Blackbelt 1400

Hey Bob! Really glad to hear that you've decided to pick up the Arts no matter how old you are. I think you'll find as time goes on that there's more to karate than just the physical aspects =) If it's any condolence to you, my grandmother, aged 66, just recieved her green belt a few weeks ago. It's never too late to start, but it's always too early to quit. Welcome

Ha, this made me smile. I think after taking some classes with a few of my more muscular-endowed friends I would qualify as a frequent flier

I think many of these studios are being pulled apart by the economy. Whether they should remain a "traditional" school or a "profitable" school. I think we need to realize that it's very difficult to balance the two of them. As a personal example, the old owner of my karate studio was one of the strictest, most traditional, and best instructor I've ever had. Why is he my old owner? He couldn't keep his school going being so strict and traditional. People dont want to be conditioned to be the best, they want to be helped, pampered, and walked through everything. My new studio is much more family-oriented, very personal, and becoming more and more modern each year. We're also incredibly profitable. I wouldn't call one studio 'crap' compared to another, but there are definitely differences in the tendencies of the owner of the schools

I see alot of this going around in my karate studio because we're in a rather large plaza with a grocery store, Game Stop, McDonalds, ect. Though it's more of a problem with the pre-teen kids I see it happen plenty with the adults as well. Where I'll agree that wearing pants out of the studio and into public is a matter of convenience (I did the same today =P) and very occasionally I'll understand if you need to wear your top in somewhere if it's someplace fast and you don't have a shirt with you, but my limit is the belt. The pants and top are necessary for being in public, but if you wear the belt also, you're bragging. It's just as easy to take off the belt and wear the rest of the uniform in somewhere than go in fully-dressed. Usually I'll politely remind somebody if I see them in public and they're a student or companion of mine to loose their belt, and if I see them continuously doing the same thing I'll tell them that the uniform isn't something to wear around as a passage of bragging