aurik

Welcome to the forum! I'm also a Uechi-Ryu practitioner, and if you're interested I can point you to some pretty good YouTube channels for learning Uechi Ryu. Good luck on your journey. Keep in mind that the only person you're competing with on this journey is yourself, so as long as whatever you do today is better than what you did yesterday, you're making progress. Good luck!

Welcome to the forum!

Welcome to the forum! Good luck opening the new dojo -- if you haven't already checked it out, the Instructors and School Owners forum has plenty of good information for that.

It was a very good week The more I think about it, the more I think I'm going to pursue the instructor route after I pass my shodan testing. I do enjoy working with less experienced students and sharing my knowledge with them. This week has also been pretty good so far -- I'll have an update on that after Saturday class. I'm really enjoying Seisan (and its bunkai) -- it's probably my favorite kata right now. Uechi Ryu is a bit different though from many other karate styles -- we're still pretty close to our Kung Fu roots. One of the things that our CI has been talking about in our advanced classes lately is the concept of "flow". There is a balance between finding the kime ("focus") for each technique versus letting the power and momentum of one technique carryover to the next technique. It's one of those things that is more and more apparent as the student progresses from shodan through yondan (and up). Thanks DP. That is actually one of the things our CI talked about in our first class of the prep cycle -- the entire prep cycle is one long 3 month test. If he doesn't see you making the corrections he expects of you, he may or may not let you test. In his book that is one of the major differentiators between a black belt and colored belt -- the ability to take feedback and quickly apply corrections.

That is a loaded question. Karate is an umbrella term that covers many different styles and lineages. For example, Uechi-Ryu has been (relatively) lightly influenced by Japan and still has a very distinct Kung Fu flavor to it, especially as you look at the more advanced techniques. Other styles such as Goju Ryu are fundamentally Okinawan as well. (Remember, Okinawa has "only" been part of Japan since the late 1800's). As Karate spread to mainland Japan, it evolved to better fit with Japanese culture and ideals. If you look at the more Okinawan styles, their two-person drills tend to focus more on self-defense. You are expected to break your opponent's balance, push/pull him to manipulate the distance, etc. However in several more Japanese styles, you are not expected to touch your opponent in a two-person drill -- you don't want to disrupt their balance or stance. Finally we get to Tae Kwon Do, which is descended from Shotokan karate, but they added a Korean flair to it. Then we can also talk about American styles of karate, which again have been developed from Japanese styles of Karate. So I guess the answer is, is Karate Japanese? I would say yes and no. The term Karate was first used in 1920's Okinawa when bringing the art to Japan. All styles of Karate have some level of Japanese influence to them. However, all forms or Karate are not wholly Japanese. My .02 worth.

I’ve studied a couple of different styles in the past. As of now I’ve been training in Uechi-Ryu for about 3.5 years.

As of tomorrow, two weeks to go until the testing cycle. This week was a pretty good week karate-wise. Tuesday we had the advanced adult class, and we started working some two-person drills based off Seiryu and Kanchin katas (required for second and third degree). These were different enough that the first couple times through they made my head spin somewhat until my partner and I broke them down one step at a time, and then started adding speed to it. We then did a few other drills and then moved on to kata and then bunkai. Im feeling like my kata is generally getting stronger and stronger — there are a few items my CI wants me to focus on. One he wants to see me keep the elbows tucked towards the end. Also he wants to see me dig into the mats with my toes a bit more to provide a better base. However all in all I’m feeling really good. Thursday night I went to the adult beginner class due to a scheduling conflict with the Mrs. instead of working advanced material, I worked with one of our newer adult students on his 2-person drills. There were a few areas he needed to work on, so I was able to point those out to him. I also worked with some of the younger brown belts on their 2-person drills as well. It felt pretty good to be the senior student in class and doing a lot of teaching in addition to training. Today was the test prep class. We had an odd number of students today, so he had me work with one of the junior black belts who is prepping to test for adult black belt. He is one of those really lean and somewhat tall kids. One of the things I asked him to focus on was to be strong and sincere in all of his techniques. For example when we were doing kotekitae, I had to ask him to hit me harder, and I gave him some suggestions for how to generate more power in both his blocks and strikes. Dan kumite went really well today with no major hiccups, and my seisan kata was as strong as I’ve done it yet. I need to slow down and pause in a few places, but the corrections are getting smaller and smaller I’m getting really stoked for the test. Now to make sure I can ace the oral section

