angus88

Not too "old of times" - at least in karate. Miyagi never gave anybody a black belt and didn't personally wear one himself, although he had one that was a gift from a student. And the people I know that trained in Okinawa in the 50's weren't handed their black belts - they tested. But that's nitpicking the point isn't it? Actually I'm with Gen_Tora on this one. And this is one of the most difficult things an instructor can deal with - the "student with a heart of gold that just can't grasp karate but tries." One thing I'd be curious to know if - how does this guy spar after 10 years of not being able to punch or kick well? But the fact is, this whole thing just doesn't sit well with me. I believe you that the guy has spirit, etc., but you can't give a guy a black belt just because of longevity. I mean, really, after 10 years, is he really trying to learn or is he just playing around? I've seen guys that looked like homeless people come in and after about 6 months they either keep up or they are "persuaded" to leave and try something else. I've modified self-defense moves for people with physical disabilities, but kata is kata, sparring is sparring, what else can you do - pretend someone is capable of defending themselves when they clearly can't? Now you're just ripping off the student and diluting your own system at the same time. If they can't do it, they shouldn't have the rank. It's not fair to the people that don't have the physical disabilities. Something like this guy should have been nipped in the bud about 9 1/2 years ago. By now I'd say the guy is as good as he's probably ever going to be. And if you want this guy to be presented as a black belt in your school then you have every prerogative. Personally I wouldn't, but I guess I'm kind of hard hearted about it too. Karate welfare is a bad, bad trend. Sorry for the rant.

I share your passion, but training is training. You can't train with people and "annihilate" your training partner every time you're going through a drill. I may be misunderstanding you, but everyone pulls their punches to an extent when they're training - you have to. Otherwise I guess your students must frequently miss class for months at a time waiting for their bones to heal. Nothing wrong with full contact, even in the old school sense of the word, but I'd love to see the dojo that goes full force kicking to someone's knee joint or literally breaking someone's wrist in a wrist lock every time it's demonstrated. Because if you aren't doing these things, you're pulling your punches. But that's necessary to training as well - without control you're not learning karate. But I like the phrase "fight like you train". If you practice like you mean it, when you have to put it to actual use, you're less likely to hesitate. And if you practice your techniques hard, your fighting will relect that.

I believe it's going to get a whole lot worse before it ever gets better. It's easy to blame it all on money, but that's what I choose. There's much more money in pandering to six year olds than teaching karate. Adults don't care about learning how to fight - they want a gym that gives them self-esteem. Most dojos have become day care centers and tournaments are just excuses for "organizations" to give away plastic trophies for their overcharged students. The good thing is, if you stay away from the tournaments - there's still some good schools out there; they just stay out of the tournament circuit for the same things you witnessed when you went!

I have a few 100 pounders that occassionally get bottom heavy. First thing - don't keep it up all the time. Take it down when it's not in use - and rotate whether it's right-side up or upside-down when you store it. This will help keep it even. To fix your current bag, try taking the bag down - roll it around on the floor and work out the settling by stomping on the clumps. This works pretty well for my bags. As for the swing - you won't get as much swing with a 100 lb bag, but you should get some. I like the swing personally, it helps with bobbing and weaving.

1. How often do you spar in your dojo? 2. Is it point fighting or free-style? 3. How many fights do you have in a night of sparring at your dojo? If you're going to be fighting a lot between now and then, you have plenty of time to get down a few choice combinations - enough to make a good showing at a tournament anyway. The more you fight, the better you get - simple as that.

We use them to do two-minute drills in pairs, full-contact - hands, feet, and elbows, depending on the specific drill and depending on the kinds of pads. We set up "stations" and pair up. Each station uses a different type of pad, which has a certain function, target and technique(s) to be used, 2 minutes at each station, then rotate. It's a great cardio workout and perfect for full-contact training. It's one of the best tools for getting yourself in "fighting" shape in my opinion.

I think now we're just talking semantics. I agree there should be no fear of losing and there is certainly no shame in losing a fight. I think it's the concept of "try to lose" that I resist out of principle - not fear. I say get the terms "winning" and "losing" out of your head completely and just work on getting better at fighting. I don't think your point is that different from mine - but "try to lose" is a catch phrase that can certainly be misconstrued. But it's attention grabbing - I get it. And yeah, I know we're essentially talking about point fighting at tournaments and there are different things to consider there. I've never put much stock in point fighting because of issues irrelevant to this thread - but I understand that's where this is coming from. The most valuable thing I ever did in regards to fighting (again, I'm talking free-style full contact sparring) was calm down and fix one thing at a time. In other words, don't get in such a rush to be a perfect fighter. Even the best fighters in the world learn something when they fight.

