Shorinryu Sensei

There are a few spinning movements with the bo, but not with the fingers like a baton. Both hands are spaced at 1/3 the length from the ends, and the hands barely leave the bo (only one at a time) for a fraction of a second. This twirling with fingers, or figure 8's with the hands close together is BAD, sloppy technique.

What are some of the claims he makes that may be controversial? I'm considering buying his White Crane video series. I'd prefer to not say on here, and will be heading out the door shortly for the evening. On his tapes...maybe 8 years ago I bought a number of his tapes to use to give out to my students to work on kata at home. The quality of those tapes was WAY worse than you can do yourself with a cheap video camera. There were also gross mistakes of techniques on the tapes...such as one student stepping the wrong direction while the rest stepped the correct direction. That should have been re-shot....but they didn't bother. Quality was so poor you couldn't tell what color belt people were wearing...something dark..could have been black, brown, green or blue for all I could tell.

Cool! Looking forward to it Bud!

Granted yes, any BB should be able to defend themselves...and yes, not in ALL situations. I've been at this for 30+ years now, but could I defend myself against Mike Tyson? Doubtful. My only hope would be the fear enduced energy in my legs to get me out of there! And I probably couldn't out run him for long either! As I cited earlier with my example of Brandon Bennett...he was a good sparring fighter, but couldn't fight well on the street. When he came to that realization himself, he left the arts. Dojo sparring has little relevence I believe, to actually being able to defend yourself. if you, as the instructor..watching the student every class, hve confidence taht the student is where you want them to be in their training and skills, and have confidence that those skills can be translated and used on the streets in a fight against an average person in a fight (average being subjective of course), then I have no problem with promotions by anybody to a black belt level, as I feel that is one of the requirements that I personally want in a black belt. I also stated in an earlier post that I know a number of BB's, all from the same system, with different instructors and dojo's, that feel that the training they have recieved isn't going to do them much good in a street encounter. Yet these people all do well at tournaments usually, some having more trophies sitting around their house then they have room for. So why don't they feel confident that tey can prevail in a real fight with no rules??? And if they don't, then why, IMO, are they wearing a black belt? tkdBill...we're probably never going to agree on this, and that's fine. Every organization or dojo has their own standards and beliefs as to what the requirements should be for a person to be promoted to each rank. We don't have to agree on this, and I respect your opinion. I feel anybody that is willing to put in the work required can reach black belt level eventually. It might, like Rod C., take a long time...but I'm sure he will get there eventually. I keep waiting for the night that there will be this great white light come flowing out of his forehead that says..."I GOT IT FINALLY!!!"

But then again, a lot depends on what you consider a black belt to be. We don't put any super human ideals on a black belt. To us, it is just another progression of skills with certain requirements to meet, just like any other belt. If you can make it up through the kyu ranks successfully, there is no reason you can't make it through the black belts also eventually. So for us, yes, anyone that is willing to put forth the effort and work required to improve from belt to belt can certainly attain a black belt. tkdbill said... Whether they score points, or free sparring..it's still sparring with rules. There are judges/referree's there, rules are enforced no doubt and it is a controlled environment. I'm sure that you probably wear protective equiptment, a ref starts and ends the contest. If somebody gets hurt, I'm sure there is a timeout to let the combatant regroup and see if he/she can continue, etc. So what's the difference besides not stopping to call a point? It's still sparring in a controlled, regulated environment. I'm simply pointing out here that you are judging a person on their sparring ability, not their ability to defend themselves. There is a HUGE difference. To give you an example from my own experience, a student of mine, Rod C. has been with me for over 7 years now. He is well overdue for his black belt test and we make jokes about his being on "the 20 year black belt plan". He's perfectly fine with it. He is probably my hardest working student, but has problems remembering the kata and just hasn't quite "got it" when it comes to certain aspects that I require him to know and be able to do for his black belt...the same as in any other belt. Sparring in the dojo, Rod works and tries very hard, but lacks the smoothness I require for him to be at what I consider a black belt level. He is aware of this and continues to make every effort to improve. It's a slow process for him, and we're both very patient. However, I have no doubt whatsoever in my mind that in a street fight, where life or death is at stake, Rod would be a person that I would consider to be a very dangerous person to fight against. At 52 years old, Rod is built like a bull, fairly fast, hits VERY hard, and can take you to the ground and do some serious damage to you real quick. So I would say that yes, Rod can fight and hold his own, but he lacks the finer points of skill that I require in his movement and technique to test for his BB. Hopefully he will be able to overcome this by the end of the year...but I said that szame thing last year too!

good point AngelaG...wasn't there a connection between Moneymaker and Dillman somewhere in the discussion?

Question: Does this mean that some people can never be a black belt? Not everyone has what it takes to be a good fighter!......in my opinion anyway IMO, being able to be a great fighter is not as important as being a good person. I would give a black belt to a person that worked hard, had the knowledge and abilities to teach what they had learned, and not be a good fighter. Personally, sparring-wise...I don't think I'm a very good fighter. I don't take it that seriously, tend to goof around and "play" to much with the people I'm sparring, and just really don't concentrate that well on trying to get that point, or do that technique on my opponent. Yeah, I almost always win...but it isn't because I really try to. My senior student always gives me a good run for the money, nd I only get serious with him when he's ahead of me in the fight. He's beaten me a few times...but I like that because that means he's learned something.

Exactly! That is why I view tournaments as "Play Time". Go out and have some fun, but win or lose, don't take them as a serious measure of your skills.

