small surface strikes

KishimotoDi Revisited: Exploring the Shuri-Te Roots of Okinawan Karate

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On February 4th, 2020, Ulf Karlsson landed in Phoenix, AZ for the first time in nearly 6 years. For those who are unaware, Ulf Karlsson is the foremost expert (outside of Okinawa) in the rare style of Shuri-Te called KishimotoDi, and is the only person to be granted a Shihan license in the art by the Bugeikan on Okinawa. On […]

The Shodan Slump

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As of the writing of this article, I have only been training for a little over 8.5 years, and I only just earned my shodan (1st degree black belt) last Summer. Even so, I’ve seen and heard of so many instances of the “shodan slump” to know that it’s real, and I feel grateful that I have managed to avoid […]

Is it Worth the Time and Effort? 4

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Kiyohide Shinjo Sensei breaking two 1″ boards with a small surface strike Martial artists–usually of the competition-driven variety–often like to point out that certain techniques don’t work, are impractical, or simply too difficult to make work. There are certainly bad techniques out there, that simply do not work in reality, but I will often see perfectly sound techniques being lumped […]