isshinryu5toforever

To answer the second half of the question, you wouldn't use it in that manner Goju-ryu te. You would say Goju-ryu Karate. Kara meaning empty, te meaning hand. The Kanji used in Karate used to translate to China Hand, but they changed the Kanji to mean empty to make a fuller connection to Japan. The pronunciation is the same, but changing the Kanji changes the entire meaning. That's a whole other history lesson.

I'm not a big fan of the virtual dojo thing, or using videos to learn kata. Maybe they'd be fine as a guide for people who already know the kata. Who knows. I've seen very few Isshinryu video series made that I would recommend to people. I would recommend AJ Advincula's set. They're expensive, but the audience is pretty focused. That's about it.

There is a Ryu-te developed by Taika Seiyu Oyata. Ryu-te I suppose is more of an adjective for what Oyata taught. It's supposed to be a self-defense oriented system that is closer to old-style Ryukyu Kempo Jutsu than it is to modern Okinawan Karate, which has a heavy Japanese influence. I've never been to a Ryu-te dojo, but Oyata is pretty legendary in his own right. I have heard that some of the dojo in the US are starting to conform to what Americans think of as Karate. In other words, the strip mall variety. Not too keen on that, but I haven't seen enough to know for sure either.

You're welcome.

I have a feeling different Taekwondo and Tang Soo Do dojang use different terms depending on who the instructor was. Some terms are definite, but not all. Also, the Korean accent can be hard to pick up, so some non-Korean instructors really mispronounce some words. As they teach students, it gets worse and worse, until the original word and the word now aren't the same anymore. I think sabum used to be reserved for the instructor ranks 4th-6th dan, and sahyun was reserved for masters that were not kwanjang. Remember nim is an honorific modifier, so no one would refer to themselves as sabumnim. My friend is a 4th dan in TKD, so he would say: I am Lee sabum. I would say: This is Lee sabumnim. A kwanjangnim should be someone who is the head of a style. It's been used now for people who are the owners of schools if they've above 8th dan. Here's the standard I've seen: 4th-6th dan: sabumnim = master 7th-8th dan: sahyunnim = grand master, because you know, rank inflation 9th-10th dan: kwanjangnim = should be the head of the style if you're this rank Jang should refer to someone being the head or the top so he is the head of the kwan. The head of the style. Cho gi nim is a word I'm not familiar with, but like I said, a lot of words can be created from Hanja. This looks like a hanja word. Ki and Sa don't share the same principles though, so it likely means something entirely different. On why you would use sabum rather than kyosa, kyosa is a school teacher. Kyo is the hanja word that means education. So a person who is an education person is a school teacher. That's why it has less of a place in martial arts, but could still be used.

Kyo Sa Nim is used in Soo Bahk Do (and, I believe, Tang Soo Do) as a title for those who are from 1st to 3rd dan, and who have passed testing to be instructors. (Sa Bom Nim is 4+.) Cho Dan is used for a 1st degree dan member, just as shodan is in a Japanese art. If you take cho and add it to Kyo Sa Nim, you'll get Chokyosanim (or "Choksanim"), which is likely what your art is using for the temporary black belt, Rateh. Kyo sa nim means teacher. That makes sense. Kyo su nim would mean professor, which would make more sense. BJJ uses the title professor if I remember correctly. The standard Korean term for teacher is seon saeng nim, but kyo sa nim can be used as well. It's all in the Hanja. Kyo sa nim literally means a person who is a teacher. Seon saeng nim means the one who came before me, so also a teacher. Sa beom nim means master of course. Cho is an independent hanja character meaning first or beginning. So Cho dan is broken into first grade or beginning grade. It isn't just breaking down certain characters and meshing them together. The best I can come up with is if they took Chok (촉) from the word to be promoted chokjin (촉진) and sa (사) as in person, which could be turned into choksa using specific characters to mean promoted person. This is the best I can do. It makes sense, because they have been promoted, but they aren't yet fully promoted to yudanja status. Seon is pronounced sun btw.

Thanks for the correction, Tiger Claw was it. I figured you would chime in, and I hoped you would. You're probably much more knowledgeable about this than I am. I've just been around for a long time, you actually sell the stuff haha.

I can't find that word at all, and I've never heard it. That's not to say it doesn't exist. It might be a Chinese character word that was created. Nim is an honorific modifier in Korean, so it has no Hanja, but Chok and Sa could be two separate words that were put together. Maybe your instructor knows?

