Zaine

100% okay with it. Different perspectives are really important and I love branching out and learning from other people. Especially style-agnostic orgs. I think that Martial Arts flourishes when we can get together, organized or not, and share our techniques and grow. Wastelander is right, however, that some schools might not like for you to do that. Personally, I find required loyalty to be a crutch. I generally don't seek others with the intention of moving on, but with the hope to learn more and make myself better. I was lucky in my initial school because my teacher was perfectly fine with us looking in to organizations and he allied himself with a few different schools to create a network. That was a lot of fun because it allowed us to duck in to these other classes (with permission and advance notice) and learn some different things.

Was it ever! I wish I could have stayed. 5k this morning. 28 minutes, so a pretty average time for me. I've been biking mostly this year, so I hit peak a lot longer than I would have like, but it was still a refreshing run. I usually don't work out on Fridays, but I woke up early and felt like a jog before my work day began.

We practiced finger strikes in theory, but never in sparring. Some of our kata (sesain, anansu, passai sho) had finger strikes so starting at 3rd kyu you were expected to do push ups using your fingers. We also his a makiwara board with our fingers but otherwise it never came up. When I left that school, I stopped the conditioning. I'm sure there are situations that I could use them in, but overall it would not be my default, nor do I want it to be.

I did! Thank you for the information, I didn't know that. I thought the two were 1-to-1. This is interesting, I didn't learn it with a hand held close to the body. In the version I learned, the hand is held midway on the other arm (close to inside of the elbow) as a way to load up the next redirection.

In Pinan/Heihan 1, after the first set of moves (to the left and the right), you take 3 steps forward. How was the bunkai explained to you? Lately, I've been going through the bunkai that I know to find the other applications and I'm curious as to what the people here who have learned the kata were taught. I was taught that they were subtle redirects of punches. Subtly moving a punch out of the way to open up the opponents body. Lately, however, I've been thinking about what this movement would look like if applied as a strike to different parts of the body. I look forward to seeing what y'all think?

Congrats!

Congrats! That's great to hear!

Good luck! Can't wait to hear about how you progress!

I'm definitely not an expert but I think its probably not ADHD. We have 3 we ADHD diagnoses and it's very different from each of them. She just doesn't want to be there. It could still be ADHD; it's a spectrum. That said, it's probably a moot point one way or the other. At the end of the day she doesn't want to be there and it's becoming a distraction.

I just got back from a two day trip to the Ozarks in what was essentially 2 days of non-stop hiking through the mountains. It was altogether refreshing, invigorating, and exhausting. During that time, My mother and I also got a lot of karate training in. It's been awhile since I have been able to have all that space and a kata partner. It was just what I needed.

But why is that a bad thing?

But shouldn't Karate continue to evolve? Karate began as a way to defend one's self. In that vein, the "old karate masters" created systems that work for them. It made sense to them to do things a certain way because it worked and continued to mold their art to fit what they needed. Why shouldn't we do the same? Tradition is great, but I think that if presented with the same conundrum, these same masters would absolutely incorporate ground work if they felt it necessary. Also, does the grappling in a Karate system have to be as good as BJJ? The inverse of this is that a BJJ teaching strikes wouldn't be as good. These, however, are just assumptions. They could be just as good. Splitting focuses don't necessarily mean that both suffer. At its core, a lot of what Karate is about is self defense. If, for whatever reason, I am involved in a street fight and it goes to the ground, then ground fighting will come in handy. It doesn't have to be as good as BJJ, it just has to be enough to get me out of the situation. If the best way to defend myself becomes turning my art into something that resembles MMA, then so be it. I think that our attachment to the tradition of our arts holds us back more than we think.

She might just have ADHD. My ADHD made me act similarly and my mother had a similar policy about being in it for a certain amount of time. I ended up where I am now, 19 years later and still obsessed.

My teacher in Shorin Ryu did this. Of all the things that he added, this was my favorite. I 100% agree that grappling should be worked in to Karate. When I eventually get around to teaching MA it will 100% be a part of my program.

We all have those days, but you're right. All we can do is take a breath and keep moving.

Congrats Mo!

Yeah I think Bushido has it here. My guess is that Bobby wanted to do it and the parents put Jane in there out of convenience.

