Customer Reviews

Shotokan karate's Ray Dalke Kata - d

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I can't give this DVD a high rating as the other reviewers have done. However, Martial art students are usually loyal to instructors of their own style whether they are mediocre or even poor at performing and instructing their art.

The sound quality is poor. The katas are performed only once by a black belt student. The student's performance is not bad. But it does not rate 5 nor even 4 stars. Ray Dalke appears extremely proud for a style of karate in which it's founder, Gichin Funakoshi, preached humility as a virtue. Furthermore, this display of pride does not have the quality of instruction nor the demonstrated knowledge or skill to support it. Ray Dalke waddles into a stance and seems to have difficulty as he lifts his leg 3 times to get it high enough to kick his student in the thigh. He appears to be having a problem keeping his balance. He pulls up on both pant legs of his uniform as though the pant legs are too long as he waddles to get ready to perform a front kick. The student performs the katas. But it is the instructor who seems to be having a difficult time catching his breath. The fine points of performing the kata are not all that enlightening neither are some his explanations of the kata's bunkai or applications to self defense. He explains the obvious moves; but not the moves which are not so obvious as to their function.

When I ordered this video DVD on Amazon, it took a month to receive it.

There are many good martial art instruction videos out there. This is not one of them. I recommend that you search around. Kiyoshi Yamazaki performs the basics and the katas beautifully with better performed demonstrations of applications. You can do a search and find his DVDs which are also available on Amazon. Joel Ertl and Anita Bendickson from Saint Paul, Minnesota have produced a series of videos which includes almost the entire series of Shotokan katas which are the best that I have seen for the purpose of learning.
www.karatevid.com.

George Dillman's videos #1, #2, #3, #4, #6 have the best explanations of kata bunkai or applications kata moves for Pinan aka Heian and Naihanchi aka Tekki katas. There are several things I don't like about George Dillman's videos. Never the less, he has better explanations of bunkai applications to self defense than I have seen anywhere else.

Martial artists often seem too sensitive to criticism. Buy this one by Ray Dalke if you want it. I wish that I did not.

Sensei Ray Dalke was very inspirational to me in
my brief study of Shotokan at the University of
California at Riverside.

His #1 student Edmund Otis was also inspirational.

I cannot speak highly enough of Dalke and Otis.
They ran one of the very top classes in the world
and everyone knew it.

There is certainly no substitute for in-person practice.

Stuart

The DVD opens with a demonstration of an advanced kata by Mr. Dalke and then a few one-step sparing techniques. Then the meat of the DVD begins with Mr. Dalke explaining the finer points of the katas after they are demonstrated by an assistant. The points are not the basic "this is how you do an upper block or reverse punch", but more of what each kata is supposed to be teaching and one or two key points The katas covered are Heians 1-5, Tekki Shodan, Bassai-Dai,Bassai-Sho, and Hangetsu

I first began my training in 1974 and have been doing these katas for almost 30 years but being no where near Mr. Dalke's level, I found the thoughts presented here are insightful and helpful. There's always something new and different to learn about even the most "basic" techniques. I'm looking forward to doing the katas now with these ideas in mind and would recommend this to anyone serious about studying karate.

The DVD itself is not the highest quality; it almost gives the impression that it was originally a VCR tape copied to DVD. The titles and such are a little fuzzy and the sound is similar to one done on a home video recorder. While neither the video or sound quality are what would be considered professional in the sense of a DVD movie you would buy, this in no way takes away from what you are seeing or hearing. It is more than adequate for the purpose intended, learning more about karate. One wish though is for the description to provide more information of what katas are covered in the DVD. I bought this one wondering what would be on it. I'm not disappointed however if someone were looking for training on a specific one they could be in for a surprise if its not included and could feel they wasted their money. Total play time is approximately 60 minutes.

The information and instruction provided rate 5 stars but due to the title not being more descriptive as to what is covered and the somewhat degraded video and audio quality I would rate the DVD overall as 4 stars. That said, I'm ordering another one!

I have to agree with the last reviewer, but the sound worked for me fine (maybe the dvd was scratched?), so I'm giving it five stars