Quote:
Originally Posted by blackshield
Ok, firstly I think you have had some great advice ie - try out the clubs, and that the instructor is far more important than the style. To illustrate this, I have just come from a Goju club that I loved (left because I moved country) - we sparred full contact, kyokushin style, but with throwing/clinching/groundwork/locks etc all thrown in. we also did a lot of full contact with head gear and Boxing gloves to train giving and taking headshots along with the rest of it. We also did a huge amount of multiple attacker sparring, still full contact... sometimes involving weapons defence. For me this is what traditional karate should be - a well rounded hollistic system, trained in a realistic way. The reason I say all this is because I have now started Kyokushin - the reason being that the Goju clubs here seem to contain zero realism or substance (the tippy tappy crap that everyone knows). The kyokushin on the other hand doesn't contain quite the breadth of areas that I am looking to cover - but what it does do it does very very well (hard strike based fighting).
So I would say firstly look for a good instructor, not a style - then ask what you really want from a system... you mention a traditional style, but also wanty full contact, that shouldn't be too hard to find... and kyokushin could be a good starting point. (like I said - better to go with a style that does what it does to the highest level, than a club that does lots of things poorly).
You mention you did jiu jitsu, this is a great style, and I know plenty of jitsu guys who train full contact too... so perhaps you could continue with that (unless of course the striking is what you want to develop).
One thing I would be wary of is many so called 'traditional' schools hide behind there 'traditional' title and use it as an excuse for not training realistically.
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I couldn't agree more with what you said towards the end how some schools use the "traditional" title and hide behind it. I once went to this private Shito Ryu dojo a few years back that was actually pretty nice and very affordable, nearby, etc. The head instructor was overweight and they had me meet them one on one and had the daughter serve me green tea and said the cliche Domo Arigato like that would impress me, I'm not sure. Anyway, I let that past and trained, paid them,etc. I did one class with the husband and tried to find out where they trained in shito at because I was familiar with a good 90% of the shito sensei in that area and he wouldn't really answer my question but he seemed like a nice guy and was actually helping me get back to my shito form(going from shito to muay thai and vice versa is hard for me)with my kicks. The next night I trained with the wife...wow is all I can say, she was having me do some joint locks and take downs that she couldn't make work on me unless I fell to the ground on my own, the bad part about it was she was using some Japanese terminology that I never heard for these locks and throws that I have never seen in Shito Ryu. She wouldn't tell me where they came from so I asked the husband and he said they learned them in chin na and admitted to me that they incoorparated them in this "traditonal" Karate and gave them Japanese names. They also wouldn't spar me or let me spar any students and there excuse was no students were black belt yet and they only wanted to let black belts spar. I only trained 3 times and pretty much wasted a month's tuition...it's a shame too because it was convenient for me but Karate without any realistic kumite is ballet to me.