Shorinryu Sensei

Wow, we have some very knowledgable people on this forum...where'd you guys come from? Anyway, I've had the opportunity to sit in and watch a few Shotokan classes recently in my small town and talk to the instructors. The instructors are very knowledgable and 100% in love with Shotokan (which is the way it should be if you're teaching it) and view it as the ultimate martial art. Again, like they should feel if they are teaching it. I'm the same way about Shorinryu. The kata I've seen them do is similar to what I do in Shorinryu, but different. There is a definite Japanese influence to it. By that I mean more rigid, stiff, and emphasis on power 100% of the time. Shorinryu however stresses power during the movment of the punching/kicking technique, then relazation of your muscles afterwards. Basically, we go from 0% output of energy while not moving, to 100% output of energy during the actual technique, then back to 0% again. You can do kata and sparring for long periods that way because yo uaren't working your muscles at peak output all of the time. VERY useful if fighting opponents for a long time. Shotokan, from my observations, likes to be tense while at rest and starts the generation of power much sooner, and hold it longer, than Shorinryu does. An analogy would perhaps be that Shotokan is liek a car engine. They sit at idle at the beginning of a kata, thgen rev their enginesthe entire time they do the kata until they finish and go back to idle. Shorinryu would be more like a drag race. Idle...then explosive 100% power..then immediately back to idle to conserve "gas" and save wear and tear on the "engine". That's rather simplistic, but fairly accurate. Two things I noted looking at your Sensei's webpage were this. Why is he wearing a gi, with TKD black trim on his gi top? I haven't seen that before on any other Okinawan stylists, and only on TKD stylists. It's a new one on me. Secondly, I'm not sure exactly which branch of Shorinryu they are practicing, but certainly not the Matsumura Kenpo/Seito system that I do, as head kicks are NEVER done, but they displayed one on the webpage. It appears to me to be perhaps a bit "modernized" branch maybe? I'm really not very familiar with the other systems of Shorinryu. Can someone shed some light on those two points for me please?

I always discourage the "bouncing" way of fighting, as a skilled opponent will time his attack to your "up-bounce" where you can't move. As for whether or not you should attack or wait and defend, I use a mixture of the two. I am a defensive, counter-fighter normally, but if I see an opening, I will take it.

Often times, people find their first karate experience quite amusing. In retrospect, mine was anyway, and I was wondering if anybody else had something amusing to share with us about their first class? I went along to my first karate class way back in January of 1975 with a friend of mine that had been taking classes for about 2 months. I had planned on just observing the class, but the sensei told me (memorable words) "If you're interested enough to watch, you're interested enough to try it". This sensei was a 6'4", 240lb cowboy (all muscle) fresh out of the Navy and a tour of duty on Okinawa where he had trained with the head of the system. The man was all business, but really a nice guy. As with anybody in their first class, I was pretty much lost and in awe of the sensei's movements most of the time, but I gave it my all. Towards the end of the class, the sensei said we were going to do some light sparring. He showed me what we were going to do, and he was the one I had to spar. I wasn't afraid actually, but sure was nervous, as I had no idea what to do. He was very nice about it, sort of slapping me in the chest with an open hand, or on top of the head to show where I was open and where he could pretty much hit at will if he'd wanted to. As we sparred, the sensei kept coaching me to punch or kick. I pretty much kept my hands up close to my head like a boxer to protect my face, then he would slap me in the stomach. Well, after a bit, the sensei started saying "Try some kicks". He kept at that saying "Kick! Kick me!"...so I did. Right in the groin...HARD! Well, he did say kick! Well, to make a short story shorter, he wasn't wearing a cup (we rarely do in class) and he went down. I stood there for a minute thinking "This guy is going to get up and kill me!" and I started moving towards the door to grab my shoes and coat, and run barefoot out through the January snow of Montana before he could get up and tear me to bits, when he said "Wait..don't worry about it, it was my mistake." Sensei and I became good friends and had many laughs about that incident over the years. Whenever I have a new student, I always keep that night in mind when I spar with them the first time.

