Ginger ninja

Hi Chris, A couple of points, I'll look further into the grades, but as you know, anything above 5th dan no longer represents an improvement in skill but instead a measure of the input you have had into the sport. Judging from what Kancho has achieved, with excellent tournament success and taking a club from nothing into one of the largest in the world, I would have thought there was an argument for recognition of his input with higher grades. And I'm not trying to sell it. Why would I? I'm not even from your country so certainly can't solicit people to join my dojo and wouldn't want to even if I could. I have more than enough pupils already. What disturbs me however is ill informed comment feeding onto more ill informed comment. If GKR is so terrible, why did they clean up all the other karate styles three years running in Australia, and win both the men and womans national all styles event held in the UK in 2007? I'm not saying it is the best style or even a great one, but I certainly am saying that for someone to totally disregard it as worthless does not necessarily reflect well on them. Regarding the black and white belt instructors, it is not so hard to see the practicality of this when you consider GKR uses just a few moves (about 40 in all) and focuses on perfecting them. This is opposed to the several hundred moves in many other martial art styles, so teaching these basics does not place as high a requirement on instructor skill in the initial stages, although I completely agree to progress up above about green you have to be taught by very good brown to black belts. I also have to agree with you on the expense thing. In NZ it is very different, in fact it is one of the cheapest martial arts to learn. (For example, joining fee is $80 while most other clubs charge up to $300). Take care

Protekt, Another thing I forgot to metion: you mentioned rather disparagingly the GKR grading system. There is a common misconception that all grades are given in GKR based only on the number of classes you have attended. This is, and is not true (In NZ and Australia anyway). Up until Orange belt (our grades go white, yellow, orange, green, blue, red, 3xbrown, prov black, then black) it is the case. As long as you do the classes, put real effort into the grading and show a proper attitude you are pretty much guaranteed to pass. Aft that however things change. For example, to go from blue to red requires your sensei to recommend you, and then have the regional manager assess you personally in three classes. Only if you pass that can you sit the grading. It becomes much more difficult after that, in fact many people quit GKR because getting to black belt is so difficult. It is part of the reason why Leo commented the black belt standard of GKR is so high.

I appreciate you putting balance into the argument Protekt. I'm not from England though, I'm at the bottom of the world in little old New Zealand and so I can't comment on the quality of GKR practitioners up there. I would say that NZ and Australia did send a contingent to the recent all styles championships held in the UK (which incidently NZ and Australia won several categories in). I was interested to read the UK appraisal of how our team had done. They commented that the NZ and Australian teams seemed much sharper, faster and with a great deal more power and that the UK teams should look at how we train down here. (They added rather facetiously that perhaps our plane could crash on the way back with the weight of the medals!) So some of the criticisms of some GKR schools in the UK could be entirely valid, I simply don't know enough to comment. But a good GKR school in my experience is as good as any other martial art. Re self defense, again I can only speak from personal experience. Ben Cunningham(GKR) who came second in the National All Style championships held in Australia last year also fought in the full contact championships about six months earlier. He came third in the whole of Australia. In my view a very creditable result. Further, last year my son (15yrs old) got involved trying to pull his friend out of a melee from being beaten senseless by three known bullies in his school. they of course then attacked my son and almost burst his eye out of its socket. Using GKR he dealt to them rather badly, in fact was temporarily suspended (the bullies were expelled) until it was sorted out. Now true, they were not trained street fighters or boxers, but it was still 3 to one, and my son won the day. Having said that, I do agree that the non contact approach (which was originally started in Okinawa due to how deadly Karate became) does have some significant limitations. I always make my students as a minimum get a very heavy punching bag. There is simply no substitute from hitting something heavy rather than just swinging in empty air. Another comment the UK people made however was that GKR downunder was much more physical that in the UK. We tend to land pretty heavy blows and be damned with no contact. I suspect this improves our general standard a great deal also. As a final comment regarding the trainers: I have recently just restored a 1937 Morris 8. It had been shed stored for 25 years but there was still lots of rust to cut out and thick steel to weld to. Having never welded before I asked a number of people at the local Morris club for advice. Interestingly the consistent advice I got was "NEVER ask an expert". The reason being that they are so good, they have forgotten all the things you need to do, but can't because of your lack of skill. My wife and I train twice a week with the best black belts in NZ, and run classes 2 x a week. I have to say that of course I would much prefer to learn from a black belt at my level. However, there are many in my class of whom the advanced techniques they cover simply would go over their head. A GOOD person, with say 2 years experience would be more than adequate to cover the basics with them. Cheers

Your views on GKR are not shared by such people as Sensei Leo Lipinski. Leo is a veteran of the martial arts, trained since 1962 and currently holds the rank of 7th dan in GojuKai. He is the highest graded non-japanese of the JKF Gojukai in the world, and head instructor of of the Gojukai Sewakai in England and Europe. Some extracts of a recent interview include: "(GKR) is very similar to Goju in many of its Kata and also in its methodology and training. Your Kancho, Robert Sullivan shows a very deep knowledge and affinity for the Goju system... I also admire the very high and consistent standard I have seen among your black belts. I have been with them in Japan on 2 occasions and most recently with 120 of them in Sydney. Very good level, very good...no...exceptional attitude to training. Stacey, I do not say this lightly. Your black belts showed willingness to learn and ability to adapt to new/different methods far better than I have in in my own organisation." When responding to a question regarding how the japanese responded to a tour for GKR blackbelts that Leo organised in 2003 he replied: "They invited you back didn't they? That speaks volumes. To take this further, they were fully aware that your style is developed from Goju and Shotokan. They thought your standard of Kihon (basics) was very good. They commented favourably on your adaptation etc. ....They said the standards too were very good." So my view is, I'm happy to take Leo's and the japanese word on it, unless there is someone much better qualified. I'm a bit surprised at how closed minded people are on the effectiveness of the different approaches they take to training. But then Leo also mentioned in the interview how surprised he was on how quickly GKR people could adapt and change their training based on new concepts.

Hi guys, I see a lot of criticism on GKR. My whole family has been going to GKR classes for the last two years. Their approach is different, but looking at their tournament results, very effective. For example, they participated in the Australian Karate federation championships where they competed against all the other karate styles. Their students won every tournament three years running. Since then they have competed in the Open style championships against Ju Jitsu, Kung Fu, Aikido etc. They've won 8 out of the last 13 of those. So say what you like, their approach of perfecting a few basic movements works well. Re the junior instructor thing, it's certainly true that they use lower belts (who are given a black belt with white stripe to conceal their actual grade) to train junior students. The logic is, that if your high school students want to learn (say) cricket, you don't necessarily demand the National coach to train them. A skilled and knowledgeable adult would be quite adequate. For training the very low grades they do use people other than black belts. The other reason I like it is because it is one of the more inexpensive martial art styles. I think many of the criticisms would have much more merit if this was not the case.