The best karate

Discussion in 'Karate' started by hamah, May 31, 2012.

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  1. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    I'm not angry Hamah. I'm annoyed. I'm mostly annoyed because regardless of the input of other people, and the kind of people who have put their point of view in, are being dismissed by you. I'm also annoyed that you treat "style" as if it existed before the practitioner. All those styles came about from people observing, defending themselves, or practicing. The style doesn't just "exist."

    Here is why style doesn't matter to the degree you believe it does. Get your friend to hold a stick about 12 inches long. Have him hold it in a threatening way. Figure out yourself what ways that you feel are applicable to disarm him or prevent yourself from being hit by the stick. Once you figure it out, have him begin to resist and try to poke you with the stick, keeping safety in mind. See which ways of disarming worked and didn't. Holy crap, are we doing science? Repeat until you find efficient ways for avoiding being slashed, cut or stabbed. There you go, you just learned knife defense all on your lonesome without anyone else teaching you. You, the practitioner.

    Styles were formed to create a structured system to help the progression of learning happen quicker. Same reason you go to school and learn the things that took mankind thousands of years to learn. You can believe the style is greater then the practitioner all you want, good for you. But your argument isn't structured well, your belief in and obsession with style is counter productive, and I believe you're just arguing for the sake of arguing.
     
  2. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    Disagreement is fine if it is cogent

    You are doing the equivalent of pushing a pull door and insisting te door is at fault
     
  3. Kurtka Jerker

    Kurtka Jerker Valued Member

    But unless you find the right TKD school, with the right people and right instructor, you'll end up with tappy kicks and no punches at all.

    Which is why you need to find good instructors. It's quite likely you won't be able to find one good instructor who teaches everything. A boxer who wants to add kicks to his personality in a fight should cross train. Which is what we've all been saying.
     
  4. Kurtka Jerker

    Kurtka Jerker Valued Member

    It always is, but every one like him that comes through is making my word selection more airtight and harder to deliberately misconstrue and keeping me well entertained and engaged. If it weren't for that I would have left forums behind a long time ago, man.
     
  5. hamah

    hamah Valued Member

    Let me go about this in a different way. A view things I want to address.

    1. I don't think my sensei is a bad instructor. Not at all. In fact, he is very respected in the JKA Shotokan world. A certified judge at tournaments, and an overall great sensei with amazing discipline and skill. Perhaps the reason doesn't lie so much on him, but more the dojo... perhaps? The curriculum he teaches? I mean, all my training was for competitive kumite fighting. Nothing outside of that really was taught to me. Should I give up the system automatically because he focuses on competitive tournament kumite training first and foremost?

    2. The thing that I didn't understand is that... well... everyone seems to think style doesn't matter at all. And I find that so ridiculous. How can what you study not matter? It's like trying to go to school and get your masters degree. You need to study what best fits you. But what best fits you should incorporate not only the instructor, but the style that that instructor teaches. It shouldn't be just about the instructor. You should feel comfortable with the style that you choose to practice. Does it encompass everything that you want it to do? And if it doesn't, and you don't like the style, then switch to another one that does. That style didn't work for you. I just, to me style defines your character. What you choose to represent as your martial art defines you. What does your style focus on? What seems more "real" to you? What style grants you the necessary training that focuses on "real-world" situations? I just... I can't just say that style isn't important. I find that ridiculous.
     
  6. Kurtka Jerker

    Kurtka Jerker Valued Member

    Again, nobody is saying style doesn't matter at all. We're all saying that who you train with and how you personally approach it as well as your personal attributes have a much greater impact, as few styles are consistent across the board.
     
  7. Kuma

    Kuma Lurking about

    Hamah - Perhaps this will help. Why do you feel Goju Ryu and Kyokushin are better arts for fighting than Shotokan? The more detailed you can be the better as this will all come into play shortly.
     
  8. Blade96

    Blade96 shotokan karateka

    you didnt answer my question hamah. why are you bashing karate because it doesnt teach knife when it is called empty hand (and what jwt said in response to my post)?

    and why do you say a style isnt really self defence because it doesnt teach everything there is?Am I not really studying self defence because shotokan doesnt also include judo ground work and weapons? Is a woman who takes a self defence anti rape class not studying self defence because it doesnt include every single situation ever?

    I say it still is self defence.
     
  9. John Titchen

    John Titchen Still Learning Supporter

    I'm going to do you the courtesy of answering this post, although you've had very little to say about the information I've provided in this thread. So for this one last time I'm going to treat you as someone who genuinely wants to improve, learn something, and isn't trolling the Karate forum.

    Excellent, he sounds like a good chap to train with.

    Certainly not. However this, as I pointed out earlier is not the totality of the style. It is a specialism within the style. The JKA tend to specialise on Kihon and Kumite with Kata as an expression of Kihon. Other Shotokan associations place different emphases. Different Dojos and instructors within associations and styles also weight things differently and emphasise different training methods.

