Zaine

I agree with this. Something that I tell my child often is that she does not have to apologize for not knowing something. It is enough that she seeks the knowledge. As for completeness, to again echo Bob I think it's a folly to chase it. A complete system would be the only system. There would be no need for others. We would learn Karate, with a capital K, and EVERYONE interested in karate would learn Karate. For me, however, that doesn't work. I don't want to learn every system out there. As far as karate goes, I've stuck to Okinawan styles because they fit my personal martial arts philosophy more than mainland karate does. Nothing at all against mainland styles, I think they're awesome, I just prefer Okinawan styles. Similarly, I prefer Longfist to Wushu. Fiore to Meyer. Nothing against those style, I just like to play to what my body does a little better. This is the crux of completeness for me. There are 7.6 billion people in the world and we're all different. Some of us are short, some tall. Some portly, some lithe. The myriad of systems allows someone interested in martial arts to find something that works best for them. They don't have to be complete, they have to be effective. As Bob is fond of saying, the proof is on the floor.

Congrats! Well deserved!

Now that's an extreme circumstance! If you've got one loaded, that is....I believe it was Matsumura "Bushi" Sokon who said "an effective karateka always keeps one loaded."

I like your point here. I think most religious organizations, regardless of what their particulars are, believe in some sort of connection between taking care of the gifts that we are given. I can say with certainty that the major world religions do, at the very least. If our bodies and our time here is a gift, then we we should take steps to care for these things and keep them healthy. That's some good perspective you're bringing to the MA scene in your area.

Welcome to KF! It's great to have you!

That was more info than I expected and I love it! Thanks for explaining that to me in such depth. When I googled it I didn't get any results so I wasn't sure what to think about it. I thought that it might be a weapon of some sort. I looked around and asked a few people but couldn't find anything other than a couple of people offering to build one for me, which is great for me but doesn't help you. I'll keep an eye out for you, though.

What is a kamidana?

My suggestion, and I am not a doctor, would be the same as your doctor. I know that half squats might seem like they aren't doing anything, but the point isn't that you shouldn't go full squat, the point is that it moves in general. In a half squat, you're still getting flexion in the knee. You're still using it and making it move. When we injure ourselves, the best way to get back to 100% is to lightly begin moving the injured part and slowly increase the stress we put on it. Maybe your knee will never be 100% again, but starting with half squats and slowly, safely increasing the deepness or length of your squat is the best way to regain strength in that area. As always, make sure you talk to and heed the advice of your doctors or physical therapists. None of us here (to my knowledge) are doctors so our advice isn't backed by years of study. If you're unsure that your doctor is giving you the best information, seek a second opinion at a PT.

I'm glad you caught that earlier rather than later! Dehydration is no joke, I've seen people hospitalized over it (in that case, however, they were dehydrated because instead of water that almost exclusively drank Coca-Cola. In another case their drink of choice was SlimFast). Something that I do when I exercise, especially when I know it will be rigorous and ESPECIALLY when I do it outside in the Texas heat, is that make sure I hydrate a lot before I go to workout. I have found that prehydration is great prevention.

That's an excellent point and I don't want to take away from the good, real self-defense discussion. However, I recently saw a video on this topic where the person suggesting just pooping yourself. It was a joke but, I mean, would you want to hold on to someone that had just pooped themselves? Seems pretty effective to me.

I don't know if this is just my perception because of where I live, but it feels like most of the ones I encounter are faith-based in some form. When I was looking for a new dojo earlier this year, 3 of the 4 that I considered where faith-based. I ended up choosing the one that wasn't because it had the most similarities with what I already knew. I think more-and-more faith-driven people are realizing the similarities in the discipline that is typically called for in both martial arts and having faith and are therefore coming to martial arts with the goal of incorporating that devotion into their lives.

Congrats!

Congrats Rusty!

This one was for Shobayashi and Shudokan.

I believe Kise split the kata in to two different ones and called them the Matsumura bo series, which would explain why you have a different Matsumura Bo Shodan than us Americans. I find that MSSR in the Kise line (which turned in to Kenshin Kan) is a little different sometimes. Similar, to be sure, but it's clear that Kise made some changes overall to MSSR and felt that it was enough to base a new system off of.

