isshinryu5toforever

Freestanding bags are only really good for kids. If you want to hit a bag in a serious way, you need to get a normal one either attached to the ceiling or with its own frame. Most of us don't have the room in our houses for one, but that's just the reality of it.

I don't agree with that. The MMA gloves are padded, but barely. They're not really there to pad a blow, they're there so the person punching doesn't break their hand. The power transfer is nearly identical to having zero padding. It's like putting towels over a bunch of wood during breaking so you don't get splinters in your hand. A wrestler will take a straight from someone that doesn't have enough power to hurt them in a single shot. That's why Chuck Liddell did so well in his prime. He could jab people and knock them out. A pure wrestler would probably step through a flurry of punches and kicks unless you threw one that hurt him. A good shoot attached to a double leg take down is a tough thing to stop. It takes a lot of training at full speed to do so.

"Chuck Norris built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. As Oswald shot, Chuck met all three bullets with his beard, deflecting them. JFK's head exploded out of sheer amazement." Sorry, I had to. For anyone that hasn't read Chuck Norrisisms, here's a link. http://www.historyaddict.com/chucknorrisisms.htm

It depends on how many years of experience you have and what your instructor thinks. If your instructor thinks that you're perfectly qualified, then sure, go for it. If you've been training for a four or five years, and you're comfortable, I think you'll be fine. If you've been training for less than two years though, you might want to think about whether you're ready to teach other people, especially children. Also, what are you teaching them? Are you just teaching them the basics, because then two years of experience should be more than enough. If you're teaching them kata, well, you need a bit more experience. Another thing you need to think about is grading. Are the kids going to receive belts? and from who? How will all that work? In the end, it's up to you and your instructor. If you both think this is a good idea, and you have someone to deal with grading, if you're even going to do that, then go for it.

The high side kick and front kick, that would seem to be the case. The spinning kicks though, who knows. The revisionist history of Taekkyon as a combat martial art they used to fight the Japanese, that's crazy. The actual history of Taekkyon as a village game/sport though, that makes sense, and it can be verified. I would have to dig through a bunch of books, but I found it somewhere. It was written by a non-Korean, so it's not as ridiculous. Korean folk games weren't very friendly. They had a rock throwing "game" that villages would use to settle disputes. It sometimes resulted in death, and was banned by one of the kings for this reason.

The only reason I decided to even mention Taekkyon is the fact that it was a village game, and Oyama was born in Gimje. I have been to Gimje, it's still not huge. They grow some great rice though. The Japanese occupied Korea, but in an area that remote, on the west coast, their presence wouldn't have been huge. It's possible that he saw Taekkyon because of this, but I doubt he practiced it. Taekkyon was pretty much gone after the occupation, but it had been in decline loooong before the occupation period. It became a gambling game over time, and the aristocracy didn't like it, so they looked down on its practice. From what I've read, it didn't have a lot of practitioners even when the Japanese came to Korea. The same goes for other KMAs. They just weren't popular with the aristocracy, so they didn't stick around. There was a resurgence in the popularity of martial arts at the end of the occupation period, and they gave it a nationalistic makeover post-occupation. Oh, and to verify that, Oyama never did claim to study Taekkyon. That kind of link to Korea's MA past just wasn't that important to him.

That's never been historically verified. The story exists just about everywhere. We had it in our manual for a while, but it can't be verified. It's a lot of guesses and grasping for links. Modern Okinawan Goju-ryu can be definitively traced back to Kanryu Higashionna, who learned from Ryu Ryu Ko, but also had another teacher or two. No one is positive. If you accept Ryu Ryu Ko as his only teacher, which is unlikely, no one is sure who he learned from. Saying that modern martial arts were transmitted from China to Korea and Okinawa, to Japan from Okinawa, and then back to Korea via Japan is about as far as you can go. The story about a monk going to China from India is a story, but has never been proven. Another proposed theory is that the "fighting monks" were former, likely defeated, soldiers who had taken refuge at the monasteries. When a monastery came under attack, the former soldiers would use what they knew to defend the monastery. Eventually, it was transmitted to someone, or some of the monks took interest in the martial arts. This is all really saying that true, verifiable history that isn't just a bunch of guessing is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to put together and have undeniably verified by anyone in the history community.

Oyama was 14. Not really a child, not a full grown man either. He wanted to be a fighter pilot, so he enlisted in the Japanese Imperial Army. The movie Fighter in the Wind is a great piece of fiction entertainment, but not even close to being biographical. About the only things they got right were that a man named Mas Oyama existed, and he lived in Japan doing Karate.

In that case, I would suggest ProForce or Century. Both come from large companies with the ability to provide services if you get faulty equipment, and neither one will break the bank. They're definitely not in the same class as Isami, but they will do the job. I'm not positive about pricing, but you should be able to check it online. Century has its own website, and ProForce, I think is affiliated with Asian World of Martial Arts, a very large retailer.

