angus88

LOL! Texas used to have a reputation as having some of the hardest hitters and some of the toughest tournaments in the country. I'm sure the hitters are still there, they just stay away from the tournaments! But honestly, tournaments are all about money now. People won't go if they think they might get hurt - thus the highly watered down version of something that used to be pretty cool. So now, unless you think of karate as a sport, as I've said a million times before, tournaments are utterly useless. And yeah, it stinks when someone gets his jaw broken, but I think suing is the wrong way to go. If the alternative is that crappy olympic style sparring with baseball catcher's equipment on, I'd rather risk the broken jaw.

I don't necessarily think it's all that incredible to have a multi-person kumite, but again, I would like to see what's going on before the fight and what kind of fighting is actually happening. But apart from that, the thing I really find incredible is the 20 or 30 individual full-contact 2 minute fights after a 3 hour belt test. I don't mean to sound like a doubting Thomas, but I'd like to see tape on that one!

Actually, I'd say any dojo with any confidence at all in their fight training would take on people from the outside that came in to the school and wanted to fight. The only thing I'll say about the multi-man kumite and similar type claims is, in my experience they are greatly exagerrated. I'm not saying anybody on this board would do such a thing, certainly not on a martial arts message board...

Baltic - to get 1st Kyu you're fighting 30 fights? I know this might be a stupid question, but is that all in one night? If they're full contact 2-minute fights all in one night, plus kata and everything else you might have to do, even if stretched out to two nights - that's impressive indeed.

You can certainly feel the difference between just standing there and doing a side kick vs using a hip rotation or other form of chambering for your leg, which acts as a kind of wind-up before the kick. Of course the hip rotation could also be a fake roundhouse leading to a side kick. Incidentally, and this is directed to "The Animal" - what do you mean by a TKD kick or a Thai kick?

I also think that video should only be used for review, not for instruction. However, even as a review, I think there are still issues that can easily be corrected with the right videotaping style. For instance, if the person who creates the tape will do a voice-over explaining every single move, what the hidden technique is as opposed to what is being shown, explaining exactly what the target is, etc - taking about 30 minutes, with several different angles to explain a 10 minute kata. In other words, leaving nothing to question. Then you could use the tape and not misunderstand something you think you're seeing, or if the change you make goes against the original intention of a specific move, etc. The problem with that is, the intention of kata and keeping some of the moves vague, is so the karate student can make up his own mind what a particular move is, thus making it come alive for him, and therefore portraying that when exercising it. The way of instruction is changing, and with the internet people are learning through alternate sources rather than a traditional karate school. Whether this is bad or not, only time will tell. Generally speaking, the way the integrity of a system is kept up is through one person teaching another the way they were taught. Books, videos, and the internet go along with the idea of taking a little from every source and then coming up with what works best for you. The systems themselves are lacking when a student is compelled to do that. But what if you don't have access to anything other than some clown at the YMCA that attended 2 years of Rex Kwon Do then started teaching his own brand of "realistic mixed fighting American Korean karate?" Or what if you live in BF Wyoming and 100 miles from the nearest karate school? Ah, too many questions.

Sensei Rick - just curious because my terminology is a little different from yours maybe - but what exactly are "one-steps?"

My experience has shown that typically Goju-Ryu schools chamber at the ribs, while TKD schools chamber at the hip. Personally, I like chambering at the ribs because it gets you in the mindset to get your hands up. And if you've ever taught a new student to fight, dropping their hands and lack of controlled breathing are all too common!

PBI, I think you're explaining youself just fine and I agree with you on all of your points. But I think this is an un-arguable discussion. It all depends on how your dojo is set up. Our dojo is simply not set up for people to "zone-out" and give less than 100%. I don't mean that people are screaming at others that don't go all out - as you said, everybody has a bad day once in a while. The structure of our school just doesn't allow for a casual approach. We don't have a set-up where people train at their leisure. Eventually the people that don't care leave one way or another. If you are part of a similar dojo, when people make claims like that, you probably just scratch your head and wonder whey they don't just join a gym. But the thing is, I would argue that most dojos nowadays allow for the casual student. Thus the watering down of the karate school and black belts in general. Most couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag because they couldn't care less to try!

We use the title Sensei for all black belts at our school. Of course when you think about it, I guess all titles are trivial, but I think they can serve a purpose too. Just like bowing, I think you still need something to remind you that you aren't the center of everyone else's universe. The thing is too, martial arts should be taken seriously. I don't know how serious I would be when I started if I called my instructor "Joe" and we had a beer after class and talked about politics. Know what I mean? Titles can serve as a necessary separation between student and instructor.

I like the following quite a bit - 1. Seikichi Toguchi - Okinawan Goju-Ryu and Okinawan Goju-Ryu II 2. Peter Urban - Karate Dojo 3. Tetsuhiro Hokama - History and Traditions of Okinawan Karate

Yeah, toddler te!