I don't know how I missed this but yes, I'm familiar. It's a Matsumura Seito Shorin Ryu Kata. The second half of the video is Matsumura Bo Shodan, first half is Matsumura Bo Nidan. Matsumura Bo Shodan is learned around 6th kyu and Nidan is learned after you become a Shodan. They're very straight forward kata, with Shodan being mostly the same 6 techniques in 4 directions. They're meant to get you comfortable with handling a bo.

This is an interesting problem. On the one hand, I think the people that you're going to get the most response out of here, like myself and Bob, are Shodan and above. We've been doing this a long time and I find that the longer you do MA the less rank actually matters. As long as we're still learning, we're fine. However, the therapist in me knows that in everyone's head is a little grackle shouting for shiny things. We like to see our progress and have physical reminders that we are growing. We never really grow out of that child-like desire to see our progress charted out so that we have distinct points that we can look back on and know, really know that we've changed. Obviously the belt system creates challenges of its own. As Bob pointed out, the emotional high of getting new belts can cause some students to get on the floor simply to get the new shiny belt. I think that we all go through that as martial artists. The silver lining of that mentality is that sometimes getting in the dojo simply to rank up is sometimes what keeps us there. In my youth, there were times that I went because I was committed to another stripe on my belt despite not wanting to go for whatever reason and after awhile the love of it came back and I went because I wanted to be better. Long story short, is their sufficient interest in karate to do away with belts? Maybe, I would certainly like to believe that is the case. My guess, however, is that the people who align with me are mostly martial artists who have been doing it for one of more decades and have stuck with it out of love for the art.

Ironically enough, once martial artists get to the point where the focus shifts to learning for the sake of learning they find that the belts come much easier and faster. Focusing on being the best learner you can be often means that you're proficiency becomes greater than if you were trying to just jam the information in to meet the testing requirements.

I ended up talking to my current dojo about it and they do hold that we learn two separate systems and our tests are for both. So the sensei that I work the most with, for example, is a Nidan in Shobayashi and Shudokan. I didn't reach out to my original instructor because doing so sounded like a bad time.

I find that sometimes motivation comes in waves. You will have months were the only thing you can think of is the next time that you're going to be in the dojo and then maybe some months that if will feel like a slog. It's just like anything we love to do, sometimes it waxes and wans. The important thing to do is remember this feeling. Remember what it is like to be head over heels so that when you feel cooler on it you know that you will shortly fall back in love.

Unfortunately the only thing that comes up when I Googled it is your reddit post. The kata itself is very reminiscent of Pinan, Passai, and Naihanchi. My guess is that it did not come from Shotokan. The more I dug in, the more I became convinced of a couple of possibilities. The first is that this is a kata that your sensei, or their sensei, created themselves. It has a very kung fu flair to it, so it's possible that they saw a kung fu form and translated it in some way. The second is that this is from some form of kempo, which might be the case if you picked it up from a tournament. The only issue there is that I can't find a version of kempo that does a kata with that name. That said, there aren't a small amount of kempo styles. Finally, the Sanjutei kata is an evolution or mix of 1 or more kata and this is the end result. It was done by a small number of schools and therefore hasn't made it to an online space as of yet. While continuing your search, it might be worth it to look at Wing Chun or Shaolin forms to see if it was something a Shotokan teacher brought over. I looked through the Kempo stuff I could find and didn't see anything familiar. Good luck.

The first thing I said to one of the sensei was that now he can teach me more stuff.

Last night I got surprised with a 6th kyu test from 10th kyu. It was nice! I've been putting in the work but I didn't expect a test so soon, especially a test that skipped so many ranks. Now I just have to break in this new belt.

Realistically, all you need is the space. If you have some money, striking pads, shields, and loaner mitts would be ideal. When I started karate in '02 my teacher was new to teaching and didn't have anything built up for it. He used the dues he got from us to buy pads and mitts. Eventually, he got enough students to rent out a space at an MMA gym that allowed us to use their bags, bobs, and the like.

I'll have you know that I insist that all street fights I'm in are barefoot. I stop the whole confrontation and have all participants take their shoes off.