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There was a lot going on with this testing, even though it wasn’t one of the bigger testings. Here’s the big one: We had a 2nd dan, who is the daughter of the CI, managed to get herself bumped from 2nd dan back low brown belt due to some…respect issues; not with everyone in the school, but more along the lines of father/daughter dynamics. When your are father/daughter at home and then come to class, it can be difficult for kids to switch to the instructor/student dynamic. I never got the exact story of what took place to cause the rank stripping, but that’s the gist of what caused it. That 2nd dan in-a-brown belt had to test on the three brown belt levels to get back to her 2nd dan rank, and today marked her finish of that journey. She was basically doing the 1st dan testing all over again as a skunk belt; all forms, all one-steps, sparring, board breaks, and writing the essay again and reading it aloud before testing. She has matured a lot, and it was great to see. Ok, onto the performances. When I mention the 1st dan recommended, she’s the one I’m referencing. 1st dan rec: good power in Do-Gons. She made her low rank forms look like black belt forms. Great power, technique, focus, etc. She had a few brief memory hiccups, but nothing terribly egregious. During a sparring match with an orange belt, she worked with them, helping them out. White belts: good stances, transitions, and power in their form. In one-steps, their distancing was pretty good, but their stances needed focus. I see this often in one-steps at the lower levels; the students are worried about blocking a technique, where their targets are, and everything going on up high that they forget about what their legs are doing in the stances down low. The group of white belts looked very good sparring. Orange belts: needed to clean up stances a little bit, along with some transitions to front stances. The forms have some more difficult transitions, which add to this. The square blocks needed some correction. I told them not to rush their one-steps. In sparring, the orange belts need to work on their blocking skills some more. I’ve had them working on drills in sparring class to help with this. I see too much “fencing,” where low rank students are trying to block everything with their lead hand. One of the high orange belts is quite flexible, and it I asked her to show that more in forms, one-steps, and sparring. Overall, all the students showed great power in their forms, and I told them to keep it up. I asked them to add focus, and to concentrate on the stances and transitions. At the end of testing when handing out belts, the CI got a bit choked up giving his daughter back her rank, and didn't quite have his thought sorted yet. I stepped in and told her that when something like that happens, a person can handle it a couple of ways. One, they can just quit and not deal with it. Or two, they can take responsibility, hold themselves accountable, and get better. She chose the latter, and that has made all the difference. The CI was able to gather his thoughts and summed up how proud he was of her, and they both had some tears. I made them hug it out before breaking the testing.

9/8/2025 Strength Training Bench Press: 45x5x2, 95x5, 105x3, 135x1, 135x1, 135x1. Deadlifts: 95x5, 135x3, 185x3, 225x1, 250x1.

It is never too soon to overreact. Just ask football fans.

I don't know what the NFL rules are around this, but if the league has looked at it and determined there was no violation then I guess there wasn't.

Bills or Bucs for survivor league this week. Anyone? Bills play at home against Miami on Thursday night, Bucs play at home against the Jets on Sunday.

Did you see Dexter New Blood?

Tom Brady is a minority owner of the Raiders, and in that, there’s NFL Rules that owners must follow. Brady is also part of the FOX Broadcast team, which means that Brady gets access to coaches and players from all the other teams. After some complaining that this was an unfair advantage last year, that talk had mostly died down. During the Raiders VS Chargers MNF, you can see that Brady is not only at the game, which is what owners do, BUT he’s also seen in the coach’s box. Not just sitting with the coaches but he’s also wearing a headset. The NFL world got in a tizzy…Raiders were cheating…it’s not fair that Brady gets access to all other teams and can use it to help the Raiders. Did you see the game?!? Did it look like the Raiders had secret insight into anything?!? I mean, the Raiders lost across the board!! Raiders coach Pete Carroll said Tom is not helping coach the team, Brady was only listening in!! The NFL said that Brady didn’t break any rules!!

Actually i have been a Dexter fan for years, i just haven't got around to watching the new show yet (too many things on plus my other half doesn't watch it so it is added to the long queue of programmes to watch when i have a moment myself!). Glad to hear it is not being dropped though as that makes it more worth watching!!

Guess we don't have any Dexter fans on here. The ending of the first season was outstanding, and one of my favorite Dexter episodes yet. Season 2 is yet to be renewed but lots of talk about their being a second and third season already planned. Hope it happens.

The Book of Sheen by Charlie Sheen

I started writing a big, long dissertation on my 50+ years of observing different systems I've encountered and paid particular attention to the "self-defense" techniques. I started naming names of systems and my observations as to their effectiveness in an actual fight, and my opinions, take it or leave it, as to what I felt their effectiveness would be. Upon re-reading what I wrote, and not wanting to get permanently BANNED from Karate Forums, I deleted it all before I added it to this discussion. What I taught my students is that there are different levels of self-defense, depending on the given situation. For example: If you are assaulted by a knife wielding drug addict intent on drawing blood, you would use as much power as necessary to stop that person. Is he 6;6" tall and 300lbs and charging at you like a freight train? Is your wife, g/f or child with you? Or is he your best friend that's had a few to many drinks? The amount of force and type of technique you would use would be totally different.

