AngelaG

I've trained in training trousers and aT-shirt, and if people wanted to wear their karate belt they were welcome to. It works fine, and means it won't cost too much or have to replace the T-Shirt when you grade.

Hmmm, I have to agree on that one. Do you think that hangetsu dachi and/or fudo dachi amalgamate all three of those principles into one stance? I think that Hangetsu dachi is more in and down, fudo dachi is more out at 45 degrees and down. Fudo dachi is a very rooted stance, it's quite hard to move someone that has stuck themselves in a good fudodachi, however it does reveal the inner thigh and groin, therefore I think of fudo dachi as a secondary stance after the opponent is already under your control. Hangetsu dachi is a great shooting platform stance, when performed less rigidly than in the kata, it directs the power in one direction, while still protecting one's own vulnerable areas. It's good for compressing the energy before releasing it in a strike.

Http://www.shotomag.com - Free online magazine. Good resource, some very prestigious karateka have submitted articles.

The first book I would recommend is Karate-do Kyohan by Funakoshi Gichin. This is pretty much the original Shotokan textbook (unless you are lucky enough to be able to get hold of one of his earlier works). The Karate-do Manual by PMV Morris is a good book, if you can trace a copy. Karate the Japanese Way by Mark Groenewold is a good book for people beginning Shotokan. Videos, well there is a GREAT site here: http://www.shotojukukai.com/kata/kata.htm

Cheers John p.s. I take it your Doshu is Scott Mertz?

We guarantee a black belt to everyone... all it takes is a lot of hard work, attendance to lessons, knowledge, dedication, spirit, power... etc. What I am trying to say is that we provide the raw material, it's up to you what you do with it.

There is often a little bit of friendly rivalry between different martial arts - it's only when it becomes unfriendly that you have to worry

I dont believe a real Muay Thai fighter is going to kick with the instep of his foot, buckle under the pressure of a few weak jabs to the face, turn his back to his opponent, and fight with his hands at his waist. Trying to do fancy kicks like those shown in that video will get you seriously hurt against a thai/full contact fighter with minimal experience. Interesting... the general consensus seems to be that if a TKD fighter loses then he's a real TKD fighter, but if a Muay Thai fighter loses then he's not a real MT fighter!? Surely every style has good and bad representatives?

IF TKD is an offshoot from Shotokan, and there are no flying sidekicks in basic Shotokan kihon then surely the TKD sidekick is nothing more than an exercise. It looks very pretty but relating it back to dismounting horseriders is pretty ridiculous if you have any real knowledge of TKD history?!

Ideally, yes. Unfortunately it doesn't always work that way. If a student's personal health insurance has to dole out thousands of $$ for a back injury, they will look for someone else to sue to recover their money. I would not be so worried about the student suing me, hopefully he likes and respects me. Unfortunately his insurance company (and their lawyers) could care less about me. But most insurance has a personal part and a peer to peer part!

The one above it shows a different story: TKD and Muay Thai It comes down to the individual fighters on the day a lot of the time.

I thought this thread was about the Heian Kata's and their order and why. Not where does Channan fall in the big scheme of things. I have noticed that a lot of Shotokan people are touchy about this subject, and I was just trying to shed some light on this. If you want to know more about Channan you should really contact my sensei, or someone within my organization. I am just starting to learn this kata, so I'm not really qualified as of yet to say what this kata is trying to impart. Right now I'm just trying to get the order down and stuff. John Hey I'm not touchy I'm seriously interested! Thread drift is an occupational hazard, and it still does link back to the original question.

Shotokan does have nekoashi dachi though, although I agree it is not as prevalent. Bearing in mind that Shotokan looks different anyway because of the stylised stances, but that principles are often the same, what principles does Channan have that Heian/Pinan or Kusanku/Kanku Dai does not? What message is this kata trying to impart?

People should be covered by their own personal insurance, rather than insuring the place.

What would your style give that another martial art out there doesn't already have? Have you cross trained? If not then surely your own style could only ever be a version of what you already do?

Fa jing is a kind of vibration to try and utilise the whole body mass behind a punch. (Kind of like when you sneeze). It's the kind of energy relese that allows big power to be generated from small distances (one inch punch). To be honest I feel it's just good body dynamics, rather than relying on shoulder/arm strength. People hear the term and start thinking it's hocus pocus (sometimes not helped by people who train these kind of things deliberately mystifying it. We do something similar called a "waveform".

Training, instructing and learning from my own sensei as I have developed. One of the most interesting things about instructing is the time to step back and watch other people - it's amazing how often the same old errors pop up. I also find it fascinating how easy it is to spot an error, even if there are a few people training, it just seems to stcik out from the crowd. I think it's a good idea for everyone to get the opportunity to step out of the mass at some point and just watch what's going on.

Out of interest, what do you think Channan gives that Kanku Dai doesn't?

There are several ways of practicing yoko kekomi, one of the biggest mistakes I see recurring is people letting the foot swing around, like a bad mawashi geri. The main reason for this is that they are bringing the foot up to the bottom when chambering instead of knee up in front with the foot below the knee. The secondary reason is people failing to realise the part the supporting foot is playing in the thrust. The problem arises as soon as you try and hit anything with any substance as the little toe will connect first, and you will most likely really hurt yourself. There are some ways to practice the kick. a) Find a chair with a back and stand in front of it, as you do the kick (i.e. after you have pivoted sideways on) the back of the chair has to be to your back, so that if the knee/foot is not chambered properly you will kick the back of the chair, and instead you have a straight runway to go down. If you are feeling brave, and have a brave partner you could do this to the side of them so that if you come round you kick your partner (it's their turn next ) b) Grab a partner stand sideways to each other, grab their hand at shoulder height, at full arm extention and using their support slowly practice the kick to their side, just a little touch, above belt height. Your partner should give you feedback on how the kick feels/looks. You can use their support to ensure that you don't lean, and to work on the pivot of the back foot (the back foot should turn to almost the opposite way of the kick). c) Find a brick wall and gently kick it using kekomi - you'll soon know if you are leading with your little toe!