I still say you haven't proved this. I don't doubt that all of those people are good fighters, or that they've been in fights outside of sanctioned competition, but it is impossible to say they are the "best fighters in the world." And yes, I guess it is a little like saying "are NFL players the best football players in the world?" The answer is maybe. There is literally no way to make a claim like that. No way. Impossible. What Tommy P said is correct. Someone is always better. You can only say in their chosen medium, one might be considered best on a ranking system or because of a particular fight, but it's very naive to think that makes them without contention, the best "real fighters" in the world, or in your words as well, "the best fighters in hand to hand weaponless combat in the world." You have no way to prove it.

If you're fast and can make contact that looks effective but don't actually make someone's face red, you'll do fine in a tournament! Seriously though, TKD usually has an advantage in tournaments because they're usually TKD tournaments - not to sound old fashioned, but the kata judging at these things are usually a joke. But that's not what you asked. Fighting guys in tournaments is a mixed bag. You have some schools that only emphasize fighting and others that only emphasize kata, and a rare few that emphasize both. On top of those variables, schools that fight will have different backgrounds with their fighters. Some of these guys will be naturally good, some won't. No one is a machine and no one is an absolute replicant of their art. Some guys that take Goju are naturally good at head kicks, which is typically considered a TKD thing. Some guys are really good at punches, even though they take TKD. Blah blah blah. So after taking the long way around it, it depends on what kind of fighter you are as to how you do. Good luck and watch everybody - no matter what their style is.

That's cool. Don't get me wrong though, I like the idea of team work and all that, and I think it's a good idea to have a sense of responsibility when it comes to your dojo and the other students - to a point. I've seen selfish karateka and usually they're obnoxious blowhards that really won't go very far in karate. But the way I see it, you're learning a way to protect yourself - that's essentially what you're doing. Now keeping "team work" in perspective, let's say a guy you've been training with for two years suddenly misses a month of training. Is your training supposed to stop? If your dojo mate doesn't pay his dues one month do you have to make up the difference? See what I mean? It's all a matter of how far you take a concept. And I definitely think if you're ready for a test and do well, but the other guy chokes and doesn't do well enough to pass, you should pass and the other guy should fail. Because the other side to this is, team work can be a crutch for the weak. Why should you be penalized because the other guy's not prepared? But yeah, I know the type that fails people just to see how they cope - that's a very military way of doing things - not necessarily bad either, but it sounds like you're coping pretty well, so I'm sure you'll do fine next time.

I think the key word there is "not usually covered." I think if there was a subject our system didn't have that I thought it needed, I would add it to the curriculum as opposed to having someone from the outside come in and give their take on it. To me, if a school needs seminars to help "complete" it, the school needs more than what it currently offers. The thing is, what you're suggesting happens all the time - offers for seminars. But instead of being threatened by them, they should simply serve as a wake up call to school owners that offer less than complete systems for their students.

I recommend your Sensei read the book "Anthem" by Ayn Rand. Just kidding. But honestly, that's a little extreme to say you can't get anywhere without the help of others. Karate is not a team sport (or hobby, or whatever you call it for yourself.) One man's failure in karate has nothing to do with you whatsoever. As a friend and dojo-mate, you might like to help each other out, but by no means should that be a requirement of any kind. Just my opinion though. If you were in the military or training for the police or to be firemen, I could understand his point. Barring that, I think he's wrong.

Can you qualify that?

I think the relevant question is how often your school conducts tests. If your school has a belt test once a month whether you've got people ready to test or not, then yeah, you've got a valid point. In that case a certain percentage should fail because nobody is always ready to test every month. And if you pass a test when you're not ready, that doesn't say much about your school. But, however, if you only test a student when you know he is ready, the testing becomes almost a formality. They probably won't fail because they are truly ready. That doesn't guarantee anything, but it makes the ratio from pass to fail much higher.

Hobbes - I like your points 1 and 3. But I have a different opinion on your #2. Your point in that one seems to be that pacing yourself will make you sloppy, or your delivery won't be as good as it would be otherwise. Break that down - if I do a kick one time really well, does that mean I shouldn't bother to do two? If I know I'm going to kick a second time, does that automatically negate both kicks because odds are, they won't be as effective as if I just kicked once? The thing about it is, even with perfect kicks, if you want to be in "fighting" shape, you shouldn't be exhausted after 20 kicks. And I'm not saying this because on the street you'll have to do over 20 kicks, but because there's a practical side to being able to do more than you need. In other words, if you can build yourself up to where doing 20 kicks is no big deal, if you needed to throw 5 kicks, they're probably going to be very good kicks. If your body can only handle 10 good kicks before collapse, you better hope all your fights are very short! If 20 kicks is wearing you out, how are you after the first minute in a two-minute fight? See my point? And while people might be prone to pacing themselves during a routine (or saving themselves), that's not a reason to avoid drills. The students should be encouraged to give everything they've got with every punch and kick - not to pace themselves. It's their skill they're working on after all, so it's kind of up to them to maximize everything. If you just accept the fact that a student is going to be lazy and cut certain things out, you're catering to their laziness. That's not good for them or your school. To answer your question, the objective of training is to become a better martial artist - which onbviously means different things to different people. But in my opinion, martial artist training requires both aerobic conditioning as well as explosive technique delivery, to use your words. And to use your runner analogy, fighting can be both a sprint and a marathon, depends on the fight. Best to train for both.

