Shorin Ryuu

Hmm. Short answer: A study of breathing and biomechanics in motion.

No one doing martial arts should have a big ego. They should just recognize I am better than everyone else and leave it at that.

You're right. It says a lot about that kid and a lot about that judge.

Salute! His story: http://www.defendamerica.mil/profiles/aug2004/pr080604a.html

You don't need to have someone in a completely locked or complex hold to break their neck. What's more, I would say you have more bang for your buck using these techniques with regards to success ratio when you talk about close in-fighting. Even if you don't break their neck, you can usually control them or completely render them incapable of attacking you by attacking that area. I feel my style in particular is oriented specifically for a crippling, fatal, or seriously injuring take down, especially including the manipulation of the head or neck. Rather than taking them down and immoblizing them, then breaking their neck (or whatever it was you were visualizing), it is meant to be done at once in a manner that leaves you relatively less vulnerable. These can be modified for other parts of the body, of course, but these techniques are far easier to pull off when you are not "being nice" or using it in the ring. As we said, these are only in situations where you don't have the option of being nice. We are only discussing a narrow range of possibilities here. Like Shorinryu Sensei said, it may be simpler to smash their throat. If someone intended to kill me and had the capability, you can bet they will probably have a vice grip centered on their windpipe rather than their whole neck.

Maybe its just me, but I think there is a lot going on that is similar to what you are saying, AnonymousOne. In terms of pure creative environment, the imposition of rigid style delineations (which is more recent that the imposition of style delineations themselves in the early 1900s) in my opinion was a regression. I still wouldn't say innovation stopped in the 1900s. In fact, the early 1900s saw an almost re-flowering of innovation. But even nowadays, there are many venues for sharing knowledge at the intra- and inter-organizatonal levels, between different dojo, and simply between different individuals. You can't downplay the individual variation of people who follow even just one main system of fighting, or their efforts to expand and learn about others (not necessarily learn them, but learn about them). As far as modifying kata goes, people do it all the time. Nowadays we put karate masters on the spot by asking "what is the official way to do the kata?" We have them make videos or ask how they "count" a certain kata. But in the old days, they weren't necessarily always as precise in their hand placement or demanding that everyone look exactly the same. Because everyone's body is different, the kata will look different. Maybe the emphasis isn't on placing one hand with the fingers of one hand touching the wrist, maybe the emphasis was placed on crossing your hands in whatever manner you can without having to rotate the body, which means the hands will be in a slightly different position for every body type. My kata is different from my instructor's, which is different from his. There is the basic "set" way of doing the kata, but everyone has their own way of doing it, when it comes down to it. The different ways of doing kata that we have now are for the most part, representing the different ways that people did the kata back then. It is mostly because they used to teach to the individual student, which was easier when you did not have a large number of students like you do nowadays. This practice has not disappeared. Since I know my organization best, I can point to several individuals who based upon my body type, suggested I look into doing a move a certain way, while suggesting a different position to the person next to me for the exact same move. As far as creating too many new kata, there really is only so much that is new under the sun. But there are still innovations and things you can do. For example, the North American director for my system has a version of Naihanchi Shodan that you go forwards and backwards rather than side-to-side. For people like him that have had an incredible wealth of not just experience, but worthwhile experience and individual examination of his training (he always says 90% of what he knows he had to figure out by himself), I think it is entirely justified to do things like this. This "Naihanchi to the Front" of his didn't just take into account variations of Naihanchi, but also breathing, bunkai, and all the other necessary levels of understanding necessary for a kata. These things are not the subject of dismay. What gets me (not really, I actually don't care if people want to do this...I just won't follow them) is people that create a kata without doing the necessary depth of analysis. As far as the depth of funding that isn't in karate as compared to other things like Olympic sports, there are several reasons. The first obvious one is because it doesn't attract as much money to itself. The second is sport karate isn't the same as true karate. Sport karate is still karate, but it is more of a training method rather than the actual thing. You can innovate the training method, but it isn't exactly the same as innovating karate as a whole. A third reason is due to the full range, to include lethality, of concepts and techniques in karate, it is harder to study them to the utmost than it is in boxing, for example, which although it has an incredible depth of theory, is still limited due to all the rules. And even much more difficult than something like track, where it is only the individual trying to maximize several important parameters without having to worry about an opponent trying to hurt them. The reason for this is that getting a better strke in karate doesn't just mean being able to hit a target with more force. The type of force, specific means of application and how the human body reacts is far more important. It is harder to adequately test these systematically in a laboratory environment without injuring the test subject. This is where relying in part on the wisdom of old comes in handy. Due to the inherent martial nature of karate, it must not only take into account maximizing the user, but also in minimizing, so to speak, the recipient. I still feel we are living in an exciting time. While I may often lament many of the bad aspects that commercialization and mass marketing has introduced, I also appreciate its benefits. I honestly believe that through the increased sharing of knowledge available, we are in effect rediscovering much of what was known to the "old masters" and there is innovation still occuring. One only has to weed through the horde of crappy books on martial arts and find the good ones to see what I am talking about. The information age has made such things possible. The ability to travel and meet with many other people has contributed as well. So while I doubt there will ever be scientific study conducted with as much depth and funding as Olympic track events, hope is far from being lost.

