Shorinryu Sensei

tell herto bring a soap box to stand on....my head's pretty far up here to be kicking at. Photo's will be taken and sent to Patrick, who says he will post them somewhere.

Well, I'm 6'6" (198cm) tall, 240 lbs, wear a szie 4 pant, size 5 jacket and a size 6 belt...so I guess I can't come and play in your dojo. To bad too...I was really looking forward to it.

Ninjitsu is Japanese, and Shotokan was derived from Okinawan karate, but IMHO, is quite a bit different than Okinawan karate. Now I'm getting confused...are you looking for effective self-defense...or looking "cool"? I guess if you kick someone and hold your hand out with the pinky finger extended "just so"...that would be stylish.

I agree with this. Most of the higher ranking sensei in thsi system that I have worked with move with such grace, speed and accuracy..DESPITE having a gut on them, that you woudl be amazed. I've asked these sensei before about this and several have also stated as an inside joke, that we all have Shorin Ryu bellies. The days of the 6 pack have graduated to the days of the 12-pack, easy container I think.

OK, you're contradicting yourself here. Do you want a system that wins more tournaments...or can save your butt in a fight? They are not necessarily the same thing. It's bee ncovered pretty throughly in this forum before about tournament fighters that can't defend themselves on the street, and the same would be sure of many people that can kick some seriosu butts on the street, but can't score a point in a tournament. If what you're looking for is an art that is street and self-defense proven, I would recommend an Okinawan martial art. They aren't designed for tournaments normally (although some do) and are very realistic in their applications of techniques and training.

Not meaning to be smart here either, I would suggest posting this in the Korean Martial Arts forum, as that's where the people that most likely could answer this question better hang out. I have a lot of TKD friends as instructors and have talked to them at length about the bunkai/meaning behind the movements inb their forms. Outside of generally one simple, obvious application per movement, they don't seem to be aware that there could be multiple meanings or techniques for5 each. Maybe in TKD forms...there aren't?

Personally, I believe that if all Chrostians adapted the attitude of pacificism and turn the other cheek and not defend themselves, they wouldn't have survived past about 500a.d. because they would have been wiped out. To not stand up for yourself, or to defend yourself or others is a greater crime IMHO. Personally, I put no connection between the martial arts and religion. I don't preach Christianity, Buddism, Zen or anything else resembling religion in my classes...I preach martial arts. The organization I belong to is a Christian based association, and I made it very clear to them before I joined that I do not, and will not teach or promote religion in my classes. This is not to say I am an athiest or non-believer, I just don't feel that religion hs a place in my dojo. I am there to teach them karate...not religion. I leave that to the preachers.

I don't see much corrolation between drumming and nunchauku usage unless you're twirling them perhaps..which would be a huge no-no in my class. I suppose you could learn a kata from a video or book, but you're not going to learn it correctly. There are subtle things in all kata that you just can't get from a book or video...you need a qualified instructor for that.

Agreed. Just because the gi makes a sound when you punch/kick does not mean you have good technique or power. Concentrate on learning your art and being the best you can be in it, not making noise.

This has been discussed before, but what the heck! I tried meditating once, but kept falling asleep. On a more serious note, I don't meditate, nor will I do so before, during or after a class. My reasons? As stated by others on here so far, they use it to get their mind ready for practice, to calm themselves..whatever, and that's fine. My problem with meditating to get your mind "ready to train" is that you will do in a real fight what you practice to do in the dojo. In other words, if you are confronted by a thug on the street is he going to give you time to meditate and get in the proper frame of mind to be prepared to engage in combat with him? Of course not. But that's what you're teachign yoru body and mind to do by having to meditate before you practice. You're teaching your mind a habit, and yoru mind wil lget used to having to be able to have the time to focus before engaging in karate...and it will want to do that before a fight. Not a good idea IMHO. What I tell my students is this. You need to leave your baggage outside the door of the dojo when you walk in here. Learn to focus on training. The girlfriend leaving you just before class will be there when you leave and you can deal with it then. Clear your mind now...and I mean RIGHT NOW, because in a fight you won't have the luxury of taking the time to do that when the fists come at you. Personally, I'd say leave meditating for at home if you feel you need it, or after class is done....not before, and not during.

My personal opinion of learning from videos or books is that you won't get more than just a basic idea of the concepts or techniques involved in using weapons or open hands. If you already had a good, solid foundation in the weapon and wanted to suplement it with additional training, then perhaps a book or video would be beneficial...but otherwise, no. As for learning good technique from Bruce Lee movies...I don't think so.

GREAT! It's going to be a small group, but I think a quality one. Anything I can do to help (besides flying you here in my private jet of course )..let me know.

Thak you for making that clearer. What does this combat class teach? Do you have to pay more money for it?

