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When I was training in New York, I had this unbelievable drive to become a cage fighter. I thought there were so many secrets in karate that could help me, and I was right. But as I got better my interest in Karate increased and my interest in becoming a cage fighter faded away. My Sensei played a HUGE part in keeping me interested and guiding me through the hard times. Now that I don't have him to teach me anymore, I can't get enough (just like before). I keep training, not just because I love it more than anything, but because I hope to train under my first Sensei again someday.

I love this post. I think about Karate all the time and I have an endless respect for all martial arts out there. There's something to learn from each style or system! As previously stated above, I also think about it all day long, every single day. I've ditched my girlfriend countless times just so I don't miss a class. I used to train 6 days a week, now it's 4, and I practically convinced Kyoshi to add a 5th class through constant pestering lol. Even still, on days I don't train in class, I always set time aside to go over Kata. I simply cannot get enough.

This is an interesting post. In Karate, some applications of the Kata have been lost. But were there ever any set rules? Did a creator of a certain Kata add a certain move, with the intentions of only having one final practical application? I doubt it. I've always been shown more than one way to apply certain moves in a Kata for real self defense. The fact is, there are endless interpretations of each move, and endless individuals with different body types. One application is going to work better for one individual than another. So I think Kata were made as guidelines, with the intention of creativity. Find the application that best fits you. So yes, I would say creativity and spontaneity are important for martial artists. As for the street fighter kata, I'm not really sure what to make of it. I think they rely on instinct. They don't have a set of guidelines, or kata, like we do in Karate and Kung Fu. Punch, punch, punch. If anything, I would assume a street fighter kata would just be shadow boxing, imagining you're in a fight and reacting to your imaginary opponents movements and trying to land some hits. Ending the "fight" when you're too tired to continue, since that's how street fights will end, if someone doesn't get knocked out. With that being said, they also don't have finishing moves as we do. Our moves are designed to end the fight quickly so you can get away. I hope I contributed! EDIT: You asked about creativity and different styles. Some styles have lower stances, some have higher stances. Some have wider, some have more narrow. For the Karateka that invented their own style as well as the Kung Fu masters, they had disagreements with what they were originally taught or saw, so they used their creativity to adapt their style to what fits then better as an individual. This transfers thousands of years later to our present day. Some individuals would prefer Shotokan with their deeper stances for more stability. Some may prefer Shorin Ryu for their higher stances for its natural feel. Individuality!

According to the Internet, Goju Ryu Master So suggest that he train for 3 years in the mountains. Although he didn't stay the full 3 years, Mas Oyama won a huge fighting championship upon his return. If you were given the opportunity to train in the mountains, in isolation for 3 years with no distractions, would you do it? How do you think that would go? I can tell you without a doubt, taking naps would be apart of my daily routine!

So I originally learned how to squat while doing Crossfit. Feet about shoulder width apart, go down below parallel. When I did that, I couldn't push my butt out enough. I struggled with 185lbs for a while. I developed a pain between my hip and my groin that caused me to stop doing back squats for a long time. Right before the injury started, I had gotten up to 225 for 5 on my best day. Yesterday while in the gym, after 2 months of no squats at all, I hit 225 for an EASY set of 8! While I was with my unit, I heard a friend of mine say he hates when people don't push their butt out while squatting. This tempted me to try exaggerating that motion, since I never really thought about it. I never thought I was going to squat again. And I never imagined id actually have strong enough legs to pick up where I left off even better than before. And yes, I went down low enough each rep. Parallel to be exact. Just feeling proud so I thought I'd share this story! Anyone have any similar experiences?

Thank you! Could you recommend a program that targets injury prevention? Or are you saying to stick with the main lifts and the main calisthenics, scaling and progressively loading with a focus on proper form?

First of all, congrats to Wastelander on the release of his DVD! It reminded me of a DVD that my Sensei, Jerry Figgiani, released not long ago called the Simplicity In Understanding Kata Bunkai. I was wondering if anyone has bought this DVD or heard of it, and if they have seen any footage, how it has helped their training.

When training for competition, top athletes such as MMA fighters tend to follow a specific plan. Let's say three months out, they'll use each month as a "phase" to focus. Cardio, then strength, then intensity. I'd say start with a high volume of training and light to moderate intensity. Then as your competition nears, slowly decrease the volume of your training and increase the intensity. Example: at the beginning, you're working on 3 mile runs, getting your time down as much as you can. As time goes on, you'll decrease how much you run so that you can increase how fast you run. By the end of your training camp, that 3 miles has gone down to 100m to 400m sprints. Hope this helps, or at least gives you some ideas. Good luck!

