I, and other Senior Ranks have continued to follow their examples; it's all about ACCOUNTABILITY all across the board!! They hold 1-2 weeklong seminars, we students called these seminars, Dog seminars because Soke and/or Dai-Soke would constantly dog you until you got it right and you understood. Neither of them tolerated anything less than perfection from any student, especially from any CI and instructors. Do it right or go away until you do it right!! We have a very strong Hombu/SKKA. Since the passing of Soke and then Dai-Soke, some drama has infected the viability as well as the tranquility of the Hombu/SKKA. We've had more than our share of hiccups and potholes since the passing of them both. When they were alive and in charge, we NEVER had hiccups and potholes, of our magnitude, because either of them would simple squash the snuff out the fire while it was a spark, as to not allow the fire to grow. They were fantastic firefighters, in that regards. I try, and I'm still trying to honor them, but, with all of these bumps in the road, I question, past...present...future...my positive impact onto the student body; am I doing them justice, or am I harming them in the short and the long of it all?!?!? The last paragraph is truly what you need to ponder. Everything else is minor, relatively speaking. It shows that you have your organization's best interests at heart. The most difficult times require the strongest leaders. But even the best leaders are only as good as those they're leading.

Good post. But it seems like now the question is What constitutes adequate stretching in the first place!? YOU/ THE PRACTITIONER constitute what is and what isn't adequate stretching; no one knows your body better than YOU/THE PRACTITIONER!! But if a you're doing is repeating the same thing over and over without trying something new, how well do you truly know what you're capable of or if something else could be of greater benefit?

A lot of traditional karateka have the opinion that Olympic karate will do to karate what Olympic TKD did to TKD. It's a very, very hard point to argue. I think that while it'll undoubtedly bring more attention/focus and people to sport karate, it won't come close to killing traditional karate. There are a ton of people in sport karate and a ton of people in traditional karate already. It's not a new "sport" to our society in the least bit. I also think if it is knockdown instead of WKF-ish rules, their will be less chance of a sport karate takeover. Remember, it's a one-shot thing. If it catches on like wildfire it'll stay, but that's highly unlikely. Again, I think the best way to differentiate karate from TKD to the masses in an event as big as the Olympics is full-contact. The masses know TKD as the fully padded, touch contact sport that punches don't count for points. Karate's already got stigma of being a kids' ineffective point fighting sport. If they were smart, they'd change that by showing another side. All IMO of course. I in no way agree with the masses, just stating the overwhelming public opinion I've heard countless times.

i didn't learn any martial arts. i am just a fun about it. i just want to say, dim mak is real, it still exist in China. You have an awful lot to say and prove for someone who "didn't learn any martial arts." Unless you've personally used it or have had it demonstrated on you, you have little credibility. Please learn it for yourself, then come tell us what we're doing wrong. I have no problem with people who've got differing views than I do. That what makes this world so interesting and in fact makes us all learn more. I have a problem with people touting things as fact who admit they have zero personal experience with it.

Agreed. I hate to be one of those "you can't use that in a cage" but guys, but it seems to be seems between the corporations and the militaries of the world, someone would have militarized this by now. Dim Mak, and chi in general, would be an extremely useful tool for many reasons. Why hasn't someone monetized this? The government DOES use it. They just keep it secret. The true Dim Mak charts and ancient scrolls are locked up in Hangar 18 in Area 51. Hopefully this isn't my last post. They've been monitoring my activity for years.

Japan wants to add it (one of s few sports being debated) because it's a national sport for them as the host country. I believe the host nation gets to add one sport of their choosing. It's not permanent, it just a one-shot deal. It could become permanent if it's ratings are good enough though. I'm sure they'd get rid of an "underperforming" sport to replace it with. I like the concept that every host gets to choose a national pride sport. It brings culture to the forefront when done correctly.

