Shorinryu Sensei

There are no martial arts in the US that are NOT allowed to be taught. Although I know some instructors that IMHO shouldn't be allowed to TEACH!

IMHO, any dojo that "promises/guarantees" a black belt in a certain time frame is a McDojo. Run, don't walk, to the nearest exit and keep a good hold of your wallet and check book!

Myself, I don't charge any testing fees, provide certificates at no charge, and the student buys their own belt. $350 for a belt test is, IMHO, totally outragous ninjanurse!

There's a flaw in your survey in that "karate", "taekwondo" and "kungfu" are relatively generic terms encompassing literally hundreds of systems and their offshoots.

Wow...for years now I've been wanting somebody to actually ask me to tell them where to go! Go to Okinawa my friend...you'll find what you seek.

If you're going to be using the weapon like a twirling baton, then forget the strings...get a twirling baton instead. They always need good twirlers at the head of the marching band.

I'm not a supporter of head kicks anyway, but if the guy had a knife, then a head kick would be the LAST thing I would do. Also, if he got a "clean roundhouse in"..the fight should have been over at that point, so I would guess that it wasn't as clean, or powerful, as it should have been. Where a knife is involved, kicks need to be low, fast and hard to knees or lower. The groin and inner thigh are good if the knife is out of consideration, such as held high.

As I'm sure you know, ITF TKD uses no weapons, nor is the system designed to use weapons, so what weapon would compliment is isn't a factor. My suggestion would be to seek out a system such as Okinawan or Japanese, that uses weapons as a part of their system and start at white belt until you get to the level that they start teaching weapons. Being a 5th Dan in one system does not automatically qualify you to start right in learning weapons IMHO. That, or you can do what many TKD people I have seen do, and teach yourself bad technique and habits, and pass those down to your students. This was not intended to flame you, just stating my opinions to your question. Learn from a legitimate instructor that knows the weapons, don't just pick something up and start playing with them. You will do youself no justice by doing that, and you will not learn anything of value.

I disagree (sorry bud). if you "overkill" in a self-defense situation, then yes, you open yourself up to liability, but if you just defend yourself, no, you are OK. I've been there once. The judge talked to witness's and myself and it never went to court.

The only thing I would disagree with is #1. I teach my students to always assume that your opponent is BETTER than you are....until you find out differently.

Jelly-like bellies? You're kidding, right? yes, sumo are large, fat "appearing" men, but believe me, that "jelly" is solid as a rock!

Wow...I guess I'm commercialized. Wonder why I've never seen so much as a dime in the past 5 years though?

There's no such thing as "cheating" in a street fight. However, depending on the circumstances and the type of weapon used, using a weapon against your opponent may not be advisable. For example, I'm 6'6" tall and weigh 240lbs with 30 years in the arts. If someone 5'9" tall, 160lbs with no fighting experience attacks me and I pull knife on him to defend myself and stab him, most likely I'm headed to jail.

This would be my guess also. Even punching incorrectly shouldn't hurt your neck.

Hey now...yuou can mock Sauzin all you want to guys , but lets not mock Montana folk...K? We're simple people up here, but well armed ones.

Personally, I don't want to fight even one person, let alone many. But if I had no choice, I would fight as many as I had to fight to survive. Definitely I would use more crippling techniques against more than one opponent to try to disuade the others from coming at me. It's amazing how a dislodged eyeball on one guy will make the others think twice.

This is correct. From my limited viewing of shotokan, it is a more ridgid (aka stiff) system also than Ken(m)po systems that I know.

The places I'm talking about don't have websites and aren't in the yellow pages. Check out bulletin boards at grocery stores and ask around. There are no doubt hundreds of such places in more metropolitan areas...finding them is the trick. Only a small percentage of martial arts classes are commercial establishments, the rest are guys like me that are doing it because they love it and don't care if they make any money at it.

Personally, I'd say toss the yellow pages out the window and quit looking at the big commercial dojo's. Myself, I prefer the small, basement/backyard/garage type places. You get just as good, if not better, instruction, and the instructor isn't usually into making money out of his teachings.

I charge $40/month for classes, $0 for testings. The student buys their own belt/uniform/weapons.

I think it's a good thing you know how to click on silly icons, because it's pretty obvious you don't understand what a knife hand block is. Are you currently taking any sort of martial art? If so, ask your instructor has the slightest clue of what a knife hand block is all about, have him show you.

I dson't know where you can order them, but if you're looking for unsharpened "hardware store kamas from Okinawa", they don't come that way from what I've seen. I've seen two pair of them bought by 2 of my instructors, and you could shave with them.

Well, as I've stated a number of times on various threads, we don't make a big deal and production out of rank advancement.

I call them to attention, we bow to each other, shake hands, and I tell them congratulations..that's it.

If you noticed my certificates hanging over the aquarium where you were here last weekend, both have peacoks in them. I wouldn't call them Phoenix's though...definitely peacocks. As for why, I really don't know either.