Kyokushin Karate in the 21st Century...Better Technically, Weaker Spiritually?

[KyokushinBARRA]

To clarify, apart from my point of view on a black Belt cvalue that has not changed, I also adapted my requirements depending on the level. The training is always very physical but I encourage everyone to do his best on the basis of its own capabilities. As a university club, I have 30 to 40 students on average over the year some students are there for over 10 years others will follow during their studies only. There is a real club spirit, solidarity and respect among all members well beyond the dojo. I agree with your concept to train smart,...and hard also

Osu

Pat

[hasbeen]

my take on this....

i think kyokushin is stronger now because of the of the way it has splintered and grown since sosai`s death.

although numbers may have dropped in what i might call pure kyokushin dojo`s, we have to take into account the new relatives....so when you take all of these into account the spawn of sosai continues to grow.

what i believe sosai gave us was...a way of life, a syllabus and of course his teaching and guidance.

let`s equate this to the medical profession........sosai was one of the greatest, if not the greatest teaching professor of his era with medical students keen to learn....what gives the professor the most pleasure............. the students learning his methods and techniques and then improving on them and so the cycle of learning continues.

scattered around the world are the spawn of sosai doing just that.


as for the spiritual side of things, i think this varies from sensei to sensei but can still be found but i have to admit perhaps not as strong as it was in the past ... as gary so elequently put it...then it was almost "cultish" perhaps it`s better now.


now stronger..do you mean in compared to other styles?

1] do you mean for being taught to compete in the various disciplines....knockdown, clicker, non contact and kata.

2]do you mean from a budo point of view.

3]do you mean improving streetfighting and self defence abilities.

4]do you mean as a foundation for a martial artist.

this is my overview from somebody who stopped training seven stone ago!!!!

i could pick people in knockdown tournaments who were going to fold very quickly....i thought the "pick" lacked strength and conditioning and perhaps some did but i picked them purely from the style they came from and the badge they wore..[slightly brainwashed] what i didn`t take into account is that we were not fighting under their rules....how well would we have done under their rules!?

i had this tribal/cult like thinking gary mentioned in another thread. anybody who wasn`t wearing kyokushin colours wasn`t "worthy!!"


now i think you have to dismiss[imo] any dojo/style that doesn`t compete.

my local dojo run by a guy i used to train with, a nice enough guy who embarrassed quite a few of the b.k.k`s top fighters in his day, wearing a 3rd kyu.....now i think he wears five or six gold stripes and i quote," i don`t believe in competing." are they afraid of being exposed??

i offered i have said in a previous thread to help a friends daughter a 2nd dan in this dojo fight in the bkk open...after viewing the previous years dvd she told me she wasn`t up to it.

this is a dojo that bases itself on the kyokushin syllabus....

so an example of kyokushin getting weaker!!!!!!!!!

examples on how it is getting stronger are...

pheezy`s dojo in scotland.

he had a fighter mixing it with the cream of the cream of the bkk at reading, proving himself to be a top,top fighter at knockdown...and then two weeks later the same guy wins a muay thai fight by stoppage in the fourth round, this just wouldn`t have happend 25 years ago, or if it did..i didn`t know about it.

then we have gary under the enshin banner with his modern methods of teaching and forward thinking, the list goes on and on...brazil etc;etc

now sorry to quote "spirit" again but it`s my favourite quote on our forum.

"it`s not the style that counts but the sensei"

so when you try and decide what is the best/strongest style......there isn`t one...some get stronger, some get weaker depending on who is teaching at the time, this includes kyokushin dojo`s............................................ ......


i would like to have trained under gary,pheezy spirit etc............................... but there again i am a little bit more enlightend now!!!!

[seienchin]

Great post Gary - and I agree with every bit of it. It needs to be remembered that there is also an element in the "old" way that attracted people with sadistic personalities. I have certainly seen that acted out. It is not a good thing when a dojo student is passing blood in his urine because of a "lesson" a higher grade thought he needed, to teach him "spirit".

I think the dojo kun enunciates much of what I regard as "spirit", and actually deliberately and explicitly repudiates violence. It is funny, but reciting it after each class (and even embedding some bits of it into your class explanations) has a profound effect on what your students come to see as valuable and worthwhile in karate. Note, it makes no mention of being "best" or "strongest".

I had a former student seeking out a dojo in Berlin recently. She found one that she felt had the right "attitude", and when she showed me their web-page, the dojo marketing was built around the dojo kun. She understood the words and concepts in German, and it resonated with her. (She just didn't recognise the dojo kun in German). When she subsequently attended, it met with her expectations, because not only the marketing, but the dojo values, were built around the dojo kun.

[Dent]

Osu!

