angus88

I have to throw this one out there - Hillary Swank in The Next Karate Kid. The greatest scene is when she's doing kata in the temple to the music of the Cranberries on a jam box. Then when the monks come in to the temple, she turns off the stereo - they turn it back on and start doing their own kata to the music of the Cranberries! Top 10 greatest film moment ever!

Kung Fu Hustle annoyed the crap out of me. I wanted to like it, but the Bugs Bunny sound and visual effects wore thin after about five minutes. Don't get me wrong - I love a good parody, and as a parody, I'm sure it was good. I just didn't like the direction style very much. It's almost like it left out what was good about the old martial arts films it was parodying. And as much as I hate to be trendy, this is what Tarantino did so well in Kill Bill. I guess that was more an homage to old martial arts films than a parody, but it was still better overall because the elements of the fighting, while over the top as hell, were still stylishly very good. Oh well, cheers to anyone that liked it, I just personally didn't.

Actually, one cinder block cap is about the equivelent of 2 boards without spacers. Cinder blocks are also better because they're cheaper than wood.

He was the first to bring Goju-Ryu to the continental U.S. back in 1959. There's plenty of stuff about him on the web though.

Calling someone "Master" is a very old custom, even outside the context of religion or the martial arts. In many Western cultures, the man of the house is still considered the "Master of the House." There's nothing anti-religious about that any more than calling someone a Master in martial arts. It's a title of respect, nothing more. Same with "Lord of the Manor", etc.

There are many styles of Goju. If you founded XYZ Goju-Ryu, it's considered acceptable, and even encouraged to add kata and other elements to "your" style. As long as nothing is taken away from the original style, it's still Goju. Peter Urban did that and so did other founders of Goju styles.

Every time I see an American flag Gi I think of that guy!

I think the relevance of lineage is purely individual. Personally, I like the idea of learning a "pure" system - one in which you can trace the roots of instruction directly back to the founder. And I think lineage is still maintained by counting only head instructors, if instruction within the school is consistent. For instance, people trace Sekichi Toguchi directly to Chojun Miyagi, but in all actuality, his initial instruction was from Seko Higa. But since Higa was teaching Miyagi's style exactly (as Miyagi's senior student), and Miyagi had a hand in the teaching as well, the line is drawn directly to Miyagi, oftentimes by-passing Higa for lineage purposes. But believe it or not, I can also understand why someone might not care about lineage. Lineage means nothing if the instruction passed down is ignored or changed irreparably. And if all you care about is learning to fight, there's plenty of people that are qualified to teach you how to fight with no formal training at all. For me, I simply joined a school that impressed me. From black belt on down I was blown away at the consistent discipline, the training, the technique - everything. It just happened to have really well documented lineage.

You can't really go by organization either. With most organizations, you fill out a form and pay your dues - then you're in. They're going on the honor code too. They don't really check. With the internet, you're still dealing with what people claim. I've seen people claim some famous karate guy as part of their lineage when in reality they took a 3 hour seminar with one hundred other people some Saturday 10 years ago! In my opinion, the only way to be sure is to see some kind of proof - a picture of the guy getting his black belt from the person he's claiming he trained under is a good one. But what an awkward conversation! Good luck!

Who's denying it? I just think it's a bogus reason not to strike objects while training. I guess it's futile to say that fighting is not the only way to train in karate... Thank you. That's more or less my point.

Breaking is, for the most part, a show. It's to get non-karate people interested in karate. It looks cool. That said, I hate the arguement that bricks "don't fight back." I know, Bruce Lee said it. Big deal - with that rationale, why hit anything except other people while sparring? Why do punching drills? The air doesn't fight back. Why use a punching bag? It doesn't fight back either. I'd rather hear the "your bones are still growing" arguement. But the fact is, unless you're practicing with bad form or trying to get calcium deposits on your knuckles, all this talk about being 35 and getting arthritis is hearsay at best.

Yep - if you're miserable in what you're doing, you probably need to re-evaluate it. A lot of people I know that started karate as kids went through a bad burn-out period when they got older. They felt like they lost their childhood. Some came back to it after leaving for a while, some didn't. Of course I don't think there's anything wrong with being serious about karate either - in fact I think it most certainly should be. You could get seriously hurt if you don't. But yeah, you have to keep it all in perspective, especially if you want any kind of quality of life. Bottom line: you still have to have fun with it or I can't imagine it being worth the time or effort.

This is kind of an interesting topic in itself - something I've thought a lot about when it comes to liability in running a karate school. Historically, I don't think it's happened yet, but I can't believe it's as out of the question as a baseball coach or a shooting coach. It seems like all it would take is about two people to lie on a witness stand. See the late-80's skinhead guru Tom Metzger in California about that one. It doesn't take much to say someone made you do it, or taught you how. It just depends on how politicized the case is, especially in America. I just think as much as martial arts have become more like a sport than martial arts, it wouldn't take much for a court of law to see it however they wanted to.

