Quote Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime View Post
So I had a chat with a dude who's a retired Sensei who's taught traditional Okinawan Karate for 30 years and asked him about his thoughts on GKR. He said that it is a massively huge club and the people there are really nice and it's a great social opportunity to make friends. He said that their point-sparring/tournament techniques are good (I've heard others say this too) and - as I've often said before - excellent for teaching martial arts novices. He totally agreed with me that it's a good style for someone to start in who has absolutely zero martial arts experience and/or underdeveloped coordination skills.

He then said that most of the people who train in GKR see it just as a 'fun hobby,' i.e. they don't take it very seriously as a fighting form. To them it's just something they do for fun and fitness, perhaps to win comps for sport fighting, but not actual combat fighting isn't something they think about. In that regard, he believes that GKR isn't ideal as an actual combat art because they train for tournament fighting with non-contact etc. - he also spoke about how, in his experience/observation, many GKR practioners lack a lot of basic traditional martial arts skills and make common mistakes like standing on their stances and not in them (he said that whenever he gave a GKR Karateka the "push test" they'd topple over quite easily), and lack the ability to drive any power behind their strikes -- which isn't surprising considering that they teach you to hold your strikes back (because of the non-contact rule) and teach you to punch in front of targets at not through them.

But he also said that this problem isn't unique to GKR - it occurs in a lot of martial arts schools, even many schools of traditional martial arts. And I must say that I do wholeheartedly agree with him there.
a problem with such a large club can be inconsistency with teaching and technique, i disagree about the stopping in front theory as it only appears this way because one is punching the air. all techniques should be conducted the a full blooded manner (with adequate control and technical aptitude this is easily possible. (i myself could knock a larger opponent down very easily using standard gkr technique properly).
The term "individual results may vary" would be the best way to take any club, regardless of the training type.
The other thing is the opinion and thoughts of any one instructor may not be correct as a whole nor the correct thing, most grk instructors are student that have progress through a training program, black and white belts can vary from 6th kyu green belt to 1st kyu brown belt. this has itd merits and problems, as i say it can effect consistancy. But by no means am i putting these people down as we all strive to learn and progress.
As i say mate im happy to chat to you some time, i'll pm you when im on.