What has surprised you most about your style?

[tonydee]

I never fail to be surprised by, in any style, the number of pointless, fancy moves that work in theory, but never do.

Agreed... it's an interesting issue. I find it useful to visualise it as a two dimensional plot of techniques/strategies/skills/attributes: effectiveness on the Y axis, time/effort/insight in practice on X. Definitely true that some things never give a good return on effort invested. Others give a lot of bang for the buck when you're first starting, but don't progress too much further. Perhaps a few are useless for 20 or 30 years of full time practice, then perhaps become awesome - or is that just myth? (thinking tai chi, bagua).

Just to communicate that concept with a little ASCII art (of course, happy to discuss the illustrated opinion on return-on-investment for various punching techniques, but will leave that until asked).

Effectiveness
|...........................................-- karateka's punch
|....................................../---/
|......................------------------- boxer's punch
|.....---------------/.......-----/
|..--/.................-----/
|./...........--------/
||....-------/
|x---/...................................--/ taichi punch (heading where?)
|..................................-----/
|x-------------------------------/
+---------------------------------------> effort

Then you need to consider the synergies... if you don't get good at A (e.g. dodging), can you counter-balance that by being good at B (blocking, jamming, distancing...?) Whether it's knuckle or shin conditioning, fitness or strength, front jab or 3-inch punch, turning/roundhouse or spinning hooking kick, throws or joint locks, holds or weapons - putting all your effort into an ad-hoc mismatch of things limits your progress.

I think learning to differentiate and understand where on that graph particular techniques belong is key to becoming a really good martial artist, as it guides your efforts for the mix of short, medium and long term progress that you require.

So, just as bad as practicing fancy, impractical moves, is practicing only the moves/skills/tactics that work almost immediately but can't be improved on. That's the terain of those Black Belt magazine ads ala $50 'one move that will drop any opponent in the blink of an eye, known only to the secret bodyguards of the Kingdom of Dosh'.

There are plenty of things I practice that I'd say those unfamiliar with them often undervalue (perhaps after a token effort to learn them, aquiring some useless outward semblance that they find dissatisfying). Side kick, inward knife hand, front kick (not just a kickboxing style push, but a real kick), axe kick... all these things take work to get usable results from. To some people they'd be flashy - to other people, a jumping spinning hooking kick is flashy. To others, XMA is the only thing that still qualifies as flashy. Anyway, educating our conceptions about where to draw the line should be done with an awareness of both the results we feel we can achieve, and that one day we might bump into someone who can make something work that we'd long dismissed as nonsense: a good instructor saves a lot of aimless effort.

Regards,

Tony

[mauro1]

about the shoes, its just disrespect i never heard of any rules giving the reasing why nor have i heard it bringing evil spirits in the room, maybe its a saftey hazard that your shoe could fly off and hit someone or its dirty for the dojo floor because originally dojo is your Senseis home so japanese dont like it when you wear your shoes in there home. really i have not heard a reason why , but i will find out.

Ranking systems vary depending on your school or your Sensei's school, sometimes a Sensei will use the same belt and grading systems as his teacher did, and some come up with there own. My Sensei made his own, really it doesnt stray to far away from tradition belt coulers like yellow, orange,green,brown, and black. Unless your in the kids class you get stripes and red, purple category is added in.

Adults:

white

yellow

orange

green

blue

brown

black-shodan(1st dan)

nidan(2nd dan)

sandan(3rd dan)

chidan(4th dan)

godan(5th dan)

rookdan(6th dan)

sichedan(7th dan)

hatchedan(8th dan)

kudan(9th dan)

Shihan or judan(10th dan/Master)

progressing does take a while, if you think you were speeding you usually get stuck at green-brown area, after that it becomes so hard, its pretty much the same things just new kata but a bigger demand on your physical limits but in terms of techniques you have more combinations in your basics coming across the floor, this is what ive been told by my seniors.

Advanced technique is Masterd Basics

-Mauro[/code]

[Lupin1]

I think one thing that surprises me is the lack of stance of most Isshinryu practictioners. My sensei got a really low score from a non-Isshinryu judge once decades ago in a kata competition and when he asked for tips on how to improve the judge told him "Isshinryu has no stance" and ever since then he worked on improving his own stance and religiously and relentlessly corrected his students' stances. When I look at black belts from other styles the first thing that strikes me usually is how firm and solid their stances look, but when I see Isshinryu black belts from other schools my first thought is "how did that guy get a black belt!? Look at his stance! It looks like he's just standing around throwing punches! I'm a yellow belt and my stance is more solid than his" (yellow being the fourth belt in my school and having taken me 4 years to achieve- so it's not a complete beginner like it is in most schools). That's one of the very few things I don't like about my style.

[UnKnownsenSei]

not so much surprised at the class but of the teacher. he was a guy who came and went. really never stuck wit the plan of the week. i mean sometimes he did. we would have class everyday for one week and then the next...3 days. hard to get promoted as well. our classes were free so it wasnt like he was trying to keep us around for money. i kind of thought he abandoned tha class after awhile. he just didnt want to show up.

i guess in a way, he forced me to create and discover on my own time. he instilled in me a sense of being unique and i'll always remember him 4 that. This was my first karate teacher.

[dave_pfc]

This is an excellent example of the full power Mawashi (knee from side) by Kagawa sensei of the Japan Karate Shoto-Renmei

BTW even in my prime (and I am well past it now ) I wasn't able to get anywhere near this guy's standard. He is awesome.

WNM

That's insane, even the fact he can hold his leg up at the guys face

[dave_pfc]

After having practised Wado-Ryu as a teenager for 6 years, taken an 18 year 'break' and returned recently to training (in Shotokan), that Shotokan is not at all how I imagined it

So is better than you imagined?

[dave_pfc]

I find it kinda funny how people joke about 'Judo chop's when there isn't really any chopping in judo.

Isn't that just Austin Powers that said 'Judo Chop'!?

[isshinryu607]

I was suprised that in my Taekwondo class, you cant spare til youre an orange belt! In isshinryu we could spare right away if we wanted to

[Lupin1]

I was suprised that in my Taekwondo class, you cant spare til youre an orange belt! In isshinryu we could spare right away if we wanted to

In my Isshinryu class we couldn't spar until we were yellow belts (which is the fourth belt at my school and I studied for four years before I got it).

[FushinRyu]

I'm amazed that i always learn something new about my style every day. whether it be from a punch to a take down, i always discover something i haven't seen or known before, always making me better and better, looking forward into learning some more.