Afternoon all!

Further to my last post about starting a martial art ive found a local promising club that teaches Shotokan karate and seems ideal for me/

Background info on me: Im 18, male not fit as it were and looking for a class to go to where i can learn fighting, self defence, get exercise and have fun. I'll be going with a female friend who is also 18, not athletic but not obese either, she has no experience of martial arts and ive only been once before for about 6 weeks.

I explained this on the club's forum and organizer emailed me with more info about the club and told me they teach shotokan with an emphasis on practical street defence. Ive done a little searching on Shotokan karate and it seems very good, the only thing is it seems to include a lot of throws where my last class in karate never mentioned throwing or grappling, only how to get out of headlocks etc... for SD. Now i know most martial arts dont depend on physical strength to throw someone, they rely on their own motion and throwing their balance etc... But is Shotokan ideal for two beginners like me and my friend?

The organizer seems to suggest it would be fine for us and i expect it will because the vids i saw were of blackbelts sparring so i expect we wont be learning such advanced moves too early.

So what are your experiences with Shotokan karate/ And would you recommend it?

It does seem very promising especially as its the only local club and it does seem very good for conditioning the mind and body as it were as well as a good hobby. Im hoping to go there this saturday to observe and talk to the people there and make my mind up.

 

 

 

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Hi shadowx,
I see you are from the UK too (I am from Slough, Berkshire).
First of all, could you give me the URL to the forum of the club you want to join?
I would like to read about their ways of teaching, as I do Shotokan Karate with TISKA, I am a brown belt with white stripe now (2nd Kyu, 2 away from black), however, in our dojo I have never come across throws and the likes.
Sometimes when we get some little extra-curricular explanation about how to apply a technique we are asked to apply a throw, but that is it.

Our system is grossly based on:

• Kihon (basics)
• Kumite (sparring)
• Kata

Those are the things we cover during trainings, and, when gradings are a while away or there is a tournament coming up, we sometimes do some man-to-man Kumite.

However, I would be very interested to see the website/forum of the club you mentioned, interested to see how they go about things, and when i have had a scan through things, I also might be able to give you some further and maybe somewhat more detailed advice.

 

 

 

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hi,

I am learning Tae Kown Do , presently in Blue Belt.
The belts are as follows yellow, green, yellow, green, yellow-green, blue, red, red-black, black ..
My teacher is Pradipto Roy [6th dan black belt, World Champion 2004].

Thanks,
Abhi

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the website of the club is seemaf.co.uk the vids i saw though were just on youtube and weren't related to this website, they were mostly of world tournament events.



Thats what interested me. Although i only went karate for a short time there was no mention or hints of throws etc.. and from my basic understanding of karate it was essentially blocks and strikes with the odd Joint lock or pressure point thrown in for self defence etc... So perhaps the videos i saw involved Mixed Martial arts/inclusion of self defence techniques rather than pure karate.

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I went and had a look on the web site you mentioned, and to be quite honest, I find it quite crappy.
The whole layout is a mess, no clear links, images missing, the information scattered all over the place, no mention of a contact address, only a phone number and an email address, it does not even say where the club is based, except it is somewhere in the South East (where I live too).
If they wish to attract new members they are going to have to do a lot better than this IMHO.
Also, they seem to be asking for instructors, don't they train their own members then?
In my club, when you get up to black belt, and you do your Nidan (2nd Dan) exam, you then also get an interwiev about teaching abilities as part of the exam, and that is when you can become an instructor yourself.
So, my club (TISKA) has no need to advertise for instructors to come and join them, as their instructors are groomed within the club itself.

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