Why do I stay in the martial arts? That's easy...it's FUN! Besides, what else can you do where people actually pay you to abuse them?

I'll assume this is directed at me, so I'll respond. In my own experience in the approzimately 25 years I have been a weapons judge at tournaments, I have not seen a TKD competitor yet, regardless of rank, that knew much (if anything) about the proper usage of kobudo weapons. This is not to say that all TKD people are crap at weapons, but rather what I have seen. Since I don't travel world wide to do tournaments, I can only speak from my own personal experiences. When I've asked these competitors after the event is over, where they learned, invariably they say that they are self-taught, or learned from their instructor...who was self-taught. And yes, it is entirely possible to be proficient in more than one art form. Karate (empty hand) and Kobudo (weapons) are two different, but closely intertwined, art forms. steveb----you have an Okinawan Kenpo sensei just teaching weapons to your class...not the Kenpo also? That's odd I would think, but entirely possible. Generally, weapons are not taught until you get into the higher kyu grades, or dan ranks of the system. Not taught as a seperate art to other systems. Not to say you can't do that, but with different stances, blocks, etc, it would be quite a chore to try to get proper technique out of learning the weapons because the empty hand part of the training makes for a smooth transition from one aspect to the other.

You are quite correct and that's why I asked the question. If you'd have told me that they instructed you to hold the weapon near the chain/rope, I would have told you to get your money back! Remember when I said previously that if you, as a tournament competitor, were to tell me you were doing a "Chuck Kata" and I would not give you higher than a 7 score? Well, if you did your kata by holding the weapon near the chain, that score would drop to a at least a 5 by the end of the kata. It's embarassing for a competitor, especially a black belt, to get such a low score, and I will be the first to gladly tell them why I scored them so low. Good, proper and solid technique, with any weapon or empty hand, is essential to generate all possible power and leverage. Slop can get you killed in a street fight, and I'm an old, traditional bugger that demands good technique from my people, and if you're a competitor in front of me, from them also. Sure, white/lower belts get some slack and consideration, but a black belt better have his poop (they *'d p o o p???)together, or he's going to not do well in front of me. Before every weapons judging, I, as the center judge, gather the other judges (usually 4 others) together and tell them what I expect out of them. 1. Be fair and impartial towards all competitors, regardless of personal biases towards certain systems or people. 2. Look for good, solid technique and form. 3. Be consistent. I have seen popular black belts that have done terrible kata recieve good scores, just because they are well liked. I won't do that because I don't feel it is fair to everybody else. Oh ohh....I'm on a rant here. Sorry folks.

Sorry if I jumped on you pretty hard in my first post, but like I said, it is a major pet peeve of mine, and it definitely hits a raw nerve. A question for you. At this seminar that you attended and were introduced to the nunchauku...where were you taught to hold the weapon? Down low on the "stick", or up high close to the rope?

TKD + "chucks"? ARGH!!! YOU!!! PUT THE WEAPON ON THE GROUND AND SLOWLY STEP AWAY FROM IT WITH YOUR HANDS RAISED!!!! 1. TKD does not do weapons as a part of its art form as I understand it. I have been a weapons judge (usually center judge) for around 25 years now and for God knows how many tournaments, and I have yet to see one TKD competitor that could do anything remotely resembling competence with a weapon....ANY weapon! I'm talking black belts here, not beginners. All of the TKD weapons competitors I've seen are self-taught, or taught by their instructor that they themselves, were self-taught and passing along junk techniques to their students. It is one of my largest pet peeves. 2. ANYBODY that doesn't (IMHO) know how to PROPERLY pronounce or spell a weapon, has no business touching them until they at least know what the weapon is called. OK...I'm done venting my frustrations now. Sorry. Can you tell you hit a nerve there? First of all, to gain any sort of respect from myself and several others on this forum, please learn to call a weapon by it's proper name. In this instance, it's called a nunchaku...not chucks! If I was a judge in a tournament that you entered as a contestant, and you came up to me and said you were going to do a "chuck form", you would immediately, before you did anything else, get no higher than a 7 out of a possible 10 for a score. It would go downhill from there. As to you question, I prefer plain old wooden ones with cord, not chain. Chain doesn't move as smoothly, and wood feels and grips better than metal. Foam nunchauku are a waste of time in my opinion. Learn on real nunchaku and take the bumps and bruises that comes with training and learning with them. It will help you correct mistakes faster. Pain is a good teacher.

