SaiFightsMS

Welcome to the forum.

Cool Ran, looking forward to hearing more from you.

I don't often meet many other's who have done Hayashi-ha shito ryu. Glad to hear from you.

No all of the techniques have a value in a given situation. A lot depends on what part of the body the technique is to be used on.

Right. The top may seem long on you in relation to the way other peoples tops seem but don't worry about that.

Welcome to the forum.

There is a big difference in schools in terms of what is expected out of those testing to be a black belt and those just beginning training as white belts.

Gi's are supposed to be loose. You get into trouble with them if they are too tight. We have had people with 44 inch waists in 8's. For the short wide people getting gi's hemmed is just a fact of karate life.

You will see a lot of reference in different forms to using low stances to train and higher stances to fight. The low stance to build strenght and the higher stance for mobility. Sometimes that is left out until the higher ranks though.

That is the difference between learning from an instructor and learning from a book. There can be a fairly significant difference in oi tsuki and gyaka tsuki though depending on how much hip rotation is channeled into the gyaka tsuki.

We have had a few people with 44 inch waists in Pro Force 8's. If all else fails often a dry cleaners will have an alterations person if no one you know sews. It might very well be a good idea to make sure what you need is a basic white gi before you actually get one though.

Welcome to the forum.

Welcome to the forum.

http://www.jkasv.com/ This guy has a good web site with a fairly extensive collection of articles and a good links area. And his info is solid.

Tokaido does seem to be sized for thinner people. It does seem that there are some brands that run bigger in the waist than others at the "same" size.

Even though I was in a shotokan club we also had a good weapons program available as an extra. I also did kobudo in shito ryu.

Your best bet is going to be a Pro Force 8. And do not get all cotton because of the shrinkage. And plan on having to get the pants hemmed. There is a company that makes larger gi's. I am having trouble finding the link though. I found one this wasn't the one I was thinking of though. http://www.dragon-tsunami.org/Products/Pages/Meijin.htm

Are you including areas like the history and developement of katas?

Welcome to the forum.

Many of us who believe in doing kata wake up in the middle of the night on a fairly regular basis practicing our forms in our sleep.

"Mild" stretching sounds like a good idea. For me part of expanding my physical horizons involved learning how to listen to my body and know when it was time to back off before what I was doing became destructive. There is a difference in pushing yourself and hurting yourself.

Shudokan Katas: Empi Taki Empi Iwa Penpei Penpo Shimpa Tan Shimpa Sho Rohai Seiru Kyoku I-VI http://www.okinawankarateclub.com/katas.htm#Shudokan%20Katas This is what I was able to find. It also looks like there is a close link to shorin ryu katas as well.

Say everyone is doing a kata and one student turns the opposite direction from everyone else. Or the way someone is executing a technique looks a bit different that the way those of the same rank look. Is somone goofing around? Things like that.

http://www.24fightingchickens.com/shawnjefferson/kata/kata.htm This page if full of kata analysis. You may want to add some limits what you are trying to say in your paper.

Take a good look at the size chart because the are sometimes very different for different brands of gi's. Most often a size chart will go by height and weight.