CheekyMusician

Oh my word! A 9th Kyu should not be teaching and should not be being put in a position of authority. I mean, fine, a 9th Kyu could help out a beginner if the beginner was stuck and they happened to know what the beginner was doing wrong. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. I firmly believe that everyone in a club should help everyone else in that club whenever they're able to, but a 9th kyu should be a beginner themselves. They should only be starting to learn, and should not be teaching at all.

I understand that your kid loves it there, but like the others have said, this place is a McDojo and you should try to get your daughter to a better dojo. I must admit, here in Scotland commercial McDojo's aren't common. Most of the martial arts clubs in this area train in a sports hall or the YMCA and only charge a small price for tuition. Sometimes the teaching can be a bit suspect, but at least the clubs aren't in it just for the money. Try and convince your daughter to join another club, and if she refuses try to "butter her up" at bit by saying that you think she's very talented and that a new club would make her even better. That would maybe work in the end, but I wouldn't advise you to keep her in the club she's in right now. If you just pay the money, it'll be encouraging clubs like this to continue dragging down the name of their art for some money, and your daughter probably wont even be learning as much as she could elsewhere.

Scotland

I agree that karate of any sort on the street is a relatively good form of self defence. The problem with karate (and all stiking arts) is that everyone knows how to kick or punch (even if they only know it at a basic level), so a grappler will be able to kick and punch a karate guy until he gets him to the ground, then the grappler can really go all out on the karate guy and the karate guy is without a hope (because without training in grappling, its not the sort of thing that you can just naturally do). Even though I study karate, I think a grappling art is important to complement a striking art, even though a grappler can usually cope well enough without learning a striking art. My karate instructor always makes us think that the moment you hit the ground, you'll basically have lost the fight as a karate student with no grappling background (unless you get lucky), so we try to learn to get our kicks and punches hard and fast, to try and keep our distance from out opponent and hopefully stay standing for the duration of the fight.

My club trains for an hour and a half every day of the week apart from a Wednesday and a Saturday (the Saturday there is a one hour kid's class, though).

Well I'm female and have a bag at home that I use semi-regularly. I'd use it more often, only its in the loft which is full of spiders and I'm a bit arachnophobic, so it takes me about a day to build up the courage to go up among all the spiders to train. We don't use bags at my club, only focus pads. I can't really say if its helped me much since I don't use it regularly enough, although it has certainly helped my aim with certain kicks and helped me with my control a lot.

Well I think its largely up to the kid and his father. I think your Sensei should have a word with the two of them and let them decide what the 14 year old would prefer. I would say most 14 year olds should be mature enough to study in an adult's class, but if they are exceptionally immature for their age or have severe learning difficulties etc. then maybe it would be best for them to start in the kid's class and move up when they're ready. I don't think his physical size would hold the class back at all. In fact, having various sizes of people in martial arts classes is a good thing. I'm very small (only about 5 foot), so I'm smaller than everyone in my karate club apart from the very young kids eg. under 11s. I had to spar with a very tall guy the other day (I'm bad at judging height, but he was about 6'5 or so, I would say), and he was finding it weird when he was sparring with me. He was finding he was sometimes misjudging his techniques because he was used to people roughly the same size as him and 'cause I was smaller it meant he was sometimes missing me and stuff. Now, if you were to be attacked one day, it could be by a massive 6'8 bear of a man or it could be by a tiny little person, best to practice with both and then you wont find any surprises if you ever do happen to be attacked by a little person.

Well I'll be 18 in a few weeks (the legal age to drink here), but I intend to be a tee-totaller. I go to church and we have communion about once every 4 months and we have wine, so I drink that, but its just one of those tiny communion cups that holds about quarter of a mouthfull. I would actually rather they used fruit juice instead of wine, 'cause I really don't like the taste of alcohol. Basically I don't want to drink because I don't like the taste of alcohol, and plus I've got a bit of an obsessive personality. I can't just do things in moderation. I've got to be obsessed with them and focus on them constantly, or not at all, and I wouldn't want to turn into an alcoholic, so I think I'm better just avoiding it entirely.

I love that cartoon! It cracks me up!

There was a post on this recently in the karate forum, I think. Don't worry about sounding stupid. I think most people will have trouble tying their belt correctly at first. I know I did. It might be best to ask your martial arts instructor to show you how to tie it, though, just to make sure you're doing it the way he wants it done.

I definately believe that true mastery of anything comes when you don't have to think about it anymore/don't have to think about it much anymore. Its not only like that with karate, but with other things such as music too. I don't think you would definately have lost the fight if you're use of karate is not intuitive, although if you're karate is intuitive then I think you'd be almost certain to win.

Well I want to study martial arts because I love the spiritual side involved in the more traditional arts. I love the constant learning curve, and I love being able to see myself improve physically, mentally and spiritually from them. I want to do judo because of these above reasons, but I would like to do kickboxing as I believe it would do more for my fitness, and plus I'm sort of known as the "bossy one" in my group of friends and would like to let my friend have her way for once (she's been wanting to start kickboxing for a while, but wants company). My main worry with kickboxing is that it would somehow screw up my karate. Obviously, that wouldn't be a big a worry with judo as grappling and striking are so different.

