Montana

It works great I think. The real pistol has weight, feel and is just plain REAL that a water, wood or plastic pistol doesn't have, plus dropping the hammer adds a sense of realism to the practice. You can pretty well tell if you were going to get hit or not.

A water pistol is to slow, I used a real .22 cal revolver I had. You can pretty much tell if you were going to get shot or not when the hammer falls.

I've had many AHA monents in my MA life, but I think the first, and biggest one was when body shifting/change of body finally started clicking for me in the middle of a class I was teaching at the local high school. I don't know why, but suddenly it all made sense and started working. My mind opened up to it and I saw all sorts of possabilities and uses for it. I was a Shodan/1st dan at the time with about 9 years in the arts. I had been on my own without a sensei for around 6 years at the time, and had some videos that were given to me by Sensei Ron Lindsey from Texas that helped me TREMENDOUSLY to advance my training.

I consider myself a traditional "purist", inb the sense that I think my chosen art works just fine the way it is and really doesn't need to be messed with and changed....much. With that in mind, I hve incorporated a little Aikido into my Okinawan Tuite, such as the front roll Aikido uses is IMO better and safer than the front roll that I learned from my sensei. Otherwise, I don't think it's a good idea to train in 2 or more different systems and use techniques from both, because you lose the essense of each system as you pass it down to others eventually. I do however, think there are quite a few systems out there that NEED to cross train in other systems, as they have many weaknesses which will get people hurt because they have no training in specific defenses. I won't name systems, but I've seen many dojos that don't teach effective defenses against grabs for example, or how to move their bodies out of the way of an attack. Not to mention the absolutely rediculous, and horrible weapons techniques that are so prevalent now days. My opinion of course.

My origional sensei trained on Okinawa in the 1970's, he told me that challenges did happen now and then, but rarely.

I had 2 guys come to my dojo, which was in the basement of my HOME, to "watch" my class back in the 1980's. About halfway thru the class one of them asks if he can fight me. I told him if he wanted to signup/join the class, then yes, we would be sparring often. He stated he wanted to fight NOW, not later, and had no interest in joining my class. I politely told him no, I didn't spar with people off the street just because they wanted me to. He said..."Chicken?" I replied no, that I didn't spar for fun and the entertainment of others, but with my students and other martial artists when the situation warrented it. He became more verbally aggressive so I went over to the door, closed it and locked it. I told one of my students to standby the phone on the wall and be ready to call an ambulance. The other guy said "An ambulance? Why?" I advised him that he walked into my dojo/home and is physically threatening me in front of witnesses, and he either needed to leave immediately, or yes, we would be fighting NO RULES, and one of us was going to need an ambulance. He started sputtering and backpeddling verbally about how he just wanted to spar with me and see if he could beat me. I told him leave now, or start fighting, and I assumed a fighting stance. He and his friend went out the door and haven't seen them since.,

Exactly! The key thing here is not to over react. If somebody throws a drink in your face, don't beat them into a bloody pile! Sure, you feel like it, but a normal backhand across his face would be sufficient. If it escalates to his attacking you beyond that, use no more than appropriate force to stop his aggression! That's what the law will look at. Using EXCESSIVE force, more than needed, is what you need to be careful of.

Rediculous IMO. Waste of money.

The only MA "celebrity" I've ever met was Ed Parker, about a year before he died.

I've used it in a SD situation maybe 8-10 times. Some were in defense of myself, but most were in defense of others. Whether skill, or luck, none of the attackers landed a blow on myself, and I either defeated them, or disuaded them into pursuing more aggression towards myself, or others.

Speed and reaction time..both come from practice. pracitice..and then more practice!

My personal opinion is..any dojo that says they are teaching Ninjutsu, RUN, don't walk, the other direction! I'm older than a lot of you on this forum and have been involved in the arts since 1975. I saw the Ninja craze of the late 1970's-1980's, including Stephen Hayes rise to American Ninja prominence. Mr. Hayes claimed back then to have visited Japan solely for the purpose of learning the secret art of Ninjutsu. He supposedly asked around and followed leads here and there until one day running into a Ninjutsu Grand Master that agreed to teach him. Stop and think about it people..Ninjutsu is a system that was so secret, the Japanese government outlawed it with the penalty of DEATH to anyone caught practising it! It remained largely forgotten and reached the status of "mythical", but along comes Mr. Hayes, an American, finds a Grand Master of it by just asking around, and is taught all the secrets??? I'm sorry, but I doubt it. Black Belt Mag had hundreds of articles about Ninjutsu and Stephen Hayes in the 80's. Anybody with half a gram of common sense would have looked at the techdniques that were displayed there and laughed. I had the opportunity to ask the head of my system in 1978, Sensei Kuda Yuichi from Okinawa, what he thought about Ninjutsu and whether it was authentic or not. He rolled his eyes, made a "Harumph" sound and basically flew it off as a joke.

