Rare Styles: KishimotoDi, UdunDi, To'on-Ryu, Kojo-Ryu, etc.

[Wastelander]

On 1/6/2025 at 8:46 AM, DarthPenguin said:

One other issue that might come up unfortunately is the issue of there being a lot of frauds out there. When i am interested in a club or style the very first thing i (as i think most people do nowadays) is google them and see what i can find out about the instructor, their lineage, the style etc. If i can't find anything it usually seems quite a red flag to me unless i can rely on word of mouth from someone i trust.

Unfortunately for a lot of frauds an easy way for them to try to escape detection is claim to be trained in a "rare and rarely seen style" and then make up whatever rank they want etc. If someone queries the lack of information they can either point to the rarity or all of the info will point back to them! Obviously there are "real" rare styles without much of an online presence but this is quite a potential issue i think.

I actually think that you, Wastelander, are a good example of how to go about teaching or keeping alive a smaller style: you have a clear online presence, you give clear lineage etc. and you regularly interact with other martial artists openly (of senior level) and put out technique videos. That gives people plenty to look at and give comfort - realistically most things i would find on Kishimoto-di are from you but then i can see that you interact with enough other senior people that if you had made it up yourself they could easily have called you out on it (which you haven't so they don't need to!!)

Fraud is definitely a concern, but it is frustrating that many people seem to feel there is a link between popularity and legitimacy. This is something I have seen time and time again in the martial arts world--people who think that if an art is legitimate, it will be popular, and if it is popular, it must be legitimate. I have actually faced that quite a bit with regard to KishimotoDi, personally. All I can do is keep publishing information and putting out video content, and encouraging others to do the same.

On 1/6/2025 at 9:36 AM, sensei8 said:

Shindokan Saitou-ryu. Things are born and die once.

A “rare” Okinawan karate style that I practiced, trained, and taught for 60 years.

Its founder refused to bow to the powers that be in Okinawa Karate, so he moved as far away from them as he could…to the USA.

Its founder also refused to advertise beyond the word-of-mouth, the occasional local demonstrations, and passing out flyers. Even here at KF I was severely disappointed in the drillings I received as to why our founder didn’t have a website and utilize all of the modern marketing tools. Our founders reason were simple…he didn’t believe in them; he was very old school…our founder only had one student, my sensei, when he relocated to the USA.

 I adopted both our founders and my sensei’s marketing skills whenever I opened my own dojo/MA Supply store, and never once regretted it or seriously thought about going modern day school when it came to advertising/marketing Shindokan. Neither my founder, my sensei, myself, and many other dojo’s within the SKKA network cared about all of that or how we were perceived by anyone.

Shindokan Saitou-ryu is or has died, which started a snowballing effect whenever both our founder and my sensei passed away and whenever the tumultuous events that eventually followed after their passings. A civil war erupted within the SKKA, our once Governing Body, that ended with the complete collapse that followed. The SKKA network of its dojo’s have been disbanded for cause.

Perhaps, I’ve waisted 60 years of my life in training and teaching Shindokan when all that I still deeply care about is gone forever!! I suppose that many Okinawan MA styles has or will reach their own demise caused by their own rarity.

I don't think you have wasted your time, at all! It is definitely sad to lose a rare art, however.

On 1/6/2025 at 7:23 PM, KarateKen said:

I've never heard of any of these.  As Mickey Mantle once said "it's unbelievable how much you don't know about the game you have been playing your entire life."  It carries over the martial arts for sure. 

The "not knowing what you don't know" aspect of the knowledge bell curve is pretty common!

On 1/8/2025 at 9:52 PM, bushido_man96 said:

This is a very interesting topic, and lots of good points have been made already.  I kind of feel the same way you do about this, @Wastelander, but for TKD.  I know TKD isn't as old as some Karate styles, but it has a rich history, which I feel has been mostly lost through the unification of the original kwans.  Most of the styles taught in these kwans were originally styles of Karate, Chinese styles, or Judo that were picked up by the practitioners during the Japanese occupation of Korea.  There are also the rumors that those that had studied (or played) Taekkyon when young in Korea also added that flavor to what they learned and taught.  I've spent some time researching these kwans, and information is hard to find.  It saddens me to think of what material and methods from those original kwans are no longer taught in modern dojangs.

Karate is luckier than Taekwondo in a way; at least there isn't one driving force trying to unify and codify everything under one umbrella.

I think the plight of rarer styles is like @sensei8 mentioned; they are born and die without much transition taking place, whether this is by hook or by crook.  Those, like you, @Wastelander, that are the gatekeepers of these rare styles, I think have to decide how it is preserved and how it moves forward.  Personally, I love to have written material to refer to, but not everyone is going to write a book.  Perhaps people aren't as interested or simply don't have the time and resources to seek these things out.  Where would I have to go meet up with you and seek out KishimotoDi?  Illinois?  That's quite a trip for me, and probably for most, except those who are local.  Hitting up a weekend seminar would be a great option, but how much can you pour into someone over the course of 8-15 hours of training?  Not enough to pass on a style.  Some concepts and technical aspects would be retained, for sure.  Hopefully you have a handful of good students that will be able to continue on the style, and perhaps it will grow more in time and therefore become a little more widespread and accessible to others.

If people aren't seeking out those styles anymore, perhaps the answer is for them to seek out others.  But I don't think that is in the nature for these rare styles to do.  I could be wrong; that happens all the time.  I hope this doesn't come across as a "pointing fingers" type of response; that's not my intention.  I'm just trying to put forth points to generate more discussion on the matter.  Something we don't see happen as much anymore is the uchi-deshi, the student who lives with a master for a length of time.  That seems like it would be harder to do nowadays.  I'm not sure if it would help out in this instance or not, but we just don't see that kind of commitment from those seeking to train with skilled and knowledgeable instructors.

