24fightingchickens

That didn't really come out the way you intended, did it? OH! OH! I made another funny! I'm on a roll tonight, boys and girls.

LOL! I hear ya brother. I used to be a 20-something hot shot. I'm now approaching 40 with a family. The contrast in my approach to karate is staggering. Had I had any idea of what adult life would be like later on, I never would have been so lecturing of my older students. Luckily, with age sometimes comes wisdom and patience, and many of them tolerated my extremist approach and insistence that everyone's goal was to be the next Bruce Lee. When I train today, I rarely give 100%. It isn't there to give. I give what little I feel like I can and still remain functional enough to go home, mow the grass, the change the oil in the jeep, switch the laundry over, help with the dishes, bathe my kid, read him a story, and then pay the bills.

Not me, no, I wouldn't. I do not view stances as being static. I do not plan on nor do I practice standing in a front stance perfectly still waiting for someone to come slam into me and hope that I am braced for the impact. My front stance is the product of my shifting my weight forward as I engage with a reverse punch, stepping punch, or some other technique. If I am in that posture, I am moving forward and catching my previously unsupported weight on my front foot just like a baseball batter catches his weight on his front leg as he moves his body forward and swings the bat at a baseball. Following that posture I am moving either back out of range or catching the rear leg up with the rest of my body into yet another step forward, or perhaps a shift, or maybe some other direction - all depending. But it is a fluid snap shot in time, and I do not hold that posture nor ever expect it to support me if someone slams into me. Any high school wrestler would grab me behind the front knee and up-end me without any problem were I to expect the stance to perform for me in a static fashion like that. In my experience, the study of static stances is beginner karate. I disagree. I am able to throw a punch and lift my rear heel up and the only difference is that my posture is more flexible. The rear leg being straight or not does not change weight distribution between the feet. That is determined strictly by the relative position of the pelvis between the knees, imo. A good way to ensure more weight is behind a punch is to time the punch to land on target just before your "landing gear" front leg touches down and redirects your moving-forward weight (projected momentum) from being supported by your fist smashing into their body. That is what I learned when I was a beginner in karate. I now believe those techniques are not "blocks." They are over-stylized double-techniques of simultaneous block/counters and grab-attacks coupled together that modern Japanese instructors interpret in a very questionable fashion, imo. I find this to not really be the case. Stability in stances is always bi-directional, and the stance is always vulnerable to upset from any other direction. The reason for this is that I only have two feet, and they are always in a straight line with each other. Bending my knees more deeply in a static stance is only an exercise in muscle endurance, nothing more. In a fluid situation when I am stepping backward and forward, there are many points when I am not in a deep stance. Although during kata and basics practice we are encouraged to pick a height and maintain it, Funakoshi was adamant that more advanced karate was performed from higher stances and that deeper ones were more for show during training or the result of deep lunges. I agree with him.

I avoid all contracts with any business. Usually with contracts comes billing services. If a karate school wants, they can take the contract, sell it for 50% of its total value to a billing service, and then you will be invoiced by a 3rd party. Those people will then start collections procedures if you stop paying, where if you were paying the instructor directly, you would be able to cut a deal with him. I avoid these like the plague and always advise to avoid any business that wants to do direct debit. Direct debit gives the business in question the ability to withdraw all funds from your bank account any time. One mistake, and you are flat broke, all your checks bounce, and your credit score is shot. Consumer reporters also advise that you not sign contracts or do direct debit. My favorite consumer reporter is Clark Howard. http://www.clarkhoward.com He has advice on his site that will read about like mine with respect to both of these issues.

This is wasted if you perform the block the way many books show you to where you first chamber up and then let go with the blocking movement. If you rather interpret this as a passing block with a simultaneous punch followed by a downward strike to a joint that you have grabbed with the hand you just punched with, it is not wasted at all. This makes kata look very snappy and expert, doesn't it? I think it's a good skill in a fight as well to have the habit of snapping your head around to where you are planning to go. Cutting my eyes one way or the other provides poor vision, and nerves cause tunnel vision which makes things worse. Wasted. After the leg is done with the initial push forward, it becomes dead weight. There is a myth in the martial arts that force goes down the leg or something like that. It is untrue. Note a golfer, tennis pro, batter, pitcher - all end up in front stance - all lift their rear foot. It's just a tradition. Necessary to help prevent injury to thumb or fingers. Makes nothing stronger. Not wasted or necessary - simply irrelevant. I am stronger in a downward movement than an upper cut, just like when doing a reverse grip bench press. Therefore, I like my fist rolled over at the end so I can place it on noses and chins more easily. Personal preference. See #1. Personal preference. Some start them from their armpits. Any stance is not important except that it is a snapshot of a moment in time when you have finished a technique and are using your front leg for a landing gear. The concept of a static stance shape is very novice level.