I know of a couple of instructors that quit teaching because they became disillusioned with their system. It failed them when they were faced with a real life self-defense situation, or even after multiple black belts they felt that the system hadn't prepared them for the real life world of survivng a fight.

After 30+ years in the arts, 27 of it teaching, I quit cold turkey. I have arthritis in both knees and a screwed up back that likes to make a loud "popping" sound when I kick hard with my right leg, causing my legs to go weak and falling to the floor in pain. It became a choice between teaching karate, or possibly not walking. Hmmmm..tough choice! lol

I lived in Northwestern Montana for many years, which is in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. It's pretty "isolated"..lol. I loved it and trained ouytside whenever possible. OK...OK...not like YOU mean

Well, this is just my opinion of course, but your sensei should have known what you were made of LONG before you tested for a black belt. I often wonder if there are instructors out there that never see their students...it sounds that way sometimes. Personally, and I told my students this often, "I know what you can do BETTER than you do."

And this is exactly why, or one of the reasons anyway, I love Shorin Ryu so much! It's not on every street corner, and isn't normally as commercialized as a lot of systems are. And it's real!

Why were they so short? I'm curious because every BB Grading I've ever seen or heard of has always lasted in excess of 3/4 hours to multiple days. My first and 3rd BB tests were in front of Sensei Kuda Yuichi, head of the system. Our class had been working with him for several weeks and one day he called each person, including my sensei, to come up and run thru a kata or two, and show a technique or two, then sit down as he called the next in line to do the same. After class was over we were told that we had just tested. We didn't know at the time. My 2nd Dan test was with a 6th Dan in Minnesota, and again he didn't tell me he ws testing me. We were just working out and he was showing me soem things, then afterwards told me he was promoting me to Nidan (2nd Dan). My 4th Dan was via videotape to my 6th Dan sensei that lives on the East coast. He'd asked me to tape my kata, basics and my class and send it to him. A few weeks later he sent me my 4th Dan in the mail. Again, I didn't realize there was a promotion forthcoming. We test differently than most systems, and there's not a lot of emphasis or whoopla on testing. Tests/belts come when they come, especially in the dan levels. Basically, we are tested at each class, and that's what I did with my students. I want your best EVERY class, not just during a test.

All 4 of my BB tests lasted maybe 15 minutes or so each. 3 of which I didnt even know I was being tested.

AGREED! Did anybody besides me notice that the referee was wearing heels? HEELS??? How the heck is she supposed to move? Part of ref's responsibilities is to QUICKLY get in between the fighters to breakup dangerous situations and to prevent injuries to the fighters. Again..in HEELS??? Sorry, I watched that vid twice..IMHO that whole match was a joke, from the venue, the judging, the fat old men sitting around the ring bored out of their minds and not paying attention ... HEELS???

Okinawan Shorin Ryu Matsumura Seito Karate-Do, if you're doing it the old way and resistant to changes made by some instructors of the system, is about 200 years old.

Just off the top of my head... Elvis Presley - Ed Parker Kenpo James Caan - Bruce Lee James Colburn - Bruce Lee

Long hours are no guarantee of excellence in the MA's, but they definitely improve your odds! For example, I had a longtime student named Rod. Really nice guy, my age (mid-50's at the time). He could, and did, 100 pushups and 200 situps every day, ran miles often, lifted weights, and trained in what I taught him daily. However, Rod just never really seemed to "get it" totally. He got up to his 1st Kyu (just before black), but never seemed to get over that hump needed to get his black belt. This was not only frustrating to him, but to me also. He was a decent fighter, but never really had good control. Injuries often happened with him so myself and a couple of other higher ranks are all that would spar with him. Control is required for BB. He also never seemed to get his kata quite tight enough either, despite working with him and making corrections at every class. One day it would be this technique, the next it would be something else. There was no one in my class, myself included, that worked harder at his training than Rod did..but he just never quite "got it" right.

IMO, a 30 min class is a waste of time. You hardly get a chance to warm up, and it's over. Naw, a MINIMUM of 1.5 hours..2 is better.

My instructor and I always taught a 2 hour classs, 2-3 days per week. I've seen classes that were as short as 45 minutes, and IMO, that's barely enough time to get warmed up! EVERY class starts with basic warmup exercises and basics drills. This takes around 20 minutes IF everybody knows what they are doing (beginners take longer). This is usually followed by self-defense drills (tuitte, blocks/counters, various techniques, etc. This is followed by kata practice, then finish up the class with sparring. Sometimes I wish the class was 3 hours long, but not many want to practice that long. What do you do?