I’m a male, 32 years old, in great shape, have a background of doing multiple sports (swimming 5 years, CrossFit 9 years, calisthenics 2 years, rock climbing 4 years).

About 4 months ago I started karate for he first time knowing absolutely nothing, so I abandoned every other sport to focus on karate and strength train 3 times a week.

I’ve been making progress steady, with my weak point being my flexibility around my hips.

I can launch pretty decent mawashi Geri’s and Mae Geri’s up to shoulder height, but my yoko Geri’s sssuuuckkkkk. My main problem is my buttocks, specifically gluteus medius, I cannot kick above hip height for the life of me. I’ve been stretching religiously 3 times a week, my adductor muscle group have become more flexible and elastics, but my abductor group muscle is so tight.

How can I improve my yoko Geri for higher kicks? If you could please share drills and speficit stretches and exercises I’d appreciate it.

My yellow belt exam is next Monday! Also my dojo style is Shito Ryu by Kenwa Mabuni.

Thanks you!

Hi there, i m in France and i d like to do next year a Martial art, i m hésitating between aikido and karaté, i d like to go there two times a week minimum, i know its a long time engagement to have a good level... I m a patient guy... I do 30 min of sport everiday (running, training rower, swimming and tennis) so i m in good shape I am wandering what between aikido and karaté would be thé good move Thank for your response

Hi all!

I’ve practiced shotokan several years and I love it. My sensei is one of a kind I’d say, tending to a more traditional and (imo) more effective way of karate.

I moved to a city where isn’t easy to find a dojo /sensei like that nearby my home. I’ve a friend that do goju ryu and after reading some posts about it I find it quite interesting, mostly all the breathing-relaxing-tension is what capture my attention and also because I see this friend with really nice solid stances and techniques.

It’s true that I’m trying to find a good one of shotokan because I like it and I want to keep until black belt to it (I’m blue of JKA), but I wanted to know your perceptions about Goju ryu in case I don’t find any of shotokan and/or because I think some styles can help improve any karate besides what style at all.

Thanks in advance!

Hi, I'm a 17 y.o. girl. In all my life I've never made any sport before, and I would sincerely like to start karate. But there are really so many things that block me, and i would like to ask if i should at least try (please don't be rude ’^^)

I'm asking myself if I'm too late to start sincerely, even if I know I only have 17 years old, but like I've said before I've never did sport before, so I sincerely don't know. I smoke. I started about 1 year ago, and i highly regret it, and I would like to stop about this, and I think that maybe if I start a sport Maybe it will be easier, but I still realize that it can lead to complications (idk if serious or not). And the last thing, which is the most important for me, I have a huge problem to breathe. Smoke isn't the "real problem", I've started to not breathe around 7th grade and I'm still trying to figure out why I don't breathe. I discovered that I have some "skin" that blocks my nostrils, but the doctor says that it is not serious and that is not why I cannot breathe well and it could be my lungs, while a woman said it could be the throat, so Idk?? Sure smoking may have made it worse, but it is certainly not the main cause. Feeling strong emotions almost completely blocks my breathing, especially anxiety and adrenaline. (I don't want to get medical advice, I'm already trying to solve the problem, just to know if it could be a big problem (breathing) for karate)

I think I already know roughly where the comments are going, but I still wanted to hear an opinion. Thanks for reading and understand <3 and sorry if there may be some typing errors, I hope not <3

Hello, we used the reusable breaking boards for the first time in my dojo yesterday. (like these). Apparently the hardest one requires 50kg punch to break and it got me wondering what is the average punch strength/weight (not sure how it's worded) of a decent yet non-professional martial artist. I'd like to know for both male and female.

I read somewhere online that professional male boxers punch 2.5 their body weight but I'm not sure that's correct and also I'm more interested in non-professional since that is what I am.

Thanks!

