Beginners

Beginners are always welcome in the Leeds Shinseido club. It doesn’t matter whether you have lots of previous experience in martial arts or none at all. Each person is treated as an individual with their own unique strengths and weaknesses. Your training will be geared towards your needs, taking age, fitness, injury and temperament into account.

It takes around 50 hours (25 lessons) of training to reach the first grade (coloured belt) in Shinseido. Although the syllabus is never fixed and may vary for different students, at this first level it has 2 aims:

1. to act as a short self-contained self-defence course
2. to begin laying the foundations for later study

50 hours is actually a very short time in which to learn self-defence. We don’t aim to turn you into Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee in that time. Nor would we wish to. But we do strive to equip you with techniques and skills that, with a small amount of practice, have a reasonable chance of actually working in a real self-defence situation.

So the number of techniques is kept to a minimum and the techniques themselves are chosen because they are as simple as possible to perform. For this reason you won’t see some of the techniques you might normally associate with Karate. Punching, for example, is a skill that actually takes years to get right. You have to learn to form the first correctly, get the wrist alignment correct and select an appropriate target to strike from the correct distance. Without a substantial amount of training you’re far more likely to hurt yourself than anyone else with this technique. Similarly you won’t see the range of kicks you might normally expect to see in Karate. In fact you won’t see any high kicks at all in any part of Shinseido training, as these are strictly for the sports arena and have nothing to do with self-defence.

Below is a list of the basic techniques usually taught to beginners in Shinseido:

Stances

1. Forward stance
   The standard posture, or stance, is designed to give maximum opportunity to protect yourself, stability so that your strikes have power and the ability to move quickly in any direction. The knees must be kept slightly bent and the arms held in front of the torso.

Blocks

1. Rising bridge
   The arm sweeps up in front of the face to deflect or check attacks to the head or upper torso
2. Downward sweep
   Similar in principle to the rising bridge, this movement checks or deflects attacks to the lower torso
3. Inward block
   Used to sweep straight punches away from the head

Strikes

1. Palm-heel
   Simply extend the arm to strike the head with the heel (ie. base) of the palm. When striking with the rear hand the rear heel raises so that the hip is allowed to project forwards to add bodyweight to the strike
2. Elbow
   A devastatingly effective strike, even with just a moderate amount of practice. As with the palm-heel, on the rear side the movement of the hip allows you to add much more bodyweight to the strike
3. Knee strike
   The most important kick any martial artist will ever learn. Easy to do and highly effective when used to strike the attacker’s thigh

All 3 strikes can be combined together to produce one highly effective quick-fire combination for use at close range.

Breakfalls

1. Back breakfall
   When defending yourself there is always a serious risk of falling or being knocked over. So it is important to learn how to fall without injury. Often people can break their wrist or collarbone by putting a hand out to break their fall. Or their head or spine impacts on the floor, potentially causing very serious damage. The back breakfall avoids both of these problems. Initially students begin practising it sitting on the floor. With practice they can then change to starting from a crouching position. Finally it can be practiced from a standing position. Students advance on the next stage of practice only when they feel ready to do so. If a student has an existing back problem this will be taken into account, to ensure that Karate training does not aggravate the health.

Vital points

The human body is riddled with ‘vital points’ – areas that can be attacked with little force but can produce dramatic effects. This is an area of study that takes years to master. However, even a complete beginner can quickly learn to apply a small number of vital point techniques to good effect.

Training drills

In addition to these techniques you will also learn several training drills to be practiced with a partner which will help you develop specific skills. Some of these drills are:

1. Sticking hands - to develop sensitivity to touch (learning to use your arms as antennae)
2. Pushing hands - building on the above exercise, to develop the ability to redirect your partner's limbs
3. Waveform - learning to receive and blend with an attack, using appropriate footwork

Defences

You will be taught defences to a variety of different kinds of attacks, in which the above techniques and principles can be combined together in different ways to enable you to escape. These attacks include various forms of:

1. Arm grabs
2. Lapel grabs
3. Chokes
4. Hair grabs
5. Bearhugs
6. Punches

If for any reason you are unable to practice any of the above techniques your instructor will show you an appropriate alternative which you can use.

Previous Experience

If you have previous martial experience this will be taken into account during your training. Rather than ignore previous experience we prefer to build on any skills you already have. In particular, for students of Karate or other similar arts we will help you to increase your understanding of the meaning of the forms (kata, quan, hyung) that you already practice.

Beginning Training

To start training just come along to watch or take part in a class, there is no charge for the first class you take part in. Beginners are always welcome. If you're intending to join in please bring some loose, comfortable clothes to wear. Track-suit trousers and t-shirt are ideal. We usually train barefoot but if you have a medical requirement to wear shoes (eg. orthotic insoles) then please bring some soft-soled shoes with you.

Alternatively, if you have any questions about Shinseido training just email the instructor or call 0113 3685650 / 07939 506340.