Stances apply mass in a given direction. If force = mss x acceleration then front stance puts a higher percentage of your mass in a forward direction. A stance is a purely transitional position, and what some people fail to realise is that the impact/technique occurs halfway through the stance; it's that direction which drives the strike. I think that one of the main reasons that people confuse this is point kumite, where contact is made at the full extention of the technique and thus can build bad habits when reverted back to a real situation. Anyway if you think of front stance as pushing, back stance as pulling and horse stance as dropping then you can see where the principles of some of the basic stances lie.

There's another hypothesis that the Heian/Pinan series are actually from 2 other older Chinese forms, called Channan. They were split down from Channan Dai and Channan Sho. See how Heian Nidan and Heian Yondan start in a very similar position, and then compare this to the start of other dai/sho pairs. This is pretty much pure hypothesis, however Elmar T. Schmeisser has written a book on it; Channan : Heart of the Heians .

Sorry Gene but I still disagree (but no shocks there, right ). First of all "receiver" does not necessarily mean "block" this is just sloppy thinking IMO. I can receive an attack with another attack. There's nothing that says I have to black and then attack, all this does is give them extra time to come in again. Why would I want to do that? This might not have severe repurcussions in kumite, but it may well do in a real fight. Not can I be automatically impressed by what the official JKA Shotokan version is. The problem is that the Japanese altered the original meanings of the kata (or were not taught it in the first place), and then the whole University system completely skewed it. Techniques became kumite based rather than reality based. You are incredibly unlikely to ever have to face a kumite style attack on the streets, and therefore thinking in terms of kumite style blocks is erroneous. The only time I would expose my face and/or centre line deliberately in a fight would be when I already have the opponent in MY control. To me this just seems logical.

I have to disagree with this. The "X-block" is absolutely terrible to use as a block, and in fact will weaken the block, placing the arms against each other like that (Just ask the guy that came to our dojo having broken both his wrists at his previous dojo when his sensei told him to block a mae geri with X-block). If you check my previous post, I was referring to the X-block as an exception to the more popular way of blocking which is tangential, at right or acute angle to the direction of the attacking limb. Angela, are you disagreeing with this? Or, are you possibly disagreeing that it is an effective block which I never stated. I may have been misunderstood, eh? As my quote reveals: "many experienced fighters would not encourage its [X-block] use..." You are probably one of them. I too would not encourage its use for blocking because it meets head-on or directly the oncoming attack with attempted full stopping, or if I may use an analogy, head-on collision, and not tangentially. Had the guy who came to your dojo who broke both his wrists at his previous dojo when his sensei told him to block a mae geri with X-block may not have been around as proof of the X-block's inefffectiveness or injurious effect to its practitioner, master Itosu would have scrapped the use of X-block (juji uke) when he constructed his famous Heians 4 and 5 that we all practice now and probably replaced them with, at least, augmented forearm blocks (pun intended). X-block is a great technique - just not as a block. As a grab and strike, or a strangle though it is brilliant. I think half these problems with bad bunkai is the English translation of everything to "block" regardless if it means that or not. By the way the bit I was disagreeing to was this: However, since the blocking arm is heavily reinforced, using two instead of one arm, the potential damage is minimized. In that using the two arms actually weakens the technique as a block and makes it more dangerous, as the two arms crunch into each other.

Understanding the principle behind specific fighting techniques is fine and critical indeed when learning them because you will be able to generalize them to a greater number of fight situations you may encounter. However, more critical than understanding of principles needed in learning techniques effectively is mastering through repetitive practice a few basic techniques that have wide applicability in combat situations to the point of making them almost instinctive, automatic and second-nature without the need for conscious thought or problem-solving. Deliberate problem-solving or thinking and conscious specification of general principles of fighting while in the heat of a fight can take too much time and will unduly delay your effective attack-defense reaction. I disagree. I would still much rather prefer to have good sound foundations (principles) burned into my muscle memory, rather than a "technique". These priciples are core and therefore must be used in everything we do from the very first day we step in the dojo, so that everything we do has the ingredients for being correct, and there is less likelihood that if ever we have to rely on it we fail to complete it because the very foundation is flawed. I can easily make a technique look pretty with no understanding of what makes it work, but that technique will probably not work under pressure as there will be nothing behind it to back it up. The whole point of having techniques rather than principles is that it is more likey to require thought, such as what technique should I apply to this attack, but if the principles are constantly drilled in then anything we choose to use has a better chance of being effective. So many techniques rely on a few core principles. Look at techniques such as age uke, soto uke, uchi uke etc. they all fall back on the same principles, the only difference is where the arms go. If you know what principles make those techniques effective then whatever technique you instinctively choose to use will have a better chance of working.

There are always people out there that seem to get an easy ride in life, not just in the martial arts. However , in no way does that demean my own triumphs or victories. There's nothing sweeter than a reward for something you've worked hard to get!