Lord Apocalypse

I may be wrong about this but i'm pretty sure that the majority of okinawan styles don't have kime

Was agreeing with everything that guy was saying up until the 'pay for my secret technique' bit. Granted what he was saying is mostly correct, however i'm always extremely wary of things like that. To sum up, he is correct in saying that most styles use the hips like a revolving door, which is simply nonsense for producing power. Our 'double hip' is easier explained by imagining a normal door, essentially only one hip is driving forward. It is called the double hip because we keep 1 hip in it's place, ie the door frame where it joins onto the wall and this is counted as the first hip, it's in place. The 'double' part of the hip s where the other drives forward without or with minimal movement of the other hip. I hope you can get what i'm trying to get across here, if you want, go to https://www.peterconsterdine.com and order the video/dvd, power strike. Peter consterdine is famous for being a really hard hitter and he does shukokai, he also is buddies with Russell Stutely who in my opinion is the main guy for waveforms, ie damn hard strikes. Hope you got something from that, any more questions on the 'double hip', i'll do my best to answer, i'm not great at it myself however.

You could be in a kimura influenced club then which is VERY good! My one piece of advice to you in your studying would be to learn all you can about the 'double hip' which our style is so well known for as it's the closest thing probably to a waveform, probably the most powerful delivery system in the martial arts and similar in some ways to internal martial arts energy transfer. So in short, if your instructor doesn't go in2 much detail about it...do as i do and pester the hell out of him to know all you can!

Yep i do shukokai, i see your a resident of Scotland as well, what club do you belong to? There are one or two other shukokai people here, jax_evolution for example. Does your club do workable bunkai? What school of thought regarding the 'double hip' does your school do, tani or kimura?

Karate has blocks?! What an amazing thing.

Well summed up! It's about time this was realised more openly and not this 'gedan barai a kick' nonsense. Also, i know you're a member of OCFM,but are you linked more with, is it, John Burke or are you linked more with Russell?

Hmm, dunno if this is relevant but it sounds as if you are describing a Naha-te style okinawan punch...and i mean the proper Naha-te style, not the modern offshoots. You can read more about it in Kiyoshi Arakaki's book 'the secrets of okinawan karate: essence and techniques'.

Unsure about this as i'v never heard of tenshinkan karate, however perhaps they are similar as most karate styles are similar and generally completely unrecognisable rom their original okinawan origins.

Yeah i know what you mean shorin ryuu, these ideas are linking to some other ideas i'v been experimenting with, also, i knew there was a reason that naihanchi was my favourite kata

Ah so you have the book then, excellent, well ok so you don't have it just now but you know what i mean. I'v read the book cover to cover about 3 times now, the concepts appear to be quite simple yet really hard to work out. The main sections i keep reading over and over are the dropping of the knee and the ICG, fascinating stuff though.

Hello all, recently i'v been reading a book by kiyoshi arakaki called "the secrets of okinawan karate", fascinating book and it's made me look into some other things that i'v heard about before. A section of his book talks about when delivering a strike your body has to be balanced with imbalance, basically to deliver your energy into the opponent you have to be at an unbalanced angle to them so that when you hit them you put all your energy into them as well as balancing yourself at the same time, well that's how i read it anyway. Now, i understand the theory and can see how it works, however i'm wondering if there is a good way of practicing it as i can't really feel a difference punching my free standing punchbag. I know a few people on this forum know what i'm trying to explain and may know other ways of explaining it or different names for it, chi, waveforms etc and i know this idea is apparent in tai chi, but does anyone have any tips on improving it or how i can check my progress? Cheers!

Not actually sure, just the scottish karate governing body it says in my license. I'v heard that about the black belts also.

Jax_evolution, i hear what you are saying. I think the majority of shukokai schools are too competition orientated, however, all it takes is a shift in training to make it realistic which is what i'v been doing for the last 2 or 3 years. One thing about our style is that it's acknowledged as one of the 'harder' hitting styles of karate, that and our 'double hip' are pretty much what shukokai is famous for. What rank do you yourself hold? As i mentioned i'm a brown belt, and i'm quite happy to stay that way as long as i can develop myself better, i don't really care about belts, after all, okinawa didn't use belts.

Erm...not too sure about the 10th dan, possibly, i'd need to check. From memory it is mostly 4th,5th and 6th dans though i do remember an 8th. Does your club do alot of focus on bunkai and realistic fighting methods or are you more sport concentrated?

Indeed there is! Shukokai is very popular in Britain, especially Scotland where i am. I am currently a 2nd kyu brown belt in it, however my particular club more follows the 'double hip' teachings of Shigeru Kimura who was a pupil i believe of Tani.

I'm a Scottish Shukokai practitioner, 1st kyu brown belt. Shukokai is built on strong stances, not as wide as shotokan stances with a strong emphasis on technique and hip twists, everything is done by the hips. Roughly a kata per belt learnt until around 2nd kyu where others are taught at instructor's discretion. It is more competition oriented here with many top class exponents. I don't quite agree that it's a softer style, it is derived from shito ryu but i would say shukokai has more of a hard edge to it, very hard hitting style especially once double hip technique is understood. Hope that helps. Any more questions, i'll be happy to answer!

ThePet, i know exactly what you mean. I am in the exact same position as you, brown belt and been doing karate for 4 years and since being exposed to work such as russell stutely's pressure points and waveforms and such and iain abernethy's realistic bunkai methods, i have been questioning everything. I have checked out other karate and martial art clubs and they all have that 'sports' emphasis that i don't care about. The nearest realistic karate to me is 100 miles away, so in the meantime i'v been getting all the books and videos i can and practicing on willing participants but my fellow karateka also think i'm aiming far too high with claims that 'oh the instructor does know but he can't teach us' etc and all that rubbish. It's really disheartening, but i'm hoping one day i'll maybe get to learn from the two guys i'v named above ancd have a realistic practical karate defense. Good luck.

We start by going through the pinan's, then bassai dai then seienchin, but i also know matsukaze and naihanchi(fav kata)

Ah interesting, i do those styles, actually didn't know we did that kata. But i haven't learned it yet, last kata i learned was seienchin at brown belt level. Though i'm gonna have a dip into kushanku.

I fully recommend iain abernethy's kata bunkai tapes https://www.iainabernethy.co.uk you can easily learn the kata and no nonsense applications. I also recommend the DSI pressure point kata tapes by russell stutely. https://www.dsi.co.uk

Interesting...interesting price as well That budo man that i was talking about was £180 though, £200 cheaper. I'm gonna continue my search for that. Cheers anyway cross.

A heavy bag wouldn't cut it for my needs. Damn i wish i could track down that budo man.

Hello all, does anyone use such things as grappling dummies in their training, most probably in your bunkai training? I read about a year ago in martial arts illustrated about budo man, which was a realistic dummy that was apparently a godsend in striking, grappling and practicing locks,throws holds etc, however i can't find a damn thing about it since. Does anyone know where i could find out information about it or could recommend another grappling dummy that would suit the above purposes?

I do shukokai/shito ryu. I think shukokai is a branch of shito ryu though, but maybe i can be of some assistance. I'm a brown belt so i can maybe help some. Ask away.

Shukokai/Shito Ryu, brown belt...2nd kyu. Been doing it 4 about 4 years.