lostinseattle

It's hard to spar with the self defenses anyway. Ed Parker's system is primarily self defenses and kata, and he himself noticed that his students really weren't good at sparring in the ring. So I don't really know what to say about this one except maybe find a school that does sparring instead. Because if you can't apply what you are studying then it's kindof useless. There were a lot of good Tracy's Kempo sparring people (like Joe Lewis) but that was their interest and they put more time into that.

For all intents and purposes the 2 systems are exactly the same. Tracys Karate came from an earlier more traditional breakdown of Ed Parker's material. Ed Parker tore the material apart and separated the 600 or whatever self defenses so they are more modular and flow together better and made it like, what, 130 or something, that flow into each other. That's what is known today as 'American Kempo'. But it's not really that different. Just more modular. Therefore, study whatever. You can buy it all on DVD for like $200 for each system.

Anyways I found a place, Ring Sports United, that does MMA style boxing/kickboxing/jujitsu, etc., with no katas!!! So thanks for the help, but I think I'm just going to forget about karate.

Yeah, I checked out the sport jujitsu, and once again, nothing in the Seattle Area. It looks like James DeMille used to send his students but now he's branched out into higher $$$ activities. LOL So many sellouts ... guess there's more $ in less training. LOL

Actually I'm looking for total sport karate, like nothing serious or traditional at all ... I guess what you're calling Americanized karate. I'm kindof tired of these schools who put so much emphasis on character development and all that. Because why? This is the 2000s, and that stuff just takes time. So I'm looking for a cheesy style school that does flash over substance, and a lot of tournament sparring to win tropies. It might sound bogus, but basically I just want a school that does a lot of sparring.

Anybody know of any good sport karate places in the Seattle area? Required: Must have sparring. Must do tournaments. Must teach sport karate, not TKD. (Karate allows takedowns in sparring). Must allow wearing mat shoes. (Can't stand grimy mats). Thanks!

Actually I was looking for a school here to do some karate (I used to take Goju Ryu before Xingyi), even though I don't like it that much, but the senseis here kindof tick me off. I'm just not very impressed with martial arts in Seattle. A lot of schools here actually got on my case personally since I wanted to spar, and a couple of sifus said they thought I had a bad character. Just because I thought that martial arts should be about fighting! But after dealing with these bozos for a couple of months, I think they have given me a bad character. Seattle is like a death zone for martial arts. I don't recommend anybody who is used to sparring, fighting, good practices and open teaching in CMA or karate move here. They're a bunch of granola heads.

And replace it with what?? Yes, it's not the best scoring, rules, editing, etc.; but at least it is about martial artists. As flawed as it is, it's better than 90% of the other crap on TV these days. Remember, it's not designed to entertain hard core martial artists; it needs to appeal to the un-initiated masses. .. They don't need to replace it with anything. Ultimate Fighter on Spike is way better than this final fu show. And I'm sick to death of the women on that show making excuses for 'excessive force'. If you run into somebody's kick then it's not excessive force, it's your own lack of control.

Good acting is a nice way of saying that his sparring partner was a drama queen. The entire thing is just sickening. I hope they take it off the air soon.

I'm talking about partner practice which can't be done alone, and yes I studied xingyiquan for about 5 years. It's not that I'm not open to other styles I just don't see the point in studying anything else. Anyway after calling over 30 schools and visiting over 20 in Seattle I'm a bit tired of all of this. Most other major places have some sort of martial meetups but I have no idea why there are none in Seattle.

Hi, So recently I moved to Seattle there don't seem to be any Xingyi teachers here. There are some people who used to do it and some closed practice group, but no open teachers who are really good that do it as their primary style. How do people go about practicing their martial arts outside of class? Anybody else have this happen where they move to a new place and don't have any practice partners? How do you handle this? I just can't bring myself to take another style (hardly even have enough time to practice all the xingyi), and the other thing is the martial arts schools in Seattle don't seem to have any open time when you can just practice techniques. I found only one, Seattle Kajukenbo, but I don't want to learn their style.

I caught this show. This is the WORST show. For starters, if you lose the challenge, and lose in sparring, you can come out ahead of everybody who was ahead of you in the challenge. That makes no sense at all. Secondly, the sparring is just extremely stupid. Very light contact, no back, no head, in other words, nothing realistic at all. Thirdly, that guy Ernie Reyes is just such an annoying little guy. I mean, lose the attitude why don't you? You're like 5 feet tall.

Honestly I don't attend any karate schools anymore because I can't find any that will allow you to wear some short of shoes. The stuff you can get ranging from athletes foot to HIV off of floors without something on your feet especially when sparring and people accidently break some skin on their toes is just gross.

Hi, anybody know of any tai chi or bagua or xingyi schools in Seattle that have sparring and some open practice hours? Thanks in advance.

Karate has so many styles and so many teachers, that it's hard to sift through, but thanks for the names -- none of those appear to be in the Seattle area. I don't really have time to travel around. Anyways, thanks again for the info.