CheekyMusician

Hi guys, I'm seriously considering competing in my first competition in kumite. I'm female and would be competing against other lower ranked kyu (9th-4th) females in point sparring. However, my defence is pretty bad. Normally when I practice sparring its continuous free sparring and then its not so bad if I miss a block and get hit because I can attack them back with something and redeem myself a bit, but this competition is point sparring, so obviously I really need to work on my defence so that I'm not just giving points away. Unfortunately, I don't really have a training partner to work with. My dad would probably train a bit with me but he has no karate background and can't kick, although I suppose he's better than nothing. I was just wondering what kind of things I could practice to improve my defence, and what kind of things you advise for the day of the competition if I go? Thanks in advance

It depends what 'captain' means to you and your college. One of the clubs I train at is a University karate club and our captain and our sensei are completely different roles, where the way you're talking it sort of sounds like the captain of your club is responsible for the teaching. The captain of my club is just responsible for keeping people informed of competitions/belt tests etc. and the sort of general day-to-day running of the club, making sure that we're all registered with the Uni, and that everyone has insurance to train and all that sort of stuff, but he doesn't do any of the teaching. The teaching is all done by a Sensei who runs his own club, but comes in and teaches the Uni club for free, but doesn't get involved with the running of the club whatsoever, just turns up and teaches us. I think in the kind of situation I described above, that it is fine for a captain not to be a black belt. However, I would expect him/her to still have a degree of experience. After all, as the captain and the person mainly responsble for the running of the club, even if not taking a part in the teaching, people with questions about competitions/belt tests/insurance/where to buy equipment etc. would probably contact them first, and therefore, they'd need to be a relatively experienced martial artist to be able to help the club run smoothly. Personally, I'd say they'd need to be at least 6th Kyu or above to do that job, but certainly the more experience they have, the better. However, if the captain is also teaching the club, then I don't think it is particularly acceptable for them to be taking a club without a black belt. To be honest, I wouldn't even be particularly comfortable with a Shodan teaching a club unless he'd chosen not to test for higher ranks but had been continuing to train and learn and had held his rank for at least a couple of years. I think that to be a teacher, you need to know your stuff. It doesn't matter whether its martial arts or something else, you can't go in there and teach others when you still aren't far along the line yourself. Even at Shodan level, you're still a relative beginner and so shouldn't be teaching, especially at a college. I know that in my Uni club a lot of people join the club who have trained in karate and then moved away from home to go to Uni and joined the Uni club to continue their training. We have quite a lot of Shodans in that situation and I don't think they'd be getting a great deal from an upper kyu rank teaching the class. I suppose if push came to shove and there was no possibility of the class being taught by a dan rank, then an upper Kyu rank teaching could be acceptable if there was no other alternative, but I don't think its an ideal situation.

Well I don't know much about kempo....but am I right in thinking its a striking art? If so, and you want to avoid confusion, why don't you try a more ground based art such as judo or BJJ?

That's right. I think there was a Danny, too. There was Paul and there was an Alex (who got put out and replaced by Toby because of injury), but I don't think I can really remember the names of any of the others. I'm missing it I used to come home from karate on a Monday and put it on and vegetate in front of it. We should email Sky and demand a second series! With Clive....of course! Maybe with Clive demonstrating topless at least once an episode! Heehee.

Double post....sorry.

I started training at 17 in Shotokan. I wasn't particularly keen on forms at the time, which I think was partly to do with my instructor and partly to do with being young and wanting to fight and do pad work and all that sort of fun stuff. I started training at a new club about 6 months ago, but still train at my previous one. My new instructor is really traditional and has made me really focus on kata and now I'm beginning to really love doing them. I'm almost 21 one now, so I'm not a huge heap older than when I started, but I have matured a lot in the past few years from starting out being a shy little schoolgirl, to nowadays being not too far off graduating from Uni and having experienced a lot more in life that's made me grow up. I think whether you like forms or not is sort of a maturity thing. I think most people when they are young want to see results immediately and don't have a lot of patience, and fights and padworks serve their purposes because they can instantly see the results of their hardwork. I think forms usually require a bit more sort of reflective, personal meditation on them and results aren't often seen as obviously. You have to focus constantly on tiny details when doing forms and I think the younger you are, the more difficult that tends to be. I've found as I've got older I've got more concerned with focussing on the little, basic things in all sorts of different areas of my life, not just my karate. For example. I now practice my piano scales where I never bothered with them before and just jumped into the pieces. I think as you get older you realise working the basics to within an inch of their life and focussing on the detail of forms etc. affects your performance and improves you generally.

