Furinkazan

Shuriedo and Tokyodo are baggier than Hirota, but I would definitely say that Hirota has a more relaxed fit than Tokaido. And, by extension, I'll also say Shobu - not by personal experience (I've never even seen a Shobu in person), but from what I've been reading online, Shobu has an even slimmer fit than Tokaido.

I believe it's to make your gi have a louder snap. If you get your gi custom made, you can actually request thicker and wider hems to make them even louder. You'll notice that judo gis don't have the same hem, as there's no need get a response from the gi. They have a simple one-line hem. I've taken gis to an alterations shops that couldn't duplicate the hem, despite their efforts. It might be because I didn't specifically ask them to, but it looked like they tried. And in one particular instance, it was two Kamikaze gis; and in the other, it was two Hirota lightweight gis. In the case of the Hirota gis, I should have paid for the hemming online but I was too lazy to do my own measurements. In both cases, perfectly good gis were ruined. It was after my experience here that I realized something: if you need anything hemmed on your gis, the only options that make sense are extremely cheap gis (ProForce, Century, etc) where you really couldn't care less about a one-line hem. That, or Japanese gis. Those mid-tier brands like Mugen and Kamikaze are strictly for people who don't need anything hemmed.

I live near a military base, and can confirm that not all alteration shops know how to duplicate the manufacturer's hem on a karate gi. Best thing to do is ask around the dojo for a shop that can. And the closest one to the military housing for the base I live near charges for $40 just for the pants OR sleeves. So if you have to get both hemmed, you're looking at $80 (I hope that's not considered cheap because if it is, people who live further away from miltary bases are in big trouble). That's why I recommend Shureido or Tokyodo (Tokyodo is the cheaper of the two) since they hem for free, and have baggier fit that's better for the big boys. Higher end non-Japanese gis like Mugen and Kamikaze are good deals IF you don't need anything hemmed. I'll admit I'm considering getting that Arawaza Black Diamond and having it hemmed anyway. Because by the time you spend $325 on it, what's another $80?

I think that's the WKF combo kit where you get both the red and blue trimmed tops. The single Black Diamond gi is $325 (and that's STILL alot).

I have to agree with some of the other posters here. Mugen is a good deal only if you don't need anything altered. Depending on the size of the gi and how much alteration you need, you could end up spending roughly $200 before that Mugen is ready to be worn on the floor. Even with international shipping, you'll end up spending a similar amount or less on a Shureido or Tokyodo (both companies hem pants and sleeves for free). The cut of both Shureido and Tokyodo are known to be big-boy friendly. The lack of in-house alterations doesn't make Mugen the worst deal, though. The title of "worst deal" goes to Arawaza. That Black Diamond is nice, but by the time I'd get one altered at the local shop, the overall cost would be ridiculous.

I think it’s important to note that the meaning of kiai as it pertains to karate isn’t a deep one. The kiai was not practiced in Okinawa until it was added by the Japanese. The kiai actually came from kendo practitioners who brought it to karate when cross training under Funakoshi. It’s entirely possible that the Koreans may have been practicing the kiai (or “kihap,” as they call it) just as long as, if not longer than, the Okinawans. If we are to search for a deeper meaning of the kiai, then the answer is best found in kendo rather than karate.

What the instructor said makes sense if omitting things is for a purpose other than reducing or eliminating redundancy. And I’m all for that, though not to the same extent as Wastelander. I’m a bit of a traditionalist, so I’d limit the elimination of kata to only the ones developed after karate was introduced to mainland Japan. In my opinion, the Pinans are defining katas of Shorin-ryu. Tatsuo Shimabuku didn’t teach the Pinans, so it would make sense that he would differentiate his style by calling it Isshin-ryu.

I've always heard the same thing, only difference is that the stagehands were in kabuki shows. This explains why, in ninja anime, high ranking members of ninja clans are dressed as kabuki as a reference to that.

If someone wants satiate the dreams of their inner eight year old, I could see the appeal. But ninjas haven't been cool since waning of the popularity of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. So I can't imagine that there'd be many people in ninjutsu/bujinkan schools under the age of 40.

I would never consider myself a Jake Paul fan, but I have a lot of respect for what he does. In this case, he fought six rounds with Anthony Joshua. How many of us could do the same thing? How many of Jake Paul's haters could do it? Everyone seems to forget that Francis Ngannou got knocked out by Anthony Joshua in the second round, so Jake Paul did far better than Ngannou. And Ngannou is no pushover: he went the distance with Tyson Fury before that.

I wouldn’t put much, if at all. I think the “becoming a better person” part of martial arts works the same way the PSA’s at the end of 80’s cartoons (G.I. Joe, especially) worked: children are more willing and eager to heed advice from people that they look up to. And also back in the 80’s during the “karate boom,” children were more likely to look up to a karate instructor. After reaching a certain age, I think the “becoming a better person” part of karate only come to those who actively seek it, and that age is probably sometime during or right before middle school.

Is this in your dojo, or the MA community at large? If it's happening in the dojo, then that's on your instructor(s) for failing to maintain a positive training environment. If it's in the MA community at large, then I would just limit my MA fellowship with my classmates. Before you quit martial arts, I suggest checking out some other schools in your area if there are any. You'll find that no two schools have the same environment. My school has a very peaceful atmosphere, while I've seen others that are run like a military boot camp. However, this is assuming that your issue is with your school and not the MA community at large.

While an argument could be made that hikite could be used to grab, I don't think the use for power can be dismissed. Even outside of karate where the word "hikite" isn't used, pulling one hand is indeed crucial for increasing the power of the other hand that's punching. Without pulling that hand back, the punch is just another jab or cross. A punch that's designed to wear your opponent down, and not knock them out. In karate, we're always going for the knockout. End the fight quickly and get out of there. If we're just trying to wear the other guy down, that's not self-defense. Here's why I don't think it's the grab that most people think when they say it is: if someone is standing one foot away from you, you're not going to land a very powerful punch. If you look at viral videos of fights on the internet, even untrained people know this: you have two egotistical guys in each other's faces, and the guy who swings first always either takes a big step back or pushes the other guy away before throwing that haymaker. Your fist needs to travel a certain distance and your arm needs to be extended out by a certain amount before your punch can have much effect. So if you grab the other guy and pull him towards you into the punch with the other hand, you're reducing the effectiveness of your own punch.

What you put in parentheses is why I don't think these two factors should be considered. Because it makes the false assumption that the "good" kids are more likely progress faster than the "bad" kids, and that it's more likely turn "bad" kids lives around while there's a risk of making the "good" kids more violent. Again, the moral alignment of people has nothing to do with how well they progress in any form of training or instruction. This reminds me of the scene in The Breakfast Club where Bender was responding to Brian talking about why he failed shop class. Let us not forget that there are plenty of "bad" people that know how to play the long game. Even children. With Christmas being ten days away, the most common way we see it is that when children finally reveal that they no longer believe in Santa Claus, they also reveal that they haven't believed in years. They hid their skepticism out of fear that they wouldn't get anything for Christmas. If children can do it for that, they can do the same thing to remain in martial arts training. If the reason they're teaching a martial art is for self-defense, I'm assuming karate. The reason is because they already have wrestling as part of normal physical education (at least when I was in high school), but you learn according the rules of the sport, making it rather useless for self-defense. I'll admit to having very little exposure to judo, but in that limited exposure, it appears to be similar: the focus appears to be competition and sport, rather than self-defense.

There's potential for injury in all physical activity, not just martial arts. I'd assume that schools just use whatever coverage they already have for their current physical education programs.