I have to say, I fully agree with holyheadjch. Bunkai are not set applications. They can be interpreted according to the understanding of the practitioner. In this way, Karate Kata has a lot in common with Tai Chi form.
yeh but i cant buy into the whole traditional shotokan blocking thing. i come from a tsd background so the terminology is differant for me but the techniques are the same. Low block front stance is found in so many other styles as a throw, only in traditional karate is it suggested to be a block, and it is absoloutley useless as a block it leaves you completely open.
How is that? I assume you are talking about Gedan Berai. Exactly how could that leave you open? It can be used as a defence from a maegeri, a defence and counter from a jodan punch, a grab and strike, and I cant see how any one of those applications would leave you 'open' I think you know considerably less about Shotokan than you are leading us to believe.
because it leaves you with no gaurd. Not to mention the stupidity of blocking a low kick with your arms.
have you ever done it? It works pretty damned well really. As for it leaving you with no guard, how is that. You go from kamae to the block and back to kamae as fast as you can. If you get the block right then there will be nothing else to block anyway.
as i said i did tang soo do (korean karate) for 2+ years. ive done thousands of low blocks. A shin bone will do more damage to your arm than it would you thigh. IM afraid people dont throw one attack at a time in reality, which is why so much of the supposed "bunkai" is pointless.
blocking a kick with your thigh means being closer to your attacker and having done thousands of blocks with my arm I can safely say that the attackers shins come off far worse than my forearm. If you block the maegeri strongly and get your counter off in good time then there is no way that the attacker can get off another attack. Dont you think if the block had such a major flaw it would have been amended over the last 50 years? I have never heard such twaddle coming from a fellow karateka, kyok. or otherwise. I'm starting to wonder if you are a troll who is trying to post more and more ridiculously ignorant statements.
What you mean is the bunkiai you understand is pointless. How much of it have you looked in it or are you just going on what you done in tsd If you look a little harder I think you will see more than you seem to show at the moment
Seany, do you have any links to videos that show tang soo do? Is [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nrqrkul6Zs]this[/ame] representative of TSD? because you and Timmy Boy have both said "I used to do TSD and it sucked and it's the same as karate so karate sucks". That video, and most of the ones I've seen on youtube, have looked much more like taekwondo than shotokan karate. Can you post something that shows me the kind of tangsudo that you used to do? I'm starting to wonder if TSD is just not very good? I've never been told to use gedan barai in a long stance to defend against a kick. In fact, aside from the symbolic use at the start of a drill, I rarely use gedan barai at all.
Just a quick point (because this is all really starting to **** me off) Shotokan and TSD are NOT the same. Having experience in TSD does not qualify you in criticising Shotokan. There are highly skillful and knowledgable 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th dans in Shotokan who profess to know hardly anything about the art. Are you really in a position to criticise from an outsider's point of view?
are you kidding me? the shin bone is much thicker and stronger than the forearm. Plus the shin of a thai boxer or a kyokushin fighter will be highley conditioned. The block is never used outside of drills and kata and non contact sparring. Try using it in a full contact scenario and you will find out why. i dont know about you but i can throw 2 punches and low kick in a second, easily. and i suck. are telling me thats enough time for you to be block 2 head punches and a kick all with 2 limbs?
TSD and shotokan really are the same thing. Usually its the TSD people denying that not the shotokan people, but it really is. Check out some of the threads in the TSD section for more info. do you have to be a world class director to say that revenge of the sith sucks??
I had a look for a decent video but couldnt find one. But it was almost identical to a typical shotokan class. Perhaps a little more emphasis on kicking. My point exactly, so why teach it, if its un-usable. now teach it as a throw...
I do train it full contact, you cant practice blocking a maegeri 'non contact' because that would result in being kicked. Think about things before you type them would you. If randomly I got into a street fight with a karateka and they attacked mae geri, I would almost certainly step back 45deg gedan berai to the inside of their kicking leg then immediately push forward with a gyakuzuki to their throat/neck. I would have hit with the gyaku zuki before their kicking leg returned to the ground. Have you ever tried punching something whilst standing on one leg with the other extended out in front of you? Try it, I think you'll find the results surprising. this picture doesn't show perfect technique (in fact its pretty sloppy) but it demonstrates one thing, range. The attacker cant reach the defender to punch him. Not until his leg comes down at least.
Seany I think you have got a little mixed up as tsd is the poor child of Shotokan from what I can see [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SOgfPhZRBU]Here[/ame], that is nothing like the karate I do and think like most on here . So if you have done some thing like that, please have a look at some good clubs and, I hope you will see there is a very big difference between that video and what is a good karate club. Its like me going to a bad kyokushin off shot club and saying all kyokushin is rubbish, it does not make sense or a good reason to say it.
a few. A few at one school? A few at a few schools? To be honest I think you're full of it. Forget what karate needs, what karate doesn't need is students like you.