Congratulations! Your life will never be the same again. Enjoy the ride😎

I don't think Uechi-Ryu has this problem as much as many other styles, or I am very fortunate that my CI and his father are very well-connected with the heads of the different Uechi Ryu organizations. While Uechi Ryu has split off quite a few different governing bodies, most heads of the governing bodies received most of their dan gradings directly from Kanei Uechi (Kanbun Uechi's son). For example, the head of my organization received his 1st-6th dan gradings from Kanei Uechi (before he passed). This isn't to say that there aren't differences in how different organizations teach different techniques, and different organizations teach the same techniques differently. However, there is a great deal of communication between the organizations, especially the ones based in Japan and Okinawa. For example, if a student under another instructor comes into my CI's school, he can usually figure out which organization he trained in, based upon how he performs different techniques. They're not always "wrong" or "inferior" per se, just different. Maybe I'm just fortunate that my CI goes to Okinawa every year or two and trains directly with the heads of some of these other organizations.

As others have said, there are a lot of subtleties in Iaido and other sword arts, and a teacher will help you learn much quicker. With the advent of Zoom meetings, it's become much more common to do remote MA training, so that is certainly an option. However, I'd look for someone who is reasonably close to you, who you could visit in person every month or so. Video training is good -- in person training is much better.

I've quit martial arts several times in my life. At 19 I quit due to an injury that I sustained from "being stupid" - broke and dislocated my ankle and never did get back into it. At 23 I quit when I moved from the awesome dojo that I was at and couldn't find a convenient dojo near where I lived. At 45 I quit when I moved. I wasn't impressed with that school or franchise anyways. At 46 I started at the dojo I'm at now, and I'm going on 4 years there. So I guess I've "quit" a few times, but I keep coming back!

I remember a couple years ago, when I was having a discussion with my CI -- I had been out to San Jose with the company I worked with at the time. One of the gentlemen I spoke with mentioned how he had his son in TKD until he got his black belt, and then he disenrolled him -- thinking the black belt was the end of the line. I noted the number of black belts that he had that were still training, and he said that one translation of the term "shodan" is "beginner degree", and it's not until you reach shodan that you get to see the really good stuff. After this class, I'm in complete agreement. Thanks for the encouragement, guys! There were some parts that came fairly easily, and others that seemed just... wrong. But I am really looking forward to the next one of these! One of the reasons I have so much respect for him is that that even after 30+ years of training, he still makes it a point to train with people more experienced than he is, and still keeps trying to learn and improve.

Congratulations DP!

Welcome to the forum and welcome back o training! I took a pretty long break myself awhile back.

Yesterday we had our quarterly black belt training class -- as an ikkyu, I was invited, and the class was a lot of fun and I learned a LOT. The class started out with junbi undo (warmups) and Sanchin kata. Our CI then talked about working the trapezius muscles in Sanchin, and how we should bring the shoulders up and forward to tense the traps, and also how some schools expect you to tighten the neck muscles as well. (In fact, some schools do strikes to the neck during sanchin testing!!). We then moved on to some new 2-person drills that are based upon the kata (required for 3rd dan). Some of these were really hard to wrap my head around -- and from simple changes. Generally when we perform a kick in a drill, it's always performing a circle block with the front hand (usually to "cross"), and kicking with the front foot. In these drills he had us blocking with the rear hand (to "open"), and then had us kicking with the front foot (for the first drill) and the back foot (for the second drill). Again, it's a subtle difference but took a few tries to get my head wrapped around it. He then demonstrated how if you can keep your weight centered when you kick, you can kick equally quickly off either the front or back foot, which can be very advantageous in sparring. (Most of the time an opponent will expect a kick to come off the front foot when kicking in a defensive manner). The next set of drills had quite a bit of aikido flavor to them, since they all ended up with a takedown of some sort. One involved defending against a right front kick -- the defender would use the left hand to redirect the kick to the side while hooking the achilles tendon. They would then simultaneously step in and shuto-uchi to the neck (across the body). They would then be in position to sweep the supporting leg with an o-uchi-gari. With my judo and aikijujutsu background (granted, from 20+ years ago), I was able to pick this one up pretty quick. The next one involved a 3-punch sequence. Right to the head, left to the body, right to the head. The defender would step back and do a high wrist block, followed by stepping back for a low wrist block, and then stepping at a 45 degree in and to the side of the opponent, performing a double side-wrist block, immediately followed by grabbing the opponents wrist with your right hand, then pulling him into a wrist strike to the neck. The followup would be sliding the arm across his neck/body, and then either taking him down over the leg, or pigging him in an arm-bar with the arm across your abdomen. After that, we started started working the bunkai. Unlike the kata up to shodan, this bunkai involved sequences of multiple attackers. He would demonstrate a sequence on his wife, and then we would break up into 3-4 person groups and work that sequence. The class then ended with us learning/practicing the kata. For those of us who aren't working that kata yet (ie, first degrees or below), we just stepped through it 3 times, and then broke off to work on our rank kata. All in all, it was a great experience and I got to learn a lot of new material. I'll need to try to use some of this in class the next time we do 2-person drills. So our CI tends to use these quarterly training sessions to disseminate new information to the school -- for example, when he goes to Okinawa or to Michigan to train with his instructors, he'll bring back new techniques, or new interpretation on existing techniques, and he'll use these sessions to do a top-down dissemination.