Hello everyone,

I'm a 20 years old student and I started Shotokan Karate in university sports about a month ago. I never did any martial arts before and I absolutely love it. I love the discipline, the respect for everyone weaved into every action, I love practicing Kata. Currently, we, the 6 new white belts, are practicing Heian Shodan in our new Gi's for our yellow belt test at the end of the winter term and I absolutely love it, since now also the basic moves and stances are starting to work, the puzzle pieces are starting to fit into a bigger picture. We train two times a week and after every session I fee like I want to train more and that two times a week aren't enough for me.

Thank you all for recommending me to start, it was one if my best decisions this year.

Oss! ✊

I posted about my son's struggle with learning his kata to get his orange belt (7th kyu) about 6 weeks ago.

Well I'm very proud to say he got his belt on the weekend!

There were a lot of great recommendations on here which helped, so thanks to those who had advice to give. I'm putting my thoughts on the process below; feel free to skip but if you have any interest in helping teach karate to kids with ADHD or working memory problems, I hope there may be something useful for you in there.

One thing that worked very well was limiting our training sessions to five minute blocks, and using the reward of 10 minutes of lego time (or whatever other joint activity) with me for each 5 minutes of kata training. We also created a story together for the kata, where he was a Ninjago character trying to recover a treasure that was stolen by the bad guys and return it to the temple. We wore gloves and focus mitts and I placed myself such that he had to block my technique or strike me for each count. This made the training much more interesting and palatable for him.

However, in the process of working on this kata (Taigyoku Shodan) with my son, it hit home just how severe the effects of his ADHD are. His working memory is extremely limited - what that means is that not only can he not take in much new information at a time, but if he gets overloaded, he also can't transfer information to or from his more reliable long-term memory.

No matter how much we broke it down into smaller parts, he didn't seem to be getting the pattern past the first 3-4 counts. I thought this meant he wasn't able to connect the 4-step chunks we had been working on into one whole. Then I had the idea of getting him to instruct me how to do the kata and he instructed me through the whole thing, no problem - the pattern is in his memory fully-formed, but when he was performing the kata as well as trying to recall it, he was getting overloaded and then he couldn't access the pattern from storage!

I realised that if he's trying to recall step by step, 20 moves in sequence is a lot for a kid with poor working memory - he can't hold the whole lot in there at once, so he's getting lost part-way through and can't advance. OK, so how do we make it so he doesn't have to recall the entire pattern at once? At one point, he said to me "dad, the kata makes an 'I' on the ground!" That's something that I'd told him before, but he still had that epiphany for himself. It seemed to me that this is something that can help orient him regardless of what count he's up to, so I tried to think of some other rules that can apply to the particular kata to help orient him:

1. The embusen forms an I
2. When moving straight - strike; when turning - block
3. When moving along the bottom and top of the I, we don't perform the same technique more than once in a row
4. When moving along the length of the I, we perform 3 strikes in a row with kiai on the third.

Now he had 4 pieces of information to recall which only require him to remember orientation and up to the previous two moves, rather than recalling the total order of the kata. The change was nearly immediate. Instead of getting through only 3 or 4 steps, he could get through 10, and then very quickly through the whole thing. I don't know if he could do it without any help at all, but he didn't have to for the grading - the kata only needed to be to the count, surrounded by other students. On the day, he did great!

I'm predicting that now he has a way to get himself through the whole thing, the 'muscle memory' will start to kick in and it'll get easier from now. then it's on to the next one!

Hello everyone, the christmas season is approaching, and alas: a lot of my wishlist is looking like books, aside from one gym bag on there. Any non-book recommendations for someone who...

-is a white belt with >4 months of experience

-trains in the shorin-ryu style

-will be competing in a tournament in 2 months

Because like seriously I want to ask for more than just like multiple books this year, I already still have multiple I haven't read nor gotten to

I'm not sure if shin guards is the right phrase but I am currently icing my shin and foot after a sparring class. One of the black belts wears some shin pads so I know they're allowed, but the gear sold by the school is only hands, feet and head. I have a nasty habit of swinging my leg into oncoming kicks and every month I get a goose egg on my shin! I'd love recommendations for something that isn't too bulky but will protect me a bit. Thanks!