I understand that lifting, with proper form, is a very healthy form of exercise. But I have a very specific question! For Karate, what do you think is the healthiest and most beneficial form of exercise, and how should it be done? I'm asking this because I've heard that even doing lots of push-ups over time can cause injury in the elbows, wrists and shoulders. If push-ups can do that, I'm sure that bench pressing can do that. Everyone's heard that squats can be cause knee injuries over time. Now, contradictory to those previous statements, I've also heard that doing these over time with proper form can help keep your mobility. Speaking of mobility, I've also heard that there are mobility specific workouts to help you stay mobile and reduce risk of injury. Everything I've said is something that "I've heard" because I just don't have the answers. So I guess I'm just wondering what kind of workout could I do, targeted to help my performance as I continue to study Karate and keep me mobile and healthy as I continue to age and get older? Karatekas are the best to ask because you see them well past their 70's moving better than people in their 20's! Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Paul Walker, bless his soul, was a student of BJJ. Djimon Honsou (did I spell that right?), the teacher in Never Back Down, studied Kung Fu for a number of years, if he doesn't still. I'm not sure what style.

Thanks for all the posts. This IS an accredited university. The degree is real. Stuck on whether I should take business or phys Ed with it though.

Wastelander, I completely understand. I'd just like to point out one thing about the drills. While they definitely do take a lot of memorization just for the drill, I believe it's purpose is to create muscle memory. At the end of the first drill, you finish off with two knife edge blocks in the cat stance (as the defender) and two punches to the head (as the attacker). As you get better at the drill, you'd finish off that part of it with each partner going faster and harder to create more of a "realistic feel" to the training. For me, this became somewhat of an instinct for me every time my friends would mess with me, or especially when I got in a fight 3 months after I started training. A fist was thrown towards my face, and I immediately dropped into a cat stance and performed a knife edge block. Each drill goes over a very wide spread of techniques to help make them useful in a wide variety of situations. I completely respect your statements, I was just hoping to add some more detail to the knowledge you already have. Hope this helped.

I believe it's a combination of everything. Having knowledge on the art, having a good attitude towards others, having the physical abilities to perform your art. I don't think winning fights is important. Sensei Joseph Carbonara was an amazing martial artist who never competed in Kumite, and MANY martial artists sought out his knowledge because he was simply amazing. Having said that, I think it's also important not to try to be better than others, but to constantly strive to be better than yourself. The more that shows and the less others see you trying to be better than everyone, I think it'll be obvious to others how true of a martial artist you are. Even still, the goal should be to show yourself that, not others 😁

So my old dojo used to teach this and I thought it was pretty cool. I've never seen a thread about this on here! - What IS Koryu Uchinadi (KU)? - How good or bad do you think it goes with some Karate styles? - What do you think of KU in general? Personally, I really like it and I thought it went great with Matsubayashi Ryu techniques. Although fights don't typically go exactly how Futari Geiko is practiced, It gives you quick think skills in a real street situation. You may not find yourself doing anything like the first 4 steps in one of the drills in a street fight, but you could be going at it and suddenly find yourself in the fifth step and know exactly what to do. It happened to me! Would love to get some thoughts on KU, or maybe some better explanations than what I just provided thanks!

Hey guys, check out this website! http://www.koseido-dojo.org/jiujitsu_history.htm I'd appreciate it if anyone could read this page and give me some feedback. Just looking for some thoughts and opinions! Thanks.

Definitely the island! I agree with everything Zaine said about it, that would be the best kind of life I can think to live. I'd like to add some kind of cross training opportunities or areas, where different martial artists can meet up and not compete against each other, but share their arts with one another! They could sparr, just check out the other arts or even try them out and see how it is compared to their own style. I experienced a bit of that last night at my first Chito Ryu class. A blackbelt and I just compared the techniques and some kata and we had such a blast doing it.

So at my new dojo where I study Chito Ryu, our Sensei is big on using Osu when he calls your name. To my understanding, Osu is mainly used in Japanese Karate such as Kyokushin. I understand that Chito Ryu was developed in Japan, but because of its roots and ways, only some consider it to actually be Okinawan. I come from Matsubayashi Ryu, so using Osu kind of surprised me at first. Does my dojo simply use the expression because some consider it Japanese, or are they just using Osu because it's a well known Karate term? My main question is, do you consider Chito Ryu to be more Okinawan or Japanese?