Well, let's see here. You said you are sparring...that is combat training. Do you do ny kata? If so, that is combat training. Have you ever done and practicing where one person punches/kicks, the other blocks and counters? If so, that's combat training. Has your instructor ever talked about situations you might run into on the street? That would be combat training. Do you do exercises? That is combat training. Starting to get my drift? Literally every aspect from the time you step on the floor to train, then leave for the day, is preparing you to defend yourself...or should be So, what else would you be doing that makes Friday's a specific "Combat Training" day? I mean, what are you doing in your "ordinary classes" that isn't combat training? Finger painting? Basket weaving? Curious minds want to know.

For me, getting my black belt meant that I had just graduated from high school in my chosen art. Now the real learning and work was to begin. Yes, it felt REAL good to get and wear that belt after 3 1/2 years of very hard work on my part. However, other than emotionally feeling satisfied with the achievement, I've never felt it made me any better skill-wise than I was the day before I got it. Now...nearly 27 years later, a black belt to me means that I have done some good, serious work, but that the journey never ends and I will never truly master what I have learned. It also means that I have an obligation to myself, if not others, to pass on my knowledge and experience to others so that it is not lost.

I don't want to turn this into a "Defending Shorin Ryuu" thread, so I will just recommend that you search for posts by him and make up yoru own opinion of his knowledge by his posts. Personally, he impresses the heck out of me on a constant basis. If he doesn't impress you, then you're entitled to your opinion. I see no reason to continue to post on this thread either.

First of all, and I'm sure you understand this, there are no similarities at all between what judo and boxing do. Judo is a grappling martial art with few, if any strikes..whereas boxing is nothing but strikes. Judo's goal in a fight is to close with you and take/throw you to the ground and break something, or choke you out. Boxings goal is to punch you into submission. Two entirely different approaches. Now...it isn't possible to have two people that are of the exact same skill level at any given moment, but let's say two people that are close to it. If the boxer isn't aware the other person is a judo person and expects the judo person to stand upright and toss punches, then I'd say the boxer will be at a disadvantage because the judo guy will go for his legs and take the boxer to the ground where he has no skills to defend himself. On the other hand, if the judo guy doesn't know that the other guy is a boxer and the judo guy wants to stand upright and grab the boxer by the shirt and toss him...he might walk right into the boxers punches and not get close enough to accomplish his task. Now, if BOTH the boxer and the judo guy know about each other's skills...then I'd give the edge to the judo guy. he's going to dive below the boxers punches...maybe risk taking a few on the back of the head or shoulders, and the should be able to tie the boxer up in fairly quick order.

One quick call to your local police station should answer that question for you I would think. When I was over there in 2000 I was told by my host that if someone walked in the front door and started taking your stuff (it was Christmas-time and we were talking about the presents under the tree), you weren't allowed to do anything to stop them. I thought that was absolutely rediculous!

Before I get into this, I want to make sure that you understand that I am not supporting Shorin Ryuu's side of this discussion purely because he and I share the same roots in what we train in. Shorin Ryuu has been in the arts I believe for 6 years and is a VERY serious history student of all, or many of the arts and has a far greater knowledge of many facets of the art we study than I do. From his previous posts over the months, he has gained my respect as an intelligent and knowledgable man that seeks the truth and has far more knowlege of many of the martial arts than his time in the arts would dictate. I believe that most long time members of this forum would agree with this. I'll be the first to admit that for myself, my exposure to shotokan is limited to a local dojo that I have trained in at their invitation and helped them with many of their techniques (grabbing and weapons defense mostly) that they felt they were falling short in. The other shotokan dojo I worked at was in Lowenstoft, UK back in 2000 when I was there for a month visiting a friend. In both instances, I did...IMHO..find that shotokan was indeed inefficient in their movements of both kata and self-defense and very rigid in their stances and movements from one position to another in kata and self-defense techniques. These were my observations and opinions. As for no indepth training and ineffective, I can't really state an opinion on that other than I believe that they could be considerably MORE effective in what they do. As in any martial art, you have good instructors, and bad. I personally don't believe that the local shotokan sensei and the one I worked with in the UK were bad instructors, as they were very similar in what they were doing, how they did it and the words that came out of the sensei's mouths to their students. The logical conclusion I would make is that they both were taught along the same lines, and that they were teaching shotokan accurately as they were taught. Yes, perhaps they both had bad instructors themselves and are passing on that bad training to their students. It happens unfortunately. We are all products of our experiences. If you have nothing but negative experiences with something, you will garner a negative viewpoint of that "something". I can't say my experiences with shotokan are negative, just different..and IMO, not what I would consider "up to snuff"..or as good as they could be. But remember..this has been my experience with shotokan, and also Shorin Ryuu's experiences. How would we think any differently? You could come into my dojo and think to youself..."Man, these people have weak stances. Look at that! They have their hands relaxed, knees are bent but the stance is VERY upright and high...they are so weak!" And you know what...in your experience, that would be an understandable response and way of thinking. What we do, and how we do it would be wrong in your opinion...and that's OK. But one thing that you will notice in my school, and in this system in general, we practice what we preach. We don't teach one thing, then expect you to do something else in real life..which is what I believe Shorin Ryuu is getting at here. We teach and practice more natural stances, whereas shotokan teaches low strong stances, but fights with higher natural stances. Thus the conflict here. Like I said...you're not wrong...just different...and to us, that is wrong. Yes, this is what I call our natural stance. My goal is to have my students in a real fight, use this stance. It's non-threatening, yet you can be totally prepared for an attack. Yes, I understand this. But as Shorin Ryuu stated, and I agree with this..you will do in a real fight what you train to do in the dojo. There are a multitude of training practices to strengthen your body, and I feel that teaching your body to use those exercises in kata and such is a bad habit to get into.

