yeah GKR is a great way to get started in karate, its got great basics and if you are in a good region its also got good intstructors.
ive only been doing karate for 4 years, and im a 5th Kyu (there are ten) which is about half way to black. however i train at a small private Do Jo (school) with a sensei who was at GKR for 15 years. Nowadays however our club cross trains in various karate styles:
GKR has its foundations in Shotokan, the style that is predominant in mainland japan. Go-Juu, the "traditional" japanese karate. as my sensei has now gained black belts in both styles and incorporates techiques and Kata(those pattern dance things you see people do) into our curriculim
I have also trained in Go Shin Kan, very briefly, which is a school of Go Ju Kai, the founder of which lives in japan and is highly respected as one of the worlds greatest fighters. i didnt like this place because they had no sparring, although this school does have the most emphasis on spirituality and discipline which is good if that is what you are looking for. that is (the little to no sparring) purly due to the head instructor of the australian dojo's attitudes not that of the japanese people.
our school has some non-curriculim Na Ha te katas. this styles original founder passed the style through generation and generation and technicaly this is a dead style but there are some places that still use the patterns and some variant techniques of the styles into their regular curiculim and it is practised so that it will not die out.
Mei Bu Kan, is an Okinawan style which has much more emphasis on conditioning and fighting and is historically where karate emerged, I have a yellow belt in this style, and several of the higher grades also train in this style outside of our regular class. the instructor near us is a Seventh Dan and has been training nearly his whole 60+ years, so its a good place to learn.
i also train in Kobudo the weapons style of karate, and have a blue belt in One style of Okinawan kobudo, but due to inter-dojo politics, we have changed our Kobudo affiliation to Matayoshi, and i am once again a white belt.
ive also done some Tai Kwon Do and am currently doing boxing, but lets just stay on karate.
Mutationis, which region do you go to? how often do you train? do you instruct? do you find any flaws in GKR? just querieing that one to see if the problems in the GKR around me are just limited to one area or everywhere.