I figured that much. Wonder why Joe's school use "yu gup ja" instead of the equivalent term for "mudansha".... It could just be to avoid involving the term "dan" when at gup level, Danielle. It's also more uniform, with you/yu used for all those below 4th dan; for 4th dan+ the person's called "master," as my sons' teacher is Master Noelia Lago, who's 4th dan, but sometimes Mr. Menendez (3rd dan) has instructed. They probably just like using the term, because mudanja literally means non degreed person. Mu means nothing, dan means degree, ja means person. Which means there is no need to avoid using dan, because you're literally saying it's a person with no dan ranking. A person who is a 4th dan is a sabumnim, but they are also a yudanja. Yudanja is any person who has reached the dan grades. I'm still interested in why they use the designation haksanim at Rateh's dojang. I couldn't find any alternative definition or hanja for that kind of usage. Haksa is, as far as I know, designated for university graduates.

Haksanim doesn't really make any sense. That's a university graduate or bachelor degree holder. Yu dan ja, ko dan ja, and mu dan ja or yu gup ja are all titles that you wouldn't use to address someone when speaking to them. Those titles would only be used in specific situations while you are talking about someone. Example: The yudanja at this dojang are (insert names here). or All the people on this list are yugupja. You would never say: Can you help me Nelson yudanja? It is similar to Japanese yudansha, because it's the Korean pronunciation of the Chinese characters 有段者. In Korean they're called hanja.

Luckily, that's the only term Koreans use in that situation. With how complicated the rest of the language is, count yourself lucky.

You're welcome.

If this is the style you're talking about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuri-ry%C5%AB then your lineage is a big mess to figure out. It takes from Japanese Karate, Naha-te, Shuri-te, and Tomari-te. Figuring out the lineages of any single one of those would be a PhD. Japanese Karate as it is today is probably the easiest if you accept that Anko Itosu was Funakoshi's primary teacher, and the man to codify modern Karate. Things like the Taikyoku Kata weren't present in Okinawan Karate Kempo. Anything meant to teach the very basics, only simple blocks and punches, like the Pinan series, were not present in the old Okinawan styles. They're modern creations meant to make Karate easier. If you want a great primer on Okinawan Karate history pick up Patrick McCarthy's book Bubishi: Classic Manual of Combat. It's well-researched, he's spent years on it, and for all of his being a bit out there McCarthy is a great martial arts historian. He provides a full list of source material, and conducted many interviews to get this out. Don't pick up any old book titled Bubishi, because there are a few translations, you need to get Patrick McCarthy's latest version. It includes a lot of history, and can show you just how diluted lineage gets past 2 or 3 people. Edit: One last point, remember, Okinawa had heavy trade with China prior to being taken over by Japan. Some things about Okinawa and Okinawan Karate are much more Chinese than they are Japanese, and all that predates Chatan Yara by about 1000 years.

To echo what's been said, history is only written down if it's deemed important. Things like wars, major battles, dynasty changes, those will be written down, who taught some lucky man in his 20s from Okinawa's Chan Village how to kick and punch first isn't likely to be written down anywhere. There isn't really an origin for any martial art. Boxing and wrestling seem to be the oldest, but no one has a clue when they started. Who first codified a true systematic way to learn a weapon? There's a ton of speculation, no hard evidence. Densho, if I'm not mistaken, I'm a youngin' and not versed in Japanese, is the transmission record of your martial art. Example, Goju Ryu can be traced back to Chojun Miyagi who learned from Kanryo Higaonna. It's said that Higaonna learned from Ryu Ryu Ko in Fuzhou in China. IF, you accept that as fact, then Higaonna was in China for 4 years prior to training with Ryu Ryu Ko, which means he was likely training with someone else. There's speculation as to who this person was, can't remember the name, I'll dig it up later. That means that Ryu Ryu Ko was Higaonna's teacher, but not his only teacher, which means the influence of Higaonna and thus Miyagi's Karate is much broader. See how complicated questions of transmission can get? No one is positive who Ryu Ryu Ko learned from, but there is more solid evidence than for the other person Higaonna learned from. You have to remember that Okinawan Karate Kempo only started to formalize in study and standard under heavy Japanese influence. That means as Gichin Funakoshi was growing up (you can read about this in his book Karate-Do, My Way). He was born in 1868 (depending on who you ask), the first year of the Meiji Restoration. Now, Funakoshi was a highly educated man, which means that he probably had the foresight to see that moving Karate to Japan would be a big undertaking, and it would have to be done in a specific way (in this case schools), and that it would have to be done in the Japanese manner. It became much more strict, more rigid, formal, and the importance of lineage and transmittance came up. Okinawan Karate Kempo on the other hand was still taught as the Chinese taught Gongfu. The master taught his disciples until they were good enough to go out on their own, and then they did so and found disciples of their own. It was very informal, and a lot of people had multiple masters. In honesty, you're lucky if the history from you to Chatan Yara is 100% accurate.

