Karate or ju jitsu

[Bill Mattocks]

So you sound like somebody who wants to study strictly Isshinryu and learn everything you can about Isshinryu and not take up any other styles. So at least for you, when to take up a second style would be never. Is that the case?

Correct. And I feel that Isshinryu is not the be-all, end-all. It just happens to be what I study. If I had landed at a Gojuryu or a Shorinryu or a TKD place, then I'd be studying that.

The more layers of the onion I peel back, it seems there are more layers to investigate. I feel I'll never reach the end of the possibilities, the learning. It just goes on and on. So yes, I would not turn my back on that to try to absorb something else. I'd be worse at both, rather than better at one.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Thinking about it at dojo tonight. If I was going to 'cross train', I think I might try dance. Or Tai Chi. Seriously.

I remember Don Angier saying he'd actually like to have 6 months of dance training as a prerequisite for training with him.

 

[PhotonGuy]

Correct. And I feel that Isshinryu is not the be-all, end-all. It just happens to be what I study. If I had landed at a Gojuryu or a Shorinryu or a TKD place, then I'd be studying that.

The more layers of the onion I peel back, it seems there are more layers to investigate. I feel I'll never reach the end of the possibilities, the learning. It just goes on and on. So yes, I would not turn my back on that to try to absorb something else. I'd be worse at both, rather than better at one.

Well the fact of the matter is that you inevitably will add to and take away stuff from Isshinryu, at least you will with your own style of Isshinryu. Sure, you learn the basics from your instructor but you eventually develop your own style and methods. At the really advanced levels your Isshinryu will be different than your instructor's Isshinryu, which is different from his instructor's Isshinryu and so forth. As the movie "The Karate Kid III" puts it, Karate comes from inside you. Although its just a movie the movie makes the point very well. The roots come from your instructor but the art itself comes from inside you. Eventually you will do it your own way.

Gichin Funakoshi, the founder of Shotokan Karate, after some fifty plus years of training in the art he found a way of throwing the reverse punch that was a little bit better. Now, exactly what Funakoshi found I don't know but it doesn't really matter because while what Funakoshi found obviously worked for him it doesn't mean it would work for me or somebody else. Especially when you get to such an advanced level you find what works best for you and you make your own discoveries on how you can improve the art for yourself.

 

[JP3]

Correct. And I feel that Isshinryu is not the be-all, end-all. It just happens to be what I study. If I had landed at a Gojuryu or a Shorinryu or a TKD place, then I'd be studying that.

The more layers of the onion I peel back, it seems there are more layers to investigate. I feel I'll never reach the end of the possibilities, the learning. It just goes on and on. So yes, I would not turn my back on that to try to absorb something else. I'd be worse at both, rather than better at one.

I've often found that to be true in myself, Bill. More power to you if you are in a place with a stable school and instruction which isn't capping out, etc. I started at 8 with aikido, and my teacher, who was a young man, had to move to follow his professional career. I got into TKD early in college, and stuck with that through undergrad and up, and across a move to another city. When I was done with that level of school, I moved to Houston, and couldn't find a TKD school of the same association, so found a good school with another young guy with whom I assisted teaching TKD in exchange for learning HKD straight from him, sort of privately which was cool, and participating in the HKD classes as well sort of as a sleeper, is how he put it. Then came grad school and off I went again, and this time it was Muay Thai that was ready to hand and when that transferred out I carried the MT with me and got into judo. Landed in aikido after an illness from which I need some rehab, and have stuck with it... now the longest of any of my stuff, if you don't count my ongoing self-training in those as "continuation," which I really don't. It's just keeping the polish on the car and the engine tuned and making sure there is air in the tires.

At regular time/grade rank progression, if I could sidestep association politics, I'd be like a muckety-muck by now! But, I'd not have met my wife, so that's a no go. Also, I really have enjoyed the contrast between styles, it has been a fun ride.

Also, it's a good thing to know that someone else uses the onion as a metaphor.