Blade96

I love Katas. They're so pretty and artistic and spiritual.... 'peaceful mind' =] and I hate it when people say 'its just a pile of stances' Then you know, they dont understand anything.

yeah, brown belts....strange, eh? I mean these brown belts are 2 of my friends.....and they are great people but sheeesh.

Just this one I'm a little white belt. But if you count the 2 months of Kenpo I did then i know 2 kata's. heian shodan and Kenpo's Elbow Kata.

Well, I look at respect a bit differently than most would, I guess. I am not one to just respect someone because of some preconceived notion of stature or rank. See 9th dan, show respect....I'm not quite like that. Although I won't be disrespectful to them, I am going to have to know a bit more about someone before I offer some kind of blind respect to them. Now, this doesn't mean that I would treat them poorly, or say "sorry, I don't respect you yet..." or anything like that. I like to think that I am a generally nice person, and treat people as such when I encounter them. But, there is a difference in being nice to someone, and respecting them. I am a big proponent of earning respect, not demanding or expecting it. Blade96 likes this. =] its my own belief that its a person's character and heart that determines how much respect they should get, not what pretty colored belt they wear. The reason why I love all my elders in my shotokan dojo is because they've got all that in addition to their black belts and Dan certificates. and they taught well, respect us all and don't treat me different than anyone else. They treat me wonderfully. That makes them excellent people. excellent leaders worth following, listening to and looking up to. (I do think they have favorites though, and I am one of them, my sensei pays more attention to me and even praises me up in front of the whole class, he never did that with the other 2 white belts.) In contrast when I was in the royal canadian army cadets I had this officer who, though having the rank of lieutenant (leftenant in the canadian system, derived from britain) who was a total jerk. He put students on the spot in a bad way and used some of them, including myself, as examples of what bad drill was. (i never had bad drill but because I was born with a balance problem I stumbled a bit at times.) So although I followed orders well and was a great leader, was never late unless i was forced to be (though i joined late in the year of season 1995- 1996 I was promoted ahead of most of the other cadets who had been there longer when promotions were held in October of 96 which caused some jealousy) and even though this officer had the rank of lieutenant I could never respect him because of the way he treated some people. btw *sings* R-E-S-P-E-C-T .... find out what it means to me" Just kidding. cause the way the topic title is written reminds me of that old aretha franklin song. =]

Oh they do. Totally. He lets you know right away, and so help the people who break rules repeatedly when the scolding failed to work =]

I was attacked by a guy in 2002 who tried to sexually assault me, he grabbed me around the waist so that i was facing him and he lifted me off the ground. My arms were free so I used one to thump him a good one right in the side of his bald head. He quickly let me go and I ran away. I believe you do what you have to do to protect yourself. If you have to hurt someone to save yourself, so be it. If you have to kill them - thats self - defence and not even master-sensei funakoshi said self - defence is bad.

"When it was fashionable to say, 'May the force be with you', I said, 'The force is within you. Force yourself.' " - Harrison Ford

I would have replied yes. (Knowing what he had excelled in, say mechanics, for example,) I would have told him, I see he still does Kung Fu also. Ha as for showing people some moves, I'll probably get that question from my relatives when I go to see them over christmas. I actually expect that question because as far as i know I am the only one doing martial arts. (my little cousin did taekwondo for a little while but she never stayed in it cause she said she found it boring. but she's only 8. MA is a way of life and quite philosophical, I really didn't expect an 8 year old to totally 'get' it.) I'll probably , just to satisfy them (and shut them up), show them a jodan age uke or a chudan uchi uke. Those are just arm blocks. Then tell them know though, the biggest lesson you learn in MA is to WALK AWAY. and NEVER get easily drawn into any fights. It is not the fancy dancy moves. so stop asking me =] I'd actually be afraid if I let people who don't understand what ma is really about, know any kicks or punches or anything, they'd actually try it on someone! Thats why I'd only show a block or 2. (white belt moves, yes, cause Im a little one but they wouldn't care.)

