Sorry folks, I just plunged in and plain forgot to say howdy. So this is late, gomenasai!
I'm a complete newbie, just started training in Isshinryu in September of 2008 in the Detroit, Michigan, area. I'm a white belt. I train twice a week, and I've got a long way to go because I am overweight and out of shape, but I'm giving my maximum effort, and I am improving my physical condition as well as learning (slowly) my kata and basic exercises. Sanchin was my first kata, and I'm halfway through Seisan.
I have a little trouble with my feet because I am naturally splay-footed, so turning my feet to a Seisan-dachi is actually not comfortable for me, and Sanchin-dachi feels like I'm twisting my forward knee off. But I'm working on it.
I have had very little prior training. As a boy growing up in the cornfields of central Illinois, I read and tried to emulate the moves I saw in Bruce Tegner's books - that's the closet thing to 'karate' that there was around in my town of 400 people.
Later, in the Marines, I was stationed in Okinawa as a military policeman, on Camp Butler. I was lucky enough to have met Master Angi Uezu, who was a security guard working on the gates with the MP's. However, I was young and foolish and turned down an opportunity to train in Isshinryu while I was on Okinawa in the early 1980's. What a pity. The only moves we learned from Uezu-san were things he taught us that MP's need to know - takedowns and come-alongs and locks, that sort of thing, all very non-lethal.
I later took about three months of training in Wado Ryu after the Marines, but it was in the late 1980's in Lakewood, Colorado, and I have sadly forgotten it all.
So I am in fact a raw beginner. Just feeling my way along, doing the best I can.
Anyway, I'm quite happy to have found this discussion forum, it looks like a very friendly place. I look forward to the cooperative exchange of information from the other members here.
Best Regards,
Bill Mattocks
I'm a complete newbie, just started training in Isshinryu in September of 2008 in the Detroit, Michigan, area. I'm a white belt. I train twice a week, and I've got a long way to go because I am overweight and out of shape, but I'm giving my maximum effort, and I am improving my physical condition as well as learning (slowly) my kata and basic exercises. Sanchin was my first kata, and I'm halfway through Seisan.
I have a little trouble with my feet because I am naturally splay-footed, so turning my feet to a Seisan-dachi is actually not comfortable for me, and Sanchin-dachi feels like I'm twisting my forward knee off. But I'm working on it.
I have had very little prior training. As a boy growing up in the cornfields of central Illinois, I read and tried to emulate the moves I saw in Bruce Tegner's books - that's the closet thing to 'karate' that there was around in my town of 400 people.
Later, in the Marines, I was stationed in Okinawa as a military policeman, on Camp Butler. I was lucky enough to have met Master Angi Uezu, who was a security guard working on the gates with the MP's. However, I was young and foolish and turned down an opportunity to train in Isshinryu while I was on Okinawa in the early 1980's. What a pity. The only moves we learned from Uezu-san were things he taught us that MP's need to know - takedowns and come-alongs and locks, that sort of thing, all very non-lethal.
I later took about three months of training in Wado Ryu after the Marines, but it was in the late 1980's in Lakewood, Colorado, and I have sadly forgotten it all.
So I am in fact a raw beginner. Just feeling my way along, doing the best I can.
Anyway, I'm quite happy to have found this discussion forum, it looks like a very friendly place. I look forward to the cooperative exchange of information from the other members here.
Best Regards,
Bill Mattocks