Applied Methods by Adam Carter
Adam Carter, founder and senior instructor of Shuri Dojo, has over five decades of experience in karate training and teaching. Applied Methods explores practical karate, context, real-world application, and perspectives on practice, teaching, and experience.
Latest from Applied Methods
Am I Getting Angry at an Empty Boat?
Anger, assumptions, and knowing when to respond. Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, but I find myself thinking more about […]
Not every situation deserves a reaction.
But that doesn't mean every emotion should be ignored, either. Sometimes we're getting angry at empty boats. Sometimes there's a…
The Ground Beneath Your Feet
What we wear, where we stand, and the realities of practical karate. When looking at the origins of karate on […]
Whose Balance Are We Thinking About?
Understanding kuzushi as a principle, rather than a particular technique. We spend a great deal of time in karate learning […]
We spend a great deal of time in karate learning to maintain our own balance.
It's relatively easy to demonstrate an unbalancing technique against someone who cooperates. But what happens when they resist, recover their…
Beyond What We Were Taught
On the influence of our teachers and the paths we follow. When I first started karate, I practiced what I […]
We can respect our teachers, remain grateful for everything they’ve taught us, and still develop our own understanding.
I've noticed that some instructors regularly refer to the people who taught them, particularly when explaining why they do something…
Are We Still Afraid to Ask?
Why Karate Needs More Questions, Not Fewer Every so often, particularly on social media, I come across an explanation about […]
A confident explanation can sound convincing.
Particularly when it comes from someone with an established grade, reputation, or lineage. One of the things I've come to…
Have We Been Looking at the Stepping Punch the Wrong Way?
A familiar movement, an old training memory, and a different way of looking at things. Something occurred to me recently […]
A Musing
Sometimes an old memory from training makes you reconsider something you've been doing for decades. I've been thinking about the…
What Are We Preserving?
Tradition, memory, and the passing of karate from one generation to the next. I’ve been practicing traditional karate for a […]
We often speak about traditional karate as though it has been passed unchanged from one generation to the next.
But over the years, I've seen how easily things can change, sometimes for reasons we might not expect. A few…
When the Label Becomes the Lesson
A throw, a stance, and what we think we’re seeing. When we first begin learning karate, almost everything we’re taught […]
Sometimes we teach the visible result of an action as though it were the action itself.
During a throw, the body can pass through a perfectly recognizable karate stance, even though the person performing it never…
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