Wow, what a thread, I almost hate to dredge it up again, but its hard to sit quietly with all the misinformation thats being spewed forth.
At my local GKR Dojo at least, our sensai has been at it for 14+ years and has a wealth of experiance for us to draw upon. There are 5 Sempai (blk/white) at different levels the youngest is 18 and 5th Kyu, all have been training with GKR for between 4-10 years! 35 years worth of experiance in one typical monday evening class!
GKR's basics Strikes, Stances, Kicks and Blocks and subsequently KATA are strait out of Shotokan. Some of the best full contact fighter I've seen are from Shoto. so I'm more than happy that we are drawing upon that!
As for no contact, we train basic forms against air, then in other sessions against similar sized training partners to get the feel. We contact but its targeting. i.e a front kick is only enough to send your training partner back a step and its done at medium pace. Roundhouse is done into the shoulder or arm only. Its training!
During Kumite our lower grades 8th to 6th Kyu are encouraged to hard spar against upper belts and its full on. If an Orange can get through a green or brown or blacks defence then good on him.
No upper belt is going to follow through on a lower grade, the idea is to push not kill each other.
I spent most of my teen years in Judo and then freestyle karate and now for me and my daughters at least, I find GKR thus far to be a well balanced combination of disciplin, martial training and has a strong element of tradition, something I believe was lacking with my Freestyle.
