skullsplitter

The last tournament we went to had tag team point sparring divisions. It sounded fun so my son and a girl from our school entered the jr blackbelt division. They and the rest of the kids in the division didn't quite know how to use the tags so it was almost like normal sparring.....BUT the adults knew how to do it and it was a blast to watch. Normal point sparring rules and you can tag your partner in at anytime during the action. The adults had the strategy and flow down very well. Draw your opponent to your side for a quick tag so your partner could blitz in for the attack. Or a tag out just as someone was trapped in the corner. It definitely added some strategy and excitement. Have any of you done this before?

Yes it's not clear at all. Our school does promote kids to blackbelt. It's a 4 year journey to that goal. The instructor does not charge for grading or promotion. She does use contracts, but will cancel contracts when someone decides to quit. She just does not want to handle money. Plus I do know of some that pay when they can due to financial issues. So she is definitely not in this to make as much as she can. Our school does wear pads for sparring but we go hard. We do bunkai and self defense too. So the kid blackbelts are a red flag for some, but the school does a lot more than just give the kids a blackbelt.

We have several partial families, but only one full family. Dad passed away years ago, son and daughter are both black belts and have been at the school for 10 years. The mom started classes finally last year. My oldest son is a black belt, youngest son started last year, and I am three years into it. We have many like us. One really cool family we have though the dad and his two daughters all received their black belts at our school many years ago, took a 10 year break, then came back and brought 3 grandkids with them. So all five are now taking class, 3 generations.

For safety sake too, the rings need to be roped off. This past weekend during my son's kata, a toddler got away from mom and dad and walked into my son's ring. Luckily my son saw her and avoided her while a judge moved her out of the ring. I hate to think what would have happened if the little girl wandered into a weapons ring or a sparring ring. She could have been injured.

Thank you for the comments and for taking the time to watch. @harkon - the sync did take a lot of time and they are still working on it. They've been doing it less than a year, plus the young lady started learning bo just for the team. @wayne - the lifting of the heel you mention is a constant fight for him. He has a mild case of a muscular disease and it really causes some tightness in his hamstrings and heel cord. Therapy, extra stretching, and hard work have made it better but he's determined to get that heel down and keep it down @Adam - normally the AKA in Chicago is the only far north one we do. There's an NBL tournament in Chicago in June we may do this year and may add Diamond Nationals in Minnesota next year @sensei - yes much more maturing yet to do in both body and mind as he's not quite 13 yet. He's a very humble young man and is open to learning all he can so the next several years should be intereting @credoTe - your comparison to being pulled with your belt really clicked with him @nidan - he'd love to see the video if you are willing to share

Ladies and gents, if you have time we'd like some feedback on these forms. We highly value my son's sensei's input, but we'd like to hear some thoughts (good or bad) from others too in an effort to get better. Traditional bo - first time with this form and heavy bo Traditional kata http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y6CQyjOZCo Team Sync Thank you.

The AKA Grands were held in a rather large hotel. Blackbelt rings were in a large conference/banquet room while underbelts were in a smaller room. One of the jr blackbelt ings had 29 competitors and about 12 chairs. Of course parents want to see their kids thus resulting in parents crowding the ring. Adam, here's the circuit our school is on. I think the majority are many hours away from Chicago though. I haven't been to all of them. The first one in Bowling Green is the largest outside of the Nationals on the list. Last couple of years it drew around 500, but it's not run well at all. Two smaller ones that run smoothly is the one in Evansville, IN and the SMAC in Lebanon, TN. There's also one in Hazelwood, MO that I like. http://pro-amrskc.com/2014_Tournament_Circuit.php

My 12 year old son competed in the AKA Grand Nationals in Chicago this past weekend. He went last year and competed non-NASKA, but this year he stepped up to the NASKA divisions. Some thoughts/observations : 1. Judges – not enough of them. Twice I saw an official going through the crowd looking for judges. Judges need a uniform too. I can sort of deal with jeans and tee at a small regional tournament, but at a large national tournament the judges need to have some sort of uniform. 2. Scorekeepers – mainly what looked like several young college kids. Numerous delays in recording scores properly and simply paying attention. 3. Parents – stay out of the ring! Saw several instances of parents in the ring, a few times even when the competitors were lined up while scores were being calculated. I could not imagine going to a high school basketball game and seeing parents behind the score table or on the floor. 4. Seating – this is part of the problem with #3. No where to sit and watch. For what we pay to get into this thing there needs to be better seating. 5. Fighting!! – lots of hard hitting, fast action. Loved the fighting at the tournament, especially the women. There is so much talent at these big tournaments, it’s just a shame that items 1-4 seem to always be an issue. Some people talk about these large tournaments getting some tv exposure, but that can’t happen with judges that look like they’ve been pulled off the streets and parents roaming the ring. My son though, held his own competing with the NASKA kids for the first time. Middle of the pack in traditional weapons, traditional forms, and creative weapons. Lost his only fight but competed. And he and his partner earned 3rd in team synch.

