Practicing classical Japanese karate in a safe and collegial setting.



Your First Class

It has been said that the most difficult karate class one will ever attend is the very first one. While future classes may offer more rigor, greater challenges, and tax one's mental and physical stamina, no other class can ever replicate the fear (and excitement) of the unknown experienced on day one.

I get it... it's intimidating to walk into a ...

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Kimochi - an important lesson in Japanese Culture

These days of Covid-19 have certainly changed the way our society operates - and the way we train at the Dojo is no exception.  Zoom lessons, while cool, allow us to scratch an itch and spend time together virtually but they are no substitute for in-person training. And they certainly don't replace face-to-face camaraderie. I was reminded of this as I visited some students at their homes earlier this month to deliver new belts and rank certificates. It was very nice to people in person.

The silver lining is this: our new routine al...

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Useless Techniques

If you think about it, one really only needs three or four solid techniques to be a good fighter.  I could argue that a fighter skilled in a gyaku tzuki1, mae geri, mawashi geri, and a solid defensive move like uchi uke would be able to mop up the floor with the vast majority of the population.  The UFC helps to perpetuate this notion, sport (WKF) karate only rewards a handful of techniques, even Daniel San won the All Valley Under 18 Karate Championships with, like, two moves.

So why do we bother to learn a vast and wide ...

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