Shidokan kata and it's relationship to Kyokushin.

[jon15]

Aloha! I hope I'm not beating a dead horse here and I'm only posting because I haven't found (or overlooked) any threads that deal with this situation and am hoping someone on this site can give me some advice!

I initially started martial arts in the knockdown karate styles. I began study in a really obscure splinter system of Kyokushin and eventually trained for a very short time in Kyokushin. I quit when 9/11 happened due to injury and not being able to train because of my work. When I eventually came back to martial arts about six months later, I ended up training in Brazilian Jiu jitsu. I was hooked immediately and have been training for the past 13 years or so. I've recently been wanting to come back to stand up fighting and wanted to come back to some form of full contact Karate rather than simply taking up boxing or kickboxing (which are excellent of course.) I have several schools I've been looking into which brings me to my question:

What is the difference between Shidokan and Kyokushin, and more specifically, do they use the same exact kata? I have several reasons for asking, the main one being that I want to know how much I will have to relearn or brush up on from my days with Kyokushin. I was only with them for about a month or so and don't remember much but I am curious.

I've heard that Shidokan is just Kyokushin in technique and practice but that they also add in kickboxing and MMA rules for their tournaments. Since I've never had any experience with Shidokan I was wondering if anyone on here has experience with both and could give me any insight.

Anyways, sorry for the rant but I like to type and I wanted to add some context to my question. Looking forward to hearing from someone!!!

[MMX]

Not totally sure but I do think that Shidokan does use most if not all of the "classic" Kyokushin Kata.

I found multiple youtube videos that show that.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtYmA-AXMVo&list=PL63F96DB0C9CBACC7

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE80aX-4Xe0

[jon15]

Thanks very much for the reply! It has been hard finding information regarding Shidokan. I'm going to go try a class hopefully next week and see how I like it. I also have World Oyama, and Yoshukai about an hour away that I'd like to go see. Thanks again for the input!

[meguro]

Where are you, jon15, Hawaii? From the dojo you have nearby, sounds more like Atlanta, GA. In any case, good pickings wherever you are.

[jon15]

No I lived in Hawaii for eight years or so. Popped in and trained with the late Shihan Bobby Lowe for a few weeks prior to 9/11. That's when I got my Kyokushin experience. I'm outside of Atlanta now and looking into Shidokan Atlanta with Richard Trammell. I have a friend who sort of knows him from his kickboxing days and vouches he's a great coach and person. I stopped by the other day and am going to try to get in a training session next week for sure.

I've also stopped in to World Oyama Atlanta run by Shihan Takahashi and was impressed. Shihan was out of town though and one of his students was running class. I've thought about that as well since I could possibly train at the Honbu in Birmingham when I'm there once a month for my work. The Atlanta dojo is a bit far for me though compared to Shidokan. We'll see. Still dojo shopping if you will. :-)

[MMX]

Check em all out. Do the one that fits you best. Yoshukai has the most Kata in case you were wondering out of the 3.

[powerof0ne]

Having talked to a few Yoshukai black belts and instructors over the years I would like to make one important note; not all Yoshukai black belts/dojo stress knockdown kumite. The ones I have talked to definitely do but I know of others that do not stress it hardly at all, if ever.

The latter I don't fully agree with, especially if they have their students compete in knockdown kumite rules. With that being said the Yoshukai yudansha I've talked to are awesome guys that have no problems cross training/competing with Shidokan, Kyokushin and other knockdown style blackbelts.
Osu!