What exactly is the difference? I'm assuming Japanese Jiu Jitsu doesn't have as many ground submissions as BJJ. I'm also assuming Japanese Jiu Jitsu has more wrist locks and takedowns in it. Could depend on where you're training at. Then again, I'm just assuming

I enjoy lifting, plus my dojo is only open 4 days a week. I also consider Kobudo a rest day. Monday: AM Legs Tuesday: AM Chest, Karate and Jiu Jitsu in the PM Wednesday: AM Back Thursday: AM Shoulders, Jiu Jitsu and Karate in the PM Friday: AM Arms Saturday: AM Kobudo Sunday: AM open dojo (focus on Kata), PM Run/Calisthenics I also have the option to go to a boxing gym for free on Mondays and Wednesday's, I might do that sometimes but my lifting consists of all compounds superset with isolation exercises, so I get enough intensity.

I think as far as the most people being impacted by certain individuals goes, most of the most "influential" men and women in today's society are going to be MMA fighters. Ronda Rousey in particular. Sure, there have been plenty of women that have been amazing in their art, but Ronda has become famous for it. She's been in movies, she's now a model, she's inspiring lots of women to pick up self defense classes, Judo especially. Many people are even comparing her to the male fighters and I think she'd stack up very well against a lot of them. Depending on how her comeback goes, I think men and women fighting each other COULD be a possibility in the future. To be fair though, I don't think that idea was even considered until Ronda started dominating the MMA world. I'm not very into MMA though, because 90% of them abandon the discipline and respect they learned in martial arts once their skill made them athletes instead of martial artists. #1 reason why I stopped watching once GSP left.

Many times people just use Larate as a general term. They might be doing tang soo do, taekwondo, hapkido, even jiu jitsu or Kung fu. I hear someone say they do karate and when I ask what style they have no clue. Sometimes I like this, because I get to ask them questions about their environment, their uniforms and what they do in class and I try to figure out what style or martial art they're actually practicing. I've had people tell me they'd rather do taekwondo because it sounds cool and when they think of karate they think of kids. That kind of annoyed me. In general though, I'm open to telling them about karate and I've even shown them certain things that are just as useful for adults as they are for kids in terms of self defense. If they don't wanna hear it, I don't waste my time. However, I've actually gotten people very interested in Karate and 2 have actually started it! In short, karate isn't for everyone and that's fine. Football isn't for everyone, neither is reading or watching television.

I specifically remember watching my Sensei demonstrate a move, and then watching myself in the mirror as I performed it myself. It definitely helped out so much because I could see if my shoulders were square, I could see if my hand was tight in the pocket. I could see the angle of my head blocks, my feet positioning, etc. if it didn't look the way my Sensei did it, I could see what part I was doing wrong. I can't see any way of getting around this unless you have someone watching you and correcting you every step of the way. However, I'm definitely curious to know if there are any ideas that someone has in that scenario.

Judo is a great pair with karate! Any style in my opinion. My Sensei offered Judo 2 nights a week to help us out with competitions. When I competed, if you got close enough to your opponent, you could take them down and score a point. However, you couldn't just rush in and try to throw him on the ground. I think it complements karate very well, especially in tournaments, because sometimes you'll be going at it and next thing you know you're in the perfect position to sweep his leg and get him down. Most who don't practice Judo would miss that opportunity in a tournament. Good luck!

Thanks for the input guys! I have to say I agree with all of you and must thank you for the information.

Before I start, I do not know everything about anything. What I say about Karate is how I have interpreted what I have already learned. If I say anything wrong, please correct me! If I accidentally insult someone, I apologize. So, what's the difference? KarateDO can be translated to "the empty hand way." "Do," meaning "the way," really peaks my interest. It's a way of life, having the Karatedo mindset transfers into all aspects of life. I would really like someone to expand on this, and especially compare it to any "Do" aspect that Taekwondo might have. In Karate, a general rule of thumb is to follow the 3 K's. - Kihon - Kata - Kumite Kihon - the basics. Chest punches, front snap kicks, head blocks, etc. Kata - our tools. Self defense is hidden within Karate Kata. Kumite - Sparring/Fighting. This can be done as a prearranged fighting form, also called Yakusoku Kumite, or in a way that's done in tournaments either for points or knockdown. If I left anything out, please feel free to add! So what does Taekwondo have that karate doesn't, or how is it similar? I firmly believe there is no best martial art, only one that best fits each individual. Just trying to do some learning