Gazhudson18

Thank you very much for your reply. I am currently a black belt and have been training for nearly 8 years. I have never used the makiwara for the reasons you stated (I feel like I’ve only just grasped the basics!) could you please tell me the benefits of makiwara training from your personal experience.

Hi everybody. I have just made a makiwara and was just wondering if anybody has any idea how long and how many sessions I should be doing as a complete beginner to the makiwara

Hi everybody I am currently a 1st kyu brown belt in okinawan goju ryu and am hoping to grade for my black belt in June but I'm having a problem with feeling techniques both in my kata and basics. My sensei says my techniques are strong and sharp and the video footage she has shown me of myself looks good too but I just don't feel the techniques are strong and sharp when I am doing them. I don't know if I'm being overly critical of myself (although I think a black belt, which I am hoping to be, should always be self critical). My hip movement doesn't feel like it looks if that makes sense. Any help would be much appreciated

The goju club I train at is great. There's a good understanding about contact. If you give a good technique with contact your going to get a good contact technique back!😀 Contact is never excessive for obvious reasons and this leads to a great training environment. As for the cross training my sensei at gkr didn't seem too fussed about it but it was the regional managers who didn't agree with it. Maybe because they were worried I'd be spending my money elsewhere. My goju sensei likes the idea of cross training as she says that no martial art is perfect and much can be learned from other martial arts to increase ones knowledge.

I definitely regret lashing out at the guy. It wasn't good etiquette in any school of martial arts and with more experience now would take another action I.e. Bowing out like you suggested. I was just wondering if their was different etiquette at different karate styles or whether they are all pretty much the same.

I trained in gkr for almost a year. I was very kindly invited to their "sensei training programme" by my sensei and excitedly went after being told it would be a class of "karate greatness". I was only a yellow belt at the time 9th kyu and we started off with sparring. I was sparring with a 2nd dan black belt and gave him a very accurate front kick to his stomach. The whole class stopped and I got told I was not allowed to strike a higher grade student as this was bad etiquette. I asked what was bad about it as I thought we were all there to help each other improve our karate. The only answer they could give me was that it was traditional not to. We carried on sparring and as I was not able to strike I took a bit of a pasting. After 3 rounds I'd had enough and as he threw a jab I threw a overhand right and knocked him to the ground. After this I told them I had been a mma fighter for 10 years. Their reply was that it was bad etiquette to train in different martial arts without your senseis blessing. Could anyone tell me if all this etiquette stuff is just rubbish by gkr because I have been training in goju ryu now for 2 years and I have never been told of that kind of etiquette. Of course the etiquette of respect is still strong in my dojo it's just never been etiquette when it suits the senseis like in gkr.

I think that karate has gone from a martial art into a sport, especially in the public eye. It was meant to be a deadly form of self defence but has since been turned into a point scoring sport. For obvious reasons you can't go full contact in sparring but I find it difficult to pull a punch as well. I may be a bit old school in my thinking I think that to bring more people into the great art that we all enjoy, going back to basics and teaching people that karate is not a sport but a way of life is the way to go. Good luck with your dojo darkranger85.

Thank you very much for the advice tall geese. I've had a week off so far and it's been quite nice although I am missing the training a little bit I started training to make myself a better person all round and think I've just lost my way a little bit. Maybe wanting too much too soon. Definitely the right time to re evaluate why I train. Thank you again for your advice.

Thank you for the welcome. I train in okinawan goju ryu for the past 2 years and go to class twice a week. I try to get in 2 home training days as well. Ive spoke to my sensei and she told me everybody goes through this at some point in their training but try to push through it. I was just wondering if anybody else has lacked motivation for training amd how they got through it.

Hi everybody. I am struggling to get motivated to get my backside to class. I have never had a problem before and I really enjoy the classes as I have a great sensei. I used to do a lot of training at home and need to get back into that as well. Any suggestions? Please help!!!