I think that as long as the XMA instructor (I won't demean the name sensei with these people) emphasises and admits that it is purely flash for show and not a viable "martial art", I think it's OK and probably good exercise. However, if the instructor tells his people it is good for self-defense, then he's lying to his people and taking money from them under false pretexts.

We've never mediated in class. I have seen some dojo's mediatate for up to 5 minutes at the beginning of a class, and when I've asked the sensei why they do that, the normal reply is "To get their minds prepared to train.", or some such thing. I asked the head of our system about it once and he made a good point that I pass on to my students. Basically he said, Is your opponent going to give you time to meditate before you fight him?". Of course not. We approach class with the concept that yes, you have things on your mind when you walk in the dojo's door, but they need to be moved to the side of your brain and kept there while training. You have to get your mind focused immediately in a fight, so you'd better learn to do it in class also. Not that mediation is wrong, and if a student wants to do it, that's OK with me. But do it at home, or before class starts off to the side, not during class time.

Oh, you guys are going to love this one! My Shodan test was back in June of 1978 in front of Master Yuichi Kuda, 7th Dan head of the Shorinryu Matsumura Seito system at the time. He was on his first visit to the USA and worked with us for 3 weeks in Montana. On the last week of his visit, he had all of us (about 8 people) line up along the wall of the dojo according to rank (I was third behind my sensei and the senior student). Sensei Kuda started at the top with my sensei and asked us in turn to perform certain kata. It's all a blur now (I'm getting old you know), but I believe that we each had to do 3 different kata each, and went through them 3 times each. After each persons turn, they would sit down and the next person was called and told what Sensei Kuda would like to see him/her do. I was nervous when it was my turn, but not that badly because I'd been working with Sensei Kuda for the past 2 weeks now and was used to him. He was (now deceased) a wonderfully gentle man, and very skilled in his art. After my turn , I sat back down in my place and my sensei, Dennis Miller, reached over and offered his hand to me and I shook it. He said "You did good! Congratulations SHODAN!" I said "What? Shodan?" he said "Yep, you were just tested and passed." ACK! Now, I was nervous!!! Sensei Miller moved about a year later and as far as I know, retired from the arts. I took over teaching his class at that point, as his next senior student quit also because he was best friends with Sensei Miller. My Nidan test was 9 years later in front of Sensei Greg Ohl, 6th Dan from Minnesota. I had never met Sensei Ohl prior to this, but had talked to him many times over the phone and wanted to train with him. Testing had not entered into our conversations, as I've never really been interested in rank very much. To me, knowledge is more important. Anyway, Sensei Ohl and I worked together for 4 days, and on the 3rd day, he told me he would promote me to my Nidan. There was no actual formal testing. My Sandan was again in front of Sensei Kuda (now a 9th Dan) in Seattle back in 1990 during a seminar hosted by James Knoblett, (4th Dan). Sensei Kuda basically did the same thing he had done during my first test. He asked me to show him various things, asked some questions about bunkai, applications and techniques, and promoted me to my Sandan without fanfare. I have tested a few of my own students to black belt level, and I don't make a real big deal of it...just like the sensei that tested me didn't. To me (us), the black belt is just another progression from one belt to another, and no real emphasis or mystical "whatever" is placed upon it. Sure, it's a major step for a person to get it, but testing-wise, we don't put any more emphasis on it than any other belt. My students know they are tested each and every class, not just on "test day". That is important and they know it. The actual test is a formality, and more often than not, I will just award them their next belt when I feel they are at that level without a formal testing. It's not a big deal to us, as the knowledge that the student has is more important than how many pushups they can do, miles that they can run, or endurance that they have. OK, go ahead and tear me apart. It is the way that Sensei Kuda tested, and also the way that other ranking sensei that I have worked with in our system test. It's good enough for them, and it's good enough for me. I have no problems with how anybody else tests their students, but it's not the way that we do it.

