That kata he does in the video is called Hangetsu in Shotokan and when done well look nothing like that, well not much That is unless you are watching me ( I think not )
So you would rather live in ignorance. No one is saying you have to spend 20 years doing Shotokan or Wado Ryu to get a feel for it, but you say you have been to a 'few' Shotokan classes. That doesn't give you the right to judge an entire style. My old sensei did TKD for a year before judging it, I think a year is a reasonable amount of time to acumulate enough knowledge to decide if a style is right for you.
SO because the basic kata movements are the same the entire styles are the same? I think not. Even Kyokushin has katas, many of which you will find in Shotokan, Wado Ryu or any of the other styles you have said 'suck'.
well as i said im mostly going by my tsd experience. aside from that im going by what i see and read. Karate needs to get rid of people who winge about getting hurt, or being tired and sore. It needs to get rid of people who make excuses for real training with techniques by saying on the street i will use "eye gouging" and "groin kicks" so i dont need to practice fighting.
Seany If I did a kata in my club any thing like that I would have my ass handed to me by my sensie and he is almost 64 and 5-4 but I think he would surprise you with how hard he can kick and punch ( his only done shotokan for about 38 years ).
I don't have a problem with Seany deciding shotokan isn't for him. It's not for everyone - nothing is! I don't have a problem with him or anyone else saying that they think their current style is better. I just don't think that judging shotokan by tangsudo is a particularly accurate way of doing it!
I never said the styles suck, you are twisting my words. i said i love all styles of karate, just not the way they train.
I suggest you invest in 75 down blocks by Rick Clark and then apply that knowledge to all your other techniques my dear Moose. Having a look a Bill Burgar's 5 years 1 Kata would also help. Its a fantastically useful set of movements.
well tsd is the korean name for shotokan. in the same way yudo is the name for judo in korean. so therefore my 2 years in the style shoudl enable me to have an opinion. yeh there are differances but they are as minor as you would find between differant orgs of shotokan.
Shotokan roughly means "School of Shoto", Shoto was Funakoshis pen name, so thats another myth debunked. I think what you mean is the old Japanese characters for Karate-do are pronounced Tang Soo Do in korean. SO technically you are still doing Tang Soo Do.
I actually added a caveat to that paragraph originally, saying "I bet John T's going to post now and tell me that it's actually a really useful strike to the nerve clusters in the leg" but I deleted it before I posted! I do understand that there are a lot of depths and multiple interpretations of moves like gedan barai, but at the moment I find it to be a technique that doesn't suit me - I'm not saying it never will, but at the moment it doesn't. Chudan barai I make use of aginst the arms of an opponent but, when you're 6'2" and leggy, reaching down to people's groin, leg etc takes a lot more crouching than I'd feel comfortable with in a confrontation.