My son's new purple heart bo arrived several weeks ago. Do any of you have any tips to share in regards to care and treatment of this gorgeous weapon? The seller suggested a bit of Watco Danish Oil if it begins to feel dry.

Just passing along that the WKU (formerly WKA) worlds were held in Crete this week. They have some video montages at http://www.youtube.com/user/WKUWORLD and a lot of pictures at https://www.facebook.com/pages/World-Kickboxing-and-Karate-Union/466045336766893 if anyone is interested.

There are organizations that will take unwanted trophies as donations. They are then broken down, reassemble for specific sports, and then donated to sports clubs that can't afford trophies for their kids. Here is one...https://www.facebook.com/NationwideTrophyRecyclingProgram

This is exactly what I need. Thanks!

So my son is moving away from his light weight bo and the creative/extreme stuff to focus more on traditional bo (YAY!). He likes the look of both purple heart and yellow heart for the wood. I've found a lot of info on purple heart, but not much about yellow heart. Does any one here have any experience with yellow heart wood for weapons? Crane Mountain tells me it's a bit lighter than purple heart, but didn't have a lot of info on how durable it is.

I'm 41 and and started just about 2 years ago. It's definitely helped with strength, endurance, and flexibility. The one thing I was not expecting was how much it's helped with the mind. Keeping all of those kata and applications straight is a mental workout at times. Don't let that tournament experience get you down. As others have said, you should not have been in that division. The ones I do break us down by age (35-49 in my case) then belt rank (beginner, intermediate, advanced, and bb). We also have a 70 year old man at our dojo. Early this year he earned his 2nd dan. He's a bit slow sparring, but has one hell of a strong kick still at his age.

Evansville, IN. About as far south in Indiana as you can go.

Let us know how the US Open goes. I'm in the area that weekend, but I don't know if I'll have time to catch any of the action. There are a couple of people from my school competing in it and I'd like to see their fights.

I'm not sure where you are in relation to Orlando. On July 5th and 6th ISKA holds their US Open at Disney's Coronado Springs. You could probably get a good feel for the ISKA/NASKA fighting there and maybe find some info on a local school too.

I have to take that 2-boob/1boob concept to my school. Great way to look at it and it's something that will stick in brain. I sort of get caught in the 1.5 boob too often. I've been to 2 NASKA nationals this year and have seen some really good fighting, point and continuous.

Thanks for the input. We do have standard forms for both weapons, but the kids wanted to work together and do something different. As someone stated earlier, the pairing of bo and chuk was a bit awkward. Neither kid wanted to do the tricking like the video that was posted. I think our instructor has decided to get the one kid more up to speed on bo so they can do bo together.

skullsplitter is my favorite beer

Is it wise to attempt a weapons demo on a subject you clearly have no experience in? Wouldn't it be best to stick to stuff you know, rather than risk looking silly or even worse, someone getting hurt? K. I'm not putting this together. I do have some input though and am looking for ideas. People with much more knowledge than I have are making the final decisions.

My apologies if this the wrong forum. Wasnt sure where to put this. So we have two kids who want to do a team weapons demo. One does bo and the other chuks. I'm thinking that a choregraphed battle between the two is a good idea. Do any of you know of any movie scenes or other video with this combination? I'd like to get a visual of what these weapons would look like against each other. Any other suggestions are welcome too.

Thank you. Several from my school like to use it in point sparring. Normally we throw it after an upper block reverse punch combo. Then turn that upper block into a hammer fist over the top of the opponent's defense and strike the top of the head.

Took first in point sparring and fourth in kata. My division is 35 and over underbelts so we ranged from white all the way up to brown-black. I had three matches in sparring and all three were close matches. What I really enjoyed was having my sensei as a coach this time. Normally she is busy judging, but her ring finished early. She sat with me between matches. She picked each fighter apart for me on what they can and can't do. Just listening to what she watched and how she evaluated an opponent was invaluable. And she stood behind me during the matches shouting instruction. Last match was against a smaller and very quick oppoenent. Sensei tells me to press him because while he attacks well his feet get nervous when he's on the defensive. Worked liked a charm. Scored almost all of my points with either backfist, reverse punch, or hammerfist.

Class was interesting the other day. My son's class had ended and my adult class was about to start so he was heading to the viewing area. One of the main instructors stops him and tells him that he (son) is going to teach the instructor a new kata today. My son turned as white as his gi. A little background. We are a shotokan school, but two of our college aged students have trained at an isshinryu school when they are out of town for school sessions. They've been allowed to teach seiunchan to a select few of our students, my son being one of them. It was interesting to watch a 12 year old teach an adult with 20 years of martial arts experinece. He broke it up into sections, corrected stances, and checked for strong fists and blocls just as the instructor had taught him for the last 8 years. The instructor even showed some frustration at times since some of the techniques between the two styles are different. All in all it was neat to watch a 12 year old take the job seriously and and the adult instructor letting himself be the student.