    Your Shotokan has most likely given you a good grounding in the delivery some striking techniques, improved your reaction times, and increased your striking speed and flexibility. But, you are only a Shodan. You have barely scratched the tip of the iceberg.


    That's not precisely what we are saying. As I said earlier I think you are confusing style with training methods.

    Shotokan is a massive style in terms of its repertoire. As you learn more about martial arts you will find that other styles are equally big. Different styles focus on different things more than they contain different things. As an example in Aikido good striking tends to be advanced work, it comes well after unbalancing and throwing. In Shotokan the opposite is the case.

    What you study matters a great deal, as does how you study it. The longer I train, the more I see of other instructors, whatever style, I find this simple truth: the instructors who produce the most proficient fighters tend to train them the same way regardless of the style of the Dojo.

    The majority of martial arts systems overlap in the majority of their techniques. They also overlap in the majority of their training methods, and training methods (and training weighting as to subject matter) can and do vary from Dojo to Dojo, even within associations.

    This is why most of us here don't worry very much about the style. We look at the practitioner and what they are choosing to focus on. If you are a Shodan and are serious about your training you should be getting coaching from your sensei, but you should be directing your own training based on your interests. You doing this as a Shodan interested in self defence will progress and learn in a different manner to a Shodan interested in winning Kata or kumite competitions. Shodans or their equivalents in other styles will follow parallel courses to yours if their intersts are similar.

    No problem.

    Personally I disagree. Your training methods and what you study define you (as a martial artist). There are many varieties of these within different styles. You seem to be locked into 'one style - one method'. I have to say that is a very JKA (and Japanese conformist) outlook. It's certainly not the outlook on Shotokan Karate promoted by the likes of Kanazawa.


    I can see why you are saying that. We are saying that the style is merely a repertoire. It is up to you how you explore and train that repertoire.

    You showed a video of Dillman earlier. It is easy to get caught up in 'Dillman bashing'. I personally don't have any truck with Chi balls etc... but that is not the sum total of what he is, although that is what he is now famous for. Before he strayed to that extreme he had a solid background in Okinawan Karate. He taught, by the standards of the day, bunkai that was at least as good as that of his peers. As a young man he fought competitively with a fair degree of success and also did some spectacular power demonstrations. It's easy to point and laugh at him, but do you really think all those in his organisation spend all their time throwing Chi balls? Of course not. That is just one little thing that some of them might do. First and foremost they train in applied close quarter Karate. To point at Dillman and think that his students might be suffering from being in that style is to me as silly as pointing at students who train in a style that does jumping back turning kicks. Neither Chi balls or back turning kicks are great for self defence, but that doesn't mean the students can't get good at self defence by training in that style.

    You seem to have a strong interest in self defence. That's great. I do too. I've made it the core focus of my training for the last fifteen years or so. If you train in a system that focuses solely on self defence you will progress quicker in that area than if you train in one which has it as a secondary activity. I doubt anyone here disputes that. That does mean that the Dojo you choose, the style you choose, has importance. Regardless of this though, the most appropriate system in the world is only a framework - and it is you the student that determines how effective that framework is for you.
     
  10. Rebel Wado

    Rebel Wado Valued Member

    No I don't think that is what hamah is saying. I think hamah is saying he was disappointed when he found out the style he was training in was not complete. This is often the lesson first learned through cross-training or learned the hard way: through getting your behind kicked with a rude awakening.

    I will have to look it up but there was at least one very famous karateka that ended up fighting against an attacker who was using a knife. The story I recall was the karateka managed to defeat the knife wielding attacker, but after the fight in self-reflection he concluded that the fight took too long. This karateka then started cross-training of sorts to discover the use of softer blocks and parries to be used with karate hard blocks and striking. Most of us know the value of parries/checks in combination with harder strikes as a part of karate foundation that is often neglected because the value isn't seen unless you cross-train or end up in a fight where you realize you are missing it.

    Cross-training was very common fifty years ago, pretty much every karate instructor from the 1960s that I have since trained with was also a judoka, boxer, or other cross-trained.
     
  11. Moosey

    Moosey invariably, a moose Supporter

    Hamah, forgive me if I'm mistaken, as I haven't read all of the thread, but it sounds to me like you want to quit your karate school but want to justify it as being because the school is flawed rather than that you are getting itchy feet and want to leave.

    There's nothing wrong with deciding you want to try out something else. Just pick something and do it.

    Karate's not going anywhere, if one day you want to go back.
     
  12. ap Oweyn

    ap Oweyn Ret. Supporter

    At this point, gang, I think we should take a step back and recognize that 1) there have been some very good points made here and will be useful to any receptive reader and 2) hamah probably isn't that reader. Which is fine. Nothing says (s)he has to agree. Saying it harder isn't going to help. And his/her agenda seems pretty well set.