Lmao@the suggestion! I think I'd get booted out on the first night, plus I'd be too distracted by Clive to focus on any martial arts! Heehee. Mmmmm....Cllliiiiivvveee!! *goes off into a little daydream* Nathan was the other bloke and Becky was the girl, but I don't know their surnames. Yeah, I googled it too, but just came up with crap. I thought the Sky webpage might have some info on it, but nope, nothing there either. *cries*

I train with the JKA and it is a minimum of 3 months training between each kyu rank and a minimum of 6 months between 1st Kyu and Shodan. Used to train with another association that followed the same rules.

Yeah thats the one - but NO NO NO NO not Clive!!!!! It was completely tacky, fun though!! I think the challenges the students went through were fairly tough - and quite well balanced, so not one person stood out. I would of been dissapointed if one of the women had won though - not in a sexist way, I just didn't think on this occasion they were stronger than the men. Yeah, I agree the challenges were quite good. The challenges and the whole show were clearly designed to be 'good TV' and not necessarilly totally truly reflective of the martial arts, but yeah, I enjoyed it anyway and think it would be cool if they made a second series. Especially a second series with Clive in it *sigh, swoon, drool etc.*

Do you mean Fight School the series that was on Sky 3? I watched it. It was totally tacky, but I loved it anyway! Heehee. The main attraction for me was the Sifu Clive guy, though, who was quite good looking!

It'd probably be best for a complete beginner to start with one art and work exclusively with that for a few years before looking elsewhere. Go train at both classes, though, for a few sessions and decide which you prefer and which suits your body and athletic ability best.

I agree. Its OK for you instructor to suggest you get a haircut, but I don't think he should make it mandatory. Fair enough, if you were risking serious injury to yourself or others because of a factor of your appearance, such as if you were a girl with really long nails or something, then I could see his point forcing you to make changes, but you hair? However, clearly your instructor wants you to do well and succeed in karate and he clearly thought that your hairstyle was maybe holding you back from performing at your best, and so you should be glad of that. You've cut your hair now, so that's it done and you may as well forget about it now, I suppose, and just be glad you have an instructor who wants to make sure you achieve your potential.

I agree with the idea that this is YOUR personal journey and its got nothing to do with that guy. So what if he ends up outranking you? There's plenty of other martial artists in the world who already outrank you and there always will be. I can understand that you might feel a bit upset since this guy stopped training and just came back, but obviously he knew the stuff and was the correct standard or your instructor would never have passed him. As everyone says, belts shouldn't be important, it should be LEARNING that counts. Belts are a sign of what you have achieved and what you have learned within your own club, and you should be proud of your rank as an indicator of your own personal learning and progression. Unfortunately, over the years they've come to be viewed in the martial arts as a status symbol that marks you as better or worse than your peers and I think you are annoyed at the fact that this guy who hasn't been as dedicated as you have been now suddenly has the same status as you within the club. I think its best if you forget about that. Thinking like that can only ultimately hold you back in your training. Just remember, regardless of your belt colour you will always have something new to learn whether that be in technique or in attitude. This is also true for the guy who has just been promoted. As you said, he's a natural athlete, and as such it is natural that he will be able to retain his previous rank, or higher than his previous rank, with very little effort. Maybe you're not such a natural athlete as him and had to work long and hard to achieve that rank. However, as you progress in your training, progression will depend more and more on refining the finer points of your training and you will have to pay meticulous attention to detail and it takes a mentally strong person to persevere when training becomes more and more intense, but with less noticeable results. You've already learned to be dedicated and to persevere where this other guy has not, and those mental attitudes will serve you well in your future training.

