Sengoku 9 will going to define Sengoku gold cup winner.
Ikuo Usuda (Kiguchi Dojo) vs Koji Ando (Wajyutsu Keisyukai Tokyo Honbu)
Shigeki Osawa (Yoshida Dojo) vs Toru Harai (Mouri Dojo)
Takeshi Numajiri (Kiguchi Dojo) vs Ryosuke Komori (Yoshida Dojo)
What is important?Because gold cup finalist include fighter who have elite wrestle back ground.
Ikuo Usuda (Kiguchi Dojo) 3rd World University Championships (Greco 66kgs)
Shigeki Osawa (Yoshida Dojo) 1st World University Championships (Freestyle 60kgs)
Takeshi Numajiri (Kiguchi Dojo) 3rd National Collegiate Championships (Freestyle 60kgs)
Shigeki Osawa
Those fighter have gorgeous grapple background.Maybe you will able to find your new favorite prospect at here.There is another strong wrestle back ground fighter fight at Sengoku prelims.
Maximo Blanco (Yoshida Dojo) Pan-American games bronze medalist (Freestyle 60kgs)
Let's watch how those prospect improve.
2nd Sengoku Gold Cup hold at Seoul,Korea July 23.Result is not coming yet.
Who is best boxer in Japan?Not famous in the world,but Hozumi Hasegawa,he is.He is current WBC bantam weight champion and already defense ninth time.He like other martial arts like MMA or Kick Boxing.He participate Shooto's commentary.He want bring himself to Las Vegas for show his skill to the world.
On July 13, the East Japan Boxing Committee decided to appeal to the Japanese Boxing Commission to suspend Takeshi Yamada's boxing license. Yamada is the striking trainer of MMA fighters Tatsuya Kawajiri, Mitsuhiro Ishida, Hiroyuki Takaya and Kenji Osawa, and has also trained Yoshihiro Akiyama in the past.
Under the Japanese Boxing Commission's rules, trainers who have boxing licenses can't work in other sports.
East Japan Boxing Committee also plan to appeal to penalize Jyoji Morikawa, the owner of JB Sports Gym, which Yamada belongs to. Morikawa is the author of the famous boxing manga Hajime No Ippo.
Personally, I think the East Japan Boxing Committee don't like Takeshi Yamada's appearances on TV. He is known as the trainer of Yoshihiro Akiyama, and after the Sakuraba fight, Yamada claimed Akiyama was innocent, which turned out to be false. That incident impacted the boxing community, who didn't want to be attacked by fans and the media for an event outside of boxing.
The head of the East Japan Boxing Committee is former WBA and WBC minimumweight champion Hideyuki Ohashi. He taught PRIDE veteran Hiromitsu Kanehara to box at the Ohashi Sports Gym, so I don't think he has a bad impression of MMA. But, Yamada is using a boxing gym to teach MMA fighters and appearing in the MMA media, at the expense of the boxers in his gym.
Maybe you never heard of,but there is new movement for martial arts.Many countries Olympic committee try to hold new event for martial arts.It called World martial arts games and Asian martial arts games.Asia Games will hold on Bangkok in 2009 August.World Games will hold in Beijing in 2010 Summer.
Tsunetane Oda shows his skill, including knee-on-belly and an omoplata.
Recently, videos of old judo practitioners have been uploaded to youtube. Why is that so interesting? Because they include some of the skills that are widely believed to have been invented by BJJ guys. The guy showing his skills in the video is Tsunetane Oda. Oda was born in 1892 in Yamanashi, and was known as "Newaza no Oda," or "Grappling Oda." He reached ninth dan in judo at the Kodokan. This video includes French words, so there is a possibility it was made by a Frenchman.
Many newaza skills are omitted from sport judo, where the referee can call "mate," meaning the judokas are separated and reset standing. This video teaches us many things about where these skills originally came from.
Special Thanks to Jordan Breen for English support.
Karate is written "empty hand" in kanji. At first, Okinawan people imported Chinese martial arts. It was first called "Tang Dynasty hand," but Okinawans evolved these skills. In the militaristic era of Japan, Shotokan founder Gichin Funakoshi's group change this martial art's name to today's "empty hand."