Congrats @Revario; well deserved!!

Not counting teaching as an instructor under the very watchful eyes of our Soke and Dai-Soke or for teaching at the college; because those students were provided. All I had to do was just show up for classes. When I opened my Kyuodan dojo as a Sandan, I passed out flyers anywhere and everywhere to advertise my upcoming grand opening. Had 2 classes for my grand opening; kids and adults. I signed up 75 students. So, I found my first STUDENTS, not student through my proactive advertising, of which, my prospective students found me and I found them.

9/5/2025 Trying to get back to some form of strength training. Squats: 45x5x2, 135x5, 185x3, 185x3, 185x3. Press: 45x5x2, 65x5, 75x5, 75x5, 75x5. I'm going to play with the rep range and try a 5/3/1 approach. I want that last set to be somewhat heavy, but doing heavy 5's makes pressure build up in my head.

Congrats @Revario!

I like this book as well. Lays out a lot of good thoughts to consider. I also think that many young men are confused about what self-defense actually is. Yapping with someone and getting into a fight at a bar is not really self-defense. Sure, you have to defend from attacks, but it's much more along the lines of mutual combat than an unprovoked attack.

These are great thoughts to keep in mind for everyone, not just MAists. Most people don't realize how complicated things can become once they enter the legal system, let alone do they consider the mental health considerations after the fact if seriously injuring or taking someone's life.

I've seen something similar to this. A guy that was in our TKD college credit class actually had quite a bit of experience in Olympic style TKD, and was from Greece. He was very quick, a good sparrer as far as the Olympic rules went. I don't recall exactly, but if he wasn't a black belt he was a very high colored belt rank. But, our TKD organization uses the Chang Hon forms, and he had to learn them, so his rank was dropped to white belt (he did skip some ranks as he went along in the colored belts). He competed a few times at our national tournament and some others we went to. So he was usually sparring below his actual experience level, and shockingly, he won. I also had to start over as a white belt in this organization. I was a 2nd dan in my prior organization. I never competed as a colored belt rank in my current organization, as I thought it would be disingenuous to do so. Once I got to black belt, I did compete. The scenario you mention, if I was running a tournament and found out afterwards, I'd make a call and let them know they were not welcome back to my tournament.

9/3/2025 Taekwondo: 5:45 - 6:30 pm. Traditional Class. I taught this class. In basics I worked extra on the side kick chambers. I'm a real stickler on side kick technique, and the side kick is a big part of Taekwondo. Forms consisted of white, low orange, and low green blet. One-steps for same. Sparring: 6:30 - 7:00 pm. I did a few rounds of regular sparring to warm up, then changed it up. Next was one round of kicking only with the front leg, then one round of kicks to the head only. Next was situational drilling for three rounds. Students were set up in an open stance, and the attacker did a back leg round kick and defender would block and counter with a reverse side kick. I had them attack for one round and defend for the next. The last of these three rounds was more like free sparring, just limited to an attack of a back leg round kick and the defense of block/counter reverse side kick. I was trying to get the students to begin to recognize the attack and counter it. I had one adolescent girl break down crying twice in class. I tried to figure out what was wrong, but she wouldn't answer so I just had her sit out until she calmed down. She broke down once in basics and once while sparring, and sparring wasn't due to being struck. She struggles in class, and I'm trying to get her to move more deliberately, and I pace the class pretty quickly. I do this at times to get the students to think less and go more. I think this frustrated her.

My biggest regret is that I quit wrestling after my 8th grade year.

8/28/2025 TKD: 5:45 - 6:30 pm. Traditional Class. This is kind of silly, but I got angry with myself because my hands shake so much and I can't control it. I decided to just squeeze my fists together even tighter, causing them to really shake, very noticeably. This went on throughout basics. Stretch after basics. For forms, I did Choi Yong twice. I'm still having trouble with balance on a back leg round kick repeat side kick. One-steps were low orange belt. Sparring: 6:30 - 7:00 pm. Lots of working with kids and low ranks. Unfortunately, BJJ got canceled tonight.

8/27/2025 Aikido: 6:15 - 7:45 pm. Warmed up on our own then we got right into technique work. Yokomenuchi sokumen iriminage (5th kyu): Omote and ura versions. Ura was much more difficult, with a tenkan (a back turn) and then continuing to twist. On both versions I must focus on drawing the arm across my body (drawing my hand to my ribs). This helps with kazushi. We did the same technique against a knife attack (yokomen). I also concentrated on trying to fall properly, as the way I'd learned to fall in TKD and Hapkido was a bit different. I did a little video review of previous ranks before class.

I was the only person in our survival league the pick the Steelers who are about to lose to Seattle. I guess I deserve the L. I could have picked the Ravens or Bills which were no brainers, but of course I had to overthink it. Idiot.

If you are teaching, who was the first person to be your student? How did you find this person or how did the student find you?

MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL!! What a way to have your season opener by having it televised. Raiders, 1-0, host the Chargers 1-0 in Las Vegas. One of these by the end of their game will be 1-1…and the other will be 2-0. This should be a barn burner. GO COWBOYS!!