I would have a look round about at other schools. From the posts I've read from you on here, I get the impression that you feel your school has quite a lot of faults, so it can't hurt to look around and visit a few other places and see if you stumble across the perfect dojo.

It might be best to concentrate on one art to start with and train at that for at least a couple of years before you start cross-training, just to make sure you get your technique correct, instead of mixing lots of arts from the start and not getting the technique 100% right in any of them. If you definately want to cross-train from the beginning, it might be best to pick arts that are a lot different from each other. This will make sure there's no confusion between the two, and will also make you a better all round fighter. Karate and Tae Kwon Do are quite similar, but if you look into arts that are less to do with striking, such as Aikido or Judo, they might be good to cross-train with.

I've had problems with ganglions on the bottoms of my fingers for years (I've maybe had 4). I've currently got one that isn't visible, but is a pain in the butt 'cause I can feel it and wish it would go away. The other ones I've had in the past have went away within maybe 9 months to a year or something. My mum had one on her finger years ago that annoyed her and she got it removed under a local anesthetic, so maybe its worth asking your doctor about that, especially if you feel it is weakening the hand its on. Ganglions are sometimes meant to disperse if hit by a heavy object as they are just a collection of fluid. I even read a Doctors page in a magazine where the Doc advised someone to attempt to smack their ganglion with a heavy book to burst it and cause the fluid to disperse. Pressure with your finger might even do it. I really recommend going back to your doctor and telling him that you feel its weakening your hand. I'm sure in a situation like that there must be something he can do to help you. Good luck with getting it sorted out!

Thanks for the opinions! I'm seriously considering it now. I've got in club with the guy from my club who is taking names for the competition to ask him for more information, so I might compete if all goes to plan.

I know how you feel about losing motivation. I LOVED my karate training, and then fell ill was off for a few weeks, then had to go away on an archaeological dig for Uni and was away for a few more weeks because of that, then went to visit a friend and so missed a few more weeks. Before I knew it, I hadn't trained for a couple of months and I just couldn't fire myself up to go back. I found the longer I left it, the harder it was for me to go back. I was partly nervous about going back in case I'd forgotten more than I'd ever learned, and I partly could never be bothered when training night rolled around. I hardly trained at all in 2 years, but when I got back into it, I really regretted missing out on so much training time. However, I still always felt excitement when I thought about martial arts, and wished I had the guts to go back, and from what you say this doesn't sound quite the same with you. Maybe you've just reached a plateau and its something you either have to work through, or time when you throw in the towel. I've noticed at my dojo that most people seem to start to 'get stuck in a rut' around about your stage. I've noticed that a lot of people get to 2nd Kyu or 1st Kyu and drop out. There's some that hang around and get their Shodan, train for a while after that and then drop out. I think that most people just reach a stage of their training at this point where they begin to feel that they either can't learn much more, or can't learn much more quick enough. I don't think its just martial artists that experience this either. With many skills, people who start out on the journey, whether that be learning the piano or doing martial arts, are likely to drop out either when they start to meet hurdles in the beginning, or when the reach the half way or three-quarters way point in their development when they realise that from this moment in, they are going to have to work their butt off for even slight improvement, and things are getting really serious. Maybe you are realising that you are getting to this stage in your training and the thought of it is overwhelming you and making you lose motivation. As for the dojo cleaning thing, I think if your Sensei teaches you for free or for a very small sum of money, then it is only right and decent that you do some cleaning. My family and I are very involved in doing a lot of voluntary work through our church and 9 times out of 10 we are the ones left with all the cleaning up in our hands at the end of the day. People like to be involved in something that you've organised if its fun for them, but the minute its over, they disappear, most of the time not giving a thought to all the work left to be done. It can get a tad annoying when you've already put out a lot of time and effort on people for them to just leave you with the mop and bucket tidying up after them as well. However, in my opinion, if this is a commercial dojo, where your Sensei charges people significant amounts of money in order to teach them, then he should be the one arranging the cleaning, or doing it himself if need be. I think if he's charging you a money for teaching you and expecting you to clean up HIS premises for him, then he's being a tad cheeky, and if that's a requirement for rank, then you should probably look elsewhere for tuition. I think you should try out some new places, train there and see how you feel in a few months. If you still feel that your love of the martial arts is gone, then I think you really need to just sit down and decide whether you want to work through your 'slump' even though that might mean forcing yourself to train for months or even years while not enjoying it, but then hopefully coming out the other end one day and being glad you stuck in, or just throwing in the towel with your martial arts.