No I trained in Arlington. I have actually been looking at OKCD since my CI doesn't teach anymore and I recently moved back to the area. Did you have a good experience there?

More than that, Seisan can be wildly different in different branches of Shorin Ryu. Shorinji does is a little differently from Shobayashi. The best way outside of YouTube would be to get a bunch of people together and have some good old fashioned work shops. I actually think that this would be a really cool and fun idea.

That's awesome! It must feel like a huge relief to be around people and train again. Good luck on your test, I can't wait to hear how you did!

So if you're at the point where you want to teach Karate and you feel the need to have a black belt to do so, I see basically two paths for you. You can A) Find a system that you like and train there regardless of how effective you feel the instructor is; or B) Find an instructor that you like and if it's a system you like, great, if not, oh well. I can tell you're someone who doesn't like the idea of BB emporiums, so I imagine that you're struggling with the latter option. My 2 cents is this: If you want to teach karate, and you feel that you are in a position to do so, then teach it. Label it some generic karate (like American Karate-do), and find some students who vibe with the way that you want to teach it. If people can teach MMA without any traditional MA training, then I don't really see a reason that you can't take up the teacher roll as well. I, too, got in to MA initially because I wanted to learn defense. I eventually fell in love with kata, and the other parts of the system as well, but, like you, my milestone for a solid black belt was, and in part remains, founded in being able to defend oneself. So I agree with you there. To me, a lot of MA value for myself comes in my ability to fight. With a traditional classroom structure, I think that you're going to struggle finding that. Schools that do so without focusing on MMA tend to struggle a little bit. Teachers, especially of MA, have to cast a wide net so that they can stay in business. Furthermore, they can't ignore the business aspects of their dojos. It's a hit we take to continue operation. Sometimes we don't get to focus as much on what we think is the reason for the art itself. This isn't a criticism of what you want to do in any way. I like the idea of an art that is combat based and focused. This is all just to say that compromise is necessary and I don't want you to have your passion dulled by some necessity of life.

HEMA does! Paulus Hector Mair wrote a treatise on how to use the sycthe in combat. Check out this Wiktenauer page for the details. As far as history goes, scythes were typically used as weapons in peasant uprisings. The English used it in 1684, when a Duke fielded roughly 5000 peasants in the Battle of Sedgemoor. In 1784 again peasants used them in the Revolt of Horea in Transylvania. In general, as you might guess, scythes were weapons used by peasants and anyone who couldn't afford weapons that we might typically see on a battlefield from the Medieval period onward. As such, Paulus is a weird exception to the rule that most fighting manuscripts dealt with weapons that one might see in a tournament of arms. Aside from this, you would have to look at the kama for Eastern Martial Arts. I'm not aware, nor could I find, any information that suggests that Eastern Martial Arts cares about the two handed scythe. Furthermore, I couldn't find any information on a system that currently practices with it a lot. Even within HEMA you would struggle to find someone who is using a sycthe, it's a hard weapon to manufacture a safe, trainer version of.

I don't have a lot of experience with accreditation and schools that partner with one another, but I'd have to imagine that it would vary with each school, even among the schools within the accredited network. Like you, though, I don't have an issue testing remotely. As a personal preference, I like to do so in person, but if virtual is what I have then I'm just as happy. MA is MA, and I'm happy to continue learning one way or the other.

I totally get it, and to your point, I actually really like virtual programs. It is my very firm belief that MA schools should use the pandemic as a means to start doing virtual classes. I would love to see Zoom class options, videos, online cirricula, the whole 9 yards. I've heard good things about GMAU certified courses, so I would definitely start there.

I haven't heard of that. At its core, I don't think it's the worst method in the world. The issue you're going to run in to is that this is a very "hardcore" method of training. A part of teaching in general is being flexible in the way you teach. With things like karate, a largely recreational activity, there are a good amount of people who are signing up for fitness, or a reason to get out of the house, or because a friend is doing, and the list goes on. For that group, that way of training isn't going to work. Human behavior loves milestones, which a belt system gives, it loves goals, which a curriculum sets, and it loves seeing quantifiable change. The method of your teacher can only realistically offer the last and only barely. If your goal is to be a teacher, then I suggest, on top of training with this teacher, start going to a traditional dojo who is going to give that pedagogy to you.