When I train with my buddy we always leave it out. I always leave it out when I train alone, as well. I'm not Japanese. I see no reason that I should continue the practice of bowing other than the same reasons Ballet instructors still teach movements in French. It's just a cultural thing nowadays. Its not like I am disrespectful toward my students and training buddies when I great them with, "How's it going?" When I visit a club, if everyone is bowing everywhere, I try to keep it to a minimum and yet stay within the rules of the club. But really I feel uncomfortable bowing when I am not in Japan. It seems wierd, especially when the people bowing back often bow unnaturally, at inappropriate times, overly deep, overly shallow, or overly dramatic with too many histrionics.

Yes, you know when you meet someone named "Blade" or somesuch that they gave the nickname to themselves. It's funny how a nickname I used to not like grows on me over time and becomes a cherished name that I answer to.

LOL! Usually 10 dan = dead. The dan ranks past the 5th dan mostly seem to be political appointments. Ranks are funny things. At first you get them for being obedient and passing tests with increasing physical ability to go fast, be flexible, remember routines, and use some principles. Then you start getting them because of physical ability plus whether or not you bring money into the organization, whether or not you are a teacher, what the ranks of your colleagues are, how active you are in volunteering to help, etc. The higher you go, the more physical ability, social status, politics, tenure, and other qualities get mixed into that one rank. After I got my last dan rank, I decided I was through with trying to get more of them. It just seemed to be a grip for someone to use to get me to do stuff for them. "If you are a good boy for three years, you can be a 5th dan." Some of us keep training as long as the other folks who have higher ranks, but we stop testing because we no longer feel the need for validation from someone else of what we do. Some guys with high ranks have them mailed to them without even having filled out an application. They just get a certificate and a letter with an invoice attached for a registration fee. I know a couple of people who received very high dan ranks this way in very prestigious groups. Some guys have high dan ranks even though they quit training years ago. It's like getting your college degree - they don't take it away just because you forget half of what they taught you. So, I just try to remember that the rank system is there to give me goals and objectives to help myself with mentally - not to compare to other people or figure out how good other people are.

It depends on how long you have been doing karate and whether or not you enjoy kata. It also depends on how fast on the uptake you are with new kata. I tend to view kata as just being scripted basic techniques. Some of the techniques might be "rare" in that they aren't typically done marching up and down the floor (such as the head butt in Gojushiho), but they are still just techniques. Add to that a rhythm of performance, and you have yourself a kata. When I first started training, I found the syllabus of having to learn Taikyoku and Heian daunting. How could anyone remember all of that. Then came the time when I later thought that those kata plus Kanku and Bassai would be the death of me. But now it has been a long time, and eventually, I learned all 26 of the Shotokan kata well enough to have someone randomly name any of them and I could do it on an exam or tournament. I'm no Osaka Yoshiharu, but I can hold it together OK. At some point beyond that one, I started to fall out of love with some of the kata. I guess I never really considered whether or not I liked them. I just thought it would be cool to know all of them, and I wanted that on my resume, so to speak. So I had set out to know them all at some point and finally accomplished it. These days, I avoid a few of them because I don't really enjoy doing them, and I don't like what they have to offer. They aren't my style. But I have looked over the fence at Shito-Ryu, and they have some that appeal to me (not all, but some), and I have swiped their Sochin and their Seisan for my use. I enjoy those two kata mightily, and so I keep up with them while Enpi and Gankaku gather dust on the shelf. And good riddence! I was fascinated by a lot of reading I did on kata a few years ago in a book by Harry Cook called Shotokan A Precise History. In that book, he carefully points to the kata as originally being from China, and each one being "the form" of a style in China. The Okinawans used to go over there and learn them, and the Chinese used to go to Okinawa and teach them. So, it is not surprising that you will have a favorite kata. Mine is sochin. It suits my style. I also like some others that suit my style. Funny thing is, the Shotokan Sochin is *not* from China but is native to Japan. Funakoshi's son invented it after learning the Shito-Ryu sochin and deciding it wasn't for him but maybe something in it could be used for his own purposes. Unfortunately, these days, the concept of "personal karate", where you train with whomever you want, and you learn whatever you can from whomever you can, decide what you like, dump the rest, and come up with your own method, has fallen out of favor. We in the West learned our karate from the post-war Japanese, who had heavily militarized the practice so that people did everything in groups marching around in lines and patterns together trying to be a team instead of the sort of personal instruction the Okinawans enjoyed. So, I can say that in my experience, early on, it seemed there were too many. Later, it seemed that I raced through them easily. Then later, I thought it was too many again, and I started to whittle some out. I guess in the end I decided that life is short... too short to live it by other people's needs and so I do what I enjoy and work to build my own karate for myself that works the way I do.