The "sport" martial arts are the ones that are more likely to prepare you for self defense: Kyokushin and its many offshoots, boxing, wrestling, Judo, BJJ, and Muay Thai. I'm sure I missed some, but those are the popular ones. Here's why: you have to prove yourself in a heavy contact context to get anywhere. You spar full force, with the ultimate goal of knocking out your opponent, scoring an ippon (Judo), or getting them to tap out. If you can find a traditional martial arts school that spars with hard contact, that's great. They can prepare you just as well, but a lot don't. If you only ever punch air and do kata, how do you know if what you've learned works? You said one or more attackers, if it's more than one, I think you should consult a track coach, not us haha.

The former Joint Chiefs of Staff had a discussion about this before. They said that by their estimate up to 40% of all eligible civilians are currently unfit to fight, and couldn't be made fit to fight in the near future, which makes even the delayed entry program an issue. The US is getting bigger and bigger. The Army feels the problem the most, because they need 80,000 new recruits a year to stay at full strength. The fitness problem has roots in economics and education. It's going to be difficult to fix all these problems, and I don't see the average level of fitness in the US getting any better in the near future.

Price range would help a lot.

I practiced Taekwondo in university, after 13 consecutive years of Isshinryu Karate, so I came in wondering about their forms and about application. In my admittedly short (4 years) experience with Taekwondo, this is what I thought: The Taekwondo Taeguk forms are simple in both principle and application. Everything you do is exactly what it's meant to be. A knee strike is a knee strike, a block a block. Nothing is hidden. Taekwondo is an external martial art with external applications, and the forms show this. Here's why it makes a lot of sense to me, bunkai is a Japanese word for an Okinawan principle. Japanese Budo uses kata as an external practice looking for aesthetic perfection. There isn't a lot of concentration on application. The stories you hear about Okinawan Karate are always about someone getting taught a single kata, going away for 3 years to practice it, and then going back to see if they're remotely right in its application. There is a lot more concentration on a "monkey see, monkey do" approach first, and then it becomes the student's responsibility to figure out what the fighting techniques are, and how they're applied to the real world. As we covered in an earlier topic, Japanese Karate influenced modern Korean martial arts in some way. I won't argue about how big or small, everyone's opinion is their own. I think that influence comes out in the forms a lot. They are there for aesthetic perfection of technique, not for a whole lot of application. That's just my 2 cents.

I second the suggestion of This is Karate. Very good book, but VERY hard to find.

I wish they would be more honest about things as well. It would make history a whole lot easier haha. Even the Athenian historians admitted that Athens got spanked by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War. The thing with Oyama is that not a single soul that is alive now knows what he learned in his village in Korea. In fact, Oyama may not have even known for sure what he was learning. Some say it was Taekkyon, but that was a folk game, so he might very well have learned it. Some say it was some form of Chinese Martial Art. I was under the impression that he created Garyu and named it after his village. Maybe I'm mistaken. In any case, I guess we should worry more about our own training methods these days if we can't even verify history from less than 80 years ago.

The partner problem is a real problem. You could go to local open tournaments and let him enter. It would give him a chance to put to the test some of the stuff he's learned. That all depends on what the tournaments are like near you. As you've said you don't like the different martial arts schools near you, I'm guessing you're not big on their tournaments either?

I still wonder where modern kicks came from in Japanese Karate. Because as far as I know, Okinawans weren't big on kicking, and they had a few basic kicks that all landed below the waist. The modern spinning hook kick is a variation of the wheel kick, but where did that come from? I've heard a lot of statements about Chinese MAs being a likely source, but what about a Korean game? There is no real evidence for Taekkyon being a combat martial art, but it was definitely a folk game. Not something we'd really consider a game. I mean, you stepped on people's faces and threw them, but a game in context. They had various pushing kicks aimed to the face and head, which would line up with modern kicking strikes to the head, and they had/have spinning kicks, which weren't common in Okinawan Kempo Jutsu. Even if you invade another country, and push your ideals onto them, you're still going to get a little bit of their culture rubbed on you somehow. Evidence has yet to be found, (who says it can be found?) but I'd put up Taekkyon as a deep dark horse candidate as an influence on modern kicking in Taekwondo and Japanese Karate. This is outside of the claims of the Taekwondo founders that they learned Taekkyon, because that's been argued against, and refuted by old Taekkyon masters. The might be impossible to prove though, because who actually picked it up where and how are all going to be up to debate, and most people that could tell you are dead. It may have been an early student of someone with a lot of political influence in early Taekwondo. Who knows. Still, the high, flashy kicks still aren't present in most (any?) Okinawan Karate syllabi that I know of. They weren't present when Okinawan martial arts moved to Japan with Funakoshi. They have been tacked on as people have come in contact with other martial arts, so they seem like they're part of the syllabus now, but they weren't originally. Only Kyokushin adopted them from the beginning, and then you have the Korean martial arts with their focus on kicks.

