Hello all, a friend of mine started taking karate with his kids.I`ve never heard of this style and was wondering if you guys/gals have.thanks
wait, you're asking if people in the karate forum heard about karate? don't worry, just joking if i get this correctly, you seem to have forgotten to actually name the style you haven't heard of EDIT: gah, ninja'ed. says the webpage is not available. you sure it's the correct address, or just my internet being stupid?
In the website it states that it is a blend of arts. It listed Shotokan as one of the arts. I took Shotokan in the early nineties and I enjoyed it. Try a lesson or two out with your friend and see if you like it.
i was engaged in other activities at the moment, sorry. besides my internet actually IS being stupid today. i'll probably check out the site tomorrow
If we're talking about these people It's certainly an interesting mix of styles. Although personally I wouldn't be comfortable learning a style that is a mix of shotokan, goju and isshin ryu unless the founder had decent dan grades in all three styles. I'd ask the founder if you can his background. These styles are separate for a reason, and unless the guy has a deep knowledge of all three you could end up doing an art with aspects and teachings that simply aren't compatible with one another. The website doesn't have much information on the club or the instructors, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but be sure to check out the legal and insurance side of the place. The association they seem to be with seems to have been created for them and some jiu jitsu and kempo clubs. So make sure they've got the proper insurance etc. All that being said, they do seem to be humble enough about what they're doing which is a good thing, so it could be a decent club to go to. So if it is a good club, the only other problem I can see at the moment is that if you decide to move away, or leave that club and want to take up either Shotokan, Goju or Isshin ryu as a single style (because you won't find this mix anywhere else guaranteed), the clubs and associations won't recognise your grade. I'm also probably being nit-picky here but look at the photo below: Now, for me as a Shotokan person, this horse stance isn't very good. These guys are (judging from this picture and the instructor's page) at least second dans, and they have a corrupted stance. It's wide enough and low enough for me to think they're using a Shotokan Kiba Dachi, but influence from goju and/or isshin here, I would say, has interfered with their stances. What style does this stance belong to? Take the black belt 2nd from right. His feet are no where near in line. That's probably so he can get lower. But he's corrupted his stance to the point where it's probably not going to be that strong. Either his instructor hasn't picked up on this, his instructor doesn't know, or it's some kind of hybrid in between stance. In my club, you'd probably get away with that kind of stance if you were ~5th kyu, but no higher. BUT: That's only one photo and like I said earlier it could be a decent club. You'll have to try it out and let us know, in case anyone else comes round these parts asking about them Also, read this article written by one hell of an insightful dude. It might help
Just a quick note on the stance. In ****o-ryu we have a stance called shiko dachi, which is similar to kiba dachi, but the feet are 45 degrees. It does allow you to get a little deeper, and takes the strain of the knees a little. Not sure if it is what they are meaning to do, or why a club that claims to be of shotokan origin is doing it, but they all appear to be doing it. From the looks of it, it seems to be a decent club, but like always go down and check it out and don't stop there. Make sure you go out and check a few other clubs in the area so that you have something to match it up against. Ask questions, a good instructor will be happy to give you answers.
Actually that's a good point - we have that stance too. Except we hardly use it EDIT: but still, if you look at the guy 2nd from right again, his left foot is at a completely different angle to his right. Not a good sign
no, that's not shiko dachi. just a badly done kiba with the heels in. you can tell by the way they drop their weight. shiko dachi is a totally different stance from kiba, and serves a different purpose. to make an analogy, kiba is a square or rectangular shape designed for stability and torque, while shiko dachi is triangular and at it's best doing sideways force transfer. EDTI: also, if you take the foot position of shiko dachi with the leg shape of kiba dachi the only thing you accomplish is to bend your legs unnaturally, lose all effectiveness and possibly injure your knees btw i checked out the site, looks pretty normal, except the instructor/founder/whatever lists only his 8th dan. but an 8th dan in WHAT?
Sometimes I think there is a risk that you can get too hung up on stances. In reality, they are a moment in time, otherwise they become "igata" and if you are not careful you become stuck.
Besides this, should we me musing over the accuracy of the stances when perhaps there are many more "laughable" things on offer. Am I the only one for example that has noticed that the (apparent) examiners are wearing dressing gowns with a red and white panel effect lapel!!! I mean... you can't script this sort of stuff. Come on guys?
