Every once in a while, but repeatedly, unfortunately, I get email inquiries from people who have read this website, looked at E-Budo, and ask (to paraphrase and summarize across several examples), "I looked around on the Internet and see you have quit Kaze Arashi Ryu -- I don't care whether KAR is old or new, just whether it is effective or not. There is a KAR school in my area, do you think I should practice KAR?"
Short answer: No, you should not.
Now for the long answer:
The problem is, as a potential student of KAR, while there are effective portions of its curriculum -- for example, pre-War Aikido-styled joint locks and throws -- there is a lot that is not very well thought out, especially in the more advanced parts of its curriculum.
The basic set of core kempo and jujutsu techniques are very good, as well as the self-defense techniques. Most of these are taken from modern arts such as Miyama-ryu, where much of the leg-work of synthesis of striking arts and grappling arts are taken care of for the student. I would say training in this manner is more efficient than trying to learn Aikido and Karate separately and then trying to synthesize them yourself. But, it may be better to go study those synthesized arts (Danzan-ryu, Miyama-ryu, Hoteikan-ryu, Icho Yama-ryu) than KAR itself, if you are interested in that kind of approach.
This is because KAR also purports to teach a large number of solo and paired weapons forms, most of which are of dubious provenance. The large weapons curriculum is most likely expanded from Aikido's sword and stick practice by people who don't understand very well what they are doing and are just making things up as they go along. Instead of a set of basics or fundamentals to improve ones empty hand practice, students are forced to memorize an endless set of variations on the same theme. Time spent doing this ultimately distracts from students progression at the parts of the approach that are valid. The signal gets lost in the noise, especially since the founder of the art is constantly inventing new drills and forms for the students to practice.
This has an interesting consequence. Students who stay within the style will feel themselves superior or more fortunate that those who have left, because they will have been exposed to a new set of twenty or eighty forms that are only now being revealed. How lucky they are to be allowed to learn these new high-level approaches to martial arts! In reality, though, those forms are invented, just like the last set of twenty or eighty forms. In fact, they are probably less valid than the earlier approaches, since they are more distant from whatever formative influences (i.e. actual training in martial arts under an instructor) got KAR started. So, people wind up feeling very privileged for the opportunity to train, but are in reality wasting a lot of time on flights of fancy, rather than concentrating on solid basics which actually work.
In this way KAR is similar to a lot of the modern organizations claiming to teach Ninjutsu or Ninpo. Instead of concentrating on basics of Yoshin-ryu or Kukishin-ryu, of which their teachers had training, practice becomes more akin to performance art or live-action role-playing rather than martial arts.
KAR is no better with its history and philosophy, but since those topics were covered ad nauseum on E-Budo, and expanded on in my earlier writings, I won't belabor those points here.
I will just re-iterate that since KAR as an organization is not honest about the roots of what it is teaching, it doesn't really matter if it is old or new, good or bad -- it is no better than any other group pretending to be something it is not.
Instead of being honest about their practice as a modern synthetic art and creative invention (even flight of fancy) of their instructor, teachers carry on the false idea that KAR is somehow a lost mountain warrior art from medieval Japan. This is just silly. Plenty of bona fide Japanese martial arts are influenced by Shugendo historically, and plenty of modern martial arts practitioners in Japan (Yamaguchi-sensei of Goju-ryu fame comes to mind) found Shugendo an interesting and useful practice for their spiritual development. Shugendo is a deep and wonderful practice. But an interest in Shugendo does make one's budo practice classical or authentic.
In the case of KAR, as a synthesis of kempo karate, Aikido, Judo, and Daito-ryu -- Karate footwork and striking comes from Southern China into Japan by way of Okinawa in the early 20th century and Aikido techniques and nomenclature are derived from Daito-ryu, which also date to the early 20th century. KAR is not the long-lost parent of Japanese martial arts. Those mis-conceptions are some of the baggage KAR practitioners have to deal with -- the art is not just about effective self-defense.
There is enough good martial arts in the world that most people can have a very long and healthy career of pursuing martial arts as a hobby without having to worry about groups with so much identity-crisis going on.
So, in case you forgot, the short answer again: No, you should not.
