Karateka

Not necessarily. Shotokan may have deep stances and powerful techniques, but that doesn't make them slow. By training hard you not only develop better muscles but you also fight better when relaxed. Someone once said, to learn to punch fast, you have to punch slow. And in the end, its not the Martial Art, its the Martial Artist.

The way I teach beginners has to do with age, for me. Sometimes, small children have to be taught the "outward techniques" as you call them (great name by the way, really)The same can go with older adults. If the person is not ready to really learn the inner workings of the movements, I feel they may learn that later. If they are ready at that stage, i teach them what i know. However, I am still learning a great deal, so its hard for me to teach like my Instructors. lol

If its a school thing, tell your administration. If its your workplace, tell your boss. If its out on the street, avoid him if you can and/or get the authorities involved. Too often to MA's get into trouble with the law for taking matters into their own hands. I don't know if you take martial arts or not, but use the law to your advantage. You have the right not to get assaulted.

From my observations Wado is a bit more relaxed while Shotokan is a bit more powerful. I can't comment on which one is better, i haven't tried either.

I have heard both good and bad stories. I am under Karate BC, which is Under the NKA(Canada) which is under World Karate Federation. Take from it what you want.

Well its the age old debate of whether Kata is a waste of time or not. I will just say what kata is for me. Kata is a way for me to practice my basics and work on strength and technique. I use certain kata to get myself warmed up and stretch my muscles. I use kata to work my imagination and think of what would I do from this position of my attacker came from here. I use it to relax and get in the mood of training. I have heard the arguments that Kata is useless and outdated and has no practical application. These arguments are completely valid. We are not seeing the same attacks that our Okinawan Ancestors did. However, you don't have to like kata to take some techniques from it. I hated kata for a long time, yet I could still adapt some techniques to it. As for moves like Kata Karuma and certain blocks, i just keep it as memory. I may never use any of these techniques. kata can also help strengthen your body by working muscles which you may not be able to get to with the machines at the gym. Plus, I find that keeping my stances low and my techniques sharp while still feeling the burn in my legs really helps my spirit and my inner voice that tells me to go on. But hey, that's just me.

In our style of Shito Ryu we have 17 basic Kata, All the Pinan Kata's plus all the katas which are on the official WKF Kata list. https://www.wkf.net and download the rule book its one of the last pages. There are about 46 of them

You don't do the jump in your style of Shito-Ryu? We do it in ours, and I saw some other styles of it do it. Hmmm, maybe we are the odd ones out?

When we test for our Black Belts we have the Head Master of our Association, because he lives in my city. We also have the high ranking Sensei's of the Areas, my Sensei being one of them. He is a 5th Dan and it goes all the way up to 8th Dan. There are also other black belts watching you too. The 5 head guys sit at a head table and mark you. Its kinda intimidating

I am not a Christian, but I have often had the debate of Ki within science. Does it exist or is it just hallucination? I think Ki exists but in different forms. It could be an energy but it could also just be your spirit. When I find myself getting tired and want to give up, but i continue on...I am pulling on my Ki in a sense. Ki is spirit to me. It is the hidden force that pushes us beyond our rational limit. Our mind says "STOP! THIS IS STUPID" while our Spirit can push us to go further and prove the rational side wrong.

I am sorry to hear that you were put in such a situation. I think you did one of the right things which is to run away. You may feel bad about yourself afterwards, but at least you are able to think about it. A lot of my fellow students who were teenagers were always thinking about fighting and beating up someone. I think that in a true self defence situation, you do what is necessary for you to run away. They could have pulled a knife on you. In a real situation, you have about a 5% chance of surviving a knife fight without any weapon. They will cut you from neck to groin, not the straight on attacks in class. As for your freezing up, all encounters have 3 choices; fright, flight, and fight. You went into fright and flight which is natural and good. Your instinct told you not to stand your ground, and your instinct is your best defence. With your training, now you must learn to make actions without thinking about them. By the way, if it makes you feel any better...when some guy tried to mug me, i froze and just blocked his first attack. I didnt' know what was going to happen next. So you aren't alone.

