Is SHOTOKAN any good?

Discussion in 'Karate' started by airweaver, Jul 10, 2010.

  1. airweaver

    airweaver Valued Member

    what makes shotokan unique from other styles of Karate?

    what are its strengths?

    what are its weaknesses?

    please answer me these questions three.
     
  2. Moosey

    Moosey invariably, a moose Supporter

    Crikey, you don't ask much do you? :)

    OK, I'm going to generalize massively, which I'm sure will annoy Fish of Doom as I know he likes the subtleties of karate, but here goes...

    It's not especially "unique" from other styles of karate. There are loads of similarities between the various "legit" karate styles and the differences are usually minor diagreements over the technicalities of a few moves.

    In practice, shotokan favours a low centre of gravity, and strong basic techniques strung into short combinations. It encourages lower stances than most other styles, using the movement from low stance to low stance as a leg-strengthening exercise in its basic forms. It uses muscle power and tension in it's techniques, unlike the more "flowing" styles, to supplement the body and hip action. It uses more ballistic punches and kicks as opposed to the more esoteric finger strikes etc found in some TMAs.

    Power generation, strong basic technique, most classes practice free sparring so people get a feel for the "back and forth" of combat. High level practitioners tend to be physically strong and athletic as classes are generally non-stop movement and many techniques are physically demanding to learn. There's very little "martial arts nonsense" and spirituality in shotokan - it's very much a physical art of learning to hit people rather than meditating and cultivating your chi.

    From a functionality perspective, many practitioners end up being comfortable at "duelling distance" of just out of arm's reach and train less for closer range. There's pretty much zero ground wrestling in shotokan, so if you're looking for the whole package, you'll need to supplement other arts in there. The obsession with perfecting basic technique can be boring to some people meaning it's not an art for people who want non-stop excitement.

    From an internet-tough-guy perspective (which I'm not saying you are, but it's important to some people), kata is practiced frequently, for which your mileage may vary. Sparring is usually done at light-to-medium contact with no protective equipment and is never "full contact" (not meaning that people don't thump each other hard sometimes, but it's never knockdown style): although there are few body areas or techniques that are off limits in dojo sparring, contact is usually restrained for safety.

    Class structure follows a teacher-pupils model, where people are taught en-masse, rather than a coach-athlete model, which some people may prefer.

    Similarly, karate classes tend to be very inclusive, so you're unlikely to be in a class entirely composed of men in their 20s with matching celtic tattoos. You may find yourself paired up with a 50 year old woman or 16 year old kid (although, in my experience, classes tend to be burly middle-aged guys - who knows why?)
     
    Last edited: Jul 11, 2010
  3. airweaver

    airweaver Valued Member

    Thanks Moosey, your response has been helpful and frank. Im juggling weather to go back to wing chun or take up shotokan.
     
  4. John Titchen

    John Titchen Still Learning Supporter

    I would trial a few weeks of Shaun Rawcliffe's Wing Chun before looking at Shotokan.
     
  5. Fish Of Doom

    Fish Of Doom Will : Mind : Motion Supporter

    moosey, you forgot to mention that shotokan favors what they call "expansion and contraction" as a means of power generation, meaning that they will go from a compact position to a more extended position, and vice versa, to create linear explosive movement, whereas most styles of karate may rely more on vertical movement, more use of circular attacks and deflections and a slightly different posture.

    airweaver: if you have already done wing chun, i'd say try out shotokan, because it will complement your wing chun with long range attacks, and less focus on always maintaining the centerline (more out-to-in attacks, for example), and your wing chun base will probably give you a good base to apply shotokan's linear explosive movement from.
     
  6. Microlamia

    Microlamia Banned Banned

    Some Shotokan karate schools are good, with alive drills and plenty of sparring. Notice the word SOME; a lot are crap. I trained at some 3 different schools; it was very robotic, very dead, and really messed up my motor skills.

    Ask the trainer a bit about the classes before you join. Questions such as: Is the training 'alive'? Do they put a lot of emphasis on free sparring? Do they use gloves? (so you can actually get close and hit each other, rather than doing very unrealistic sparring with non-contact strikes thrown from some 2 feet away).

    If you're interested in competition, then mention that too. Some schools see competition as a dirty word, and expect you to only train for highbrow reasons such as 'self improvement' and 'spirituality'. (Even though competition does, in fact, involve a lot of self improvement...)
     
