At our Club we practice Karate! Not Sport Karate, but Practical Karate. It is important to make this distinction because the difference is significant, but not always obvious. Many people, especially children/young adults enjoy competition, and this can be great for building confidence and fitness. However, when you make a martial art a sport you take all the ‘dangerous’ techniques out and distil the practice down to a set of rules and safe techniques designed to support competition.
With practical and applied Karate we are looking to understand the basic concepts and principles that have, before Karate became a sport, made the art so effective for self-defence.
Because of our focus on the applied aspects of Karate, and self-defence, our syllabus goes beyond the standard Shotokan syllabus. In order to develop a more rounded practitioner we base our basic foundational training on Shotokan, but we have expanded our training to include basic throws (Nage Waza), locks (Kansetsu Waza), Rolling (Ukemi Waza), self-defence (Goshin Jutsu), grappling techniques (Gyaku Waza), and weapons (Kobudo) to mention but a few. Many of these concepts have been adopted from other martial arts styles, such as Goju Ryu, Ituso Kai, Koryu Uchinadi, Wado Ryu, and even Japanese Jiu-jitsu.
All styles have something to offer to help improve and build a more rounded martial artist. We are open to exploring new techniques and concepts. Basically, we don’t care where it comes from as we’re only interested in practicing what works!
As we practice, we strive to help develop not only ourselves but also our training partners. As such, our practice is shaped by some basic training principles…
- We have no competitors in the dojo…only training partners.
- When we train, we respect our partners, and everyone who trains should leave the dojo in the same physical state* as when they entered.
- Do not compare yourself to others… comparison is the killer of joy!
- Have fun… people learn faster when they enjoy what they do.
Karate for us is a journey of self-development. This is not just a means of developing fighting skills, but a way to better understand how we respond to the world around us… whilst having fun!