Koshiki Karate in Cantabria

Hello everyone.

Long time since the last post.
I have been busy, but on top of that, no news and no discoveries to talk about... till today!

Enter, Koshiki Karate!


Koshiki is a full contact style, rooted in traditional Shorinji Ryu Okinawan Karate, that uses intense and deep kata bunkai exploration and later uses it in NHB kumite.

How did I find this gem?
I was on a family trip in the beautiful Cantabria, north of Spain, and the destiny made me rent a house to a Karate Master, Sensei Juan José Reigadas, who was a wonderful host and was kind enough to notice I was wearing a Kyokushin jacket and invited me to join a class.


You can see the helmets (Kudo style) and body shields used for kumite, but the fun part is that is BARE KNUCKLE.
Yes, no gloves.
Yes, hard plastic masks.
Yes, you punch right on the plastic.

This is even more exciting than Kyokushin!
Few restrictions, no worries about injuring a partner, grabbing is allowed, you can follow through on the ground...
But you need to have precision with your cute little hands when you smash someone in the face.
Oh, open handed strikes are not permitted, so you need to really practice your punching technique. Great!


The gate to this wonderful dojo:


You can see more here.

And contact Sensei Reigadas here.

A video:



And the Bible of Koshiki, Scientific Karate.

They even have a Japanese cherry tree. Talk about commitment!


Their Sanchin version is FIVE MINUTES LONG.
Why is that?
Because they use it as a regular kata, with its bunkai and applications. They make use of all its possibilities in short, medium and long range.
I wish I could find the video when I practice it with them...
And I wish I recorded the kumite session...

People have a long history of fighting here:


And I had to come back to Mercadal. Nice village in the middle of these wonderful lands.
One of my hardest moments in life was here, twenty-ish years ago. I could not have a good look at it at that moment so I owed this visit to myself.


Oh, I crashed my car on the way, so...






@practicalkarateagain in Facebook
josep_cla in Instagram
josep_cla@hotmail.com





















Location: Calle Angel Abajo Perez, 167, 39530 Puente San Miguel, Cantabria, Spain

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A rainbow of choices

Image
Let's talk about something really trivial now: What colour should the embroidery of my belt be? First, let's start with the most common one: golden brown (金茶, in Japanese): This is a belt that was gifted to me so the content of the embroidery is kind of unusual but the picture will show the colour I am talking about. Beautiful and classic, right? So, what other colours are acceptable? By far, the two next more common colours are red and white: (red one is mine too) All the other colours have really few adepts but I have seen a blue one, a green one and a pink one: (it is pinker in person) You also can choose a metallic gold or silver threat: Considering getting a silver one soon... if not pink! And you can choose to get kanji and/or katakana (or hiragana) embroidered, but also common letters: Or you can just go crazy and get a multicolour multifont belt, like this one: Cool, uh? And what about rank strip
Read more

My fight on video

Image
First of all, thank you to all my partners in Budokan Castellón who helped me prepare for the fight, thanks to Pedro, David, Xufei and specially Sensei Josep Florido for coming with me and helping me on fight night. Also, thanks to VFL for having me in this event. I would also thank my sponsors, but... Coming in. Spatial awareness run (thanks Ramsey!). Waiting for an opponent. Being introduced. Moving my arms. Thinking of the tactic. Where are my gloves? Well, the experience was amazing! I got to fight in a cage, in a nice promotion, against a very strong guy and then got to walk home unharmed, sure of having given all I had inside, that was not much. I gassed out too soon and could not play along very well. But it doesn't matter. The other guy, Fabio Wellinton, was more experienced, stronger and did a better fight. He was a nice guy before and after the fight and that is important too. Now, the fight:
Read more

My Karate style

Image
What is my Karate style? I guess one needs to know if he/she can feel identified with the contents of this blog. If my methods and theories are aligned with those of his/her Dojo. Fair enough. What is my Karate style? That is a fair question with a complicated answer. My first Art was Judo, which I started to learn when I was six years old. Even though I never stopped training I did it in a discontinuous manner, never caring too much about it. I never thought it could be used in a fight, until recently. After that I joined a Shotokan Karate class, not by choice (I wanted to learn Kick boxing) but because it was the only kicking-and-punching option available at that time, until I broadened my martial circle of friends and became involved in full contact styles. Many years and a few dans later I was forced to move my residence to China, having Kyokushin as my only choice for the first years after I landed. After that I met many people involved in a variety of arts who were
Read more