Shotokan Karate

[Goku]

This is kinda exciting... I always wondered if there was a style of fighting called Shotokan Karate (Used by Ryu and Ken in Street Fighter) and find some pretty impressive informaition about it. This, from now on, style will be mixed into the styles I already study. I advise you guys to check out web-site offering information about the arts of "Ancient Shotokan Karate" notice, u have to add the ancient shotokan because the present one is not cool at all and sounds most ineffective. Hope this will come as suprising as it was to me for u...

[MA Fan]

I advise you guys to check out web-site offering information about the arts of "Ancient Shotokan Karate" notice...

Which site? What's the URL please

u have to add the ancient shotokan because the present one is not cool at all and sounds most ineffective. Hope this will come as suprising as it was to me for u...

Hmmm, I study Shotokan Karate, heard it called a lot of things before but never not 'cool'. Perhaps when I see the website I'll understand what you mean. Unfortunately (to my knowledge) there is no one martial art that caters for everything...well I haven't found it yet anyway

[JaredExtreme]

I wanna learn how to do the dragon punch and hurricane kick too! HAYUUUUUKEN !!!

[Flash]

There is no "ancient school" of Shotokan Karate. Shotokan Karate is a relatively new style developed by Gichin Funakoshi (Shoto was his pen name - therefore Shotokan, Shoto's school). Funakoshi Sensei developed it from the various styles of Okinawan Karate that he had been trained in and he taught it in Japan. Some people claim that what he taught was a simplified version of Karate designed to be easily taught to mass groups of students or soldiers (if you look at photographs of old-school Okinawan Karateka working out, you notice that classes were small and most of the guys aren't even wearing gis - they're working out in regular clothes or even in their underwear).

I don't know about whether it's effective or not but Oyama Sensei (the founder of Kyokushinkai) trained in Shotokan briefly before dismissing it as something more akin to dancing than to fighting and then he went off and began meditating in water falls and karate chopping bulls to death.

What Flash says is very true. Shotokan became the first "Karate Do" - which means its primary purpose was to develop the person, not a the fighter. Many in Shotokan do claim that it is "the best", but I too have seen it many times. It is stiff, robotic and inneffective.

There are people who can really fight who practice Shotokan, but often that is despite, rather than because of, the style. These people have real toughness and aggression anyway, and would be tough if they practiced dominoes......

GoJu Ryu was an effective style. No high kicks etc. It was all kicks to the knees and groin, elbows to the temple and fingers in the eyes etc., but even this has been diluted due to it being taught to the masses. But what use is a style where you can't "control" an opponent, only maim or kill him? Perosnally I would like the option.

I'm sure there are people out there who could whip my butt with Karate. But not many. Look how they did in the early MMA tournaments, and they hardly queue up to compete in them now.......

[Sean J]

Tehre are lots of techniques in Goju Ryu designed to only controlling and not killing your opponent. Living in the Manchester area you ought to have heard of a door-security specialist and Goju Ryu practitioner named Gary Spiers. I am sure he could teach sou a lot of that stuff.

Sean

Gary Spiers did train in Goju Ryu under Master Morio Higaonna. He did not have a lot of time for Karate, except Goju, and he referred to Higaonna as "the Boss". But he also trained primarily as a wrestler, and his controlling techniques were from the grappling arts.

Spiers was undoubtledly a man who could "turn it on" but, unfortunately, he passed away a few years ago.

[Sean J]

Hi,

thats interesting what you tell. In the interwievs he gave in Fighting Arts International back in the eighties while he was still working at doors left the impression that Goju Ryu was his main style.
But whateVer: I trained Goju and Shito Ryu in the eighties too and there are in fact quite a few techniques of control in Guju Ryu, useful to someone who does security work of any kind. Maybe even more useful to me than wrestling because I am definitely not as big as Gary Spiers.

Ciao

Sean

Sean! Guess where I got my info about him from....There were three or four articles, one each month. I've got them all somewhere. I'll check back to see if I'm right, as it is many years since I read them. It was quite a good magazine, but you were never quite sure it would actually come out!

I was into Karate (Shukokai) at the time and was full of righteous indignation when he said that most styles weren't up to much. Looking back I realise how right he was.

I haven't trained in Goju Ryu, so many of his techniques may have come from there I suppose. I'm sure, though, that he was primarily a grappler.......

One thing is for sure. Whatever he did, he did it effectively.

[Sean J]

Yeah, as far as I remember he bit off somebody's ear in a fight once. And it is not quite clear if he spit it out.

Effective ist the word!!

Sean J

[Mad_Mally]

Originally Posted by Flash

There is no "ancient school" of Shotokan Karate. Shotokan Karate is a relatively new style developed by Gichin Funakoshi (Shoto was his pen name - therefore Shotokan, Shoto's school). Funakoshi Sensei developed it from the various styles of Okinawan Karate that he had been trained in and he taught it in Japan. Some people claim that what he taught was a simplified version of Karate designed to be easily taught to mass groups of students or soldiers (if you look at photographs of old-school Okinawan Karateka working out, you notice that classes were small and most of the guys aren't even wearing gis - they're working out in regular clothes or even in their underwear).

I don't know about whether it's effective or not but Oyama Sensei (the founder of Kyokushinkai) trained in Shotokan briefly before dismissing it as something more akin to dancing than to fighting and then he went off and began meditating in water falls and karate chopping bulls to death.

Actually, Master Oyama was a Shodan in Shotokan before he left the system, he then took up Judo (he also made shodan), then in trained in Goju Ryu reached the 4th dan, and then got involved with the mafia. After being imprisoned for 6 months, he then decided to go train in the mountains. He went with a friend (who abandoned him in the middle of the night after 6 months of training), and stayed in the mountains for 18 months, he only stoped because the guy that was supplying him with food stoped stending it. Upon Oyama's return he won the Japan Karate Tournament.

[treelizard]

www.24fightingchickens.com

[Scott Bolinger]

i've studied both Shotokan (traditional and americanized) and Goju Ryu, and 5 othere styles of fighting. Every art is flawed in some way or the other. What makes good fighters is the person and the coach.

[cakegirl]

I'm a Shotokan black belt!

[STCninja]

Hehe. Currently I am taking ninjitsu, and both my sensei and another person I train with took Shotokan and had there black belts and whatnot. Though they both pretty much just picked up and switched to ninjitsu once they got a taste of it. I also have another friend who's got his black belt in Shotokan, he came to training with us one day and pretty much was uke for the day haha. Said he really enjoyed himself and was definitely impressed.