I really like your post. It goes along with my way of thinking about kata, and even kihon kumite, yakusoku kumite, etc.; they're principals of movement/techniques. They're not set in stone techniques that must be followed rigidly during combat. They're the abstract form of the art, if you will. Learn the form and try to see what was envisioned with the movements. Incorporate those principals (not the EXACT movements) into your actions. No matter how much you drill kata and bunkai, it'll never be like you practiced it. Real fights are too unpredictable, especially for complex movements. Yes, the argument can be made that by practicing them over and over they become muscle memory. But how many times have you seen someone successfully pull off a prearranged bunkai against a truly resisting opponent in free fighting/sparring that's equally matched and has no idea what they're trying to accomplish? I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm just saying I've never heard of it happening. It's not like someone was sparring and said "That was cool, what was it?" and the person responded "step 5 in Kanku!" For the record, I love kata and bunkai. But I look at it as the "textbooks" part of my education rather than the "this is exactly how it's to be done" part. Kata and the like are the theory, kumite is the application of the theories.

Amen! Or, I mean, Osu! Whatever the origin, whatever the true meaning, it's hard to deny how uplifted a class becomes when you've got 10, 20, 30, 50+ Karateka shouting "OSU!" in unison. I find that it promotes positive spirit in the training grounds. Absolutely. One of those things that it doesn't matter how much you explain it, you can only appreciate it by being part of it. That spirit in training is very contagious. It's like jazz - if you need someone to explain it to you, you'll never get it. Not that I'm a jazz fan. Like in anything, it has to be experienced, to be appreciated!! Experienced it yesterday. We had a workout at SUNY Purchase to get a sneak peek at next year's 40th anniversary celebration. 160+ students yelling Osu and being lead through a workout by Kaicho Tadashi Nakamura set a tone. My wife who doesn't train nor understand the culture and secretly thinks it's stupid was very impressed. Her genuinely saying "that was pretty cool" when I came over to her afterward cemented it for me. Meeting Kaicho Nakamura was a great experience too. He's got a pretty good sense of humor. And at 73, he's still got flawless and powerful technique.

Excellent point. My original sensei left the organization he was under about a week before I tested for my shodan. He told me and the other student that was scheduled to test that he completely understands if we wanted to test under the old organization. He told the entire student body that he was leaving the organization and a generalized reason for it. He said he would not be offended if any of us left and went to another dojo in the organization. I told him "You're my sensei. I came to your school and stuck with it because of you, not them." I had and still have respect for the old organization. Had my original sensei kept his dojo where it was (his current one is about an hour's drive each way), I'd have gone back when I returned to the area. I recently found a great dojo in a different organization and have no regrets about where I currently am. In some ways, I like it more.

I have some thoughts related to my original post... Do the graders grade their own students? If not, do they grade most students from a single dojo? Being a school teacher, I have experience in trading standardized tests. If you think about it, a belt test is a standardized test. How we grade standardized tests: No one is allowed to grade their own students You get a random mix of students from several schools, and not too many from a single school. This keeps people from conspiring with each other to pass each others' students or fail students from a particular school. Furthermore, the names of the schools are removed from testing materials. The administrators know which school's tests are being handed to whom, but the graders don't know. If you have concerns about people being unethical in grading, you may want to look at who's grading who, and how many students are graded from any one particular school by a single grader. If different dojos have forms of identification on their gi, they should be removed. If you have any authority of policy, you really should look at this stuff. Even if this wasn't the issue (not trying to imply it was), you should implement a policy before it becomes an issue. Better to be proactive than reactive. Just my thoughts. Sorry if you have a policy in place. As martial artists, we're supposed to be on our honor. As long as egos exist, people can and will get lax.

A strong central governing body can be great. It provides stability and consistency to the organization. It provides help/consultation when needed. More heads in difficult times are better than one. You may not like or agree with the answer the central body provides every single time, but life is all about give and take. So long as you're better off overall with a central governing body, everything's all fine and good. So long as everyone agrees on the major issues and can be flexible and respectful on the issues they disagree with, it's a great thing. That is all in general, not to you specifically, sensei8. When you don't have a strong central body, you get everyone and anyone teaching what they think the art is and what it should be. There can be a ton of inconsistency between dojos. Next thing you know, people have changed kata, kihon, and everything else they don't agree with. Pretty soon people start questioning why they're even associated with the rest of the dojos and start leaving. This has a contagous effect. On the flip side, without a strong central body, you've got a lot more "academic freedom." You dictate what your students learn. You determine your mentors' true intent. You don't have to put up with anyone else's issues but your own. No one is telling you your students aren't performing to standards when you clearly know they are. How many different Shotokan organizations are there? Kyokushin? Goju Ryu? There's pros and cons to everything.

