The idea to write this piece started with a question I saw on Facebook in the Kyokushin Budo Dojo group. The OP trained in a dojo that no longer practiced kata and wanted to know what we thought about it. For many of us who responded, it was a surprising question. Among those of us who practice traditional karate, particularly Kyokushin, kata is simply part of what we…
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The idea to write this piece started with a question I saw on Facebook in the Kyokushin Budo Dojo group. The OP trained in a dojo that no longer practiced…
I’ve written previously about Osu. In that article I looked at the roots of the word, where it came from, and how it is used. Here, I’d like to explore…
Over the past few weeks I’ve been organizing material for a new student handbook project. I expected one section to be fairly straightforward—a discussion of footwork. I wanted to expand…
Over my years in Kyokushin, I’ve had many conversations about Zen and its place in martial arts. Some people see Zen primarily as a religion, or assume that practicing meditation…
A boxer will always win against a Kyokushin Fighter. What? You didn’t know this? We hear it on the internet all the time, so it must be true, right? This…
One of the things I’ve come to appreciate after more than four decades in Kyokushin is how much of our karate belongs to the people who taught us. Every experienced…
The Japanese word giri is often translated as duty or obligation, although neither word completely expresses what it means within a relationship. In the dojo, I think of giri as…
I wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until I was in my 60s. I had gone back to college and was struggling more than I expected. After watching a documentary about ADHD,…
In IFK classes, students vocalize “osu” with each technique as it’s performed during certain drills, particularly when practicing the syllabus in its various forms. To someone unfamiliar with the method,…
This is one quotation by Sosai Mas Oyama that is frequently shared among karateka. It appears on social media, posters, and in discussions about Kyokushin around the world. Yet I…
Discipline isn’t a feeling. It’s consistency – what keeps you moving forward when motivation doesn’t show up. It’s action, repeated over and over, that moves you toward your goal, whether motivation…
While going through some old magazines recently, I came across the July 1998 issue of Kyokushinkai Magazine. It included two articles, including this one about beach training I had written…
Tucson, Arizona. June 6th, 2026. Three days of seminar under Shihan Mike Monaco had just ended in a formal grading examination, and four candidates had spent the morning being tested…
Recently I found myself watching one of my students work with a beginner. What struck me wasn’t the techniques he was teaching. It was the way he was teaching them.…
Competition as Part of Training One thing I have noticed over the last few years attending Kyokushin tournaments is how small many fighting divisions have become, particularly in knockdown competition.…
In today’s Kyokushin world, it sometimes seems that every year brings another organization, another split, or another debate about who is right and who is wrong. It can be easy…
When people first encounter Kyokushin Karate, they often come away with misconceptions about what they are seeing. Beyond the Misconceptions One of the most common misconceptions is the belief that…
I’ve been training in Kyokushin for over 46 years now. In that time, I’ve belonged to just two organizations: the original IKO under Sosai Masutatsu Oyama, and later the IFK,…
One of my earliest blog pieces was built on a response to a Facebook post about the first line of the Kyokushin Dojo Kun. Expanding on that idea, lets move…
