Sasori_Te

I try to have my students clear their minds and concentrate as they move into warm-ups and kata. Actually we strive for this during the entire class. If you can't learn to calm your mind to concentrate on what is at hand immediately you are going to have a very difficult time after an adrenaline dump has happened during a street scenario. However, that's another topic entirely.

President of your dojo? I've never heard of anything like that before. What about your instructor? He should be the one that makes decisions on visiting instructors and issues like that. Also, I'm just curious. If you do make a decision to bring in a visiting Sensei, where is the money going to come from to do this? Guys don't just step in to do seminars for nothing. I'm not berrating you. I'm really curious. If you explain more maybe I could suggest some other things.

Thanks kempocos. I need to go and check that one out. I've been to Mike Minor's site before but I didn't see anything about the book.

Thanks for the answer. I knew he trained with those guys but I didn't know what weapons if any that he trained with them. Where did you get this info if I may ask?

*L* Did the man himself, Karl Marx write it? *LMAO* He's such a crackpot! He tries to come off like he's some sort of genius guru or something. It'd be funny if it weren't sad. I do know exactly what you're talking about though. If you write back, just remember that I warned you. He also likes to brag about how high his IQ is. Did he mention it?

I know my first instructor was very racist. He hid well though. There were no African-Americans in the adult class so we had no idea. However, when I reached my brown belt and started helping to teach he thought he could confide in me more of his feelings I suppose. His basic concept was that African-Americans were good enough to take money from for classes but they weren't worth spending any extra effort on. He also used degrading terms for these children behind their backs. Add this on top of some other disagreements that we had and I left class immediately. He was and still is as far as I know a complete idiot. I have a military background and was in Desert Storm with the 1st Infantry division. I can say without a doubt that where "the metal meets the meat" , quoting an infantry saying, you don't care what color the person standing next to you is. They are the ones that are going to save you a**. I don't even get the concept of racism because of a skin color.

WhiteShark, I got this from your Shidokan site. How can you say this is even remotely like a real fight. There are tons of rules here. Without the techniques they rule out you cripple most karate styles. They've also ruled out most of the easy pressure targets. The UFC has fewer rules than this. If you can't bite scratch gouge and cripple then it's not real! III. Kumite/Stand Up Fighting Rules 1. Legal techniques: Fighters will be allowed to punch, kick and knee to the face, head upper Torso (front and side only), leg and arm areas only. No elbows to face or head area. Elbows are allowed to the Body Only. 2. Legal Target Areas: Head, face, upper torso (front and side only), legs (above/below knee). 3. Greco-Roman/Judo throws/single and double leg takedowns are allowed. Any takedown that results in a fighter being physically stunned, will initiate a standing ( count. If the fighter is unable to rise or unconscious as a rusult of said takedown, the standing fighter will be awarded victory via TKO. 4. Illigal targets: No strikes (hand, foot, elbow, or knee) are allowed to the groin, kidneys, front of neck, entire spinal chord, all joints. No foot stomps are allowed. 5. A Standing 8 Count, will be initiated when a fighter recieves a legal "stunning blow". Herein defined as any legal technique that results fighters unable to adequately protect themselves. 6. A total of Three Standing 8 Counts, in the same round or during the entire fight will result in a TKO. IV. Karate Rounds 1. Refer to paragraph I, sections 1 through 6. 2. NO punches or hand techniques are allowed to make contact to the facial, head or neck area. 3. NO submission techniques, choking techniques or joint manipulations are allowed. 4. Fighters are required to wear traditional Karate Gi, mouthpiece and groin protection. Hand and wrist taping must be approved by tournament official. Anklets can be worn. V. Kick-Boxing Rounds 1. Refer to paragraph I, sections 1 through 6. 2. Fighters will wear 10 oz. gloves. Hand techniques to the face are allowed. 3. NO submission techniques, choking techniques or joint manipulations are allowed. 4. Fighters will remove Gi tops. Gi pants or Thai-boxing shorts may be worn. VI. Grappling Rounds 1. Fighters will wear 5 oz. open finger gloves. Hand techniques to the face are allowed 2. Once a fighters one knee touches the ground, Both Fighters are considered on the ground and the and the following rules now apply: 3. NO STRIKING of any kind is allowed. See "Warnings and Penalties". 4. There is no time limit on the ground, but if there is no activity, the referee will break the fighters and stand both up, and the fight will resume. 5. Legal Techniques are all Major Joint Manipulations: Shoulder, Elbow, Wrist, Knee and Ankle. 6. Rear and side neck chokes and "guillotines" are allowed. 7. Illeagal Techniques: No biting / ear pulling / eye gouging / finger penitration into any and all orfices / fish hooking / hair pulling / licking / minor digit manipulations / one or two handed frontal chokes / skin twisting / spitting is not permitted. Any infraction of the aforementioned will result in an immediate PENALTY. 8. When a legal submission technique is applied, the result will be signaled by the fighter being submitted. The universal: Single hand double tap out, or verbal submission,.."I give...", will be acceptable. If the fighter being submitted is unable to submit either physically or verbally, due to the posistioning of both fighters, type of submission, state of consciousness, or if the referee believes the fighter being submitted will suffer a permanent injury, i.e.., brain damage (choke), broken elbow, wrist, ankle, etc.. the referee may call the fight and declare a winner.

