Oakland Karate & Kickboxing

Kickback, or should I say hits the target. If it can't be fixed it is not broken. Feel yourself and get involved. This Dojo involves more than training, build a life long friendship. Mr. K

Dojos are scary and culturally new to a lot of people. The norms of evaluating dojos are a little hard to establish when you are a first generation dojo person. When you are first generation, I'd say its extra important to train at a lot of dojos so you do know what you are looking at. At OK&K they teach kickboxing, muay tai, kenpo, mma style ground fighting, and yoga. So you would want to buy a kenpo book for sure so you can use the whole art form available there. Being able to do all the kenpo colored belts is a question of memorization, and by being able to do a whole martial art, you can rebuild your body wholly after bullying or stalking and this rebuilding ability is crucial to being able to react peacefully. Having a positive attitude about going to okk was bad for me because the long term teachers there, John Morrison and his humongous wife were passive aggressive and tended to do their best to avoid social interaction. The ritual norms around fights were established mostly to be broken by them in surprise fights, the phallic term 'sparring' was thrown about regularly, and I found that if I liked them, I disliked myself. They weren't inspired teachers and were slightly more like landlords who were going to do something bad to solve a situation more than help others or interact. There were always younger short term teachers at OKK, some of whom were brilliant, but they almost always washed up somewhere else in a bad way. One guy was great at teaching the pushup situp 20 20 sets and then doing elbows in mantis boxing. Another was great at combining lifting and kenpo like any top fighter. A third had the best leg strength and flexibility you might see anywhere. A fourth was great at living on little money and staying safe outdoors. The list goes on. OKK had been at 3 major locations since 2005. An auto row boutique on Broadway, across from Oakland Tech on Broadway at a smaller place, and now all the way up against the Oakland Berkeley border at a big location. The actual fight experience might be the best available in the east bay, but what you need in the daily grind of reality is a training routine that builds health and makes you less likely to be a victim or target. Training is running times, lifting, meditation, and being able to do all of Kenpo, or the Shaolin workout (Sifu Shi Yan Ming), or even all of Wing Chun, plus boxing it in to skeletal and tendon memory. I found the fight experience at OKK to make me more likely to be a victim. Why write this down in a review? Well thats an integral part of non-violence. I'm in sociological cycles that re-enforce the roll I earned at OKK, and I don't like that roll. I know I don't like my relationship with Jon Morrison, but just thinking that doesn't bring healing. Writing this down and leaving it as a review does and will bring change in my life.

Work at your pace. Whether it's slower or faster.