A friend of mine used to always say that karate was Japanese for "art performed in difficult clothing." Try losing the string and having some elastic sewn in there if you don't like it. Drawstring pants are pretty primitive. It's too bad that gi manufacturers who make good Japanese tournament cut uniforms have not abandoned the draw string. When I work out, I prefer to wear a t-shirt and shorts, not a karate uniform. It saves money, because I don't have to buy as many uniforms, and its more comfortable. Plus, I don't have that popping noise to make me feel complacent about how fast I am going. It's hard to feel good about your martial arts skills when you are dressed down. One suggestion I have for you is to look at the front of the pants. There are two loops there that the strings can be put through, usually. Do not tie the pants in the middle, but tie the first half of the knot under one of the loops, and then tie the second half over the top, so that it is anchored as well as tied in a knot. The elastic is more expensive, but it is really the way to go. Gi pants are very uncomfortable to me.

I wouldn't worry about insulting anyone. Have you ever seen a Japanese baseball game? Ever seen them dress up like our baseball players, mimick our post-game handshakes and high-fives, which are not part of their society, or listened to them butcher the English language "Eeeett's ah Hohmah!!!"? Asians do this to us as much as we do it to them, and its probably just human nature, I feel, that most people find exotic things interesting and want to participate in them, but they don't really want a PhD in anthropology in order to do it. I am not surprised that karate culture has so much pseudo-Japanese habits in it, from the Samurai-like sitting to the barking of commands and the Dojo Kun in Japanese (even though the person doesn't speak Japanese). I prefer not to badly mimic another culture mostly because I just don't like to do something wrong. Other people may not care. Whatever. Live and let live.

Caveat: While training in Japan, I observed that it was SOP that the women rarely sparred the men, and when they did, it was very typical that there were injuries. In fact, our instructors used to go to great lengths to avoid us pairing off with each other. We would, and then they would reorganize everyone so that women only trained with women. But the Japanese do not place as heavy an emphasis on the self-defense component as we do, I believe, partly because they think they live in a virtually crime-free society.

I find that to be a blanket statement of personal preference applied to everyone with a broad brush. Part of learning karate is teaching _for you_, but not necessarily for everyone else. I do not believe that the karate experience is somehow unfulfilled if someone chooses not to teach. I taught for 20 years and still teach on occassion. I do not judge those who prefer to just train. Each person has their own goals for their training. For some, teaching may help them realize those goals, for others, it just makes the experience less fun by burdening something they enjoy with extra responsibility. I did not offer these as the only two limitations of teaching. I skimmed the surface of the myriad of scenarios in the limited amount of text I wished to produce. If I am hired by someone to teach a class, I teach them, and I do not wait for them to ask me questions in some cases. In other cases, I do wait for them to ask questions. It depends on the situation and a host of other variables. But I prefer on my floor that my senior students leave the other students alone. They are not hired by the others to teach them, and unless they are approached for help, I prefer that they mind their own business and do their own training rather than loading more corrections and advice on a student than I have deemed it appropriate to give them. I feel that when my senior students "intervene", it means they think I am not seeing something or I am intentionally missing something. Usually neither is the case - I prefer not to stand over a student of karate and tell them every possible mistake I can find. I only mention what they can fix - unless they ask for a comprehensive diagnostic, then I give one. This is true, but it is not always true, in my experience, that the things senior students have tried to offer my junior students - or that the things my seniors offered me - were of value. In some cases, they were quite the opposite, and I would have been better off without them. I view a karate class like any other class. If I sign up for calculus, I'm not there to have other students correct my homework or lecture me. I am paying to have the professor do that. If I wish to engage the services of a tutor, I will do so. I am sorry, but this depends on where you train. In my dojo, as my senior student, this attitude receives a friendly chat after class about minding your own business and correcting yourself, not your friends. I find that senior students who enjoy playing instructor during class usually do so because they do not wish to pay attention to their own errors and work on themselves. It is much easier to try to fix someone else than to fix oneself. I find this attitude very militant and do not endorse it. I do not seek to control my students' attitudes. I treat them like adult students of any class. They can be as interested as they want. I do not try to control them for safety purposes. We have rules, and there are consequences for not following them or causing some trouble. I have not had a problem. I also do not ask that students be responsible to "set an example" for others. They are not my employeees. They are also people who have hired me to teach them. They are not responsible to do anything but fulfill their obligation of obeying the rules while they are present and not disrupting anyone else. Likewise, when I visit a club, I do not accept responsibility for setting an example. That's the instructor's job, if he feels it necessary. I am just there to work out, not to lead people. Just because I have been training a long time doesn't mean I must start being responsible for others. I'm there for me, just like everyone else. I believe it is a false assumption that everyone seeks "high performance" results from their karate experience. Each person has their own desire for their experience, I try to respect that rather that forcing my goals onto them and trying to convince them that my goals are theirs. I realize this is not common practice, but when I visit a karate club, and a senior student starts correcting me, I rebuff him strongly, because I did not hire him to teach me, and maximum learning for maximum ability are not my goals from karate any longer.

