Wamp

I just found volumes 1-17 of Karate Baka Ichidai at a local Book Off! Karate Baka Ichidai, "A Karate-Crazy Life" is a Japanese manga drawn by Jiro Tsunoda and Jōya Kagemaru, with the story written by Ikki Kajiwara. The story was inspired by the life of the real life martial artist Mas Oyama. This series also features Hideyuki Ashihara, and has 29 volumes in total. All books are in Japanese, so very hard to read but it’s awesome to add this set to my Karate Book Shelf.

Merry Christmas!

Supper excited! It will be a New Years treat!

Touché RW

[What do you think of nukite? I have more to say about this, I just want to hear your thoughts first and then I will elaborate...] Maybe it would be good for an eye gouge.

Congratulations! Promotions always feel good, keep pressing forward!

I’m new to the KF community and I’m sitting here reading through old post and found this one. I currently live in Japan and has traveled around a lot. I have also spent time in Okinawa. Japan is an awesome place and if you can afford to come out (after COVID of course) I highly recommend it. In the future if anyone needs any Japan advice please hit me up.

@ Wastelander, I like that idea. It reminds me of MCMAP. In MCMAP there are Black Belts, Black Belt Instructors, and Black Belt Instructor Trainers (IT). IT are instructors that go through an advanced curriculum and they have the qualifications to make instructors.

NIKO Ashihara’s highest is Yondan then there are Shihan-Dai and Shihan. The master levels are for leadership positions in the organization. There are some splinter schools that carry the Ashihara name that go higher than Yondan but I don’t know much about them.

I would prefer the dojo, but I can see some upsides to training outdoors. Training in the mountains away from the distractions of modern society would be nice. Maybe some shallow water creek or river kumite would be legit too!

Good question Himokiri Karate, I think the supper strength of these types of arts comes from clearing out the mind and being able to have mental clarity and focus. Once you get the distractions of life out of your head you can train harder and give more mental focus on learning the art, getting stronger, and staying healthier.

I would think so with Ashihara being about real world self defense sceneries. We don’t really discuss other styles much ( it’s hard enough for me to understand Japanese during the lessons anyways so I don’t get a good chance to talk with the guys) I do know that everyone in my dojo has a back ground in either Kendo or Judo because those are middle school sports here.

In all honesty MCMAP is a good combatative MA. It is a good mix of standing, ground, and weapons training and the combat condition that goes along with it and is phenomenal for physical fitness. To achieve Black Belt one has to do night fighting as well. Lots of bayonet training. MCMAP also integrates warrior ethos and moral tie-ins into their lessons. MCMAP does have its downsides though, once the Corps starting factoring in belt rankings in the promotion scoring criteria, earning a new belt became a check in the box to help achieve a new promotion. Still a very good combative MA and you get out of it what you put in.

-Self Defenses - Physical Fitness -Mental Training -The love of the Martial Way And being a father of 4 daughters, I want to train with them so they know how to defend themselves and be able to confidently tackle life’s challenges.

Hello everyone, New guy here joining the forum. I stumbled across this site and thought I would join up for some good martial arts talk. I currently live in Japan and train in Ashihara Karate. Looking forward to chatting with you all.