Exactly. *Nods gravely* You have a long way to go, grasshopper.

A trophy? A belt? I'm in a system that uses belts. But I don't attach too much stock to belts or trophies.

I suppose. I haven't really made a big deal about breaking necks or using neck/head techniques or really seen much of it (maybe I'm looking in the wrong places). I think such training is necessary. I haven't gone into detail about it since I agree, there are enough things to talk about without discussing that. But to rule it out completely is cutting short your martial training. I don't get squeamish about thinking the thought that I may have to kill someone. I think such things are necessary if you're going to train in a martial art rather than doing a sport. That occurence is still highly unlikely (unless I'm in a combat situation, which given my specialty code isn't necessrily a given), but it is still something that is part of the training. You don't really train to mess around, and I don't intend to use my training unless I absolutely have to because there is a risk of someone getting hurt. Don't misquote me or misinterpret what I'm saying. I'm not saying even if I do use my training I'll automatically go and break someone's neck. I'm just saying the possibility is there given the situation. In all likelihood, it isn't necessary to have the knowledge of how to break someone's neck to defend yourself on the street. Nor is it necessary to post that information all over an internet forum (again, I haven't seen too much of it, but I may just be reading different threads than you). But I still keep that in mind and train to do so because I am studying a martial tradition.

There are numerous threads about belts, dan ranks, the ranking system, etc. on the karate board, if you wish to see more about this topic and variations of it.

Motobu did do his Naihanchi in a kiba dachi. He disagreed with Itosu on this point. He even has his version of Naihanchi, although he taught the standard one as well.

It wasn't. Nagamine's style reflects a lot more of the Japanese influence than others.

That's probably it, then.

Wow. This certainly looks to be even more exciting time the more people are expressing interest. I can't wait.

Yeah, the Naihanchi kata are amongst my favorites because of all the lovely moves and principles it contains.

I live in Monterey, but I actually train in San Francisco (2 hours north) under Sam Ahtye (Shorin Ryu Shorinkan). I moved out here last August and leave next September. How about you? (Or are you being mysterious?)

For some reason, their organization patch seems familiar to me as if I've seen it somewhere. I think watching multiple classes is better than just checking out one (if your time permits). Can't really tell from the website, but it looks like an alright place.

The amount of sparring really depends on the dojo. Some dojo do more sparring while others don't really put much emphasis on free sparring at all. For example, my current dojo does not free spar, although we do a lot of drills and yakusoku kumite. I've also trained in Shorin Ryu dojo that allows light contact to the head (although we usually try not to knock each other's block off...there's a point of diminishing returns in what you can learn from it). I'm not sure what school it is (do you have the name of the instructor?) or even what style of Shorin Ryu it is, but once again, it really does depend on the dojo.

Much of the changes from Naihanchi stance to a kiba dachi were when Funakoshi taught karate in Japan. He started teaching it (for whatever reason) in a kiba dachi (even did kiba dachi in various photos and whatnot). I like the Nanami Zenkutsu for its various uses, and I think its inclusion is useful. As far as Naihanchi vs. other stances in the rest of the kata, I agree completely. Not doing Naihanchi in a Naihanchi stance makes it, well, not Naihanchi (just as well the changed the name for it in the Japanese version). I think in Shorinkan, there is less emphasis on extreme pigeon-toedness (if there is such a word). The outer side of the feet are parallel while the inner can be curved in.

Ah yes. I believe this work was part of the manuscript that Richard Kim blatantly plagiarized for his Weaponless Warriors.

...and Radok returns from the dead. Welcome back!

No, I do not, sorry. As I mentioned before, we are in a naihanchi dachi (the distance in between the feet is shoulder width or slightly more apart) rather than a kiba dachi. When we step over into it, rather than bringing the knee high and dropping down, we keep the legs low the entire time, relying on a shift in body structure to move quickly. The low foot movement also emphasizes the grappling nature of this kata, in my opinion. There's actually much more to it than that, but as a brief overview, that's the difference in stepping.

Interesting. The method of stepping (apart from other things) is quite different from the way we do it.

You couldn't just ask the local instructor? Either way, I agree. Very sad.

Please see your pm.