Ok we talk about Kyokushin in hear all the time and it sounds really cool but what i'm wondering is what is the diffrence between Kyokushin, Ashihara, and Enshin. I mean Kyokushin came first then what were the diffrences that led to the creation of Ashihara and what further diffrences led to the development of Enshin.
Differences between styles Osu! You asked what the difference is between Kyokushin, Ashihara and Enshin...Kyokushin was started by Mas Oyama as a Full contact Knockdown version of Shotokan (which he felt wasn't tough enough for him). This style is very linear and Sabaki (rotational movements) isn't taught until high up in the Dan grades. Basically, in Kyokushin, the biggest and strongest person will win. One of his high ranking students of many years (who ran his own dojo) was called Hideyuki Ashihara, who believed students should be able to hold their own against attackers of any size. He asked Mas Oyama about teaching the students about Sabaki from the early Kyu grades because it is very effective, is a great leveller and stops people from getting injured when trying to block a powerful thrusting strike. Mas Oyama said something along the lines of "If you think it should be taught differently, go and start your own style". Which he did. This style is called Ashihara Karate and from 9th Kyu, starts teaching Sabaki. It still keeps the Full Contact element and street-wise approach but teaches people to move to the blind side and counter with a combination, as opposed to meeting force-with-force. In order to develop a more efficient fighting system, Ashihara 'borrowed' techniques from Aikido (to develop the throwing kata's) and such things as Shin blocks to free the arms up. When Ashihara split from Kyokushin, his number one student from his dojo went with him to start the style of Ashihara (my style ). But this student, after many years, started to develop his own ideas. He wanted to incorporate more grabs and take downs into the style and make it more Jissen (pure combat) based. That students name was Joko Ninomiya and he split from Ashihara to form his own style, called Enshin. Enshin is still based on Sabaki because Ninomiya learned everything from Ashihara and trained with him for many years...obviously a student would want to build on what they know works well. Whereas Mas Oyama and Hideyuki Ashihara have now died, Kancho (world head of style) Joko Ninomiya is still very much alive and I have had the good fortune to train with him on two occassions. In my humble opinion, their sparring looks very scrappy and all they ever seem to do is try and grab each other and force each other to the floor with trips and sweeps. Although they know about Sabaki, they still seem to be quite linear and only use Sabaki to grab and pull their opponent round, which is really a form of centrifugal energy. There is no doubt that Ninomiya knows his stuff, and I sure as hell wouldn't want to spar with him, but personally I became a little disillusioned about Enshin. When I last went to train with him, there were a few Enshin students who admitted that some of his techniques couldn't work against a bigger person and were starting to lose faith in the style. If any Enshin practitioner is reading this, please don't take offence, but each to their own opinion. Anyway, I hope that massive essay answers your question. (I'm beat after all that typing and thinking and stuff). Osu! --------------------------------------------- Train hard, fight easy. Train easy, fight hard, lose, and die! :woo:
Hi Ashihara student, Are you sure about that one? As I understood it, Mas Oyama got his second dan in Shotokan but then left fairly quickly as he got sick of Funakoshi being a stickler for politeness and "old fashioned" etiquette. He then went on to learn Goju Ryu and found it more to his liking. Kyokushin takes more from Goju Ryu than it does from Shotokan as far as I knew...
That is a very interesting read there, AshiharaStudent. I always wanted to know more about the style.
Allegedly Oyama walked out because of the whole 'lesson in ettiquette' thing. Apparantly he learned Goju from Nei Chu So. So was apparantly quite a tough guy and supposedly, in a friendly competition between the Shotokan and Yamaguchi's Goju Dojo, picked the Shotokan guy up as soon as the fight started and hurled the guy into a wall. The Shotokan guys supposedly thought that was against the rules and walked out refusing to fight any more. From what I know of Oyama, Nei Chu So would have been a teacher to his liking. In contrast, Jon Bluming has said in interviews that Oyama's ONLY Karate teacher was Gogen Yamaguchi... but I don't know how accurate that is. Since Goju Ryu doesn't do Pinan Kata and Kyokushin does I think Oyama must have studied Shotokan at one point. However I'm not quite sure whether Bluming's claim that Oyama learned Goju from Yamaguchi is true. Bluming also disputed Oyama's supposed Judo 4th Dan (I think it was fourth Dan - I may be wrong). Apparrantly he never studied Judo at the Kodokan - accorrding to Bluming the only other martial art he did was boxing as a kid. Which implies that he never studied Kempo or Taiken either. But again, I don't know how accurate Bluming's info is.
If you lose faith in what you're doing, small wonder it doesn't work! It's hard to make anything work against a bigger person with similar skill levels, that's for sure. In the 2008 Sabaki Challenge a lightweight entered the heavyweight category - and won - as he was relentless and really highly skilled. There's no perfect system, all combat is "effective" or "ineffective" with the individual's skill and mentality being the main factor that makes them so. Gary
It'd be interesting to get an idea of the key differences (not necessarily the history, more the technical and training differences) between Kyokushin, Asihara and Enshin as you see them, if you have time Gary C? Mitch
Mitch I don't know enough about Ashihara, to be honest. Ref: Kyokushin and Enshin there's only a few subtle changes to the basics, but the combat strategy is completely different. Instead of trading blows you should, in theory, NOT be standing in front of each other going at it hammer and tongs. Footwork, footwork, footwork. The kata (as you saw) reflect this. I enjoyed most of my time in Kyokushin and I'd never decry it's merits. It's direct, uncomplicated and strong. Enshin fighters can be that too though, while in my opinion they move better, taking less punishment. Gary