  7. Fish Of Doom

    Fish Of Doom Will : Mind : Motion Supporter

    what she said

    go to the shotokan if it looks like this:

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkGP0AM14F0"]YouTube- KARATE SHOTOKAN JKA Kumite[/ame]
     
  8. Llamageddon

    Llamageddon MAP's weird cousin Supporter

  9. Fish Of Doom

    Fish Of Doom Will : Mind : Motion Supporter

    i miss the longer version with the female fights though

    no living being was ever more vicious than a female karateka
     
  10. Moosey

    Moosey invariably, a moose Supporter

    I would query that a little bit. A huge number of shotokan instructors have been doing karate since Matt Thornton was a twinkle in Mr & Mrs Thornton's eyes and hold very little truck with things that may be very popular on the internet. You could say this is a bad thing or a sign of closed-mindedness, but it's nevertheless a fact of being an instructor in one of the longest established Eastern martial arts in the country. Many instructors will be unfamiliar with the terminology of "aliveness" but that doesn't mean they won't make you think and make you work outside your comfort zone.

    Similarly with the gloves: a lot of classes may scorn padded gloves as "untraditional" and expect you to control yourself and give and take a hit with a sensible level of contact. This doesnt mean they're "non-contact" or deluded. It's just the way they were taught and the way they'll be comfortable teaching. Many instructors consider gloves dangerous as they teach a false reach distance and encourage you to spar as if you can "absorb" a hit.
     
  11. Mitch

    Mitch Lord Mitch of MAP Admin

    I suspect much of Enshin/Ashihara/Kyokushin training would count as alive, and much of it does not use gloves whilst actually hitting each other. I see no reason why Shotokan clubs might not be doing the same thing.

    My TKD club offers full contact sparring, and the only reason we use gloves is because of the kudo style "space helmets" we use for protection. You can't hit them bareknuckle.

    Mitch :)
     
  12. Microlamia

    Microlamia Banned Banned

    How are you supposed to spar high contact without gloves? You'd be very likely to mess each other's faces up...

    But a word or a piece of jargon doesn't change the fact that non-alive exercises do nothing for you except maybe help your endurance a little bit. Which is not what they are there for.

    Whatever terminology you use, doing katas and robot style drills won't help you in either self defence or any sort of sport fighting.

    They may have been there a long time but it doesn't make them wise and it doesn't make them right. I had a sensei who had a rod up his ass the size of Semmy Schilt. He was a former world champion, so he would know all about the need for aliveness...yet he chose to teach mostly just robot style drills up and down the hall all class long, with OCCASIONAL sparring. He also told us it was wrong to want to train in karate for fitness or sport reasons, and saw me as an unsavoury neanderthal brute because I kept asking to go to some LIGHT CONTACT competitions (none were ever organized).
     
  13. Mitlov

    Mitlov Shiny

    Kyokushin is full-contact, bare-knuckle, no face-punching. Body punches are okay, as are kicks to the leg, body, and head.

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FB8hPmsg28"]YouTube- This is Kyokushin fighting[/ame]

    If you go in off the street and ask "do you train with aliveness," and they've never heard the term before, it makes all the difference in the world. You won't get a useful answer and you'll probably alienate them. Instead, watch a class or two and see if you like what you see.

    No, non-alive drills are worth a lot more than that. There is no tradition in sport fencing, yet pre-arranged attack and response drills (which are not "alive" as they're pre-arranged) have always been part of the training. They help you develop the distance, coordination, etc, and put that sequence in muscle memory. The same sort of drills have the same sort of benefit, SO LONG AS they're considered a training tool for something else and not an end in and of themselves.

    Is that why Lyoto Machida performs a couple kata on the first DVD of his "Machida-Do for Mixed Martial Arts" DVD? Kata are one of the principal ways that Shotokan teaches body mechanics, and if you don't have the right body mechanics, you won't be able to use it as it's intended to be used.

    EDIT: It's true that kata are not the only way someone could learn body mechanics. But it's one way of several to teach it, and it's the way traditionally used in Shotokan. So don't say it's worthless, because taught properly, it's not.

    Congratulations. You got burned and you're bitter. Sorry to hear it. You can't judge all Shotokan by one bad instructor though.
     