Today I quit kyokushin. When I was saying goodbye to my sensei/why I was quitting he told me that shotokan is way worse than kyokushin. Is that true? I want to try it out because I heard you can learn there many self-defense techniques and there isn't as many sparring as in kyokushin. Correct me if I am wrong in any way.

I did Renshikan karate when i was younger. I looked it up and it seems like a pretty niche style that is derived from Shito-ryu and chito-ryu.

There isn’t a school in my area doing renshikan. Anyone know which would be closer in katas and movements? Or which it pulls more heavily from.

There’s a Chiro-ryu not too far away that I was maybe going to go to.

I just really enjoyed this style. Tried shotokan and just found it very hard/linear in comparison. Might be wrong. If I am sorry. No disrespect to any one style

I'm contemplating going to Okinawa to train and have a lot of questions.

While I’m not strictly a karate practitioner, I’ve been practicing Kung Fu and boxing for about 20 years. I’ve heard Okinawa is like Disneyland for martial artists, and I’m thinking of going there to study.

That said, I’m not particularly interested in traditional karate; I’m more focused on internal styles.

What would you recommend?

Also, how much money should I have before going? How much would it cost to live there for a couple of months on a very modest budget? I don’t need much—just a bed and a shower—so I’m looking for something incredibly inexpensive.

How should I plan this? And should I just wander around to find a master?

I know about many styles major and minor, many of them not very known, but I have not heard about this one. I know somebody who has a dojo that teaches Koei-Kan Karate Do. Does anybody know anything about this style? Thank you!

Hoping to find some practical advice for settling grading nerves. In the actual test I am fine, but the couple of days leading up to it I'm a wreck. I don't sleep well, I feel sick, with a constant knot in my stomach.

I feel competent and confident I will pass, but the background noise of anxiety leading up to the event is exhausting. Has anyone ever experienced this and how did you improve things?

Generally I'm a calm, logical person, so I feel ridiculous for letting this get to me so much. They've just gotten worse as I've progressed up the belts.

Hello !
It is well known that Uechi-Ryu is based on Pangai-noon (meaning Half-Hard, Half-Soft) which is mainly based on Dragon, Tiger and White Crane styles.
Many people say that Goju-Ryu is based on White Crane Kung Fu.

I do think Goju-Ryu and Uechi-Ryu are very similar.
Surely their kata are a bit different but the technique are almost the same.
Goju-Ryu has ippon ken (shoken), nukite and almost all Uechi-Ryu striking techniques imo.

If they are so similar, how is it that Uechi is tiger and dragon based and Goju is not?
If Uechi has elements of tiger and dragon, logically Goju must have them too.

Any thoughts?

edit:
I found this interesting article:
https://gojukarate.co/Origins-of-Goju-Kata.php#:\~:text=The%20Five%20Animals%20of%20Southern,%3B%20Snake%3B%20and%2C%20Crane.

Happy training!

So I'm considering picking up a martial art again for the first time since I was a kid. The nearest dojo to me trains in the Goju-Ryu style. I'm not to familiar with it. Anyone on here know what it's about and what sets it apart from other styles?

This dojo also offers training in Kenpo/Kempo. A brief bing search says it's technically not a karate style, but should it be something else to consider anyway? What are the pros and cons of Kenpo/Kempo to the Goju-Ryu being offered?

Recently I've been interested in older styles of karate like to'on and tachimura ha / kishimotodi, hanashiro, yabu's shuri te as well as styles of ti like Udundi.

I have more information on toon and tachimura ha but I'd like to know what you guys know, any information on any koryu style would be greatly appreciated!

What kinds of older styles are there of karate/ti?

Do you guys have any information or experience with any old styles?

thanks

I'm around 5'10" and I'm 150 lbs. Should I go 3 or 4 you think?