Our regional director (aka my CI's father) has a plethora of stories, some funny, some you just want to shake your head. So apparently when my CI and his brothers were in Boy Scouts (when they still called it Boy Scouts), he got "voluntold" to do a karate demonstration at a jamboree. They apparently just wanted a breaking demonstration, and they even provided the boards, in the form of old barn wood. Now at the time, he was a black belt (unsure of what degree, possibly 3rd?), but had never done a breaking demonstration before. So when he gets out there, he blasts through the board with a seiken-tsuki, and, just like he always practiced, pulled the hand right back -- through all of the slivers he just created, slicing up his forearms. Oops... When he later spoke with his instructor, he was told basically "don't do that..."

Awhile back, our CI sent us some videos of our kata by Natan Levy, who started out in Pangai-noon kung fu, later Uechi Ryu (he currently holds a 3rd degree). I'm not sure how many other UFC fighters started out in Uechi Ryu, but it was pretty cool to see.

This has been a pretty good week so far. Tuesday's class was the advanced/black belt class, and we started out with the usual junbi undo / hojo undo / sanchin. Then when we got to our individual sanchin with the instructors, I worked with our CI's younger brother, who gave me some good suggestions that definitely improved my stability. Then towards the end of class, we did our group kata starting with Seisan-- as usual twice synchronized with a count, and once at our own pace. After that, us brown belts peeled off for some additional kata work with our CI. He talked about how historically kata would be done by following along with the instructor, and the count was added (fairly) recently in order to help break the kata down for better understanding. However, the key is to then reassemble the kata to turn it back into a whole. He then went to discuss how to generate and maintain power throughout the kata. He demonstrated with the first few movements of Seisan how when we step after one strike, that hip pivot primes the power for the next strike. And how by keeping the momentum moving from one sequence to the next you can maintain the power/energy moving from one sequence to the next. He then demonstrated the same concept with kanshiwa (the first rank kata we learned). He also mentioned that we do this in Uechi-Ryu significantly different from other Okinawan styles, partially because our style is still much closer to the kung fu roots. Wednesday was another prep class, and I'm starting to feel pretty good about things. My dan kumite was much better this time, our CI only had a few comments for me -- one of which isn't anything *wrong* per se, but probably better in terms of less chance of injury. In this particular drill, the attacker comes in with a straight punch, the defender steps back, blocks to open, and responds with a shuto-uchi (knife hand strike). The defender then blocks that shuto-uchi and responds with a roundhouse kick, which the defender blocks with an X-block (combination gedan barai uke + chudan barai uke). I have gotten in the habit of facing the chudan barai segment outwards, so I catch the block on the ulna (if the kick is high enough). This isn't a problem in most cases, because most times my opponent will be kicking at the floating ribs. However, our CI generally aims that kick at the head level, so I caught that kick right above the wrist, where there is no meat to protect it. That equals a nice bone bruise, since that is a segment of the arm we don't condition nearly as much. He recommended I turn the palm to face me so I catch that kick on the meaty part of the forearm. Another bad habit to rbeak. For the sparring section of class, he brought up a couple of the adults from the (concurrent) adult class. One is a nikyu, and r I've trained with him since I started there, and the other is a shichikyu, but originally a weapons student, and he also holds a black belt in TKD. It was refreshing to spar against different opponents who have VERY different styles from our CI. I did MUCH better against these two than I did with our CI . I did really well against the TKD student, because when I saw him start a kick, I'd close the distance and I'd be too close for him to get any power -- until he started doing head-level hook kicks. Also jamming his kicks let me catch them more often than not -- I didn't take him down though since we were on hardwood floors, instead of the mats (downstairs). The nikyu was a lot of fun to spar with as well. Since I've gotten so used to our CI's speed, it was much easier to anticipate that opponent's moves and counter them. I definitely held my own with him, and feel that I probably gave a bit better than I got. And the best part was, after the class, I felt that I still had a fair amount of energy, so the endurance is coming along pretty well too. Our CI has set May 22 as the test date. I've put it on my calendar!