Originally Posted by hasbeen

now i think you have to dismiss[imo] any dojo/style that doesn`t compete.

I think we have to be careful about this one, H. Some systems are not designed for any form of competition. Weapons and striking to vital ares make up large parts of some systems, and I think that suggesting that they can't do the business because they don't compete... Well, I think you see my point.

Osu!

[Spirit]

Look more good points of view... i think this is really turning into the thread that all should follow

Lets look at things abit different shall we...
Sosai did say he had many great fighters, but only a few good teachers. Many of his fighters he would not let teach, why. I would say failure to see everyones way and only focusing on their training.
I fell into that way as a young man and hurt myself and others, happly I had a teacher who A} was way bigger thsan me and B} seen past who i was and seen who I would become. I thinjk that this to is spirit, spirit of the teacher..

Fighting or training very hard and dedicated to a blind ambition...Is this good or bad, that depends on the individual, I know that what I like or feel is necessarlly is not good or best for all. I'm me and though I have grown from my sandan days of being top dog becuase i could beat everyone does not mean i had good spirit. I was at aevery class gave 125% in every technique still doesn't mean i had good spirit, just meant i could train hard

[BCook]

"when the big tree falls, the leaves go everywhere"

[Dent]

Osu!

Originally Posted by BCook

"when the big tree falls, the leaves go everywhere"

As do the nuts!

Osu!

[hasbeen]

Originally Posted by Dent

Osu!



I think we have to be careful about this one, H. Some systems are not designed for any form of competition. Weapons and striking to vital ares make up large parts of some systems, and I think that suggesting that they can't do the business because they don't compete... Well, I think you see my point.

Osu!

OSU!! as always, i respect your point,however i was thinking more along the lines of kyokushin based dojo`s not competing ..not weapons or suchlike.

[Dent]

Osu!

Originally Posted by hasbeen

OSU!! as always, i respect your point,however i was thinking more along the lines of kyokushin based dojo`s not competing ..not weapons or suchlike.

Ah! Yes, if their philosophy includes similar strategy to ours, but they choose not to compete as a means of pressure testing... Well, I can see exactly why you would take exception.

Osu!

[nangoushuujin]

This is a very interesting discussion. I think it would be a very good idea if you are going to discuss modern kyokushin: 'technique v spirit'. That a definition of spirit as applied to Kyokushin is necessary. I guess there are several questions that could be answered:

1. What does Spirit mean?
2. Has the meaning of Spirit changed in the contemporary era?

Id like to think that you can see some evidence of spirit in any Karate dojo, anywhere all the time. Because one important meaning of Spirit is simply people pushing themselves beyond their personal limits by using their mental and physical strength. If this is your definition then nothing has changes between then and now.

I'd like to think that this process of discipline and dedication creates more than a finely tuned weapon but also a finely tuned mind that utilises the same qualities to be a continuing karate student and a positive member of society.

This maybe what Lonewolf is presenting as his question. But then there are other moral qualities that are inseparable with spirit. When looking at traditional budo values of spirit then loyalty would be extremely high on any list of budo spirit. Loyalty to your teacher and loyalty to your art. Righteousness (or acting in accordance with heaven) would be another quality attributed to budo spirit. I'd like to think you would see evidence of these qualities in many karate dojos too.

Osu

[tmd]

Originally Posted by nangoushuujin

Id like to think that you can see some evidence of spirit in any Karate dojo, anywhere all the time. Because one important meaning of Spirit is simply people pushing themselves beyond their personal limits by using their mental and physical strength. If this is your definition then nothing has changes between then and now.

As I read it this is exactly what Lonewolf was getting at and agree with your description of Spirit but disagree that nothing has changed as I have, over the years seen and trained in many, dare I say the majority? of dojo's where people are not pushed or pushing themselves.

Spirit to me is an internal strength and even when I trained in such environments I still pushed myself, to this end I think it is the individual who has to attain Spirit rather than the dojo, yes it is easier in a committed dojo as it goes without saying that such environments naturally push and lift you as in Nangoushuujin's example but even in a Mcdojo you can still train hard, you can still be the best you can be, who knows you may even bring out the spirit in the rest of the group.

[Spirit]

well just as in the early budo days karate was not even remotly considered to be budo in any way, shape or form.....yet today it is linked as if it was true budo

the idea of spirit has changed as well and we see it differently depending on

when you started to train
who or how you where taught
you and your up bringing
so much more,
So this being a great thread, and though I may side in part with lonewolf and some what with tmd. I to see things a bit different and see "spirit" to be more than one thing or action ect but serveral things in serveral ways.
Though, the idea and or action of how hard students train today than they did 10, 20, 30 or 40 years ago can only truely be debated by those that trained through those times and train today.