LOL! Several. 24FightingChickens - obviously. Also some people call me the following (some I understand, some I don't) Chu-chu Rocket El Glorioso Lord Voldemort Our Friend He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named I had a student who used to call me "The Machine", but those days are long over. The only kind of machine I resemble now is a Ford Pinto with 500,000 miles on it. LOL

Since I've been training a long time, I typically pick one that I know that I have not done in a while and go through it 8 to 10 times. My favorite is Sochin. My next favorite is Unsu. I also enjoy Seisan and Sochin from Shito-Ryu, which are the last ones I have learned.

It is considered SOP that women and men spar each other, since usually there are not enough women in a karate club for they and the men to avoid each other. Also, a lot of instructor's feel that the self-defense aspect requires that you be able to face a man. However, it was never SOP in my karate club that women be injured because they sparred men. Injuries mean someone goofed somewhere, and some apologies and corrective action would be expected. Caveat: bruises are not "injuries" in a karate club. Anything that bleeds, bones that are broken, joints that are messed up, torn muscles - those are injuries. Bruises are "badges of honor." They are inevitable and cannot be avoided.

When I trained in Japan, I learned that the other members of my club regularly washed their belts. Turns out a lot of the "never wash your belt" stuff is an urban legend that has taken root as dogma. For one, it is my belt, not my instructor's, so whether or not I wash it is my business. There is no reason to not wash it. Just don't wash it in the same load of laundry as your karate uniform or the color will run. There are some good reasons to wash it, I believe. The idea that you allow sweat to build up in something over months of use without washing it is pretty disgusting. I heard all kinds of karate myths here at home that I learned the Japanese were not very militant about - at least they weren't in my karate club in Nagoya. "Don't let your belt touch the floor" was one. There was my instructor and everyone else just throwing their belts on the floor when they changed clothes. I think often we try too hard to be exactly like what we think the Japanese are like, but we're wrong, they are just people, and we end up being a cartoonish representation that is not at all accurate to what they are really like.

I've been hearing that "the hard part starts now" nonsense since 1980. Want to know when the hard part starts? When you get experienced enough that people want you to teach, and you start getting mixed up in politics. Until then, it isn't hard at all. It's just fun. In fact, I would say that from day one my karate training got easier and easier. The hardest day is the first... Except for the 2nd first. If you take any serious time off - like a year or so - and you try to make a comeback, that is going to be the hardest day... or maybe the next day, when you discover all of the injuries and torn muscles.

It is called Hakutsuru Haku = white 白 Tsuru = crane　鶴 白鶴 I believe it originally comes from China - it is "the form" of the White Crane Quan Fa, if I am not mistaken. Most of the Goju stuff is originaly Naha's system of karate. The Shotokan stuff is almost entirely Shorin stuff (heavily Japanified). Shito-Ryu is a cross between the two. Goju style kata that I know of are Seisan Sanchin Seipai Suparinpei Shisochin etc. I've read before that the origin of most of the kata is China - that each of them is the single form that represents a particular system. Since the Chinese weren't too big on sticking to just one system, they tended to have many systems that were deep and narrow. Each one was based on one person's particular fighting ability. Each of the kata in Japanese/Okinawan karate usually could be said to come from the Chinese town across from Okinawa that the Okinawans visited all the time. I've read that the Shorin style kata represent one period of exchange, and the Naha style (Goju) are a more modern version of the Chinese systems.

The numbers, in Japanese... for the curious... 一　いち 二　に 三　さん 四　し 五　ご 六　ろく 七　しち 八　はち 九　く、きゅう 十　じゅう

What does that mean, "attacked you in the street"? You mean challenged me to a duel? Jumped out from behind the ice machine at Circle K and started punching me in the face? Pulled a gun? A knife? Had a gang behind her and started trying to humiliate me knowing that they would rip my arms out if I tried to do anything to her? I can imagine a 100 different scenarios all requiring different responses based on where I am, whether or not I can get away, and what my chances of winning are. My knee-jerk reaction to this question was "There is a woman who can catch me to attack me?" I'm trying to imagine running around a parking lot having trouble getting away from a woman large enough to harm me if she hit me. She'd have to weigh in at 160 pounds or so, I guess, so I'd probably be able to outrun her in quick bursts and lure her away from my Jeep, jump in, and drive off while she sat down and considered taking up an exercise program.

