Hello: I was looking at www.njoyamakarate.com located in cliffside nj and would like to know if anyone has had any experience with this school. I do not have any previous karate instruction and would like the forum members here to opine on their knowledge of Oyama schools, either in the above mentioned school in nj or in the nyc area. I am mainly interested in the practical self defense/street fighting aspect of the art. Thank you for any information.
info on oyama karate
- Thread starter trent77
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I'm not affiliated with that school, however, I do train Kyokushin. Looking at the school info, I do recognize some of the names listed, as also being ones that my teacher has mentioned. I'd say you're in good hands if you train there. I'd be happy to ask my teacher tonight, if he knows anything about this particular school.
My suggestion, if you already haven't, would be to watch a class or two, and try some as well. Before I joined my dojo, I watched a class, and took 4 trial lessons. After 26yrs in Kenpo, training at this dojo, was nothing like I've experienced before!
The workouts kicked my ***, and in the beginning, I could barely make it thru a class, without stopping. I've been there now for a little over a year, and I love it! My only regret is that I didn't start sooner.
Omar B
Senior Master
You cannot go wrong with anything form Mas Oyama's coaching tree. I started in Seido which came out of that lineage and when we moved as a kid I did Kyokushin when there was no Seido dojo. I've also worked out with a couple Oyama Karate guys. It's all pretty much the same style coming from the same lineage, just slightly different.
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It looks like the instructor there has a solid lineage, from Oyama Shigeru (no blood relation to Masutatsu Oyama), who is the head of the World Oyama Karate system.
I've met a good number of Oyama Yasuhiko's students throughout the years (Shigeru's brother), and I've always found them to be good folks, both in and out of the dojo, and that they can certainly do quite well in a fist fight.
Their classes tend to focus more on the kumite aspect, although they do study some fundamental kata at times. Their style of kumite (sparring) uses no hand pads, and is full contact. You cannot punch someone in the head, but full contact punches to the torso, along with kicks to the head and thighs, is allowed.
They'll partner the new folks with their more advanced black belts, and let you be the one who initiates the attacks. Their black belts will take care of you, though. While they will let you be the aggressor, they'll also hold you accountable, so it's not a free ride!
If Sakataka Shihan is anything like his teacher, then I strongly suspect that they'll follow the same type of cirriculum.
I've met a good number of Oyama Yasuhiko's students throughout the years (Shigeru's brother), and I've always found them to be good folks, both in and out of the dojo, and that they can certainly do quite well in a fist fight.
Their classes tend to focus more on the kumite aspect, although they do study some fundamental kata at times. Their style of kumite (sparring) uses no hand pads, and is full contact. You cannot punch someone in the head, but full contact punches to the torso, along with kicks to the head and thighs, is allowed.
They'll partner the new folks with their more advanced black belts, and let you be the one who initiates the attacks. Their black belts will take care of you, though. While they will let you be the aggressor, they'll also hold you accountable, so it's not a free ride!
If Sakataka Shihan is anything like his teacher, then I strongly suspect that they'll follow the same type of cirriculum.
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IMO, I would say no. Earlier this year, my teacher brought one of his black belts to Japan, to compete in a tournament, in which face contact with punches was allowed. He did quite well, however, lost on the judges decision. But as I said, no, I don't feel that it takes anything away.
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trent77 said:
You can still throw punches to the face, but they stop short of hitting each other.
With regards to avoiding the realism of getting punched in the face, I'd have to say that there's really nothing to be gained from getting punched full force, since you can't really condition your face, unless you get repeatedly bashed there, which can cause irreversible harm to your facial nerves.
From what I've seen, conditioning your head by getting repeatedly struck there has no real benefit, aside from maybe shrugging off a glancing blow. A solid blow to someone's head, regardless of one's "conditioning" there, is going to stop the fight more often than not.
Also, by allowing bare knuckled, full force punches to the face, you run the very real risk of significant injuries developing. Cuts and gashes that require stitches are but the tip of the iceberg. You'll also see concussions, dental damage, ocular damage, broken facial bones, etc., all of which can easily be irreversible as well.
At least with body punches, someone who is reasonably well conditioned can take a good number of forceful blows to the body, without a high risk of long term effects. The same is not true of the head.
Is it really worth the risk of injury to the student? After all, if you have those kinds of injuries popping up in your dojo on a regular basis, your students are going to be missing a lot more time due to those ailments, and there's nothing to be gained from that.
Just a bit of a short story for you...
I knew of a "MMA" gym / club in my area, where they would hold MMA classes every night. The instructors had a "combat Hapkido" background as well as significant Tae Kwon Do training, so they opened up a MMA gym, and initially had a rather full parking lot.
There were times that I'd drive by there at night time, and see that full parking lot, and wonder what they were doing?
As it turned out, they would spar with each other, and allow full force strikes to the face, basically simulating the fights that you see on UFC, etc.
In fact, that was part of their promotions, where they would boast about how they did "REAL" sparring, and how the other schools in the area couldn't compare to them. They even mentioned my school as a comparison, where they claimed that we were simply playing tag games, since we don't allow any face contact beyond light levels (in accordance to USA-NKF guidelines), and even then, only by the black belts.
After a few months, I noticed that the parking lot was significantly less full of cars during their class times, and with each month, the numbers kept dwindling.
As it turned out, the ambulance had been called to that location a good number of times, due to the types of injuries that I mentioned above. There were students going home with missing teeth, broken cheekbones, fractured jaws, concussions, dislocated limbs, etc., all because this particular school wanted to make things as "realistic as possible."
I can only hope and pray that severe conditions don't show up further down the road, since a lot of times, what seemed like a minor "ringing of one's bell" could be a serious concussion in disguise...
I'll be clear on this subject... I know that most MMA schools are NOT like this, and that they do take proper precautions to keep their students healthy.
I think the main benefit is to learn not to freak out when it happens. I've always felt like there should be SOME degree of facial contact, at least on occasion, just to get used to people hitting you there and getting to a point, psychologically, where it's business as usual rather than some crazy thing.
I don't know that it needs to be full force, and perhaps gloves and headgear (or even full face gear), should be allowed. But there needs to be SOME kind of experience of getting your bell rung so that you know how to recover from it.