In my experience, this is something that just happens when a club gets to a certain size. Unless you've got one guy, and only one guy, that's totally in charge and can approve a change in philosophy or nix it on the spot - you're subject to cliques and their whims - be they good or bad. Once the changes are in place, I say give it a few months - if after that you hate it, in most cities there's a dojo on every corner. There's bound to be one you like.

I like the reasoning (limit your choices in the ring) - but I think this is better addressed in #3. I think it's an absolutely terrible idea to practice a bad habit with the idea that you'll correct it later when you get comfortable. Don't practice unbalanced. The main thing here is you don't want your opponent to set up on you. If you wait for him, you're giving him more of a chance. Plus, you get a good feel for what works and what doesn't. Absolutely. Do this instead of #1. This piece of advice I'm half and half on. I think you should get used to the idea that you're going to get hit and yes, you may certainly lose. But don't set out in practice to lose. Besides, how do you "try to lose?" Sit and watch your opponent score on you? No, the thing is, you practice your set techniques - you don't hesitate, you commit to everything you do - and if you win you win, if you lose you lose. Get winning and losing right out of your mind. You practice fight in your dojo - even if you "lose", you're picking up on techniques that the other guy is throwing and figuring out what works for you. But again, I go back to what I said before - there shouldn't be such a high emphasis on "winning" and "losing" when it comes to low ranks fighting high ranks. That may be a big part of your problem.

I've never felt the need to create my own style - the one I take is rich enough for me to learn stuff for a very long time and is a very thorough system. That said, if after taking a style through it's completion (in other words, a very long time) I felt like I could create something better than what I took and what's out there - I wouldn't hesitate. Out of respect for my own system's founder, I would think long and hard about doing that before actually taking the plunge, but I guess it's a matter of personal experience. But certainly there's nothing wrong with starting your own style - people have been doing it in Asia since martial arts began!

It wouldn't really surprise me if a Kung Fu school started incorporating some grappling - since that's what a lot of people are into nowadays. For that matter they'd probably tell you that whether they were or not, just to sign up another student! As for your concern about the arrogant instructor - that too is pretty much the norm from what I've seen. For me, when I check out other schools, pretty much everything they tell me goes in one ear and out the other - I just want to watch his students and see what they're doing. That's only thing that won't lie - if they impress you, it's probably an impressive school. And I know this is a little off topic, but my personal favorite line when asking another school's head about sparring - "our moves are so deadly we can't free-style spar because we'd kill each other!"

Just out of curiosity - how well do you think you should be doing against the high ranks? What would that say about your school if you, a low rank, were beating up advanced ranks? You're probably right where you should be, but it sounds like you're worried about it. This tells me one major thing: you're probably wound up tighter than a drum when you're fighting - RELAX and have fun. Being relaxed when you fight will help you immensely.

I guess it depends on your age. Most people that were alive in the 50's still say "Oriental" but I don't think they necessarily consider it an offensive term to them - they have plenty of other words for "Asian" as a race if they want to be derogatory. I just look at the term "Asian" as a preference - but also as a reference to original ancestry, it makes more sense. Once people are made aware of the preference, I think most people are polite enough to comply with that.

Wow. I have no idea what you just said. But after spending way too much time trying to decipher your post, I guess you think martial arts would be misrepresented in your school and might misrepresent the person taking it. Am I close? I think kids should have the option of taking martial arts in school. What's the worst thing that could happen? They actually beat each other up with technique instead of rolling around on the floor? But alluding to something saintboxcutter said, I have serious doubts that it would cause people to go around picking fights. If anything, they'd show more restraint because they know what they can do. And as for people "not respecting the art" - kids don't respect anything as it is - martial arts probably wouldn't be any different. But it would set up the framework for respect. And that's good enough!

It seems like there's several discussions going on in one thread. Are women capable of being good instructors? Why are there so few? Can women fight like men? Are women better at kata than men? What about women owners? And everyone, of course, knows an exception to every rule which then dictate their opinion. I think it should be obvious that women can and are frequently instructors. We have a few and they're very good. But let's not kid ourselves, the martial arts world is traditionally a very sexist one. Martial arts are about fighting - sugar coat it all you want that it's not - but it is. Even as martial arts become daycares and sporting events, the bottom line is still fighting. Everything else simply makes you a better fighter (inner peace, calmness, technique, etc.) And men serious about learning how to fight just won't take at a school run by women. But spare me the exceptions - I know everybody "would and has taken by a female that's as tough as any man." Fine - you're not a sexist - it's the rest of the people out there, not you. But that's okay - men that are serious about fighting are more and more a rarity anyway. This is why people serious about fighting are gravitating away from Karate schools and over to MMA schools. Some call this the "wussification of present day martial arts." There are exceptions to this rule, as always, but that's the trend. The fact is, martial arts schools are geared much more towards kids now - that's where all the money is - and I'm sure Susie Soccer-Mom would much rather drop her kid off at "martial arts daycare" with a woman in charge than a man anyway. Times have changed. Deal with it!

