There are two advantages of the mikazuki kick:you do not have to turn your hips as much as in mavashi, and therefore have less chance of losing...
"Ii point-to" ("good point"), as Japanese would say. Every part of the block, including preparation, is important. If one agrees that - as some...
I totally agree with Rebel Wado. Could not think of a better approach! If the sense of fluidity, flow, dynamic movement is not there, it does not...
Thank you, Rebel Wado, very informative! I presume you are a Wado-ryu practitioner (unless you rebelled against it :)). Either way, when you say...
I am somehow attracted to styles that tend to do drills, katas and kumite in the same way from the same stances (though these styles can be just...
Totally agree: when one hand pulls and the other strikes, this technique is very powerful. Plus, as Jaae mentioned, it can be trapping technique,...
Japanese is fun inedeed, especially because there are multiple ways to pronounce the same character, unlike in Chinese. So, many things that sound...
Yes, kosa (long 'o') for crossing, kake for hooking. There is a very good book by Sugiyama, "25 Shotokan Kata." It has the description of Shotokan...
Trying to learn as much as possible about karate history, I want to start another thread: about shuto uke this time. I noticed that in Okinawan...
Hi, Anyone heard about Shorin-ken Karate? It was started by Hiroyuki Hamada, who came to the US from Japan at least 35 years ago, and taught at...
Yes, exactly: the "L" Stance (Japanese do not have the L sound, and therefore pronounce R instead of L) as on this link:...
Your style is Kyokushin-based, right? This can explain why...
OK. I think now things become clear: what I did is just watched this video of Heian/Pinan Godan on http://www.****okai.com/movies/heiangodan.php...
Excellen images; the first (of Funakoshi) and the last (not sure of who, but representative of later Shotokan kokutsu) are the ones I had in mind...
It feels like any stance that impedes fluid and dynamic movements of the body and makes it freeze is not very helpful in advanced practice. And...
I read a couple of books by Mas Oyama. My feeling is that since he studied with Shotokan people when the stances were not yet standardized and...
One thing that works for me (not necessarily for everyone): absolutely NO static stretching before kicking (check the following link for the...
I was doing shotokan, and our instructor was just crazy about low stances; my knees are fine when I do not stress them, and so I was not an...
And also, one should be careful about the word 'systems', because even Shotokan, for example, keeps changing and evolving; if you look at...
I guess, everyone who starts training in martial arts is doing it for better health, power, energy, etc. At the same time, either because of not...
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