A school that teaches more than one style always makes me a bit suspicious. I always think McDojo when I hear that. Obviously, there are exceptions to the rule, but that's just the general trend IMO.

I train in Shotokan karate, but it was TKD I'd initially wanted to train in. The only martial artist I knew at the time was a TKD guy, so that obviously influenced my decision, and there were hardly any martial arts schools in my area at all. I couldn't even find a TKD school at first (although now I know that there are quite a few of them), so I ended up "settling" for Shotokan instead. I'm glad that I started Shotokan instead of TKD now, though. I trained in TKD at a short hour long seminar type of thing a few months ago, and I much prefer Shotokan

I really want to start another martial art. I already do Shotokan karate and had given Aikido a shot before and enjoyed it, although I left because I didn't really like the way we were taught. Anyway, I reckoned grappling would compliment my karate well and was considering judo. I was uncertain of it, though, because I'd found falling really hard at Aikido, and obviously I'd need to master it for Judo. Then a friend suggested going to kickboxing with me. I think kickboxing would be good for fitness, but I've always kind of looked down upon it and not seen it as a "proper art", but rather a sort of martial arts aerobics. Plus, I worry that a kickboxing club would teach me bad kicking and punching habits. Any advice? Are my preconceptions about kickboxing totally wrong?

I currently study Shotokan karate, but would love to learn another style of karate at some point in my life too. Other than karate I would like to learn: Aikido Any style of Kung Fu Tai Chi (but proper martial Tai Chi, not the watered down granny style stuff).

My mum's always loved dogs and has always had a pedigree dog of some kind or other. When our last dog died, though, we ended up just going to the animal shelter and buying a mongrel pup and she is an amazing wee animal. Mongrels can be a good choice as they tend to live a longer, healthier life than a pedigree would, and often can have the positive attributes of more than one dog breed. Of course, the adverse can be true and they could have the negative qualities of the dog breeds in them. Of course, mongrels also tend to be a lot cheaper. I definately think a mongrel would be a good choice for your first dog. As for pedigree dog breeds, I prefer collies and labradors. Collies are generally extrememly intelligent animals and labs are usually vey fun-loving and playful.

You could make martial arts a career, but if I were you I wouldn't look at it as a viable career option, for the following reasons: 1. To make any sort of decent money you would probably have to start up your own dojo. Therefore, you would be in charge of your own business and would have to endure all the responsibilities that go along with that (and risk losing everything if it all went downhill). 2. There is a chance that before too long you might prioritise profit over teaching the art properly (especially if you're really stuck for cash). 3. You would probably have to work longer and harder than you would work in an "ordinary job" and you'd probably have to work some very odd hours eg. doing a lot of work at night time when people are available to come to martial arts classes. 4. You wouldn't be raking in big profits unless you owned a McDojo and there would be no chance of promotion etc. I think you'd be best looking for an ordinary job and just teaching a few nights a week somewhere, without making a business of it. Maybe after you've done that for a few years you'll be in a better position to know if you want to teach full-time, and you'll be more financially secure and able to open your own dojo.

You know, I hadn't even thought about stepping out the way of the kicks before you guys mentioned it to me I'm so dumb sometimes. Thanks for the help

We were sparring today in class. We spar a lot, but I hardly ever get anyone throwing an ushiro mawashi geri or a side kick at me, but today everyone seemed to be throwing the ushiro or a side thrust kick and I realised I had no plausable defence to use. I tried a gedan barai (like I would use to block a mae geri), but it didn't seem to have enough power behind it to block the kicks. Any hints?

Testing is every 2 weeks!? That statement alone screams McDojo to me. Yeah, it certainly does sound like a McDojo. As a matter of fact, where I train is quite McDojo-ish in a lot of ways: there are quite a lot of kids in the classes, everyone always seems to pass their belts and the belt tests aren't very difficult, we do A LOT of sparring and hardly any kata and a lot of the people in the class are definately not at the standard they should be at for the rank they hold. Still, I don't have much choice but to stay there unless I want to train in another art because there's no where else round about for me to go. On the plus side, the instructors are not in it for the money (the classes are dirt cheap), and if you're willing to put in the effort then they will be more than willing to help, and both the instructors do know their stuff (even though one of them is very sparring and self defence orientated, while the other is the more traditional one of the pair and knows a lot about kata.)

I remember when my friend first started karate and came along with me. She insisted on wearing tight jeans every week.....then she wondered how she couldn't kick properly!

I got tired when I first started karate, and still get tired sometimes. The instructors where I train are good with beginners. They expect you to take frequent water breaks, and only do as much as you are capable of and not keep up completely with the class. All white belts are cut a lot of slack. I found dehydration was responsible for a heap of my tiredness at first. Remember to drink water frequently.

I sometimes compose, but I prefer to compose on the piano, but sometimes I'll sit and knock out a wee composition on my guitar.

I'd always wanted to study martial arts since I'd been little. My dad's friend was a martial artist and I was in constant awe of him, but my mum didn't want me to get hurt so she didn't let me start. Finally, when I realised I was old enough to have a bit of freedom, and that my mum wouldn't mind so much if I started martial arts anymore, I went to get started. I'd initially wanted to learn TKD, but couldn't find a club in my area. I found a Shotokan karate club, though, and on advice of a friend online who studied martial arts, decided to take it.