I saw that article. It concerned 3 women in their 20's in good health. They had to learn 10 kenpo techniques. Some used a personal trainer with a black belt in that art to teach them the techniques and the others used video tape. The ones who had the instructor performed the technique on the instructor and were able to ask questions. The others followed the video tape and performed the techniques on an instructor but weren't able to ask questions. All the women were able to perform all the techniques equally well. The article goes on to warn that the techniques were from yellow to purple belt and that had the techniques been black belt level the outcome may have been different. They did believe that these techniques could also be mastered with more practice. However the third point made was that they were graded on form and mechanics only. They were not graded on understanding of the technique. It should also be noted that this study was not done for BB magazine it was done for The International Association For Behavior Analysis (whatever that is). Personally I would like to say that without understanding they conceivably would not be able to modify these techniques to fit a given situation and therefore were useless. Also, tapes may be of use to someone who has a deeper understanding of the martial arts already. You would need a training partner with as much understanding as you to make use of tapes though. All in all the dojo is a MUCH better alternative.

I like learning the history. The tall tales are interesting but I can take them or leave them since they have no impact on me one way or the other. The problem with studying martial arts history is separating fact from fiction. I guess that would be the problem with any history, but martial arts history has more than it's share of tall tales and deeds. Also I find that a lot of the "history" is biased by the practitioners of the style the "history pertains to. For example you hear from Shotokan stylists that Funakoshi changed the Kara kanji in karate to represent the emptiness or zen of the do. The reason that I can find is because the Japanese weren't getting along with the Chinese at the time and in order to perpetuate karate in Japan this change had to be made. My point being is to make sure as best you can that what you're taking as history is history and not *.

Well I guess that's one way to test yourself. Although I think I might have found something better than old carpets to land on. *L*

I'm having to agree with shotochem here. A quick jab for a fake or set-up is okay, but why would you ever want to do jabs like the ones your talking about? Use that energy for a good penetration shot.

AndrewGreen could you tell me which kobujutsu masters he did train with and your sources? I like to have the best up to date info. Thanks.

You can find all sorts of books on Chinese Kenpo. Try looking up Chinese Kenpo or Shorinji Kenpo at https://www.amazon.com.

I had written this last night but had problems posting it. I'm sure Kirves has a better picture of it than I do except for the ninjutsu styles I mentioned. I haven't had the opportunity to read much of Draeger's work, just little bits here and there. I see I need to check those out. Also, I believe that I have the more accurate picture on the "classical" Okinawan styles being a little better than 250 years old.

As far as I know the arts in Japan were mostly martial weapon arts such as sword and spear that type of thing. The art practiced by the palace guard was Aikijiujutsu ( I don't know anything about it's origins but I'm sure it was Chinese influenced. There were also the northern ninjitsu clan styles and again I have no idea of the history here. If I'm wrong or have forgotten some things then please feel free to remind me or correct me. I don't know about Japanese martial history. But yes in essence most modern Okinawan Karate is 100 years old or less but no more than a little over 250 years for the 3 classical styles.

There's really not a lot more to tell than what's on the website. They use the following kata unless theyv'e been changed: Heian shodan - sandan kamae no bushi keri zuki waza sanchin Chinto I don't even remember what the brown belt kata were called. It really doesn't matter since all of the kata were pulled out of someone's butt. They don't come close to resembling any of the traditional kata that they're named for. The ones with traditional names that is. The belts/ranks are: yellow 8th kyu orange 7th kyu green 6th kyu green w/ black stripe 5th kyu purple 4th kyu brown with 3 stripes on tip 3rd kyu brown with 2 stripes on tip 2nd kyu brown w/ black stripe 1st kyu black Shodan It's mostly ripped off Shotokan movements. They do one steps, scenario self defense, and some basic basic jiu jitsu and judo as well as competition sparring. I will say that the techniques are clean and crisp and the competition sparring is taught well. It's a very showy style. The only good thing I can say is that I had very good basics when I changed to more traditional training. It's not a terribly big style at all. Only a few schools in the states. One in Louisiana, one or two in Kansas City and a couple of schools in California as far as I know. Why so curious about such an obscure style?