    Let me head this bit off at the pass. Hamah's next move will likely be to say that this is all sour grapes because the new guy didn't tow the party line. I'm preemptively going to dismiss that. I've laid forth what I believe is an honest appraisal of hamah's question. That's all I can do.

    Hamah, think what you like. But know that you're arguing against a position that nobody is actually positing. If you can actually QUOTE someone making the point that style doesn't matter at all, I'll be surprised. But even if you can, any one of us will be able to quote more instances of someone saying "style isn't the whole picture." It's not that simple. No matter how hard you try to make it so.

    But choose your own adventure. Doesn't ultimately make a lot of difference to me.
     
  13. Peter Lewis

    Peter Lewis Matira Matibay

    Hey Stuart

    Hope all is well with you.
     
  14. ap Oweyn

    ap Oweyn Ret. Supporter

    Can't complain, my friend.

    Or perhaps I'm just not trying hard enough. ;)
     
  15. Blade96

    Blade96 shotokan karateka

    I know. I found it unfair criticism because karate empty hand training and will not teach everything.
     
  16. Peter Lewis

    Peter Lewis Matira Matibay

    Nicely put, Blade. Yes, Karate is 'empty hand' training. That said, a Gyaku Zuki with a knife in the hand makes a very direct and lethal thrust attack. Shotokan's Soto Uke (Uchi Uke in Wado Ryu) into Gedan Barai performed with a knife would make the 'C' shaped slash found in many knife systems.
     
  17. Theforgotten

    Theforgotten Drifting Aimlessly

    Hamah, think about the day that you made the realization that Shotokan doesn't contain everything that you are seeking from a martial art. I can tell you that with enough time and experience in training you will arrive at yet another major realization - that there are so many commonalities between different styles that the label and tradition that you choose to slap on them are damn near meaningless when it comes to actually throwing hands. There are certain universal things that are shared within all martial arts, regardless of style. A punch is a punch, a kick is a kick. Does it really matter what style I call it if it lands clean and knocks the other guy out? The most important thing is school, teacher, and training methodology. It doesn't matter what you practice if the school is crappy, the teacher has no idea how to teach, or the training methodology lacks aliveness and resistance training. You don't like Shotokan? No problem, go out and find something that you actually do like. Just be mindful that the only perfect self defense is to not get into a situation in the first place. No single system has all of the answers, and no single system is guaranteed to get you home in one piece every time. Not even your beloved Krav Maga. The human element is the most important factor, which is why everybody keeps pointing out that it is not the style, but the artist. Styles don't fight, people do.

    Everybody in this thread is giving you world class advice. They have already been where you are, and they have already learned from more mistakes in martial arts than you've even had the opportunity to make. They've already been where you're trying to go, and they know what you're going to find when you get there. They're trying to point out that what you are looking for does NOT exist. No martial art has all of the answers, and if you happen upon one that claims to have every answer in the book, then you would do well to avoid it completely. Now, you can spend years and years throwing money at every gimmick that comes along and promises to make you an invincible street fighter or super soldier, or you can accept the fact that nothing is perfect in life and the only thing that you can do is strive to be the best "you" that you can be.
     
    Last edited: Jun 2, 2012
  18. Rebel Wado

    Rebel Wado Valued Member

    The advice from my first karate teacher, Chinen Sensei, seeing me twenty years after I had last seen him and seeing that I was training in Kajukenbo and not karate... he was happy to see me and said "Just keep training."
     
  19. Blade96

    Blade96 shotokan karateka

    I suggest to Hamah that he find another Shotokanny club that puts less emphasis on tournaments and more on the karate (since it seems he doesnt like that emphasis on tournies very much) and also find a martial art that does teach weapons. Then he will have his empty hand training and his weapons, which is what he is looking for. :)

    Also that I dont think Hamah is swine. He seems nice, just needs to expand his thinking. Right now its 'one way' thinking.
     
    Last edited: Jun 2, 2012
  20. armanox

    armanox Kick this Ginger...

    What an interesting thread I've come across.

    I remember asking about why there were so many instructors that Takeshi Miyagi (who is our "head" in Okinawa if you will) trained under. The response was along the lines of he went to train with different instructors who focused on different areas - meaning if you wanted to train in sai let's say, you trained under a person who focused on them. If you wanted to train to compete, you went to a school that focused on competition.

    A lot of Okinawan instructors have multiple styles listed in their lineup. The late Katsuya Miyahira, former head of Shorin (Kobayashi) Ryu Karate, also trained in Judo. Mr. Miyagi trained under Mr. Miyahira, but also trained under several Goju Ryu instructors. Seikichi Iha, another student of Mr. Miyahira's, has had differing instructors. As a result, our throws tend to look rather Judo-esk. Mr. Iha's throws tend to look very Aikido-esk. And they teach different interpretations of what they believe the kata stand for - they have found different aspects of the style that work better for them.

    To address your points, I think that the "old masters" would tell you to cross train to fill in your gaps. Not that one style is more complete then the other, but each has different things to offer you.
     
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