Some critics said that Japanese nationalism effected this name change, but the phrase "empty hand" has a philosophy behind it.
Lyoto Machida is nikkei nisei -- a second-generation Japanese immigrant. His father Yoshizo moved to Brazil in 1968, and took it is a challenge. He said he wanted to do something not everyone did. When he left Japan, he got only 100 dollars from his father.
He started his dojo in Belem, but there wasn't enough people for him to teach, so he moved to Salvador. His karate survived against other martial arts like capoeira and jiu-jitsu, and earned him students. At his height, he had 1200 students in Salvador.
Enjoying his success, he met a pretty girl, Ana Claudia, at a party. He asked her for a date the first time he met, a very rare approach for the Japanese. When people asked him about it, he said, "I wanted to try it first. People here don't know how Japanese are, so they just think all Japanese people are like this."
He married her, and together they had four sons and adopted another. While enjoying the success of his dojo in Salvador, an old student asked him to return to Belem. Yoshizo told him, "If you give me a farm, I'll come back," never expecting that it could happen.
His student made enough money to buy him a farm, making Machida come back to Belem. Machida started a cacao farm, but it failed economically, and he as forced to sell it. When he was asked about the farm, Machida said, "Since karate means 'empty hand,' that's not a big deal. Everything is about trying, losing is nothing."
In Lyoto's post-fight interview after the Evans fight, you heard him say, "Go hard, it's possible." I don't think he's talking just about effort.
When Yoshizo was asked about how to teach karate, he answered, "I don't use books often, because there aren't many things being taught except concepts and philosophy. I find out new things every day because I need to teach students, and they're bored if I always teach the same things." Yoshizo still learns from others. He said he still goes to Japan annually to get lessons from the Japanese karate community.
Yoshizo also compared his sons' aptitude for MMA.
"Lyoto is passive compared to Shinzo. Since it's a streetfight-type of sport, it is good to be passive. He also has a soft body compared to Shinzo, which is good for fighting."
Being passive doesn't mean he's weak, it just means he respects his opponent's skill. Karate's elite practitioners have the hardest training. It isn't always logical, but karatekas push themselves to the limit to develop a calm mind. A Japanese Shotokan master evaluated Lyoto and said that he's at the same level of pure karate competition as a Japanese qualifier for the Shotokan international tournament.
If you re watch Machida-Evans after reading this, it's hard not to feel uplifted. I'm not against rationalism, but somewhere in your heart, the world is not just that. Lyoto and his family create a wonderful sense of spiritualism in us for these reasons.
Reference
Internet Radio: 100 Years of Japanese Immigrants from Brazil, with guest Yoshizo Machida
Boxing is widely believed to be the best striking discipline to adapt to MMA, but that may be over if fighters don't fix their faults.
Boxing gloves are big enough that one can avoid early KO's, and throw more combinations without worrying as much about clean counters. Nothing is wrong with that, but in MMA, fighters use smaller gloves. Karate fighters are used to using bare hands, so they know the importance of a single shot. In boxing, a single shot may not be as important, so boxers can trade punches, and take risks with an opponent's strikes.
Karate's idea is not just to take away an opponent's attack, but at the same time, to land strikes without risk. I don't think the majority of karate practitioners can adapt this skill to MMA, but there is definitely other karate challengers that will be coming.
I never really thought karate's ideas could have that much effect until recently, but there are many merits to using karate in MMA.
Better visual recognition: a good karate fighter knows how an opponent will move by how he starts a movement, or finishes a movement. For example, at 1:00 of the first round, Lyoto attacked Rashad when he ended his feint.
Distance coordination: Kicks can make for other striking distances than boxing. This works well with visual recognition.
Fist usage: Karatekas use bare fists, so they have more knowledge of what parts of the first are most effective for striking.
There are conditions for a karate fighter to be successful at MMA. The most important one is not losing in the clinch, also, good balance and grappling.
If fighters don't realize what these real merits of karate are, Lyoto's era will be long.