Welcome to KF.

If you're going to do this in New York City, you might run into a lot of problems. Rent, insurance, utilities, licensing, etc. New York is not a cheap place to do anything. Opening a martial arts gym would be difficult. This isn't to dishearten you at all. I think it's a wonderful proposition. You just need to step back and look at this dispassionately. Look at it realistically, from a business standpoint. Can you afford to put in that cash? Do you need a business loan? How long can you afford to bleed money? You're not going to make money at first. You'll stay afloat by putting in some of your own cash. Well, maybe a lot of your own cash. You might want to look at the way Fighthouse Studios in Chelsea operates. Go there, go to a class, talk to the instructors about how things work. Here's a link to their page: http://www.fighthouse.com/index.html You can do this one of a couple ways. The first way is the way that fighthouse does things. They own the space, they let others teach out of it. The others that teach out of it, pay them rent, and they get to make some money as well through their class sizes. Another way is to own an actual gym, like a Gold's. Maybe even buy into a franchise if you can get the startup capital, and then have floor space where you teach martial arts classes. This isn't ideal, because I'm sure we all think of Tae Bo, but you could run a martial arts school out of an actual gym. The gym keeps you open, the martial arts school lets you do what you love. Or, this would be extremely difficult, find other people looking to open gyms, and open one together. You share the space. You split up the schedule in as equal a manner as possible, and you create a partnership. This can be dicey at best, because of martial arts politics, but it could probably be done with a lot of trying.

You can't really go by what you see on Youtube. I can find a hundred videos of people knocking opponents out with defensive spinning hook kicks during Taekwondo matches, but that doesn't mean that all Taekwondo fighters can do that. I can find a hundred people doing Isshinryu really badly, but I can find a hundred people doing a lot of martial arts really badly. Those include Goju-Ryu, Shorin-ryu, all kinds of Chinese MAs, wrestlers, boxers, etc. You can always find someone doing something stupid on Youtube if you look hard enough. It is true that a lot of Isshinryu dojo are lacking in conditioning exercises. That's a US-wide, martial arts wide problem however. I can't name many dojo, Gojuryu or otherwise (in the US), where they use chishi and nigiri kame on a consistent basis for hojo undo. If you want my honest opinion, after visiting more than one or two Isshinryu Karate dojo in the US, about the state of Isshinryu in the US, and what the problems are with it currently, that's for another post. Until you've personally gone to see many different dojo of the styles of Karate you're talking about, please refrain from making broad generalizations. If you've already done the leg work, then please, give us an analysis of what you've seen. I'd be willing to read it.

