Ummm... yes.
<ducks>
Indeed I have. And part of me remains skeptical. A salesperson from my local GKR dojo paid me a visit - and I was quite open with my skepticism -- I asked her all kinds of questions and raised various concerns/issues I have with martial arts in general. Some of what I heard was surprisingly promising (e.g. they let students skip grades if they demonstrate proficiency (double grading); and in fact, grading and uniform aren't even compulsory), but other elements still leave me doubtful (e.g. the whole non-contact thing).
Also... it seems that you're really restricted in what you're allowed to do until you're a brown belt... and there's a like a whole rainbow and a half of belts to go before you get there!
I can understand their concerns about duty of care and keeping students safe... but I think their non-contact rule might give students a sense of false security - i.e. if you forbid ANY part of the body as a target, the students will learn to never defend it properly (e.g. the groin!).
And apparently nobody's allowed to even train with any higher belts until Brown either... I did mention to the salesperson that I believe you can only learn by training with someone who's
better than yourself - but she said it was a safety thing.
In Tai Chi we allow novices to train with masters - but we do "soft contact" sparring where you "tip" instead of punching or kicking with full force -- it's like playing tips in the schoolyard; so rather than punching your face, I'd simply tap it with my finger tips. Obviously if I can move fast enough to tap you on the face, I could easily have punched you there. And likewise with the stomach, throat, shoulder... any part of the body except the groin (because as we all know, even a gentle tap on the scrotum can REALLY hurt!) -- for that we just tap the upper inner thigh (where the groin muscle is, right next to the groin itself). Most of our punches and kicks were done against pads and shields. If we wanted to punch and kick against an opponent then you'd wear all the safety gear like with sparring - but only more advanced students were allowed to do that.
But even novice students were allowed to "tip" or even just punch/kick and finish it just a few cm away from the target (which teaches good control - although you don't want to do that all the time or you'd learn to strike in front of targets and not through them as you should
). The salesperson said that the problem with doing this with beginners is that they often lack the coordination to do it safely and may end up causing injuries - which is a fair point. But see... this is another advantage of mixing junior and seniors together! The seniors now how to hold back their hits, because they're experienced, and when the juniors go too far, the seniors have the training to block/parry/dodge etc. and educate the junior by telling them that their strike lacked sufficient control. The juniors learn from the seniors (and quite frankly the seniors learn too through teaching).
The trouble I find with juniors constantly training with juniors... it's like the blind leading the blind. You can have beginners practising a technique incorrectly/badly until a more senior student or instructor walks by and corrects them - but if you're training
with a senior, they can correct you straight away (or at least say, "This doesn't feel right, let's stop and ask the teacher.")
I personally can see a LOT of benefit of allowing junior and senior students to learn from each other rather than keeping the "ranks" segregated. Another cool thing is that the juniors can actually see and feel for themselves what the more advanced techniques feel like. Blocking a straight punch from a white belt feels completely different from blocking the exact same straight punch from a black belt, know what I mean? Or even having your punch blocked by an advanced student feels entirely different. And when you feel that as a novice you think, "So
that's what I should be striving to achieve!"
Okay, here are my current thoughts about GKR from what I've seen and sampled in the past:
+ The basic/fundamental techniques are quite good. That's something I've always admired about GKR -- I think especially for people who've
never studied a martial art or even thrown a ball before and have really underdeveloped coordination and other physical skills, I think GKR is quite good in developing those basic core skills.
+ I personally have yet to be impressed by their more advanced techniques -- and I have actually sparred with a GKR black belt (a Sensei no less) before... and I won. And I
suck at fighting (don't let my athletic physique fool you
). But hey... maybe it was just him. <shrug>
+ It has a reputation from being a McDojo (possibly the "business" side you're talking about).
Also... I'm still wondering about the authenticity of the style. As far as I know - and the official web site verifies this - GKR was founded by an Australian, Robert Sullivan. The web site says that he studied Karate before this, but it fails to mention:
* What style of Karate he studied.
* What modifications were made to it when it became his GKR style.
I did mention this to the salesperson, but she kept reassuring me that it is a traditional Japanese style of Karate and that it's popular in Japan. I told her that I've lived in Japan before, and
any time I've mentioned GKR to a Japanese Karateka, they've always said, "What's GKR?" -- this took her by complete surprise. I later did Google searches in English and Japanese and I have been unable to find anything that verifies the lineage or authenticity of GKR as a style. In fact, most the results I got from the English search were criticisms against GKR. The results I got from the Japanese search was "What's GKR?" and "GKR is an Australian style of Karate, we don't have it here in Japan." When I mentioned this to the salesperson (she came back later to tell me more about GKR), she told me that she had spoken to one of her superiors about my question regarding their style authenticity, and she was told that GKR does exist in Japan, but it goes under a different name (although she didn't
tell me what that name was) and that it was authorised by a Federation/organisation thingie in Japan -- not that being officially sanctioned by a federation necessarily makes it traditional. After all, Chinese Modern Wushu is officially sanctioned, yet that's an acrobatic/gymnastic performance based martial art (it's the stuff you see in Kung Fu movies - nothing like actual Kung Fu of course
). I had a lecturer at uni who did Modern Wushu and quite enjoyed it - he told me that it's a lot of fun and fitness, "but if anyone can fight with it, I'll eat my hat."
So I will admit that I am walking into this with a fair amount of skepticism. But I've paid for a three month trial membership, so I'm locked in! I'll give it a go and give GKR a chance to change my mind. What I'm thinking about doing, if nobody has any objections, is logging my experiences/thoughts here after each lesson... that way you guys can follow me on my Karate journey.
Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime
Ummm... yes.pm me P.s i have a non bias view as i know the pros and cons unfortunatley lol
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Sensei explained to the beginners that in Karate we never hit anyone, we only ever hit in front of them. 
As a result of the no-contact rule, it permeates into _everything_ we do -- not just basic strike practice, but in the way we move into stances and practice kata too. Some of the 'mistakes' that Sensei picked me up on was because I was driving my strikes too much... i.e. because I'm imagining my hits plowing through my targets, not stopping in front of them. So she'd correct me by getting me to hold my strikes back. And you know what the irony is? The Japanese word that they use for "punch" in the Dojo is "zuki" which actually means "to thrust," yet we are taught not to thrust through! 
