Back to karate

[cross]

Hey Everyone,

Tonight was my first session back at karate. I took a break for around 1 year to re-evaluate a few things and if you have seen some of my recent posts you'll be aware i have focused alot on self protection specifically.

I am going back to karate for a few reasons:

1. Its probably the best school to train at in my area, in that the instructor is very experienced.

2. This style of karate is the one i have most experience in and spent most of my martial arts "career" training in.

3. It gives me something productive to do during weeknights.

4. I enjoy the training, even if it isnt always 100% focused on self protection.

5. Its something i can do at home and for a long period of time without burning out.

6. It will help me in my aim to be a well rounded martial artist and person.

etc.

Taking the break from training helped me put alot of things into perspective, realise what karate is, and more importantly what it isnt, and allowed me to work out exactly what i wanted to get out of the various training ive been doing.

Thanks for taking the time to read, feel free to share comments etc.

Cross.

[Dobbersky]

Welcome Back to Karate

You didn't mention what styel you have taken up

Osu

[NightOwl]

Cross, I think that with your background you will add a lot to the environment there.

[gheinisch]

Sometimes a break is just what a person needs. Glad that it helped you sort things out. Welcome back.

[bushido_man96]

I have to admit, Cross, that this is kind of a shock to me! But, I think that if you enjoy doing it, then there is no reason not to do it. Like you said, you have figured out what Karate is and isn't, and you can use that to your advantage.

It sounds like you do kind of what I do; I have TKD classes during the week, and then I have a day when I get together with a friend of mine, and we do a combination of Combat Hapkido and Hock Hockheim's system. I enjoy doing this.

So, you will be doing kata now?

At any rate, have fun, and keep us posted on your progress.

[ps1]

And that puts you ahead of many millions of other practitioners who just train and don't know why. Now you are truly free to work on mastering the art and making it part of you as opposed to copying someone elses movements and thoughts.

congratulations.

[Dobbersky]

Bushido_man96-sama

With my upmost resepct. I am sure you are fully conversant with Karate techniques. Sometimes karate is all one requires

Karate, IS a complete martial art, it includes locks, throws, strikes, blocks etc in all of its kata. The only thing is like 'boxing' alot of the techniques have been lost through mis-interpretation. As a researcher into Medieval Combat, you will agree that Boxing used to include, locks and throws but were slowly filtered out. Also within Wrestling, it slowly filtered out the striking techniques.

I would recommend reading some of Iain Abernathy's books, including Karate's Grappling methods.

Kata is what Karate is all about, Kata in Japanese and Korean Karate (TKD and TSD) kata(Hyungs) are 'performed' and we can see all the strikes locks and throws even in the most basic of kata.

Bunkai(application) is where the Kata comes alive.

I have studied many styles and Karate (Ashiharakai and WadoRyu give to me the most complete aspects of the art relevant to myself).

Osu

[cross]

It sounds like you do kind of what I do; I have TKD classes during the week, and then I have a day when I get together with a friend of mine, and we do a combination of Combat Hapkido and Hock Hockheim's system. I enjoy doing this.

Certainly, i think there is alot of benefits to being well rounded and training in a variety of things, both traditional and contemporary.

So, you will be doing kata now?

I certainly will. Here is a disclaimer to any of my "anti-kata" posts:

All views expressed are in reference to learning purely self protection. If thats your goal, there are better ways than kata. But if you want to learn a complete art and have the time(which i do) to break-down the movements and principles, then practicing kata can be very rewarding.

haha.

Edited October 11, 2007 by cross

[cross]

And that puts you ahead of many millions of other practitioners who just train and don't know why. Now you are truly free to work on mastering the art and making it part of you as opposed to copying someone elses movements and thoughts.

congratulations.

Thanks for the kind words ps1, very well said.

[TraditionalDan]

Like myself, you come to that 'realisation', that can't easily be explained to non practitioners of any art.

Congratulations on returning to a truly great art.