[hasbeen]

osu nangoushuujin!!

you talk about loyalty to you teacher and art= budo and spirit?

the vast majority of people who have dojo`s have no interest in their students as individuals so why should the student have loyalty to their sensei and art??

this is not just an idle rant from me,this is something that actually happend to me.......

in the early eighties some "household" names in the bkk decided they were big enough to go on their own, why==="dosh" no other reason that i know of.......so teachers first bit of disloyalty to the "art"

the students were told nothing would change, the syllabus would be the same, we would still enter the open knockdowns...and it was for the first year.

i was a 3rd kyu when this happend, so this was a very important time in my karate. i was in turmoil, i wanted to stay in the bkk because i recognised the excellence of the various teachers/courses etc but because all of my friends decide to stay with their sensei`s i did too[biggest mistake i ever made]

for the first year everything stayed the same, then a decision was made to change things slightly........

i was invited to attend the "squad" training which took part every weekend, i thought training between three and five times midweek was enough and i wanted the weekend for myself unless it was for the odd course or suchlike.

i heard no more until i drove a friend of mine to take part in our first open knockdown,i was injured but my friend was going to fight and i think he would have won.........on arrival the sensei concerned raced over to the pair of us and said," if you two can`t be bothered to attend the squad sessions every weekend you are not going to fight today and you will never fight in any other opens because you would be representing our style and futhermore their is no point either of you turning up at a grading."

loyalty hey!?

after another couple of years i got to a standard of knockdown, thanks to a guy i would like to name but think it`s better i don`t, where i could hold my own with anybody...i used to try and avoid the training sessions where i knew the above person would be teaching.

what i should have done is to have gone to my nearest bkk explained the situation and perhaps the injuries i eventually got would not have happend due to taking a different course and my career would have been a lot more successful.

so my loyalty to my teachers and art equalled" budo" no!!....absolute stupidity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this sort of thing would not happen know with the modern methods of treating people that gary for one advocates!!!!!

also again with regard to loyalty, nobody enquired after me and my injuries, you would have thought somebody who trained at least three times a week would be missed=no!!

i am all for loyalty, most of my friends i have known for numerous years but nanoushuujin please remember it is a two way thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[seienchin]

Hasbeen - even from the other side of the world, I can feel the pain and angst in that post. I completely understand where you are coming from, having been there myself. What an awful situation.

However, Nangoushuujin makes a point about loyalty....and to a degree he is right...if the instructor is deserving of loyalty, and the student does not honour that, it is not a good situation either.

Unfortunately, we cannot control how the world behaves, only ourselves. We can choose to walk with honour, or not. But we cannot force anyone else to our way. All we can do is walk away.

[Dent]

Osu!

I feel for you, H, and I understand where you're coming from. All too often seniors tend to forget that their juniors are human, and have other responsibilities.

Personally, I see a cross over between this and the post on what kind of students instructors would like to have. I think most instructors would (In that dark part of their hearts) love to have a bunch of tireless, invincible machines. People, real people, require relationships and these can be difficult and complex.

IMO, instructors would do well to let members run various aspects of training on occasion, and participate in that training. I also think that they should be the first to clean the floor, repair the pads, and participate in fund raising. In other words, to do all that they are asking of their members. In this way they have something of a reminder of what it's like for those they're asking all this commitment from.

Osu!

[Spirit]

Really loyalty has no real place in Karate from a students point. They are paying to learn, they are a customer even though we like to call them student.
They have the right to come and go as they please. They have the right to go to another dojo or style... But if this does happen the sensei gets mad at the student???!?? Yet it his/her fault for them doing this and the angry feeling should be on the person in the mirror!!!

To often the teacher thinks they own the student and call them "their student" as like a piece of pie?!? Yes their students, but with the freedom to do as they wish. It is your job to teach them with heart so they will not wish to leave...

Yes we do teach something they don't know, sure that part is true but we need to stop thinking that dojo owners are the king of their students and only a business person with a heart that loves their job.....

[GJEChamberlain]

Osu! Hasbeen,

I can really relate to that ....

I'm no fan of Hollywood History but I always remember a quote from Braveheart:

Wallace berates the Scottish nobles for fighting over the scraps left over for them by the English then says, "There's a difference between us. You think the people of this country exist to provide you with position. I think your position exists to provide them with freedom"

It's a real shame that in (some) Martial Arts the instructors squabble amongst themselves to gain the biggest slice of the pie, while expecting their students to blindly follow and pay through the nose.

They would be better employed (and respected) giving good leadership and instruction.

Gary

[Dent]

Osu!

Loyalty is a value that should be absorbed during training. I don't know that it can be taught, but it can be learned...

Osu!