If you can disclose this information... How many were tested? Was this dan testing or kyu testing? High dan testing? If 20 students were tested, you could chalk it up to a very poor performance. If 100 were, that's another story. Were the fails and passes all from one dojo, both ways? Were all the fails by the same grader(s)? As far as disillusionment, that one can't be settled on an Internet forum. Way too much involved that we'll never know about. Questioning what you know, what you've done, why you've done it, and what you'll do in the future is a healthy thing. No one should blindly follow anything without question.

I always thought it had more to do with the intended target than anything else.

Good post. But it seems like now the question is What constitutes adequate stretching in the first place!? That, my friend, is in fact the question.

Completely agreed. I think they should go with the original intent of the games - testing warriors' skills against each other in non-lethal ways. Hence the combat sports, target sports, running/track events, etc. Have those events be the core, then add a few other popular team sports like basketball, volleyball, etc. Motorboating used to be an Olympic event (meaning racing motorboats, not the pop culture version; the pop culture version would be pretty cool as an Olympic event though lol). Thankfully it's not anymore. I hate to say it, but why should soccer be an Olympic event? There's already a world wide competition for it every 4 years that watched by billions. How many international tennis tourneys are there? Do we need to it in the Olympics too? The Olympics are a spectator event, so they have to go with what generates the most profit, even if that means losing the original intent.

Gotta love the world of scientific research. Something gets "proven" one week, then gets "proven" to be false then next week. The biggest thing I've found is how many people will take a study out of context. Someone will read a line or two from a study, then it'll end up in an article in a magazine or or a tv show and everyone will blindly accept the 1 line read interpretation of the story. Kind of like the target heart rate/fat burning study. That was one we analyzed in grad school ex phys. Everyone and their brother accepted the target heart rate training as the most efficient way to burn fat, yet look at all the people on treadmills for what seems like hours at a time and not losing much weight. Ever notice how practically every study ends with "... further research is needed on the subject..."?

There's nothing inherently wrong with a commercial dojo, so long as the quality of instruction is acceptable. There's something wrong with subpar instruction, whether it's a commercial dojo, a dojo run by a guy with a day job, or a back alley. There are many great commercial dojos out there. Most honbu dojos are commercial dojos. Is the Kyokushin honbu dojo in Tokyo subpar because it's not run by guys with day jobs? What about dojos run by the legends of martial arts like Fumio Demura, "Judo" Gene LaBell, the various Gracies, etc.? I'll leave Tadashi Nakamura's Seido Honbu dojo out of it due to studying in his system. I'm pretty sure those guys aren't 9-5 office cubicle guys or manual laborers during the day and open up their dojos after work. Yes, McDojos are far more common in commercial dojos, but they're not all McDojos. This coming from a guy who trains at a dojo run by a husband and wife who just retired from day jobs, as in my previous post. It's all about the quality of instruction. It's all about finding the best fit.

Yeah, that is what I'm use too. Guess we are just old school, need to get with it, haha. I have been stretching with my son before heading to class. I may just start waiting till after class for a cool down or something. So where does Yoga fit into all of this? Static or Dynamic? Or a little of both? Not to get too technical, but yoga is active stretching. More on the dynamic side than static side, but not really either one per se. Yoga has pretty much unquestionable flexibility benefits, but it's a different ball of wax all together. Yoga (there are so many forms) has movement into stretching and is not cardio intensive like sports are. People generally don't go through a yoga class-type workout before competition or intense practice, so I doubt it has been studied as to its effectiveness on athletic performance as a warm-up. Not that I've seen it (or even looked for it), but I'm sure someone somewhere has studied yoga's effect on performance when done as supplemental training. I'd be willing to bet it was positive. I'd advise if you're interested in getting as flexible as possible to warm-up sufficiently (should be sweating), do dynamic stretching, after practice do some static stretching during cool-down, and do yoga workouts a few times a week completely seperate from MA workouts. Static stretching has its benefits. But they're not very beneficial (or at least the most efficient way) when done prior to intense activity.

