Watching Karate

[elfs]

So, one of the other things I did yesterday was watch freinds of mine try out for their ext belt level in karate. I don't know much about karate and am under the impression that the standards and expectations for what a student can and should know are rather fractured and may have some dilution. Still, what I saw Saturday afternoon gave me the impression that there are still schools out there that teach effective self-defense. The black belts were especially impressive, tossing each other about the room.

Only one or two students showed little enthusiasm for the sport and seemed to be out of it. There was a test with a punching bag and many of the lower students took it as test of form, rather than a test of effectiveness, which was disappointing. Only a few were trying to strike body blows. On the other hand, during the sparring most showed a strong degree of competence at defending themselves from attacks in different patterns-- from behind, from above. A tiny slip of a girl, maybe ten, reached between her legs, grabbed her attacker by the knee and just floored him in one pull, and when he got up again she threw him over her shoulder.

Kouryou-chan got a little bored, and Omaha diagnosed it as hunger, so we had to leave before the full-on sparring began. While we ate, I asked both of the girls if they wanted to try that, and they said they would be willing to try. I think a sport where they're not directly in competition with someone else, and where they learn self-discipline and patience, would be good for both of them. Probably for Omaha and I too. Although I don't know if we'd be quite as ferocious with each other as J5nn5r and Desirae were; those two were clearly having too much fun.

Comments

Have you looked into Aikido?

[velvet-wood.livejournal.com]

Karate classes tend to be, from what I've found, more oriented on competition than on self-defense. Aikido is a purely defensive art, for the most part does not have a competitive aspect (though there are progressions through the ranks via testing), and seems very suited to children. Instead of teaching punches and kicks, it teaches you how to use your opponents attack against him. My son, Jaime (10) has been taking it for about six months now. In that time, he's learned to fall, roll, and flip in such a way that you could basically pick him up and throw him, and he'd land unhurt. He also proved, a few weeks ago, that he is able to roll an attacker onto the ground in such a way as to disable them without really hurting them: one of the neighborhood girls had run up and was hitting him in the back and back of the head with a hand-mirror. Jaime asked her to stop, she didn't, and before my sister, who was watching, could intervene, he grabbed the girl's wrist and neatly and gently rolled her over his shoulder and onto her back on the ground, never relinquishing hold of the hand with the 'weapon' in it, just as he'd been taught in Aikido. I don't know who was more shocked, my sister or the little girl, but she wasn't hurt and he'd easily stopped her from hurting him. Anyway, if you're interested, here's some general information:

http://www.aikidofaq.com/introduction.html

And the website of the school that Jaime attends, so you can see the sort of standards a demonstrably effective school has:

http://www.aikido.org/dallas/

Velvet

Re: Have you looked into Aikido?

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Second the recommendation of aikido. kendaer could talk to you a lot more about it....