I'd not been training 'cause of Uni and other commitments and went back to class after a break of about 8 or 9 months. It was approaching a club grading, and one of the guys who was about to sit for his 7th Kyu asked our Sensei to go over Heian Nidan. I'd only ever sat my 9th Kyu because gradings are held on a Saturday which is when I work, but knew Heian Nidan, so joined in with the rest of the class. Anyway, our Sensei started shouting at the club for doing it wrong and came up and stood beside me and said something along the lines of, "She's the only one who managed to do it right and she's only a 9th Kyu and hasn't even trained for months, so the rest of you should have no excuses!" Then he told me well done and gave me a grin, and I was rather chuffed since I have a little bit of a crush on him. Anyway, he was so annoyed at the class making a mistake in Heian Nidan that he decided we were all going to do Kihon kata (Taikyoku Shodan) instead. I must have done that kata hundreds of times, and our Sensei even announced (for the benefit of any newbies and the kids): "turn left with a gedan barai, " but for some reason, I turned right. Anyway, he just happened to be looking at me at this point and saw this and shouted out to the whole club, "Erm...other left, wee one! Wait a minute, everyone...it seems someone is having a bit of a problem telling their lefts from their rights!" Everyone turned to look as he walked over to me and picked up my left hand and said, "this is your left," and picked up my right hand saying, "this is your right. Now do you need a bit of practice getting used to that concept?" So much for me impressing him with my Heian Nidan, and of course, the rest of the class were by this point trying to stifle their giggles and as he walked away, he turned back around and said, "and wait a minute...are you not at Uni? They must accept anyone these days!" I felt like a right eejit!

I can relate to this. When I first started training, karate was all I wanted to talk about. For the first year and a half my friends were all getting sick of hearing about karate and I had to keep reminding myself to shut up! Recently, though, I dragged a Uni friend of mine off to karate and she's fallen in love with it, too! We're both totally obsessed but usually talk to each other every day, so when we meet up we just talk non-stop karate for an hour or two and then when we meet up with the rest of our friends we don't feel the need to bore them with it all! It can definately be hard to find a balance, but not just with karate. I sometimes feel that my Uni work is taking over my life and I don't make time for anything else, even to the extent of refusing to go out at all for a few weeks while I get on top of everything. Other times its my music that eats into my time. But yeah, I agree especially with the person who posted saying remember that you're family and friends might desert you if you don't make time for them! I'm glad that you've managed to find a happy medium with your training, though.

Ok, thanks all you guys! I'm not generally in pain with my knees, but do feel the strain after doing my stance work, so I'm going to check on my alignment and do some strengthening exercises before I try to work on my deep stances any more. Thanks for the tips!