    Last edited: Jul 11, 2010
  14. Toki_Nakayama

    Toki_Nakayama Valued Member

    from what ive read in some interviews, shotokan and wing chun make for good crosstraining. but yeah, shotokan is a very good, tough style. only weakness i see

    is lack of a ground game, as with many strike based arts.

    but this varies by school cause many some schools have an open minded view an will have a resident CMA stylist. or grappler teacher there for crosstraining.


    one my favorite Karate vids- Japanese military Shotokan
    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_zmL6BRCOA"]YouTube- Japan Military Shotokan Karate[/ame]
     
  15. Blade96

    Blade96 shotokan karateka

    i do shotokan. and I've just been there 10 months but i'd say 'pretty much zero lack of a ground game' while its true we dont wrestle on the ground or anything like that, there are sweeps and takedowns where you are taught how to bring an opponent to the ground. Been doing some of it myself and watching higher kyus and dans doing it.

    other than that, listen to the moose and the llama they are black belts and they know what they are talking about more than i do.

    as for crouching low to the ground i lose count of how many times we're being told to 'get down!' LOL. I got hit with a stick by a sensei that is like the Energizer Bunny at a seminar in June He rapped me on the leg and told me to get down more when i was in kokutsu dachi. I thought i would escape the stick because I did at my first seminar in april, but.....i can perish the thought now :p
     
    Last edited: Jul 11, 2010
  16. GaryWado

    GaryWado Tired

    Neither of which are seen as the ultimate raison d'être for those who practice from a "Budo" perspective of course.

    Gary
     
    Last edited: Jul 11, 2010
  17. Llamageddon

    Llamageddon MAP's weird cousin Supporter

    Before you go in to an MA, reassess your expectations, and go to a class with 0 preconceptions. Otherwise what you learn will be tainted (and being completely honest here, this is why I could probably never take up something like TKD or Ninjitsu).

    Shotokan is very good at what it does - power generation, evasion, simplicity. regardless of where you go, be it a good school or a crap one, at some point you will take a punch/kick and you will at least learn to throw a punch. Obviously knowing what to do with that information is an entirely different story.

    All these arts either get overly mysticised or everyone thinks they have to be able to destroy a man's face in 2 seconds otherwise it's not worth it. I don't understand why we have such perceptions of martial arts. I'm much happier knowing I can give and take a punch and stand my ground if I had to in a fight before I could run away, win or lose, rather than knowing I could punch someone's nose clean off their face.

    As for aliveness - well, we don't train in a way that I think most people would consider 'alive' - but when we spar, we go for it, and god knows how many hits I've taken to the head (we don't use any protection whatsoever). When we do little bits of possible self defence application, I always try to resist, and prefer it if the other person does too. But that's just how I approach my training.

    I'm lucky - I'm a black belt now, which means I can start properly adapting my karate to suit me. I persevered through the ranks and I think it was totally worth it. Then again I would say I'm part of a better than average club.

    In the end if it's not for you, it's not for you. This doesn't mean it's not for anyone else though. Nor does it mean it's not any good.
     
  18. GaryWado

    GaryWado Tired

    Although I can't comment about Shotokan from a practitioners point of view (as I have never trained in it), I think shotokan "seems" to have a much more consistent approach to it's teaching - even between the various groups that exist within it.

    Again, a 3rd party observation, but I think you have a better chance of coming across a good Shotokan dojo by chance than you have say a Wado one - and I think this says something about its success as a style.

    Gary
     
  19. Llamageddon

    Llamageddon MAP's weird cousin Supporter

    Good point, I think. Because of it's popularity, it is easier to fall in to good school. And again, the dross is usually because of the teacher rather than the style
     
  20. GaryWado

    GaryWado Tired

    Hi Matt,

    Not sure that’s solely down to its popularity (although granted, due to that fact there are more Shoto schools out there than others - maybe).

    That said if you think about it, the more there are out there, the greater the chance of coming across crud there is - which doesn't seem to be the case (from a percentage point of view).

    Actually, I think it’s more down to the approach and thoroughness of groups like the JKA. Few like it exist in the martial arts world (as a whole) and even fewer in Karate circles.

    I have even heard stories of top Wado students in Japan “converting” to shotokan – because they wanted to pursue a profession in Karate – and the only way you could do this (at the time) was by training with the JKA.

    Gary
     

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