Enviroman

No offense but that Bill Brown school looks terrible. Can you even find what style of karate he teaches? There are slogans like "We Build Great Kids!" and the majority of the classes are children-only classes. Also $80 testing fees for yellow belt and $109 for orange belt. It looks like a McDojo... edit: I just added up his total costs for all of his testing fees and it's about $500 up through black belt. In his defense he does lower the testing fee as you go up in rank.

Wow, that's a really expensive guitar...did you save up from working or something?

I agree with you, I know this is kinda nit picking, but a blue belt in two years? Is that uncommon? One guy I looked at working out with had his blue belt after only a year.

that's how i understood it

Stay in school, it can only help you...

Never happen. They have the money, they have the political drive. All you have is your moral stand. You loose. Me? I'll take care of my own little corner of the world and try and get allong with everyone. McDojo is the perfect term for those kind og schools. They serve up greasy, filling but unsatisfying, "food" that caters to a group of people that want to be a black belt and don't care about fees, tradition, or anything other than achieving their goal. As long as there's a market there will be a McDojo.

welcome

I respectfully disagree. Deadalus is posting what I consider to be the obvious truth after taking years of various martial arts my entire life. I think its unfair to label him as some kind of BJJ cult member for basically stating the truth. Ive taken TKD, karate, Kung-fu, judo, some aikido and BJJ. Im taking BJJ now. I guess its just kind of hard to explain in words. You really need to experience it. You could practive takedown defense all day long and think you have it mastered in kata form, but when put up against a real opponent your whole game falls apart. These grapplers go for takedowns and defend takedowns in 100% effort sparring in every class. Yet they lose the takedown defense about 50% of the time. To think you will be able to defend a takedown against one of these guys who have thousands of hours of experience more than you in takedowns is simply ignorant bliss. In a sense you are a takedown defense white belt and they are takedown black belts. You chances are slim at best. All I can say is, visit your local BJJ studio. Talk to the instructor, and ask if you can test your takedown ability against, say a blue belt ( a guy with 1-2 years experience). I guarantee you will be in for a rude awakening. Being close minded in the MA world is really a bad idea. You dont want to carry around any delusions like this. I really don't see how you refuted my point. You basically just reaffirmed that this thread will turn into a "BJJ is better than all other MA because they defend against takedowns all of the time and you can't stop them" thead.

It's not great but I still don't consider it trash. I just looked it up on imdb.com and it got over a 5.0. To me that's not utter trash. Some of my favs got under a 3.0!

It's definitely korean.

This is really, really poor advice in my opinion. When a child is bullied by an adult, the child needs to seek out adult help. Learning "counterattacks" can end very badly for all involved. I stand by my opinion that shotokankid needs to seek out adult help.

Great advice. When I was first learning iriminage I had a ton of trouble getting the proper technique down (the uke's head would invariably end up on my wrong shoulder or something). When you feel ike you're not getting it, try and slow yourself down and just refocus your thoughts. It's always helped me...

no prob

Hey no ones saying that it CANT be done, but lets look at this another way. BJJ/Submission fighters are the best grapplers in the world, bar none. Their supremacy on the ground is unquestionable. K-1/Boxing fighters are the best strikers in the world, bar none. Why would you deliberatly go out of your way to train for a particular venue when the most effective training methods and styles have been established. Its like cutting your entire lawn with the weedwacker- sure it can be done, but why the hell wouldnt you just use a lawnmower? Your analogy is more apt if you said "a lawnmower only cuts the large sections of grass while a weed wacker can trim and edge. Why not use both?"

From that site: "And all of the clues point to two possibilities, that Dumbledore's not really dead, or at the very least, that Snape's not really a Death Eater, and he killed Dumbledore because Dumbledore ordered him to, as part of a grand plan." Pretty much the opinion of most people that have read the book, I think. Now Rowling could take that knowledge (that people believe Snape was ordered to kill Dumbledore or that he's not actually dead) and really mess with people in the last book!

Being that I'm not super into the chi/ki thing, I can say that focus, practice, and determination (my concept of chi/ki) will always net you better results than not doing those things.

I wouldn't hit her at all unless it was clearly a life threatening situation. Police tend to take a woman's side in a battery case...especially if there are bruises/marks on her and none on you. At best you'll both go to jail. At worst you'll be the only one going, regardless if she started the fight.

I've never had to actually fist fight anyone since I've studied martial arts. I've talked my way out of a few fights, though.

I think that's some western romanticization. Ninja were spies and assassins by most historical accounts. Ninja didn't always dress in their shinobi shozoku (the common black garb with tabi shoes)...they were spies. They impersonated people to infiltrate camps and gain valuable information...

A tattoo is too much of a commitment for me...

In my mantis school we condition shins by kicking each other in the shins...let me tell you I pretty much hate it. I get huge welts on my shins. I haven't bruised up too badly yet, but I'm sure I will. I don't have a heavy bag to practice on. Anyone have any other suggestions?

You are obeserving pre 1st dan Basics. All stances long with hips square (if we take fromt stance for example). Shotokan is taught very gradually these stances are taught from the beginning to strengthen the body more than anything. When you reach around 1st dan the stances used are slightly higher your whole body is a coiled spring from your toes thru hips to the extension of the punch. However, unless you are taught the basics of each stance you will never fully comprehend the eveolution of shotokan technqiues and the body mechanics later on. This is why shotokan karetka look so good, becasue we constantly go back to basics for training purposes, so our technique is very finely tuned. TBH You cant base an opinion on Shotokan through observation alone. To answer the original question, No Shotokan is not a weak style. I would say that only kyokushinkai is stonger. One of the major problems I have with many styles of karate is that it is extraordinarily rigid until post-blackbelt levels (in some cases it is always rigid). Many BB forms show the "soft core" of the style...but why wait so long to reach that soft core?

Running a martial arts school as a for-profit business is just like any other small business. It's the undeniable truth that most small businesses fail withint their first two years, so you need to be smart about what you are doing. I always recommend taking a few classes in marketing, finance, and accounting for anyone that plans on owning a small business one day. Even if you don't plan on majoring in business, these classes can be invaluable.

I agree on both counts.

I assumed it meant "Kajujenpo Practioner." I've always felt that Martial Arts is roughly 50% mental, 30% technique, and 20% physical...