Fish Sorry bout going OT here but i'm not to sure what you mean there. Are you saying that you set deeper in kiba dachi than shiko dachi. I thought that it would have been the other way around. When looking at the three stance in that line naihanchi dachi (feet 45 inwards), kiba dachi (feet parallel), and shiko dachi (feet 45 outwards); the stance got deeper the moving from naihanchi to kiba to shiko. And also being incredibly nit picky but does the guy at the fronts line seem out. Might just be the camera angle. Note to self should probably check my lines before commenting about random people's on the net.
wall of text ftw @ gary: i understand your concern about the stances. let me elaborate. not sure about the stances in wado, but in ****o ryu there is a stance called shiko dachi, in which your legs make more or less a pentagon. your feet are 45 degrees out and your knees push out to the side, with your abdomen pushing out and your hips pushing back, centering your weight in a sort of triangle, with your center of gravity more of less on your dan tien/hara. it's a very mobile stance when done correctly, and since most of it's structure comes from the thighs and quadriceps it has tremendous sideways strength while minimizing direct pressure on the joints. kiba dachi on the other hand is the polar opposite, feet parallel forming a rectangle, and hips tucked in to make the body fall down and forward, with the center of gravity being more or less a straight line along your spine. due to the leg position you rest squarely on your knees and ankles, which with the adition of training said joints and surrounding tissue, make for an extremely steady stance which can be turned into with tremendous rotatory force. what these blokes are doing is resting squarely on their knees with their feet out. i'm surprised they can even walk. not sure what you mean either . what i'm saying is that if you stand in kiba and turn your feet out your legs will pay the price. theoretically your kiba dachi should have the feet as perfectly parallel as possible. going off on a tangent here, shiko dachi can and most often will be deeper then kiba because it uses a completely different structure(see above), kiba resting upon your knees and rooting you into position, while shiko dachi relies on the springing action of your quadriceps, so while for shiko dachi you just have to be flexible and bend your legs more, for kiba you have to drop your weight forward to "sink". even so, an extremely low shiko dachi is not beneficial(in fact, i'd say it's the opposite), since you lose all the mobility you have from simply stretching one of your legs explosively, and you lose the ability to exert upwards force as you overextend your quads. a shiko dachi should never go beyond 90 degrees, and preferably should be between 100 and 120 or 30, depending on how you feel more comfortable. to illustrate my point, here's an exercise we do in the hayashi-ha to test our shiko dachi. stand in uchi hachiji dachi, with both arms in open handed hikite. now slowly do a teisho with both hands, exhaling, hikite slowly, pivot your heels to drop into shiko dachi and teisho upwards (remember to tense lats and have your hands ollow as straight a path as possible). then have someone come up behind you and push your hands down. with proper arm alignment, the force will be transferred to around your dan tien, which you must push upwards by straightening your legs. if you have lowered your dan tien too much, you will be unable to exert tension on your quadriceps and your legs will collapse under you. if you keep proper arm alignment and assume a proper height for the stance(might have to chop your feet off, fortunately i'm a short fella ) you should be able to sustain someone's weight on your legs by virtue of quadriceps strength alone.
Just let it go people. This is exactly why i got out of kung fu,too many stances .A stance for this a stance for that blah blah blah.It is now and always has been a waste of time if you`re looking to simply learn self defence.I`m not saying that some don't serve a purpose but people seem to carried away with them.But this has just been my experience.:bang:
that clears it up. I thought you where talking relatively before, when you talking about dropping your weight. Your explanations of the stances are amazing, it is often hard to put into words key points and feeling in movements and stances. You seem to have a knack for it, which would make you an excellent teacher. I agree with you completely about the ridiculously low shiko dachi, trying to move through it would be at the very least, difficult. I think the only reason it should be done is as a strengthening drill, but even then there are better ways.
The focus on stances is only relevant when studying kihon (basics) or kata. They help build a strong base through strengthening the legs, and should work towards creating a good grounding for footwork. I have heard stances been likened to the roots of trees. Without strong roots a tree won't stand a chance. That said I wholely agree with Gary. Once you start thinking beyond kata and basics, thinking of stances will only hold you back. From your basics you should always fall into a stance that is natural, and appropriate. These stance rarely look like the rigid stances of basics, but usually take a similar stucture (ie, distribution of weight, line, and width). For fighting usually use a stance called heian dachi, which I think roughly translates to peaceful stance. This stance is pretty much what you want it to be, it is where you are comfortable, alert and mobile.
thanks for the compliment .actually explaining stances is easy if you know how to look at them. visualize a stance from the front, back, side and top both statically and in movement, then go to wikipedia and memorize the different muscles of your legs so you know how they fit together being a huge goddarn nerd also helps, btw