Tradition and history tells us that a "hardened" body can withstand more body shots than someone with a "soft" body. Karate practitioners have been conditioning their minds and body for as long as there have been martial arts. Why would that suddenly become irrelevant? Ripper's point of no reason for body conditioning is correct in terms of modern day karate, since it has more to do with light to non-contact karate as sport doing, at most, point sparring. However, if you are taking full-contact (as much as that can mean these days) karate and view it as a way of life, etc. you're better to do it like the old masters did it, within reason of course. Not too many people have the time to train for 5 hours or longer a day, but the philosophies are basically the same. I believe that if you are pre-disposed to getting arthritis, you'll get arthritis. There's been enough non-karate old people that have gotten arthritis to prove that. Consequently there's been enough karate people that grew old without arthritis to prove that hitting a makiwara half your life will not doom you to health problems. No more than any other physical activity. You hit the makiwara because you want good-sized knuckles that can deliver a powerful strike without breaking your own hand. You condition the rest of your body because when you fight, you know you're going to get hit. Superfoot is exactly right about the "fear" element. I don't care what anybody says, there has to be a reason people get over their fears. It doesn't just happen. A kid learns that getting his wind taken is no big deal once his wind is taken. While you're conditioning your body, your mind gets over the fear. Sparring becomes another way of conditioning your body. You take enough punches or kicks to the ribs, your body becomes conditioned to take them. They hurt less. Your face is the same way. And all that stuff about shime during Sanchin - many Goju schools still practice this in the traditional way - with hands, not 2X4's! This tests your technique. Because, like sparring, you should be able to demonstrate technique with the knowledge that you will get hit. That's what body conditioning is all about.

If your argument is about consistency, that's always been a problem in tournaments. There is so much politics judging tournaments it's not even worth going, but if you must go, you have to gain the respect of the judges first, which takes time. A lot of people do this by knocking out their opponents in the ring right off the bat knowing they'll get disqualified (at least that's how it used to be done.) Once you've done this for a few tournaments, the judges might start taking you seriously. It's a stupid thing to have to do, but that's kind of the way it's always been. But this might also be a factor os why there's so few "open" tournaments nowadays too. Anyway, the whole tournament scene is so bad now it's barely worth talking about. As for the other stuff you mentioned, for free-style sparring we use head gear (optional for adult high ranks), hands and feet pads, cup for the guys, and optional shin guards. With all those pads on, there's no reason to go light unless you're just getting started. And with all the pads we use this might sound hypocritical, but I think chest protectors and face guards are completely unnecessary and have the potential to hurt your blocking techniques. Why block your face if you know you're not going to feel it anyway?

There's a big difference between an offense like accidental face contact (assuming your 8-year olds aren't allowed to do face contact) and slamming somebody's head to the floor. And maybe it just sounds worse than it really was, but it sounds pretty bad. I guess the point is, none of us would know exactly what we'd do unless we were right there and saw it played out in front of us and had to make that decision right there on the spot. But really good food for thought AikiGuy - it could happen to anybody running a class.

You're downfall might be your method of practicing or training, but I don't know what your regiment or methods of training are, so I'll just speculate by your list of injuries and your pride in them. I just don't know if I'd use losing an eye or cutting my face up with a machete as a badge of honor with weapons usage. But to answer your question, we use real weapons at our school and wouldn't even think of using fake ones. Accidents happen during training, be it with weapons or just standard martial arts - that's just part of training. But personally I've never known even one of our students to lose an eye or get their face slashed during weapons training. Maybe we're just more careful... A little off topic, but that's a good reason why low ranks shouldn't work with weapons. The weapon is supposed to be an extension of your body - if you can't work you body yet, how proficient are you going to be with a weapon? You might lose an eye figuring that one out. But hopefully not! To use real or fake weapons though, I'd argue it from this angle: when are you good enough to use real ones? When you've had three years practice? When you can do the weapons kata in your sleep? If I wanted to learn how to shoot a gun I wouldn't practice with a toy - I'd learn the safety of a real one and then carefully practice with it. Same with martial arts weapons. If you're stupid enough to start slinging around kamas without regard to safety or experience - you've earned whatever happens to you.

That kid's got serious issues if he's prone to doing something like that in a controlled environment. If I had've seen that, (I would like to think that) I would've immediately taken him into the office - no punishment, no yelling, but immediate dismissal from the school. I would've explained to him and his parents exactly why and then he would've been gone. Then for damage control I'd pull the injured kid in the office next and explain to him that something like never should've happened and play it by ear after that. The kid's going to have to deal with psychotics in his life, but he shouldn't have to deal with that in the dojo. It's a good question though - one that I'm a little surprised doesn't come up with more often. At our school we sometimes get kids with emotional problems that their parents think karate can fix. Sometimes they're right and karate really helps them, but if the kid is that far gone, he'd be nothing but a hindrance to the rest of the class. It's not worth it to your school to lose all your students because of one student.