Shotokan, The Art of War, changes in training?

[Waterway]

I got the idea for this thread after reading Franklins thread "Keeping it real?"

Franklin spoke of how his old karate training was pretty tough. I have read on other forums that people who use to train in Japanese Karate 20 or 30 years ago remarked that their training was a lot tougher than training nowadays. It may very well be true for other arts too??

Anyway, for no other reason than I think the clip is cool, here is some "old" Shotokan (from "The Art of War"). Pretty impressive (and rough!) IMHO:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=292RJFjGCKA

[Chris McKinley]

Waterway,

I had similar experiences in TKD as a child. We had practices at some of my schools that today would get everyone involved arrested for child abuse, including possibly some of the parents. I fought full-contact from the time I was 9 years old. Today, that would get me taken away and made a ward of the state. I'm not necessarily defending the practices of the time, but they were definitely very much different than what you see commonly today.

[shawnsegler]

Yeah, that was the same deal for me when I was doing shotokan in college. We had a college all styles martial arts club where everyone from every different style would get to spar with each other, and we didn't fuck around. I broke a guys ribs with a shin kick and I remember having my nose broken a couple of times when I was there. It was good training.

There was this one group that we interacted with from Moore's karate (Shou-shu), like kempo guys and they'd get all coked up and start fights at the county fair to work on their skills. Psycho cats.

S

[Ralteria]

Ah the good old days, lol. When I was first getting into martial arts, this is what got me hooked. Unfortunetly, the rougher aspects of Shotokan in the US were fading quickly as I progressed through the art. When you were promoted to black belt at my school you had to be "whipped" in by all the senior black belts. This meant getting severly beaten on your back with your new black belt. By the time I was promoted to my shodan (mid 90's), I had to specificly ask to be "whipped" in. It didn't seem right to me when the older and more experienced students had to go through it yet not me. All the small welts on my back turned into one large welt, lol.

We only got the chance to go full contact at our school and then only rarely (multiple opponent training, weapons defenese stuff, and the rare heavily padded Kumite). All the tournaments I participated in were single to three point sparring which, like push hands (this seems to be a popular subject recenctly, lol), is good for learning specific skill sets but not for straight self-defense/fighting experience. One should never think that a single punch can always end an encounter, which is where a lot of the tournaments (and eventually my school ) ended up going in the end. I'm sure there are alot of kids these days who think that all it's going to take is one well placed reverse punch to stop an attacker.

[nianfong]

I'm sorry, it's just not real shotokan unless I see a shoryuken in there.

[cerebus]

Shotokan is the only art I have any certification in (Shodan, 1st degree black belt). I trained in it the whole time I was in the Army. My instructors were Army Rangers, Airborne Infantry Sergeants, and occasionally Special Forces guys stopping over on their way elsewhere. We had some good training...

[Interloper]

We used to beat the living crap out of each other, 30 years ago--- both male and female students. There was no getting around it: If you wanted to learn how to fight, you had to... fight.

Then maybe around 12, 15 years ago, the "Korean karate" school where I trained started getting careful. 16 oz. gloves where we used to fight bare-handed or with light padding. Liability became a huge issue. But on Friday nights, after the head instructor/ower left, we were left in a "don't ask don't tell" world where anything goes.

[Chris McKinley]

Interloper,

You sound like the kind of cool chick I'd like to train with, get my ass kicked by, then smoke a cigar and drink a beer or some scotch with!

[kal]

When you were promoted to black belt at my school you had to be "whipped" in by all the senior black belts. This meant getting severly beaten on your back with your new black belt.

Was this something that was part of Shotokan and required by the head of the style in Japan? Or was it something extra that was made up in the US?

I am all for hard stuff and harsh grading requirements when they are legitimately part of the style and come from the top. But when they are something added in by some local instructor, I have my doubts.

[Chowfarn]

Some powerful stuff.

They seem to cop a lot of big punches to the head from having a low hand guard.

Is that common in the style or just the clips they selected for the promo ?

[Areios]

yep and getting hit because they want to get the first hit. But in the middle of the vid is pretty good.

[Ralteria]

When you were promoted to black belt at my school you had to be "whipped" in by all the senior black belts. This meant getting severly beaten on your back with your new black belt.

Was this something that was part of Shotokan and required by the head of the style in Japan? Or was it something extra that was made up in the US?

I am all for hard stuff and harsh grading requirements when they are legitimately part of the style and come from the top. But when they are something added in by some local instructor, I have my doubts.

I have no idea actually. I doubt Gichin Funakoshi "whipped" his black belts in. There weren't even belt systems back then for Karate. There seemed to be a decent amount of hazing from my perspective. Not speaking for all Shotokan practictioners but the scene seemed to be soaked with machismo and ego.

[Ralteria]

yep and getting hit because they want to get the first hit. But in the middle of the vid is pretty good.

In Ippon and Sambon Kumite you are trying to get the first strike. Small strikes are worth a half a point. Clean strikes and combinations are worth a full point. This is great for distance, timing, and sensing an opening in your opponents guard. It is horrible for just about everything else. You "run" in to fists an awful lot just trying to score that point. Not to mention that half the time the head was not a legal target, you could only strike to the torso. If you are competing for points and you can't score to the head, why guard there. These are habits I built up when I was young that I had to work out of myself after I left. Coming back to Shotokan after years of not touching it and delving back into the art I found several strongs points but it still left a bad taste in my mouth.

You build very unrealistic views of fighting through point sparring. This is why, regardless of how many times we trained in a more realistic manner, I still felt overwhelmed. When I received my backbelt, I began to teach for my Sensei, but after a few months I just walked away. You go through so much hazing and posturing and b/s like that it just got real old. Diminishing returns, yknow.

[RobP2]

The old East London karate crowd used to train like this - Dickie Wu, Ticky Donovan and co. A good training buddy of mine, Bob Murray, was part of the Wado scene at the time. Tough guys who got the job done. Maybe not the most subtle, but they could take your head off. I went through some of it but got too many injuries - my knuckles still show the signs lol. Still it was an interesting contrast to my taiji training at the time and blew away some of the then commonly held IMA misconceptions about "external" styles.

cheers

Rob

[cerebus]

The "whipping" as part of black belt initiation is not anything I ever encountered in Shotokan, having trained with many different instructors both in the US and Europe. What WAS common, was having to fight a certain number of higher ranked seniors in a row as a test of "spirit" and mental toughness after having finished all the testing for technique.

As for whether head shots were legal target areas, they were with every school or instructor I trained with. The only people I knew of who didn't consider the head a legal punching target were the Kyokushin guys (and Olympic Taekwondo). Generally we kept our hands low when in kicking range to better cover the body, and high when in punching range, but that was also a bit of a personal preference thing as far as some schools were concerned.