I'm guessing 35 may include some very short homemade kata. With that in mind, 35 isn't so hard to believe. Not that there's anything wrong with homemade kata, which can really add value to the system itself - in fact, all the old masters encouraged this kind of thing so karate would remain relevant. But if this guy comes out with a list of 23 kata that nobody's ever heard of and 12 classic kata, the list itself won't mean that much. But sure, list them anyway.

Not every school is like this at all. In fact, with many schools you have several more kata to learn after getting your black belt. You're right that a lot of the tuite in those early kata will be more apparent to a black belt, and obviously all the kyu rank kata should be done perfectly by the time you're a black belt. There also may be standards for getting Dan ranks. It's not completely uncommon to have to have 2 years betwen 1st and 2nd Dan, then 5 years betwen 3rd and 4th, etc. Assuming you're 18 when you get your black belt, and if that particular kata is a high ranking black belt kata, it might be a while before you learn it. Don't stress about it. You'll get there as long barring any major injuries and you don't quit.

LMAO Yep - that's pretty pathetic. But I'd say from some of the stuff I've seen, this problem is not completely owned by the ATA. And I know this thread isn't for bashing light to no-contact sparring practices, but the way I see it, non-contact martial arts will only get you hurt when you try to actually use it. I understand light contact for gold belts, but come on...

I'm not 100% sure of what you're asking. It seems to me that if you open up your own school, make it a good one that lasts a number of years and gains your school and consequently, name, a reputation, then if you decide to franchise out your school, you might have some takers. The question you have yo ask yourself as a business owner is, what would make you invest in a franchise?

I know - I really wanted to like it though, honestly...

The moves in Sanchin are not that difficult to learn, but getting the stances and breathing down perfectly is not always easy for a beginner. And of course the other part of Sanchin is taking hard strikes. I don't want to presume anything, but that might not be too easy either. You have to really lose yourself in Sanchin to do it correctly, and most people don't have that kind of discipline right away. This is why at our school it's become a mid-to-high level kata. As to more than one version, it depends on who you talk to!

Sanchin huh? That's a little surprising. My personal favorite kata, but the problem is, most tournaments are Tae Kwon Do, so the judges are looking for high kicks and flash. It'll probably look good for a White Belt to do it though. Still, have fun and don't worry about anything. There's so much politics involved in tournaments it's pathetic, so as others are saying, keep your expectations very low!

LOL! Yeah, I don't guess I do either! But yeah, I'd have to say that balance is the key to everything (is that oversimplifying?) MOST things probably have some kind of relevance to them, but sometimes people get fixated on the aesthetics rather than the original intention. In breaking I'd say that's what spacers are all about. It gives the impression to someone who doesn't know any better that you can really break 15 boards, or whatever. Karate is still a business and people are always going to do different things to get people excited about karate. It's hard for me to fault them for that! I just don't understand why a person would want to work out that way when they're not on public display...

This is from - http://home.earthlink.net/~gojusandan/ "...he made several changes to differentiate himself from the Japanese Goju-Ryu systems. The most prominent one being the change from white to black gi’s (uniforms). He also “lined-up” his class in the opposite direction of the Japanese. When facing the class, the higher ranks line-up to Master Urban's right. The Japanese high ranks line-up to the left. Master Urban also added katas (forms) of his own, and truly made his system a style unto itself, combining the Butokukai style of Master Kim and the Kyokushinkai style of Master Oyama, along with the Japanese/Okinawan style of Goju-Ryu from Master Yamaguchi into what we now know as U.S.A. GOJU." Take from it what you want. I've heard enough about Peter Urban that I think what he did, ultimately, was make it acceptable for non-Asians to open up martial arts schools in America. Through his books, he established what would be the pattern for early karate founders in America. If you ever talk to a "founder" of a system, he should be able to tell you the difference in his system from that in which it was based. Again, USA Goju is still Goju, and depending on the founder, there will be changes made.

For one thing, I agree with you - breaking is about proper technique and focus. Breaking more than one thing at a time simply tests your power along with the technique and focus. But make no mistake, you have to have more focus to break three boards than just one, or a cinder block vs one board. In fact, I'd venture to say most people, even a kid, could break one board with their fist and use terrible form. For brick breaking, if you work your knuckles enough, you can break it with a downward punch in addition to a palm heel strike. And as for someone laying in front of you - yeah, you probably won't be punching a body at that particular angle, but it might be a head right in front of you that you want to hit as hard as you can withought breaking your pinky or your knuckles, depending on how you want to hit him! And no, accuracy won't give you power, but it's a great assistance to it. But ultimately, while I understand the theory behind breaking boards and cinder blocks and don't see anything wrong with it in the proper context, as Shogeri said, it's only one part of training. Too much focus on any one thing becomes an obsession and doesn't really help you become a well-rounded martial artist.