I initially got started because it was something new and different. This was back in January of 1975 when there wasn't a dojo on every street corner (almost anyway) like there is now. I was fascinated by the moves you'd see in the movies for several years (mostly Bruce Lee) and a friend of mine had just joined a local dojo. I went to watch a class of his in his sensei's living room dojo (now THAT was interesting! , and the sensei told me to get in line. I told him I just wanted to watch, and he said "If you're interested enough to watch, you're interested enough to try it." Well, nearly 30 years later, I'm still in total fascination of the art.

Interesting. The only belts I've ever seen bleed their colors are ones that were origionally another color...like white...and dyed to a new color. I and my students have used Century MA's belts for quite a few years and have never had a problem with colors fleeding, and we never wash out belts...EVER!

A question for you. Is there any douibt in your mind that in a fight..I mean a REAL street fight, that you, as a 32 year old adult, couldn't kick some major butt on those kiddies with those high ranking belts? So tell me...do you still feel silly now? See? There are even sillier things out there than training in a class full of kids.

People's words aren't going to hurt you, and you have placed yourself in this position and nobody else is to blame for that. Win or lose, all you can do is your best. Ask a doctor to surgically remove your tear ducts. Of course, then your eyeballs will dry out and you'll go blind, but that will solve the problem. Either that, or learn to duck and block. Otherwise, there's nothing else you can do.

Well, as I see it...YOU opened your mouth and said the words, so you have two choices. 1. Go to the tournament and pray you win and show "everyone" that you are as good as you think (thought?) you are. or... 2. Back out of the tournament and admit that maybe you're NOT as good as you thought you were, and face your friends like a man. Nobody on this forum is going to be able to help you win. It appears that this tournament isn't required, but optional, so either get in there and do your best, or back out and eat your words. Either way, I think you've learned a very important lesson. Good luck with your decision and I wish I lived where you do in case you do compete, because I love nothing better than to see a braggor eat his words. And one other thing. Have you ever heard the quote (Winston Churchill perhaps?) that says..."Walk softly and carry a big stick"? Think about that if you decide to go ahead and enter the tournament ... and as you step up to meet your first opponent. Keep saying that quote each time you get hit, each bruise that you get, each star that you see circling your head, and when you hear every "someone" that you told how good you were laughing at you as you pick yourself up off the floor...or get carried out of the ring. Man, I'm an unfeeling and unsympathetic guy this morning, aren't I?

The question is "How to quickly disable an opponent", and there are no pat answers to that question. There are many factors that need to be considered, such as: How skilled are you? How skilled is your opponent? What is your environment? (bar, street, crowded, who has friends to help, etc) What are the differances in size and strength? Do you have the element of surprise? There are probably many more, but I have to get ready for work soon, so I just want to touch on what I think is the most important, and that is the element of surprise. In many dojo's that I have seen, the sensei teaches his people when threatened, to assume a karate-like stance, bring their hands up, give a mighty yell and try to intimidate their opponent into backing down because "Hey buddy, I know KARATE!!!". Folks, that is, IMHO, the absolyute WORST thing you can do if a fight is immenent! By doing this just prior to exchanging blows with an opponent, you have lost any and all elements of surprise that you might have over your opponent. This is especially true where your opponent is larger and stronger that you are. What I teach my people is to move their feet a comfortable distance apart first of all, (but not in an obvlious karate stance), put their hands out in front of them palms out, start talking to your opponent ("I don't want to fight you."), and be ready to move/defend if they attack. Looking at the typical male mind-set, if an aggressor wants to fight, and you assume a karate-like stance and yell, all you are doing is raising the ante level and opening up the challenge and saying to the guy...":Come on buddy, let's FIGHT!" This isn't a good thing if the guy is better than you are (whether he or you knows it or not at the time), and also it's just made him either more cautous, or more determined to beat the crap out of you. ("Oh yeah? Well, karate THIS!") Personally, I have been in a number of real fights (not tournaments, but street fights), and this method works VERY well because my opponent didn't know that I was a martial artist and was fully prepared for him until he was picking his rear end up off the floor. Normally, in my experience, it only takes one time to drop the guy on his butt and not knowing quite how it happened, to make him think twice about coming at me again. Anyway, this is what I teach my students, this is what I believe in, and this is, in my experience, what works well. Don't EVER give up the element of surprise if you can help it.