Yeah, not everyone is a writer, or thinks they have much of value to write, even if they do, but books absolutely help. I'm sure time and resources are barriers to entry, but there are usually options available to learn at least a little bit of what there is to learn about rare systems if you really want to. Uchi-deshi programs are definitely rare these days, and I think most of them are in fairly popular styles. Maybe that will change.

On 1/9/2025 at 4:33 AM, DarthPenguin said:

It is definitely an interesting topic, how to preserve a style. I was actually talking about exactly this a couple of weeks ago with some friends i used to train with in another style. It is a TKD offshoot and for a while had gotten pretty big, plenty of clubs in Scotland, some in England, some in a few other countries but gradually that has reduced back down to a very small number of clubs in Scotland. What is a shame is most of the people i know of who left (including myself) did so for easily sortable reasons such as the GM forbidding any cross training - i had the choice between adding grappling to my training and leaving or staying there but nothing else. For myself i chose to leave! What makes it more of a shame is several people who left performed pretty well on a scottish or UK wide level in varying kickboxing orgs and MMA orgs, so permitting cross training would have allowed them to leverage these people's success into attracting more students.

My view on it was that unless the style manages to allow cross training and gets lucky with someone becoming a reasonably decorated fighter (thereby getting more people in) that the style will die out. A lot of people nowadays don't like the old fashioned rules such as only train here (i personally found it quite amusing as the GM used to mention his Black Belts in multiple styles as well as his Masters grade in TKD etc).

Unfortunately not all styles teach a syllabus that is well suited to utilisation in combat sports so it might not be a valid way of building up interest in them again which is a shame.

Not sure what the solution is there tbh - i am not a fan of online teaching assessment but, using @Wastelander style of KishimotoDi as an example is it similar enough to another style of karate/ another martial art whereby someone could learn it as variations to their technique once they had achieved a certain level (eg when someone is X dan in Style Y, the similarities are such that they could learn a lot of the material as adjustments to what they know and are already skilled enough to be shown it online?). Would be a real shame though if good styles vanish simply due to lack of awareness of their existence!

Cross-training is absolutely important for a well-rounded martial education, but it's really unfortunate that competition seems to be the only way for a style to gain mainstream popularity. I understand why, but the combat sports communities have done a good job of convincing people that traditional martial arts don't work in modern combat sports, so people with an interest in competitive fighting aren't likely to seek out traditional arts. With regard to KishimotoDi, specifically, it shares 3 of its 4 kata with other Shuri-Te lineage systems, but it is quite distinctly unique in movement and power generation, so the crossover isn't as significant as you will see in modern karate styles.

[DarthPenguin]

i think some traditional arts have done a reasonable job of being proven to work in modern combat sports (kyokushin has done well, shotokan too plus judo, with some people not realising the gojo ryu and uechi stylists) but i would generally agree. Unfortunately nowadays people want to see something in action before committing. So when it comes to martial arts if they have seen something on tv etc then they instantly assign legitimacy to that style. Some of the nonsense you see online from some traditional styles doesn't help either: some of the nonsense demos you see from Seagal and others come straight to mind! 

Is a difficult problem to solve tbh. Something traditional that doesn't mesh well with combat sports but which is effective is hard to demonstrate to people in a such a way that they will take it up. Krav Maga comes to mind here: it is used by soldiers in a military who regularly see combat (the Israeli military) so it must be effective but when you see a lot of the demos from it it looks laughable (i have done some sparring in the past with some krav people who really didn't impress me). Really not sure what the best solution is!

[sensei8]

Proof is on the floor!! Legitimacy is found on the floor!!

When it comes to effectiveness, and effectiveness is everything, talk is cheap, history knowledge is meaningless, and so on and so forth.

The style, rare or not, is not the problem, the practitioner is the problem. 

Either one can or one can’t!! Many can’t because their techniques haven’t matured yet!! 

Nobody’s unbeatable in the real world, I’m beatable, “you” are beatable but for those who’ve matured in their techniques have a far better ability to defend themselves. Those that haven’t matured in their techniques is because they’re still afraid, and that fear creates uncertainty.

Imho!!

 

 

[KorroddyDude]

13 hours ago, Wastelander said:

I understand why, but the combat sports communities have done a good job of convincing people that traditional martial arts don't work in modern combat sports, so people with an interest in competitive fighting aren't likely to seek out traditional arts.

I think that a lot of this is actually failure on the part of traditional martial arts.

First, people in the general population who grew up watching Chuck Norris and Van Damme were convinced that traditional martial arts would look like what they saw in the choreographed scenes.  MMA comes along and people find out otherwise, and now they feel that they've been duped by traditional martial arts the whole time.

Secondly, traditional martial arts doesn't market itself properly in the age of MMA.

I think that Karate Combat is a good case study.  Although I don't know for sure, my hypothesis is that Karate Combat fighters aren't like the rest of us here who go to the dojo x times per week.  I don't think that they only do the same training as we do.  I'm certain that there's a lot of drills, pad work, and other training that most of us don't go through that Karate Combat fighters go through to prepare for upcoming fights - much like what boxers and MMA fighters go through.  None of that is necessary for those who train for self-defense.  Yet, you will be doing those things if you train in boxing or MMA.  Traditional martial arts need to point that out.  You don't have to be able to hang with MMA fighters to effectively defend yourself from an untrained troublemaker on the streets.