first time i witnessed any disciplining (myself being a little white belt of just over 2 months) was last night. Sempai was leading us in our warmups and 2 brown belts came in late. Now you'd think these people being brown belts they would immediately would kneel, bow and 'oss' like they were supposed to and wait for sempai to allow them to join in. But they didn't. They came in and were going to go to their place without permission to do so. So sempai had to speak sternly to them, and make them bow and 'oss' before allowing them to step in. and also sternly remind them of the respect and discipline they were supposed to show, to the dojo, the sempai, everyone else, as well as our founder, Master-sensei Funakoshi, to show they were sorry for being late. No pushups or anything though. But I have no doubt that Sempai or sensei or another elder of ours would take those sterner measures if they had to. I have never had that problem though because I have never missed a training session nor have I ever been late. But what happened with those brown belts did help me to know what to do if ever I do happen to be late.

I dont see why not. After all, Jesus taught to avoid a fight if you can (turn the cheek) and to settle disputes in a civil manner and amongst yourselves if you can. MA tries to teach the same values.

Grand post and account. This same applies to a forum. Much can be misinterpreted in rhetorical discussions without facial or body expressions. One's sense of conveyance or humor cannot always be detected on such a medium, as a forum or blog. Thanks =] maybe more so to the internet like you said sometimes cause you cant SEE the other person. if face to face it more easier to tell, unless the sensei isn't too good at decoding what people mean by facial expressions and actions. or if you two are not that close like i said.

oh here's one i got today: A friend of mine said to me today, some weeks after I told him about my SHOTOKAN karate training: "Do you still do kung fu?"

my thoughts when I heard these said are in italics. My grandmother when my mother told her I'm doing Karate "What's she doing that for?' because it's no good for me Fellow at the arena where I ice -skate when my friend told him I'm doing karate: "please don't beat me up" uhh that's not the point of MA the point is self transformation and self improvement/enhancement Man working in the sports shop where I bought my gi in september: " Oh you're goin Karate - in'? You'll have a blackbelt in a year" for a sports store worker who sells gi's you should know you don't get a bb in a year One of my other friends when I told him of my Shotokan training "when do you get to break bricks?" we don't and not all MA involve breaking bricks/boards

One of the reasons I'm not signing up to the Kenpo school again (my ten week session was up yesterday) is because in order to get a yellow belt there little white belts have to do 50 pushups (and i don't know how many situps) And I don't know how many higher belts have to do. Now as a Karateka I know its important to be fit, (you'd be no good to yourself or anyone else in a kumite if you burned out quickly) but I don't get the point of having to do situps and pushups to get your first belt. Maybe one of you here can explain because I sure don't get it........?

My email has a dash in it, and whenever I write it for someone they always ask if its a dash or a underscore (even though i don't write it on the bottom like an underscore) About one week ago, I gave my email to my sensei after the lesson so he could add me to the list serve. and he asked the same question. My answer 'if it was an underscore it would be on the bottom like one' *said with a friendly smile at him* well he looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and a smile of his own. and I said I was just teasing and joking around with him. and he said'I know you are' and he put one arm around my waist and gave me a brief hug. Reason why I write this here is because this probably isn't the best idea for everyone to said something like this - you could get in a lot of trouble if you say something that could be taken as saucy or disrespecting your sensei and this statement said like this certainly could be if you meant it that way or you didn't have the rightlook or body language or sensei didn't know you that well and you didn't have a good friendly teacher/student relationship where you both knew and respected each other. reason why i didn't get into any trouble is because we've got all that plus we're both funny and we both have good senses of humor. There's a lot of respect and fondness between me and my Shotokan sensei. I guess this is just a heads up - be careful what you say. And who you say it to.