In our typical bunkai, there is an attacker and a defender. The defender performs a sequence of the kata, pauses, steps to the attacker and performs the interpreted sequence with the attacker. The defender then moves back to their original position, performs the sequence again, and moves to the next sequence. It's somewhat formalized and intended for presentation to an audience (usually a promotion board). In the four-person bunkai, the defender steps through the kata in sequence, and the attackers rotate in to attack them. This turns into a rapid-fire sequence of attacks and defenses. After the first defender completes the kata, the next defender rotates in and the sequence starts all over again.

Congratulations! You put in the time and the work in order to earn that promotion. Whether you performed the testing in-person or via video, you had to perform the techniques to the satisfaction of a board of higher-ranked instructors. Well done!

That depends on the style, I guess. The bunkai for Uechi-Ryu kata (or at least all the bunksis I've seen so far) very closely mirror the kata. So much that when we perform bunkai, we will perform a sequence of the kata, show the application for that sequence, and then perform that sequence solo again and move on to the next sequence. For example, the bunkai for kanshiwa (required for 9th-7th kyu) can be seen (the full kata is .

We have a 4-person bunkai for Kanshiwa (our first kata), and it's a lot of fun to do. You end up doing it 4 times in a row (each person rotates position), and by the end of the 4th go-round you're a) very in-tune with each other and the bunkai, and b) danged well exhausted. I don't find bunkai to be esoteric -- I find it a lot of fun and a challenge. For me it provides a deeper understanding of the base kata, and it's a lot of fun to do. The bunkai I'm currently working on, seisan, has several really difficult sequences that I'm trying to get down, and when performed in "test-mode" takes about 10 minutes to complete. You (or at least I) definitely need to be careful where you spend your energy in it, and where to spend a few seconds to catch your breath.

Another week of dan test prep complete, and one week closer to my shodan test! Last week had some ups and downs, but generally ups. I had taken half of the previous week off (the family went down to Colorado Springs for Spring Break). Last week I made it a point to practice kyu (yakusoku) kumite, since. I hadn't worked on it in awhile. At some point in the next few weeks, I'll be testing for my "advanced brown" belt, which basically means I get re-tested over a number of the fundamentals (the kyu level katas, kanshiwa bunkai, and kyu kumite). I'll be expected to perform at a dan level of proficiency, so when the test comes I want to be ready for it. Thursday evening I got to work with a partner I've been training with since I started at the dojo -- he and I both started at the same time, so we are pretty familiar with each other. We ended up working on seisan bunkai (required for shodan). He is currently a nikyu, so he isn't going to be in the same test cycle as I am, but I got to share with him a lot of the little things that I've been picking up along the way. Saturday we had our test prep class -- there were only 3 of us there, so it went somewhat smoothly. I did pretty well on the hojo undo and sanchin sections. However, when we got to the dan kumite section, I had a brain freeze on one section -- probably because I hadn't actually performed that in over 2 weeks (amazing how fast your timing goes!). We then sparred for a couple of rounds -- I'm getting better at my combinations, but I nearly broke a toe trying to sweep my CI's leg (his shins are like bricks, and I hit with the ball instead of the instep). He then had me run through seisan kata twice, and I felt that they were my best versions of the kata I've done yet. He gave me one small correction after the first one, and I was able to incorporate it into the second go-round. All in all, I'm feeling my technique and power is increasing by leaps and bounds, and I'm doing reasonably well on the endurance aspect. Another 6 weeks or so before testing. I'm starting to get excited!

Congratulations! Keep up the good work and keep on moving forward!

Funny that you mention this today -- last Saturday, my sensei brought up this very point, in the context that you don't "do" martial arts, you "practice" them, similar to law, medicine, and certain other professions. This has a couple of implications -- first, things are never the same any two days you come into the dojo (or the office). And most importantly, martial arts is a journey of self-improvement, where you are always looking for ways to improve.