While I was in Japan, I thought they liked kumite better as well. The kumite competition had twice the competitors in all the tournaments I went to, and the kata champion was never the champion of the whole tournament. It was always the kumite champion who got the big cup. So, I disagree that kumite was pushed to the forefront. It was the Japanese who did this to karate when they got it back in the 1920's, because they wanted to learn it before being conscripted and sent off to war.

I find that to be a bit militant. People forget things, and if they are paying me for lessons, denying them the lessons as "punishment" for something that was an accident doesn't teach them anything at all other than to convince them that I am not a balanced person. I personally prefer to train in a t-shirt and shorts without the gi. I find the popping noise that the gi makes causes me to get complacent thinking that my techniques sound and look fast and snappy. I don't mind if a student forgets their stuff. As an instructor, I always kept spare black belts of mine on hand for students to wear when they forgot their belts, and I used to keep spare uniforms in the club too. So, when they forgot, I just let them put on my old, worn-out stuff and roll up the sleeves or whatever and get a workout. I try to remember that I am not Funakoshi and these students are not going off to World War II to fight and die for the Emperor. So, the training really doesn't need to be that militaristic to for them to get the point, imo.

Because most of the kanji, the ideographic characters the Japanese write nouns and the bases of verbs and adjectives with, have two readings. Each of them can be read with a kun-yomi, which is the "rules reading", and an on-yomi, the "sound reading." The kunyomi is the Japanese native way to pronounce the word. The onyomi is what the Japanese think is the original Chinese pronunciation. For example, the character for big is pronounced "oh". If you put the character with another character, it is pronounced "dai." Kunyomi tend to be the stand-alone pronunciation, while onyomi tend to be the combo pronunciation, but this is not always true. You have to learn them one at a time. Where was I? Oh yes, the numbers. So each of the numbers has a similar reading. Number Onyomi Kunyomi 1 ichi hito 2 ni futa 3 san mi 4 shi yo/yon 5 go itsu 6 roku mutsu 7 shichi nana 8 hachi ya 9 ku/kyu kokono 10 ju toh It is true that shi rhymes with death. However, I never heard a Japanese instructor avoid saying "shi" while counting numbers while living in Japan. I think that is a superstition and many Japanese don't care anymore than you care about living on the 13th floor or in the 13th house.

Rather than give you advice I will try to write from my own experience. In the past, I was a hard-nosed, hard-core, bullet head of a trainee. I used to put my entire life, all of my eggs, into the karate basket. I trained morning and night, 6 days a week. I felt as though folks who did less than I was doing were not training enough or trying hard enough. I used to go up to the older guys and other not-so-hard-core "part timers", as I called them, and correct every little thing they did and try to lecture them about how much better they would be if they trained more often and put in more effort. I saw everything from my own perspective. I thought that I knew better than they did about everything, even though they were 20 years older than me. After all, I was the little hot-shot black belt sent by God to show them all how it is done. Fast forward to today - 20 years later. I'm a dad, and karate is somewhere down at the bottom of my top 20 things I need to do every day. I have kids to feed, work to do, I'm trying to finish writing a book, keep up a house, build another house, sell this one, clear out old junk, do the dishes, mow the grass, keep the cars running, and maintain a web site. I have a lot to do. All of this with a kid running around my feet who needs my attention when I am home. So, today, if I walk into a karate class, and there is some young punk in there who thinks that I am not giving enough effort, and that he should try and help me, I'm probably going to politely, as nicely as possible, make it clear to him that I did not hire him as my instructor, and that when I want his help, I will let him know. If the instructor asks me about my level of effort, I might or might not choose to share how many chronic injuries from decades of training I am nursing, and you know? I might just want to go to class to zone out and do something without putting 100% into it. I feel as though it is my business why I am there and what I do when I get there. The rewards are mine to reap, and they are mine to choose. I would feel pretty uncomfortable in a karate training situation where there was a lot of group-think going on where everyone felt responsible for me and wanted to control not only my behavior but my goals and needs. So, when I find myself in the position of being a senior student to someone else, I try to remember that I am not the instructor, and that advice that is not asked for is not help at all, but really insecurity and fear causing a desire to control. I try to suppress this urge and let people get on with their karate. If they want my help, its not like they don't know where to find me.