I too have heard that the Tobi Kicks were meant to take down persons on horseback. As for the comment on being just for show...none of the traditional kata's, in my opinion, have moves which are there for show or are just "sets". There is application for the movement, its just not always literal. Sometimes you have to extend certain moves outside the Kata. Kata's are guides to be built on to train, not blueprints to be followed in your mind to the letter. I hope people understand what I am trying to say.

https://www.kamikaze.com This has 3 different brands of Gi's. Their own Kamikaze, Arazawa and Adidas. There are many Gi's to choose from. There is one designed for Kata and Kumite Seperately as well as good all around Gi's. Prices are in Canadian and American Dollars.

I like the feel of Sienchin mainly for its contrast of hard and soft and the beginning allows for a dramtic break point which feels powerful. Also, I like the Kata Matsumaraha (sp?) Rohai. This kata's hard and soft contrast allows for lots of power and then lots of grace, a good combination.

Wayne Otto is a good competitor. He uses a lot of take down techniques that I really like.

The Style I belong with is Shito-Ryu Seikokai, our grandmaster Seiko Suzuki was formerly of Sakagami Sensei. This style is rather large as there is an international website for it. For further information https://www.shitoryu.net

One may also consider, though, that the martial arts were designed to fight persons who were of a specific style and also of a specific mindset of fighting. Karate was used against a person on horseback as well as on foot, and Shaolin Kung Fu was used to protect the monks from bandits. Each style has techniques which are suited against certain opponents. As the martial arts progressed, there became a need to make new moves to counter-act other opponents, but the core Kata were used for a specific attacker, I think. If anyone has more information on this, please share, I could be wrong.

For Shito-Ryu, the four kata's used for our Black Belt Testing (Seiko-Kai) is Jitte, Jiin, Jion, and Bassai-Dai, as well as any Kata you may have learned before.

In Shito-Ryu Karate, we are trained to use our hip to propel our Reverse punch. Most of the power comes from the hip, so not only is it devestatingly fast, but it is also devastatingly powerful.

It depends on how well u can see without them. I train without my glasses, personally, but if you require them, then sport glasses sound appropriate. I too have a problem with contact lenses, so that is my recommendation

When I did my last karate class; our Sensei, instead of doing the basic warm up of stretches and pushups, decided that we would run through some basic kata. Man, I sweat more doing that than I did regularly. I find Kata to be nothing like I have ever experienced before. True, for people who want to become great tournament fighters, it can seem outdated, and you can learn Karate techniques without kata. I use the kata to calm my mind, which is always necessary in self defence, because if you get angry, you lose control. Also, you can use the kata to set up scenarios in which people may come and attack you on the street. Finally, a lot of people who dislike Kata are people who have not been taught the meaning behind the movement, or Bunkai. This is fundamental in realising the true nature of how Karate works. In my opinion, of course.

We have a regular Kata guy in our city who knows 50 of the Shi-to Ryu kata. As was mentioned, Kenway Mabuni was taught Shuri-te and Naha-te but also some White Crane Kata; plus he made some of his own. It is a true blend of everything.

That sounds like the Shi-to Ryu Jitte.

With all my training and all my efforts, I have unfortunately been in situations where I have had to use my Martial Arts. The first was apparently a situation where I was defending a girl vs. two guys. I say apparently because I do not remember it. The other two were me vs. a guy and me having to use martial arts because without it he would have killed me. I must implore to any new comers to the Martial Arts that you must not use it unless you absolutely need it.

You can't really call any style of Karate the "strogest Karate" because of the fact that it depends entirely on the Martial Artist. True, the training in Kyokushinkai is very strenuous, but as with all martial arts, if you have the skill than it doesn't matter. It isn't how hard you train, it is how well you train.