Here's just another quick perspective on the wheelbarrow thing. I'm 6'6" (198cm) tall and weigh 235;* (beats me how many stones [rocks? ] or KG that is), and obviously have very long armns and a long torso/back. That wheelbarrow thing would kill my back and wrists, and you'd have to have a pretty strong person on my legs to handle me. Nope, it sounds to me that the disadvantages would far outweigh any advantages regardless of how a person is built. Injuries, even long term injuries, could easily happen doing that sort of exercise.

Question: I wasn't clear on this point. Are they fighting all 10 of these guys at the same time, or one after another? if it's one after the other, and the Sensei is last...heck, he's got it easy. Back in the real old days on Okinawa (or so my sensei told me anyway), when a challenger walked into a dojo and challenged the head Master to a fight, the Master would accept, but the challenger would have to start fighting the lowerst student first...then the next, and so on until he reached the Master. By that point, the Master had seen his opponents movements and techniques and figured out a plan of attack/defense. Plus, the challenger was usually pretty dang tired by this point. As my sensei said, very few Masters ever lost a challenge match in the dojo. *DISCLAIMER* I can't verify this is true, but made for an interesting story from Sensei at the time. I don't generally pass it on to my own students.

I began my early fascination with the arts before many of you were born. Let's call it "The Bruce Lee Era", where Mr. Lee was popular, making films, the Green Hornet was on TV, and then "Billy Jack" came out in the theaters. Man, how I wanted to learn that chopsoooie, kick-em-in-the-butt stuff! We're talking the late 60's, early 70's here people. (Yes, there are still people from that time alive! ) Unfortunately, where I lived, there was very limited opportunity to learn a martial art. Small-town Montana wasn't exactly a prime local for Masters to come and teach. My primary purpose for eventually joining a martial art was just for that reason. To learn a martial art. Period. At my size, I didn't often have problems with people picking fights with me, and the ones that did had (to that point anyway) always lost. Once into the arts, I found it incredibly fascinating (and still do) what the human body is capable of doing to another. Each and every class, I leave the dojo with a smile on my face, and am at peace with the world. Plus, it's just plain FUN! An excellent article BTW WapCaplet.

Where's the little mooning happy face icon when you need it? I guess you'll just have to use your imagination ---> (_! _)

Sorry WW, but you misunderstood what I was trying to say. To clarify, if you get the thinnest (and cheapest) mirrors they have, and have the glass company install them (thinnest means easiest to break when installing), then they are liable to replace them if they break during the instalation.

Any glass company should carry, or be able to order mirrors. if cost is a factor (appears to be) then get the thinnest mirrors they have. If you have the company install them, they will be liable to replace them if they get broken.

A foolish question, I know..but you're a brown belt in yoru system, right? By now I would think you should know all the drills quite well, and if you have any questions as to what to teach or do, you should consult with your sensei. Sorry, but it seems obvious to me. Why do drills that we come up with that might be foreign to you, and may not be suitable to what your sensei would like you to do. It's only an hour class, so there shouldn't be a problem keeping a bunch of lower belts occupied. *donning my Mr. Spock ears here* Seems logical to me.

A lot of it depends on how hard you work, how fast you learn, and how tough your competition is going to be at the tournament you want to compete in. I had a yoiung lady with no prior weapons experience, ask me two weeks before a tournament if I would help her make up a bo kata so she could enter taht part of the competition. We worked pretty hard on making up a decent kata, and you know what? She got 2nd place out of 8 competitors. 6 of them were black belts, and my student was a green belt (not even half way to black belt). I wa VERY proud of her, and she was jumpin g around the floor afterwards like her feet were on fire! So anyway, yes, it's possible to do well at a tournament with just a little prep time. But the more you have and the harder you work..the better your chances will be.