Nice pic. ther used that same warehouse i believe it was, for kingdom of the crystal skull too. dispelling the fear, that makes total sense since MA is, I learned, a transformation of the self and an enhancement. and the Kiai helps with that. Now, I've even gotten so that I actually like to kiai. And I feel weird if I don't! =]

Phew =] that's good to hear. the kids and the gong - which martial art is that in? btw I'm glad that worked. can Kiai now. I think the one with the littlest Kiai is the third white belt who trains with us (altogether there are 3 of us little white belts) But we can hear his Kiai so all of us kiai - just some of us more than others. i'm glad with us there is no foot step. The sensei and sempais said kiai is required for our Kata, but they kind of let you go at your own pace and they don't pressure you into Kiai'ing. what they did say is that its required and that if we want to pass our tests we have to learn to Kiai. But that was good for us because they test about every4 or 5 months and sometimes they wait longer if sensei thinks you're not ready. We have time to go at our own pace. And that helps too.

thanks a lot =] ....know all my stuff so nothing fears me now....I also think that it helps that I know alll the people in the dojo now and they are all very supportive plus I'm close to and very fond of both of our senseis and they are very fond of me so I don't have to feel so self - conscious now. A supportive group around me like we are a family was very helpful to me. (well a club of people in a dojo is a family.) So having friends/allies in the club really helped me too. One of my teachers used to step on our toes in order to scream louder. For my child class, I have a large gong. I tell them, if they desire to strike the gong, they have to KIai louder than it. No child has evered failed before the gong, as they all desire to strike it. no.....? really? did that hurt? I never heard of a teacher actually stepping on someone.....? The gong thing is cute, I have little cousins and soon gonna be an aunt and I know little kids love stuff that's noisy hehe i think i'm gonna go buy me some ear plugs when my bro visits with his daughter lol

thanks a lot =] ....know all my stuff so nothing fears me now....I also think that it helps that I know alll the people in the dojo now and they are all very supportive plus I'm close to and very fond of both of our senseis and they are very fond of me so I don't have to feel so self - conscious now. A supportive group around me like we are a family was very helpful to me. (well a club of people in a dojo is a family.) So having friends/allies in the club really helped me too.

older topic, I know, but i wanted to tell my story about kiai's.....cause it might help someone else.... When i did kenpo for 2 months i never had to kiai. some of the brown and black belts kiai'd but i never had to. I was in kenpo for a few weeks then i started shotokan. The topic starter said his/her student had a very soft kiai.....I literally never had one. I'd just go through the moves and never ever opened my mouth or even tried to yell. The reason was lack of confidence. and the sempai teaching us would say "oh you're so quiet' and tell me I had to kiai doing heian shodan, its required. what helpedme learn to kiai? as I learned things and found out i could do it I gained confidence. One reason i didnt kiai was that i didnt know all the kata and i felt kiai would draw attention to myself by yelling out. so i shut up. What happens now? On friday (nov21) I went to my dojo and was working out with the other little white belt, training we're both little white belts and we've been training 2 months, so we were doing our kata Heian Shodan and when we kiai'd mine was the loudest there. so i went from having no kiai to having a very very loud one. Thought it might help someone who wonders why some people don't kiai....this is why I never had a kiai when i first started doing shotokan around September 10.

Hehehe! I almost fell off my chair laughing reading this thread! Thanks for this even though made a long time ago now but still funny! I can just imagine me saying any of this stuff to my sensei....lets just say happen not gonna.