To add to my serious post, and not so serious ones, the single biggest reason I've had lately is that the dojo is the only place where I can go and totally take my mind off the stressful stuff in my life. For that hour and a half or so that I'm there, my problems are completely forgotten. It's impossible to think about the possibility of getting my hours and pay cut at work when someone's throwing punches at me. I have no time to think about my young daughters not listening to what they were told when I'm doing knuckle push-ups on the hardwood floor. How I was right and my wife was wrong about the argument we had over insignificant nonsense is the last thing on my mind when I'm going through a kata. It's the one place I can go and be isolated from the outside world. And it's funny how all those stressors and more seem to weigh less on my mind after I'm done. Things become a lot clearer. Other physical and non-physical activities give me this benefit, but to nowhere near the extent karate does. It's been a tough week at work. A lot of people have been given bad news all week, and I'm meeting with my boss next week. My wife asked why I've gone to karate every single day this week. I told her "it's the only place I can go and completely forget about what's going on for a little while." She's never been more supportive. Gotta make sure I don't over-use that line though lol.

The younger they are, the more competitive they get. They want to be first and please the person in charge, be it a coach, teacher, sensei, etc. Kumite usually has the same kids "winning" most times, so they can get bored with that. Do things that level the playing field a bit - capture the flag (strips of cloth on the back of their belts); making a circle with the instructor standing in the middle holding a focus mit or bag and seeing who can react the quickest by holding it out in front of different students at random and have the hit the bag using different strikes; relay races where they go down the floor throwing different techniques, and so on. Technique can get a bit sloppy when they're racing, so the instructor really needs to keep an eye on it. When stuff gets too sloppy, make them start over. They'll have to do it correctly and fast if they want to win, and they threw as many, if not more of the technique that they would have had you do a "boring" line drill where they throw a front kick every time you count, then turn and do it all over again. Dodgeball is a great activity. Limit the steps they can take with the ball and use nerf balls or gator skin balls. The key to any elimination game is to give them a way to get back in. Standing around and waiting has an multitude of bad consequences and no good ones. Make sure you're giving positive feedback that's specific. "Good job" is not enough. What was good? "Excellent power in your kicks" isn't specific enough. How did they generate that power? "Your roundhouse kick was so strong because you pivoted your plant foot" is way more effective. "Great job punching all the way through the pad instead of just punching the surface" is far better than "that was a great punch." When they know specifically what they did right, they'll keep doing it in an attempt to get your praise again. When correcting technique, instead of telling them what they did wrong, tell them "you can make your punch even better by..." In this instance they got praised and got instructed on how to improve, even if they didn't do much right. Kids want to be praised and they want to please the instructor. It's amazing what a change in the verbiage can do; they don't see the world like we do. Sorry, my physical education training is talking right now.

Not to sound the wrong way, but this could very well be the dumbest question ever asked on here. Not that I'd ever go without one, but if I absolutely had to, and had a choice between wearing it for an adult class or a kids' class, I'd choose to wear it for the kids' class every time. Some of them are at that perfect height to hit you in the groin. I swear I think there's magnets in my 4 year old daughters fists and my groin when I play spar with her. Same goes for my 6 and 8 year old nephews. Sure, they don't generate the power an adult does, but those little hands and feet generate a ton of pressure per square inch. As for sparing adults or even advanced adults, just because they've got great control doesn't mean you can't move into a kick intended for the inside of your thigh. Getting hit in the groin has been very rare for me when sparring against adults or even kids in the dojo. But it'll never be rare enough for me to not wear my cup every time. Is it really that difficult to put one on?