Thank's Sho-ju. I've got a list from the yellow pages of all the clubs, but what I'm really hoping for is someone who knows an instructor or someone in a school theer that can tell me a little about it. As for Keichu, it was my original style. I'm originally from Louisiana ( So is Karl Marx the GM of Keichu-Do) IT is a Shotokan based system (loosely) and not very knowledgable about bunkai and oyo. They also tend to change the kata ( a lot in some cases ) as they see fit. I think that might be okay if you knew what you were taking away and why, but as far as I could tell that wasn't the case. They also turned into bible thumpers after Karl Marx found religion. They make good tournament competitors but that's about all the good things I can say about them. My first instructor ( a Keichu stylist ) is now a Shorin Ryu convert and teaching Shorin Ryu Orthodox. He's still a prejudice a** hole but at least he now knows he was a joke.

Kirves, that's a bit of an over-simplification, but understandbly so. A book could, and maybe should, be written on this topic alone. Some of the Okinawan karate masters, such as Motobu, Choki, would go and seek out other masters and challenge them to fight. These usually did not end in the death of either opponent but sometimes they did. So in essence Okinawan karate was used to train to, I hate to say defend but I will, against anyone. Generally I think you are right. However, I personally think the Japanese removed a large portion of the martial applications of karate so that you could have a more friendly, if a little rough, sport.

Shimabuku, Tatsuo studied under his uncle initially (couldn't find a name). He also studied under Kiyan, Chotoku; Motobu, Choki; Miyagi, Chojun and kobujutsu from Taira, Shinken and Yabiku, Moden. His empty hand katas were: Sanchin Seiunchin from Goju Ryu Seisan Naihanchi Chinto from Shorin Ryu Wansu Kusanku Suansu combination kata made from others I couldn't find anything on the weapon katas but AndrewGreen's seem to all be correct. Again, I'm not an Isshin Ryu stylist, just a martial history buff.

Reklats. The chamber in form has nothing to do with looking good. The chamber represents a number of different ideas on a number of different levels. Remember, there is no wasted movement in a traditional form.

A little history lesson for those of you who think that TKD ripped off karate kata. General Choi Hung Hi founded Tae Kwon Do in 1955. He studied karate in Kyoto Japan and his katas included Heian, Bassai, Empi, Rohai, Kusanku, Tekki, Jitte, Hangetsu, and Jion. His idea was to meld the older Northern Chinese influenced Korean styles with the Japanese Okinawan hand techniques to create a more well rounded art. A good idea. I wonder what happened? Anyway if you see Tae Kwon Do forms that look like karate forms, you now know why.

Does anyone know of a good solid karate school in the New Orleans, Louisiana area? I moved there but I'm out of town working at the present time and haven't had time to research it locally yet. Any help would be appreciated. I'm not really interested in Shotokan since my original style was based there. Thanks

Then your Shotokan style has a good shot at being a better fighting style than "traditional" Shotokan if the kyusho and tuite in the kata are being covered properly. Is there a website for your particular style of Shotokan? I'd be interested to learn more about it.

Shoju, If you look closer at that sight he was referring to a list of 24 original kata for all of the original karate styles. They then go on to divide them between the 3 original styles and a list of original Shotokan kata is the last one and it doesn't include Suparenpei. One of my earlier references was Funakoshi's "Karate-Do Kyohan". It doesn't mention Suparenpei at all according to the index.

I researched through all of my Funakoshi material and didn't find Pechurin or Suparenpei listed anywhere. He mentioned the katas where he had changed the names from the Shorin name to Shotokan Such as: Pinan to Heian Naihanchi to Tekki Passai to Bassai Seisan to Hangetsu Chinto to Gankaku Wanshu to Empi Kusanku to Kwanku and others ..... I just reviewed Pechurin on tape and it doesn't resemble any of the old Shotokan katas that I can find. Pechurin is the longest kata in the Goju Ryu system and was broken down to form the basis for Gekki Sai Dai Ichi and Dai Ni. If you find out otherwise please let me know. Wankan to Matsukaze