Is 6 inches close enough?

Went to a new club to train this evening.  New in the sense that it was new to me.  The club itself has been going for a decade or so.  Thus, been around for some time and a reasonable amount of members.  However, as seems to be the normal, more kids than adults.  Even so, there was a dozen adults and a couple of dan grades.

Went through the usual warm and basics to get the joints, tendons, and muscles warmed up and flexible.  Particularly as nobody told "Winter" that it's time is over and it should relent and hand over to Spring. It actually snowed today!

Anyhow, I digress.  The warm up and the basics were a good solid workout.  We then moved onto some more combinations which tested my co-ordination, balance and flexibility! We then moved onto some pair work.

This was the fairly straightforward "attack, block & counter-attack".  All seemed well but i noticed the the face punch from my partner stopped several inches from my face.  Good, you may think.  But this is a martial art and as a Dan grade of nearly 30 years I am sure I could handled a punch that did actually intended to hit the target.

But no....if i did not move the punch would still be 6 inches short of the target.  This infuriates me as I thought "What is the point" tends to run through my mind in this situation.

I was taught that the "Art" in martial art was also to denote the expertise you gain through training.  Which meant, the "art" was to know when to pull the punch within millimetres of the target or to let it go through.

Do we really practice martial arts today? If sense, we do not....

Tokaido Japan or is it China

Seems like Tokaido has finally succumbed and has "out-sourced" it's manufacturing to a Chinese company based in China (of course!).

It is sad to see that such a top quality brand name was struggling to keep going and has had to resort to taking the route it has.  It keeps telling everyone that quality and design will not suffer.  I hope that will be the case.  Although when I now see a Tokaido gi being sold for under £20 one does have ask the question about quality.

Ok, before I get shouted down, I am not saying you cannot by quality at £20 but you have to admit, you definitely not going to get the quality you paid £100, £150 or £200.....are you?

Tokaido appears to taken the fight for it's survival down the cheap gi's and is now making and selling polycotton gi's associated with cheap imports from India, Malaysia, and Pakistan.

I just don't feel the same about these "new" Tokaido's.

Ho hum....

Associations and Splinter Groups

Wow...

I was recently speaking with an Instructor and yet again he had decided to "move away" from the association he was part of.  It was a sad moment. 

He clearly still has strong feelings for the association which he had been a part of for nearly 20 years. Grew from 10th Kyu to 4th Dan in that time.  I asked the reason for the move.  At first he didn't want to talk about it.  Slowly he made mention of how the organisation had changed.  How is was more about the money now.  It was too restrictive in where people could and more importantly, could not train.

So for one more time a split had occurred in a thriving association.

Since the 1960's when Karate got a foothold in the UK we have seen Japanese/Okinawan styles flourish. Grow. Become large associations boasting 10,000's of members.  Then from 1980's ( a few before this time) we saw splits occur within these big associations. Large chunks of clubs and members heading off down a different route. 

Everyone of complaining of similar issues as the ones I mentioned above.  Strange how that even these splinter groups end up with their own splits and the people/groups moving away complaining about the same thing again.

A couple thoughts come to mind. 

• Do the groups that split away from an association just end up becoming the kind of group that they complained about - it certainly would appear so.
• Is it all about......MONEY?
• In many cases it would appear to be a big contributing factor.

But is it really a bad thing?

Did this not happen when Karate was "growing up".  We had schools set up by teachers who spawned great students who then went off and "perfected" their own version of what they had been taught.  Or added other aspects of different training to their core learning.  This all helped to see different styles which added to the richness of we called Karate today.

Without these splits would we have been stuck with a single way performing Karate with very little variation over time?

On the one hand, all these splits should be good for Karate.  Adding variety to the pool of martial arts.

On the other - have really seen any new variants of a style? 

Ju-Jitsu

Wanted to do this for some time and finally got my finger out!  Having started Karate many many years ago, I was always fascinated with the "other" aspects of martial arts particularly close contact "grappling". 

Why?

I found that the usual karate class teaching was focused very much on a narrow aspect of the martial art.  This always puzzled me as the Kata's i was taught and watched all seemed to have movements and "actions" which we never practiced or were never taught.  This is particularly obvious for hand techniques.  Many kata have techniques for gripping, locking, twisting etc.  Check out the YouTube link of Frank Brennan performing Kata Nijishiho and watch the hand and arm movements and you can imagine the application of the techniques.  They certainly seem like grips, locks, twists etc.

However, they do not seem to be taught very much in the usual Karate session.  So I decide to go find a class where I could become more proficient.  Did the usual searches and it appeared that Ju-Jitsu was the way to go.  But then there was the usual myriad of Ju-Jitsu forms.

I settled for the traditional Japanese Ju-Jitsu and found the British Ju-Jitsu Association and slowly worked my way through their website to find a local class.   The site does look a little dated, perhaps it's just "traditional"  :)   Anyhow, tracked down the class and popped along to try my hand.

I have to admit the husband and wife instructor team was very good. They took time with each new joiner, going through the break-falls to ensure we knew that we will be hitting the mats regularly!  That was straightforward.

Then we moved onto the first few moves of learning how to get out of front attack strangulation!  My karate instinct was to punch even before the hands reached anywhere inside my personal space.  But, I resisted the urge and allowed the slow strangulation and worked my way through the moves..

Other big thing i had to keep a check on (and was told by the instructor) was to ensure I performed the technique slowly.  I kept wanted to do it quickly and get to the lock or part where I made an attack - this bit was more familiar and felt right due to all my years of "block and punch" or even the pre-emptive punch training!

For two hours I thoroughly enjoyed the session, it kept my braining whirring away as i worked out where my feet, body, hips, arms, head etc were supposed to go for each movement.  I feel i am now on the way to becoming a more "rounded" martial artist.  But that will be a few years yet!

Which Style should I practice?

Everytime someone finds out that I practice Karate and have done so for over 30 years, there is one question that sometime gets asked.

Which style style should i start practicing?  or usually the other question is "Which style is the best?"

How do you answer these questions? 

To be honest, when most people start a martial art, typically they find the nearest club and head down for a tester session and sign up.  Or perhaps a friends is already training somewhere and they go along for a session or two, get hooked and sign up after a few weeks.

My start in Karate was no different.  I was at university and decided to go along to the karate class that was being run on campus.  I had no idea what style it was.  It was there and i went along.  Would be interested to know what other peoples experience was when they started their particular martial art.

Every style has its own unique perspective but it also shares many aspects with other styles.  The history of all martial art styles is intertwined, so any particular martial art is not defined by its own methods and practices, but by the people who practice the style.

It really comes down to the individual and how he or she "implements" the style to make it work for them. 
When starting out in a martial art, it probably doesn't make any difference where you start training as long as you are committed and give it your 100%.....every time!

The one thing I would add is that once you get past the first few gradings then it may be worth asking the question about the instruction that you are getting.  Is the instructor giving you the best instructions that really draws out the best in you.

It is always worth training at another club and training with different instructors.  After a few more gradings and particular once you have received your Dan grade (black belt in karate) it really is worth to go try other styles.  You will find techniques that are made just for you, or techniques explained and executed in a slightly different way so that they again work for you.

The challenge then becomes in ensuring you perform techniques the way your style permits particularly for gradings if you wish to continue grading !

So, does it really matter what style you start training? 

Not really.