VERY interesting and informative. I hadn't heard about this tournament, hotel room, other people present and such before in regards to Dillman's claims of working out with OSensei Soken and learning all his "secrets". I've been a Matsumura Seito practioner since January of 1975 under Sensei Dennis Miller, one of Sensei Kuda's American students. Sensei Miller hosted Sensei Kuda on his first trip to the USA in June of 1978. This is when I was tested and passed by Sensei Kuda for my shodan. There are pictures of that visit at the bottom of this webpage. I'm the tall, skinny guy with Sensei Kuda. http://www.geocities.com/rohai.geo/page.html I have the greatest respect for Sensei Lindsey's skills, experience and knowledge. When he was the head of Sensei Kuda's organization, I had talked to Sensei Lindsey a number of times. He had, unfortunately, a falling out and parted ways. Thank you for this information...it is well received by myself.

Me...6'6" tall, 240lbs standing on top on my opponent, who is face down and unconscience..while I beat my chest with two fists dowing my best Tarzan imitation. aaaaaaa....AAAAaaaaaaaAAAAAaaaaaaa.... I always liked that one the best.

I've never heard of it myself. I'd suspect it's an individualized kata, much like our NeiSeiDi kata. Pretty much within one specific sensei's teachings probably.

Okinawa: Island of Karate by George Alexander. Now, before we get to carried away, I am NOT a big fan of Sensei Alexander or the claims he makes, but I do like his book and feel it is well written and well researched.

In my organization, sparring is part of the testing for Black Belt. If you cannot fight effectively, including multiple rounds against higher ranks, you do not pass the test. Therefore, you must be able to fight in order to be a Black Belt. Be careful. You had better distinguish between point sparring and fighting. That'll get a lot of comments. This is VERY true! I personally know quite a number of accomplished black belt TOURNAMENT fighters that are very adept at "scoring points" in tournaments, but have gotten their butts handed to them quite easily in a street fight. Not to mention any specific system, but I find it interesting that every one of them has trained in the same system, or offshoot of that system (different instructors and schools), and holds rank from a 1st degree BB to a 4th degree BB. Years ago there was a kid (18 years old) by the name of Brandon Bennet that was the top ranked ADULT sparring champ (open, all style tournaments) for the Pacific NorthWest. That's Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming...and possibly N/S Dakota..not sure on those last two states. Anyway, the last day of his senior high school year, he got into a real fight with a kid that had 6 MONTHS of training in boxing. Brandon was down and out of the fight in 20 seconds or less from what I was told. When I asked him about it, Brandon told me it was a fair fight...they squared off and he saw it coming. The boxer closed and dropped him...pure and simple. What does that tell you? As I recall, Brandon hung up his belt shortly after that and quit the arts.

Excellent you two! If there's any information you need or that I can help you with (besides paying your way here ), let me know.

Well, let's start with an easy question or two. By your nickname, I assume you study Shotokan which as I understand it, does no formal weapons training as a part of their system normally(correct me if I'm wrong). Do you have any formal training with the nunchauku? If so, how much training..or how long? Answering these questions will help us to help you.

Agreed. Fighting is always the last option. Kicking knees, etc can be far to excessive for a stupid school fight. You want to risk crippling some idiot because he thinks he's tougher than you with words? Would that make you the big man then? Oh yeah...this is REALLY smart advice! Why not tell him to gouge out the guys eyes? Crush his balls to dust? Rip his heart out of his chest? SHOOT HIM!!! *shaking my head here* We're talking a school fight here people...over some stupid verbal exchange...NOT a life or death street fight!

I've never heard of this sort of specific event tommarker, but about 15 years ago we had a 24 hour Karate-a-Thon to raise money to help out a 16 year old TKD BB with leukemia. I honestly don't remember how much we raised, but it wasn't a massive amount...maybe a couple of thousand bucks...but it was a heck of a lot of fun for the people that attended the event. Basically what we did was invited every martial arts instructor within travelling distance of the event to attend and bring as many students as they could. There was a small entrance fee...maybe $10/person, and every instructor put on a 1 hour class...some more than one, of some sort. Breaking, sparring, self-defense, grappling, weapons, etc and those were all free to any of the participants. Pressure was put on everybody to NOT sleep during the entire event, and I think only a very few did. Spectators were charged $5 and had their hands stamped and could come and go as they pleased. We held it at a school gym. We had food donated by grociers and restaurants, TV stations came down and reported for free...radio stations too I think, and of course the local paper ran a lot of stuff for free. All proceeds from the sale of everything went directly to the parents of the kid for travel, medical expenses, etc.

Agreed...now, if I could find my walker and my laxative, I'd shuffle over your way and kick you with my orthopedic shoes!

And very happy to have you coming Shorin Ryuu...anybody else? Hmmmm..suppose I scared everybody off with comments about snow in June, and grizzly bear?

My lineage: Tode Sakugawa Sokon "Bushi" Matsumura Nabi "Bushi" Matsumura Osensei Hohan Soken Sensei Yuichi Kuda Dennis Miller/Greg Ohl/James Knoblett/Larry Mason Me

Interesting Sauzin. Can you tell us how you came about this information? I'm not doubting, or supporting what you're saying...it just sounds like first hand knowledge.

Oh well...if you have no instructor, which I guess means you're not taking classes...then I'd go with blue sequins perhaps, maybe red depending on your flesh tones.

What system do you study AnonymousOne?

Well ya "old koot"...you sure know how to make a guy feel good! I'm 52 myself and am lucky to pull myself out of bed in the morning! Hell, I check for a pulse every morning just to make sure I made it to another day!

That's pretty much what I tell my people..."OK, you're a black belt/shodan now....time to get SERIOUS!"