Wow pers *passing him/her a chill pill*..let's try to have a nice, civil conversation/discussionb here please. Shorin Ryuu isn't attacking Shotokan in as much as he's pointing out obvious differences in approach to the same objective. Perhaps I can shed a bit of a different approach to what Shorin Ryuu is saying, which I totally agree with. I have had the opportunity to train with, and teach the local shotokan class a few times, and have observed it many times. The biggest thing that I notice in the way of differences between shotokan and shorin ryu are that shotokan tends to "muscle" techniques and use raw strength and power to accomplish their goal of striking or controlling their opponent. The key word here is muscle...aka strength and power. Shorin Ryu's power comes not from over powering with muscle and strength, but rather with technique, speed and finesse. Strength is all and good if you're stronger than your opponent, but what if you're a 5', 90lb woman against a 6'4" 250lb man? Is she going to be able to out power/muscle him? Probably not. In Shorin Ryu, and most other Okinawan systems that I've seen and studied, she would still have a good chance of successfully defending herself using her speed and good technique rather than just blasting in and trying to overcome her opponent. To give you an example...the late Master Yuichi Kuda back in 1978 came and trained with our class for 3 weeks. I am 6'6" tall, and at that point, weighed around 220lbs. Slim, but in very good shape. Sensei Kuda was about 5'4" tall and maybe 150lbs. Quite a physical difference. Sensei Kuda asked me to throw a kick of my chosing at him as fast as I could. He stressed that he wanted me to make hard contact with him and not pull it at all. Well, this was just a day or two after Sensei Kuda had arrived and I had not seen him do anything to this point. I launched a spinning back kick...which I felt was my fastest and strongest hitting kick to a stationary target. Sensei Kuda was just standing there like he was waiting for a bus...feet about shoulder width apart, hands down at his side..no obvious tension or prepardedness in his demeaner at all. Basically, Sensei Kuda looked like he could have been waiting for a bus at the bus stop. Long story short, the next thing I knew after throwing my kick, was that I was face down on the floor, my kicking leg was being securely held by Sensei Kuda, and his foot was in the back of my neck and I could feel my vertibra stretching...and could imagine that with one good tug on my extended leg, my neck would have snapped. At that moment, I couldn't figure out how he did that to me so easily...but then he taught us that technique. Here was a man twice my age, half my physical size..and he left in my mind no doubt that with little effort on his part, he would have killed me quite easily. I was physically stronger than Sensei Kuda and much larger than he was, but his technique was far superior to mine and he could overcome a larger, stronger opponent quite easily. This is the premise of Shorin Ryu karate. Not overpowering by sheer power, but winning through better techique. Does this help clarify what Shorin Ryuu is getting at a bit? Or did I make it even worse?

That is the strangest thing I've ever heard in my 30 years in the arts! What is the point of that? In the tournaments I judge/ref at, everyone...regardless of rank or experience...free spars if they chose to enter that event.

I pulled the list off the internet actually. I just went to the webpage where I'd printed off this list last year, and it's a dead link now. I'll hve todo some digging and see what I can find for violent offenders, not just sexual ones. EDIT: Got it http://doj.state.mt.us/svor/ In Google, do a search for "violent offenders, (your state)"..maybe other states will come up from that.

Basically, that's the same with us. We don't call it shoulder width apart, but rather hold the bo so that 1/3 of it is outside of either hand, and 1/3 is between the hands...roughly. I don't go around checking with a tape measure.

Just to make sure I got this right, and I know we're wandering off the topic here...but you don't learn kata "until later"...how much later? How long have you been in TKD? And you have to make up your own, and the instructor isn't teaching any that he/she knows???? If this is correct, I would say something is VERY wrong in your dojo/dojang.

My favorites to spar are two fold. I enjoy a skilled opponent that really challenges me, and right now that would be my senior student. He's 12 years younger than me and despite my teachings, he continues to make it pretty hard work for me to get in on him....which is GREAT! The other system I like to spar against are TKD black belts when I get the chance. BTW...congrats on the extra stripe in your belt kicks!