I've recently started training at my Uni karate club. I've been training with a very sport orientated karate club on and off for 4 years, and while I was training there exclusively I kept wanting to train at a more traditional club and work on kata and basics more, but know I also train at my Uni club which is exactly the traditional club I'm looking at, I'm beginning to look into the sport side of things! There is a sparring competition coming up that I'm interested in participating in, but I've never even watched a karate competition before, so it would well and truly be a first! However, although I've been training for 4 years, I've never really bothered with belt tests and so I only recently sat my 9th Kyu, and I've only been training at my Uni club about 6 months or so. Its the Uni club that's looking for entrants for the competition, but the Sensei there doesn't even allow junior belts to free spar in his class, so I'm not sure if he'd even be happy to let me fight in it or not. I've got sparring experience 'cause of my 4 years with the other club which I still also attend, and although I can hold my own sparring people within that club, I've never sparred with anyone outside it and don't know if I'd be able to measure up. The competition section I'd be competing in would include 9th Kyus-4th Kyus. I wouldn't expect to win, but I'd like to take part so that I could get a feel for it and then maybe participate again in it next year and be in with a chance of doing well, then. However, I don't want to totally embarrass myself. I've been putting some serious thought into it, and have decided that maybe I should wait and go see some competitions and maybe start competiing in them next year, but I also feel that if I put it off much longer I'll be getting too old to really participate in the kumite competition circuit as I'm already almost 21, which I know isn't ancient, but by that age, I'm assuming most people are at their peak in the competition circuit, not just starting out. Anyway, I know this was really long, and so I apologise and thank anyone who's still reading, but what's your opinion? How old is too old to be starting out on the competition circuit?

I've recently got back into regular training in Shotokan karate after a on-off period of training for about 2 and a half years. Anyway, I'm getting really into working my stances, but have noticed this is causing my knees a lot of pain. I'm wondering if anyone has any tips on how to strengthen the knees to prevent injury or any tips on how to protect them. I had a bit of knee pain back when I first started karate four years ago (probably caused by the fact that I wasn't twisting my supporting foot when kicking) and it was murder so I'm really worried about damaging my knees. I don't want to be hobbling around with dodgy knees for most of my life because of damaging them in karate training when I was young. Any help is much appreciated!

What age are you? That can make a huge difference as to how kids respond. If they see you as basically just a bit older than them, they might not pay attention, however they'll pay attention to Sensei as he's an adult. Also, you have to earn their respect. You have to prove that you know what you're talking about and that you're fair, but wont let them off easy. What kind of behaviour have you experienced so far, and what methods have you used to try and correct it?

Well I don't know anything about either of the arts you're teaching, so I don't know how valid this point I'm going to make is actually going to be for you, but maybe you need to realise that the way you want to teach and the way things worked for you when you were learning and the way things worked for previous pupils don't necessarilly work with every student. I remember when I first started studying physics at school my teacher told me, "Don't try to understand it, just memorise it." At the time I thought he was an idiot...after all, it surely isn't worth learning something if you don't understand it. Over time, though, I began to understand him. If I'd tried to understand everything right at the start, I would have confused myself, become too saturated with too much above my level and would have either quit or failed. Same when I teach kids music. I don't sit them down and say, "Right. This is how music is structured...first of all let's consider all the keys and memorise all the key signatures, then we'll learn about chord structures." Yeah, it would be great if I could teach that from day one and if they understood it they'd no doubt find the rest of their musical education would come easily to them, but the chances are they'd have become far too confused or bogged down while wading through the quagmire of musical theory to actually get to the practical part. I know it can be frustrating as a teacher to be on a level where you can see where techniques all fit together and what they're used for, and you can't imagine or really clearly remember a time when you didn't know all that, and you can't possibly perceive how anyone could understand the art without knowing all that, but sometimes people find it easier to 'go through the motions' and not understand why they're doing it at first, then that can be slowly introduced. As I say, I know nothing about your arts so this may not apply, but for instance, when I started karate I used to stand beside someone (usually one of the class teachers), and copy everything he did. Most of the time my 'copies' weren't correct, so he started to fix them, helping me to position my arms and legs right etc. There was no worry at that stage if it wasn't perfect or powerful. Once I had the basic moves 'copied' relatively well, he started to take my aside and categorise them all for me. He split my copied movements into blocks, kicks and punches, and then practiced with me telling me to show him all the blocks I knew etc. Once he was happy that I was able to do this, he started to introduce the Japanese names and explain what each block was used for. It was a steady progression, and of course, now as a more experienced student I'm capable of categorising techniques for myself, and learning applications as a matter of due course. So really, this was a really long-winded way of saying that sometimes just because individual techniques don't make sense out of context for you, as the teacher, doesn't necessarilly mean they wont make sense out of context, and perhaps even be far easier to learn in the beginning, for a student.