I have to half-agree/half-disagree with Shorinryu Sensei. It depends. A downward chop break doesn't "work" your hands the way a straight punch does. A chop break is 100% form. This kind of breaking is perfectly safe for a teenager or even younger. Of course if you do the form wrong, you can break your hand. But karate is not exactly basketweaving. Bones break, bruises happen, etc. For a straight punch, however, you really ought to work your knuckles first. Form is still involved, but as I said - you should work on your hand a little first. And it's working the knuckles that can do irreparable damage to a growing hand. Those kinds of breaks should not be tried until the bones in your hand stop growing. So in my opinion, it depends on the break.

If karate and the school in which it's taught means nothing more to it's owner than an advanced health club, then that's all it will be. So be it.

For a 15 year old? Maybe. And not to be a killjoy, but if you're going to get into breaking, do it without the spacers. It's a much better indication of form.

Shogeri - that was a really good article on Sanchin. Of course Seikichi Toguchi has a slightly different take on Miyagi's sudden change of Sanchin right before he died. But that really doesn't take away from the fact of what Sanchin is, and that article had some very thorough descriptions of Shime and what goes into it. I've personally never seen a child go through Sanchin - but our adult females go through the same Shime that children would go through (according to the article) - in other words, they don't take strikes, but the pressure points are still touched to make sure the right tension and stances are happening.

We have no complications at all. When class is going on it's very clear who the instructors are and who the students are. The high ranking black belt runs the class. Simple enough to have run for a long, long time that way!

If you're having that big a problem, I'd say go back to the basics. Concentrate on simple combinations, block/counter moves and getting your rhythm back. Jumping rope and doing two minute drills on the bag will help that. But as everyone else has pretty much said - just getting in there and doing it will help you quite a bit. Just don't get frustrated with yourself.

I agree, but when standards are assumed, they will invariable get left behind. If not at first, eventually. This isn't Okinawa, circa 1955. There is no automatic respect with kids to adults anymore, even in the martial arts. But hey - maybe you've had a lot better experience with kids than we have. For me though - expectations are great and you can't document every rule to cover every situation - but sometimes if you can define your expectation - you probably should, in my opinion.

This is why occassionally, you give the junior rank an assignment to instruct someone on something like their new kata. They definitely need to learn how to teach, but there is a difference in an adult black belt telling them to "go teach that 50 year old gold belt how to do his new kata" and what I was talking about. I disagree with you on this one. An adult learns his humility from another adult, not a child. Frankly, there is nothing more humbling than the first time an adult spars with a high ranking adult - he suddenly understands the difference between himself and the other person. I couldn't agree more. But some standards just need to be a matter of course. Quite honestly, not every 16 year old brown belt is going to mouth off to a 50 year old gold belt. But that's what standards are for - to make sure it doesn't happen at all. For this one it depends on the structure of the situation. If I'm instructing a class or assissting the instructor, I will teach and it will be 100% unsolicited! But if someone is practicing something on their own, I'll wait and see if they fix their own mistake. But I'm not going to let them practice the wrong move for 20 minutes - that's not really helping them either! Good topic by the way. Lots of good discussion. I like seeing how different schools handle underage ranks and how that works into the dynamic of the school.

1. No, the 35 year old, because he is lower "rank", will not give tips to the 15 year old "higher" rank. 2. Knowledge gained to someone under 18 gets a certain degree of respect, but a kid is still a kid. If the 15 year old black belt is assigned to instruct, say, a new kata, to a 35 year old Orange belt, he may do so. And in that instruction he may make corrections as needed. But in this instance he is being assigned to do so by an adult black belt. However, if the 15 year old black is merely watching the 35 year old work out and notices he's doing something wrong, he needs to tell an adult brown belt or black belt and they will make the correction. 3. If the 35 year old asks a question, the 15 year old is certainly allowed to answer. At our school karate is not just kata, drills and sparring. There is a certain degree of humility and maturity that should go along with it. This is part of the tradition. Kids are allowed to train of course, but it's essential that kids understand that they are not adults yet. An unsolicited correction by a child to an adult shows arrogance and is disrespectful. I believe our rules regarding junior ranks and the rules that go along with it helps them.

I guess the question of strengthening your abs with Sanchin can be phrased as - if you take a punch to the same area of your body enough times, does it strengthen? Without strikes, you could ask the question as, by tightening your muscles, as you do in Sanchin, does that strengthen them? I would say yes. To what extent, however, I don't know.

You have to draw a line somewhere - it's the same argument to ask why a 20 year old with one week before his 21st birthday can't buy a beer. Does he magically mature in a week? Of course not. For our students, that line is at 18. And no, a 15 year old does not give pointers to a 35 year old in our school, despite the experience level. An Biologically he hasn't earned the right to tell an adult what to do - period. If a correction has to be made, he will tell an adult brown belt or a black belt and they will make the correction.

In our school, if you're younger than 18, starting at 5th kyu, your belt has a stripe running down the middle indicating "junior." And "juniors" in my school don't teach class, they don't correct adults of any rank, they don't take strikes in Sanchin, they don't do knuckle push-ups and they don't do face contact. In my school it matters substantially if you're a junior or not. I like it that way. I think it's a joke to think of a 7 year old black belt giving sparring pointers to a 35 year old man!