In the spirit of gigantic groups of people putting on a demo, let's not forget the opening ceremony for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul kids and adults:

That question has a ton of answers. What are you good at? That would be a good place to start. If we're talking self-defense, then using angles would be the best way to accomplish your goals. Take a 45 degree angle away from the direction of the attack going to either side, and you open up a lot of targets. Going straight backwards is a mistake, because you'll get caught eventually, think of running forward vs running backwards. Standing your ground only works if you have 1000% confidence (not a typo) that you can stop their momentum with your first shot and follow with several other strong strikes, or if you're a competent grappler, tie them up, and look for a take down.

How old is your nephew? If he is interested in any kind of Karate, you can help him with Shotokan, and the Karate-do Kyohan is quite comprehensive, so he could "learn" on his own. If you can guide him along, that would be ok. That is, if you're qualified to teach the basics. Also, remember that youtube can be a wonderful tool. I hate video learning, but he'll at least see the full range of motion in the kicks if he can see them broken down on youtube. It would take dozens of pictures to accomplish the same thing.

The pros are as stated above, 100% of the time your focus is on him. He can learn quickly, and he can ask a ton of questions if he needs to. The downside is that you're a parent. Your son might complain at times, or he might think you should cut him some slack. As a martial arts instructor, you can't do that, but as a parent, you might want to. There may also come a time when he needs a different teacher to help him grow. That can be a tough thing to realize, or even spot. As far as rank is concerned, what RW said is not entirely accurate. It depends on the rank of the poster. They may be authorized to award real rank affiliated or unaffiliated. If they're affiliated, and they have kept up on their membership dues, then the rank is "real" anywhere. If they are unaffiliated, or have lapsed on their dues, then the rank will be a dojo rank, but still easily recognizable if their child has the appropriate skill. My Isshinryu Karate school is unaffiliated, so I have a dojo rank of yondan, but my skill tends to speak for itself when I travel, so it is recognized by other dojo. When I have children, if I were to grade them, it would definitely be when they've exceeded my expectations for rank, so they would likely be able to get their rank recognized.

This is an awesome find. Thanks!

I'm only aware of one organization that does Okinawa-te. It's not so much of an established Okinawan system as what someone learned, put together, and named themselves. Okinawa-te just means Okinawa Hand. I would say that you would be talking about an Okinawan Kempo Jutsu at that point, if you wanted to give it that designation as Karate-do is a Japanese term for Japanese Karate Budo. There is a lot of history at work here that you would be better off reading in a book. I can suggest Patrick McCarthy's translation of the Bubishi. He goes through the name changes. It's not that I think it's the be-all end-all of books on Okinawan Karate, because I have suggested it many times, but it is a quick, concise, and well-researched guide on the history of Okinawan Karate. If you were to give this system, Okinawa-te, characters, they would be Kanji. Most official names are made of Kanji, and they have a specific meaning. I'm not positive what the Kanji for Okinawa translate to, that would be better left to someone who speaks Japanese at more than a dojo level. Again, for te, you would use the Kanji.

Patrick McCarthy's translation of the Bubishi is well-researched and includes a lot of lineage tracing. You'll realize that lineage is very difficult to trace and becomes futile at a point. He does put together a pretty comprehensive study back to Higashionna and his time as a deshi (student) in China.

Please define traditional, and show me a modern martial art that has been codified for 300 years that isn't a form of boxing or wrestling. Kodokan Judo was codified in 1882, and that was one of the first modern martial arts from Japan to be codified. The farthest back codified Okinawan Karate can trace its history back is the early to mid-1800s, and even then, the history gets sketchy. Outside of Traditional Chinese Martial arts, you can't go much further back than that, and even then, the codified systems you see today are relatively new. Japanese budo especially. You would be hard pressed to find people that would argue with the reputation Kyokushin Karate has garnered, and it is 100% competition focused at the highest levels. It may have roots in Goju-Ryu and Shotokan, but it was codified in the mid-1900s, around the SAME time as Taekwondo. If you have questions about how effective Kyokushin Karate is I would suggest you read up on Mas Oyama, Midori Kenji, Andy Hug, Francisco Fiho, the list could go on. The system they have in place consistently produces good fighters, some great fighters, and Kyokushin is a very young system with older roots. Still a young system however. Muay Thai, which is very old, and has roots in Muay Boran, is also 100% competition focused. I doubt you would get a lot of argument about whether or not they could intelligently defend themselves in a self-defense situation. If you want to argue that, I suggest you get in the ring with a Thai boxer. The ability to use what you've learned to defend yourself has more to do with training methods than which martial art you actually do. Live training is always better than punching air 100% of the time. You won't find much argument on that, unless they do something that is "too deadly." That's another argument. All this, and WTF competition is full contact. You get knockouts, they don't pull kicks. If you're going to continue down this line, please define the following: What do you mean by traditional? Are you talking about a martial art that is supposedly hundreds of years old? or a martial art with a definite history that can be verified? How old does a martial art have to be before it can be considered "effective?" Please name martial arts that are older than 300 years old with a verifiable lineage.