We get a ton of posts on Karateforums asking for info on uniforms. Most of them have to do with Karate. There are a number of members on here with a wealth of experience, I am positive could make this guide. So, I propose we put our collective heads together, and make this a beginner's guide to buying a new uniform. I can write from the perspective of someone in the US. Let's start: If you're a beginner, don't buy your own do-gi. I know you can find great deals online, but you'll probably find the wrong size, maybe even the wrong do-gi for what you're doing. Unless you have experience buying your own uniforms, it's much easier to leave it to your instructor to determine your correct size. You can buy your own uniforms later. Cheap light (under $30)/medium(under $60)/heavyweight (under $90) Karate do-gi The three brands that are available just about anywhere in the United States: Tiger, Pro Force, and Century. Any of these three uniforms would be great for a beginning student. Century is probably the most prominent, as they have the most advertising, and sell a wide range of products. Their do-gi are good quality, and you can get different weights. They're a good brand to start with, because they are widely available. Nearly every store I've been to stocks something from Century. Pro Force is probably the next most widespread. Most places that have Century will have Pro Force. Again, you can get the do-gi in light, medium, and heavy weights. In my personal opinion, Pro Force is a little better than Century, but that's just an opinion. Everyone has their favorite brands. Tiger may be the least widespread of the three when it comes to uniforms, but their belts are everywhere. I like the Tiger brand belts a lot more than the Century ones, so if you have to buy your own belt (not sure why you would), and you want a cheap, but dependable brand, Tiger is likely it. There are many beginner do-gi available from online retailers like Karatedepot, but I don't have any experience with the quality of those, so I can't comment. Ronin, Ki, Toyo, and Tokon all make good, quality uniforms as well, but they are not as widely available as Tiger, Pro Force, or Century. Ronin has been around for a long time. They make good entry-level do-gi, but as I said, they are not extremely widespread. I grew up in the Midwest, and I saw absolutely zero people wearing Ronin do-gi. Tokon used to be Kamikaze in the US, but changed the brand name for some obvious reasons. I think these are much more popular in Europe, but they make a full range of uniforms from beginner uniforms to very high quality heavyweight do-gi. Ki, from what I've seen, is on par with Pro Force. I just haven't seen them around a lot. Toyo, I have zero experience with. High end (read expensive) do-gi: For people involved in Shotokan, Tokaido is usually tops. The JKA has done a great job making Tokaido one of the best brands for Shotokan Karate practitioners, and their uniforms and belts are very durable, but expensive. Tokaido do-gi come from Japan and are sized for Japanese people. If you're paying this much for a do-gi, buy it from someone face to face. They can help you with proper measurements. Once you've bought one or two, then buy them on your own. For Okinawan Karate practitioners, a lot of Gojuryu karateka especially, Shureido has been the top brand for quite some time. To order, you either have to find a retailer or contact Shureido USA. Trust them with your measurements. The same advice about sizing for Tokaido goes with Shureido. Adidas has recently thrown itself into the Karate ring after being successful in the Taekwondo and Judo markets. From what I've seen, they make a fine uniform for sport competition. The use of modern fibers allows their uniforms to be high quality and extremely lightweight. They're ideal for someone that wants to spend a lot of time on the tournament circuit. Satori is a little known Canadian company that makes made-to-order Karate do-gi. I have personal experience with them, and they are very good at what they do. The quality is extremely high, and you can absolutely trust them to do a proper job with the measurements you give them. The best way to order is to go to their website. They will call you to verify everything with you before they start making the do-gi, because the return policy is restrictive. They're made to measure after all. So you need to give them a phone number that works. For Kyokushin, Isami seems to be the big brand name. I don't have much experience with Isami, but they seem to very Kyokushin-centric with their equipment and do-gi, so most other Karateka probably wouldn't have to worry about it. I'm sure there are many other brands I've missed, so perhaps a few of our other members can chime in.

I'm not as comfortable putting the "do" label on Okinawan Karate. The entire idea of "do" is Japanese in origin. The idea of Karate as Budo only came about when it was introduced to Japan. The entire idea of "do" was introduced by the Japanese. The normal Okinawan idea of Karate was as a Kempo Jutsu. The informal nature of rank and training was quickly hammered down by the Japanese, and the Karate styles that moved to Japan quickly adopted the rank structure and more orderly manner of training. It's my impression that Okinawa retained a lot of its more relaxed training methods (not necessarily strict lines nor training times) until relatively recently. If you wanted to train, you showed up, did your thing, and then left. It's hard to remember that for a very long time Japan and Okinawa were separate kingdoms, and the Okinawan people had, at times, closer ties with China than with Japan.

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Use the search function, this has been covered many many many many times.

I voted that he was a martial artist first, and I'd say he was a born tinkerer. He loved to experiment. He was definitely a martial artist, not just an actor.

That's a great idea, one I hadn't thought of!! Thanks!! Does it matter what size the glass/cup is for the chocolate milk? I'd say a small carton or one 8 oz serving would probably be fine. You could drink more if you wanted to as long as it's not a whole 1 gallon jug haha.

That sounds like a great pre and post-run food plan. If you want to remove something, you could take out the cottage cheese after, and just have a glass of chocolate milk. It has protein and carbs to help with recovery, and it tastes great.

Looked great, definitely Wing Chun, but still classic Bruce Lee. He took what he liked from the system, what worked for him, and made it work. He liked the speed of chain punching, but he was also more powerful than your average martial artist. I'm not a huge fan of chain punching, largely because most people that do it aren't powerful enough in that short distance to do major damage. I'm definitely not saying all, because there are people out that who chain punching works for. I'm going to go out on a limb and say they're the exception not the rule though. Bruce Lee could also perform amazing breaks with a one-inch punch and odds are knock someone unconscious using one. But again, that's not everyone. The video does show that the simple, basic stuff, is what works best. That is a wonderful lesson to take away.