well (about to tell a story here now hehe) I was sick since April and in may I suffered a severe allergic reaction to the antibiotics I took for my strep throat. That caused me to be bedridden and suffering for months. When I recovered from being sick, I had been unable to watch movies cause i was bedridden and so i grabbed a bunch of my dvds and one of them I grabbed was my Blade trilogy. I'd been a fan of wesley snipes for a while, some years, and he has a 5th dan in Shotokan. I wanted to try martial arts cause i watched him doing it and I thought it looked cool. First school I found was a Kenpo karate, so I signed up for ten weeks to try it out. and it was close to where I lived. Then one day not long after I found an advertisement for traditional Shotokan while reading through the university student newspaper as I do every week. I went to check it out and I knew I had found what I still like to call 'wesley snipes karate' xD So i was doing both kinds of karate. That was in september. While doing Kenpo and shotokan though I knew nothing of the 'way of life' or the founders, I intuitively felt it to be a very intelligent, philosophical art, very spiritual. And that suited me because I am that way in real life. I like philosophy and I think about life a lot. After about a month and a half I started doing research on Master sensei Funakoshi and found that he was a philosopher and deep thinker, more much more than just a martial artist. and his thoughts were what I instinctively had felt while doing Shotokan though I knew nothing of him at that time. (couple of nights ago I had told my mother that shotokan is for intelligent people and then later found out funakoshi had said something along the lines of the same. go figure.) I also liked that you didn't need to do 50 or so pushups to pass belt tests in the shotokan (which is what the kenpo school required) and half the Kenpo classes were jumping jacks and running and pushups. Though you do exercise in Shotokan, the physical enhancement necessary is obvious without unneccessary emphasis. I knew I had found my martial art afterjust a month and a half of being in it. And considering that self - esteem and confidence and physical enhancement was what I needed (I am a survivor of abuse from childhood and teenage years) Shotokan is giving me what I have long lacked. Now I have been training the Shotokan Karate-Do for 2 months. I love it more and more each time I do it. The beauty, the grace, the power, the enhancement. Everytime I do my routines and my kata, Heian Shodan, I feel so.......serene. and confident and powerful emotionally, like I can face the world, which most of the time is scary to me. I guess that serenity and confidence might be one of the reasons Heian means 'peaceful mind'. also, I developed an excellent student teacher relationship with my senseis. They got very fond of me, and I of them. Guess it didn't hurt that I seemed to be (as they said) on the same page as them, philosophically I understood the true meaning of Karate-Do (even though a rookie) Like I said, I'm quite spiritual and philosophical myself. I consider them as my mentors, and as I said in another post, if my sensei told me to go to the moon, I'd go there, too. xD That's how much I respect them and that I have the discipline. They tell me I am doing excellent in Shotokan. I test next year, for my yellow belt, and sensei told me he doesn't think I would have much trouble passing on the first try. As I understand it, tests aren't really about whether you can do everything perfectly. Its also about your attitude and your outlook on the ways of Karate-Do (so one of my sempais told me) Having such a great relationship with the shotokan senseis also was a factor in choosing Shotokan as well.

.... i wish I could put it back on again and go back to the dojo. Seriously, I love training. Enhancement of the self - that is the life for me. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RichardZ: "Again, if we establish that we are no different, then why put one on in the first place? If we are to discuss, that the display of rank doesnt change us, then why bother putting on the display? " I think that it does change you. that the pretty colored belts can be a good self - esteem and confidence booster. Because you hold and see and look at something you earned, a result of hard work and dedication. its like you think 'i did this' and since the aim of karate is enhancement of the self.....the colored belt can boost your confidence and your self -esteem....thus changing you. Of course they also mean rank. when i was still in the kenpo school, one of the blue belts told me he throws his belts in the closet and I'm like What? You take what you got for your work and dedication and throw it in the closet? and he's like 'well....don't tell sensei' and I'm like thinking, Yeah. I'm not sure people always know what exactly the belts could mean and represent.

when i was in kenpo plus shotokan i didnt train very much. maybe 4 or 5 hours a week. That is because i was trying to decide which martial art to do. Since I chose shotokan as my 'do' there's hardly a day goes by that I don't do something related to my training for example I drink tea everyday and I'll be waiting for kettle to boil and I'll do heian shodan while I'm waiting. Or I'll walk down the hall doing uchi uke. Or soto uke. or age uke. for an example xD

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