Lupin1

Anyone know why Kyokushin chose that order rather than the more common "white, yellow, orange, blue..." scheme? I've always been curious about that.

Isshinryu uses red belt as 9th and 10th Dan, but I have no problem with other styles using it as a kyu/gup rank. Usually you can tell the difference just by looking at the person wearing it. A 7-year-old with a red belt is most likely not a 10th Dan. I know it's not as as big a discrepancy, but we use purple belt as an advanced white belt for kids. Most places use purple as a high kyu rank-- up closer to brown-- but we give it to kids after a month and a half to two months of training. Different strokes...

Idk. I'm of the opinion that it is good to teach the kids to offer congratulations to the person who won. You're not saying "thank you for defeating me" or "you must have wanted to win more". You're genuinely saying congratulations-- that person happened to play better than you in that match. Doesn't matter who wanted it more-- the winner showed more skill. If a coworker gets a promotion over you at work, you can't always just huff off into the other room. Oftentimes you have to congratulate that person, show them goodwill (even if you don't always feel it), and continue to have a working relationship with them. It's the way of the world. Even in professional sports, you'll often see the loser congratulate the winner. Look up "Sherman congratulates Brady". You know Sherman wasn't happy to lose, but he congratulated the other team anyway because it was the professional, respectful thing to do. If it helps, rather than "congratulations" maybe "good match" with a hand shake may work. A hand shake is basically a western equivalent of the bow-- showing respect and no hard feelings. And, honestly, your kids shouldn't have hard feelings against the person who beat them as long as it was a fair match. Healthy rivalry is one thing, but you can still respect your rival. Ill will is another thing entirely and is a matter of mindset. If your kids do harbor ill will against someone who beat them, they need to be taught to have a different mindset-- that it's not the other person's fault and that the reason your student lost is that they didn't have as good a match as the other person. You shouldn't blame the winner for winning.

We don't give it to someone until they reach 3rd kyu, so they can start preparing themselves for the Shodan tests. It starts with an explanation of our school's goals and the focus of our studies both at the kyu ranks and the dan ranks (which have different focuses). It then gives a history of our school and our instructors' training and lineage. After that it breaks our syllabus down into a chart with what forms and drills should be learned at each level from white belt to senior instructor ranks. The rest of it is devoted to helping students prepare for the Shodan test. It has an outline of the Shodan test and what a student will need to demonstrate for that, a breakdown of required terminology, about ten pages of Isshinryu and karate history, an a brief history and detailed breakdown of each kata (though students are expected to research a more detailed history on their own in preparation for their test), and a breakdown of the different techniques and partner sets required for Shodan. So basically, it's a guide for the black belt test, although it also contains what a student should expect after Shodan.

I'd say part of the issue is the differences in what the Dan ranks mean from school to school. If you have a school that's three years to 1st Dan, another year to 2nd, and another two years to 3rd, that 3rd Dan has six years experience. If you have a school that's ten years to 1st Dan (they exist), another five to 2nd Dan, and 5-10 more to 3rd Dan, that third Dan can have up to twenty years experience! Or you could have someone who's teacher moves or passes away and is not part of an organization, so that person trains for thirty years and never gets promoted past Shodan because there's no one to promote them (that's actually my fear for myself. Or rather, for my future students. I'm fine with never going past Shodan, but it means I'd never be able to promote a student to Shodan).

I know this has nothing to do with what you're talking about, but my Eosin Panther is going to be delivered today! (unembroidered "signature black belt"-- cotton with a soft core) I'm so excited! Squeeeeee! I had no trouble with their website when I ordered, though for some reason they created two separate shipping labels for my belt. It was a little sad as they say they ship 1-2 weeks after the order is made and last Thursday, exactly 2 weeks after I placed the order, I got a notification of a shipping label created. I got all excited and set up notifications for the label and expected it to go out on Friday so I'd have my belt Monday. But all through the weekend there were no updates, no updates, no updates. Finally Monday night I got another notice with a different tracking number saying my order had shipped. This time it really had and it's almost here! I'm not complaining-- things like that happen and I knew my order might take a little longer to ship with all the holidays these past few weeks-- but it was still a bit odd.

One of my instructor's instructors is a certified Protestant minister. I'm talking traditional US Southern Protestant (not sure which denomination). He has no problem training karate because we don't do it in a spiritual way, but when he's visited us I have heard him describe moves to the young beginners in terms of "God created man with a soft spot right here-- if you target that soft spot, it can help you defend yourself". I remember it because I thought it was odd in our New England secular dojo, but from what I remember about attending college down south, infusing religion into every day life is just what they do as part of the culture. It doesn't take people aback nearly as much as it does up here. Different cultures treat it differently.

I've visited a few clubs like that, as well. There's one here locally that teaches "Ninja" and seems very spiritual and cult-like. It separates the belts into things like "water stage" and "wind stage" and has a bunch of meditation and spiritual practices at each stage to help you be one with the elements and harness the power of ninja. That stuff's fine if that's what you're looking for, but it personally makes me uncomfortable. Even the very normal, common stuff like bowing to black belts, calling people "Master", and having a shrine in the dojo make me uncomfortable at this point because we just don't do them. We have absolutely zero spiritual stuff and very little Asian cultural stuff at our school. Not to say there isn't spiritual stuff in Isshinryu. For our black belt test, we have to memorize and formulate our own interpretations of Shimabuku's Code of Karate, which are eight very spiritual and esoteric statements, but we never discuss it in class and most people forget it shortly after the black belt test. It's not seen as important, but rather just part of the history of Isshinryu.

I love this idea. I was actually thinking about doing something like this if I ever start my own program, but I've never heard of anyone actually doing it.

That's right. Our only "official" test is for Shodan, but even that varies (for example-- I didn't have a formal test, but I had to go through all the test material multiple times in the weeks leading up to my promotion, so in an essence, that was my test). We like to tell people every class is a test. People know when they're getting close, and the instructors keep a much closer eye on you when you're getting close. When we do think someone's ready, on the day we plan on promoting them we generally run through the material needed for the promotion a few times as a whole class and sometimes also have the entire class do individual/small group kata demonstrations- again keeping a closer eye on the student(s) we're considering for promotion. Usually the person does just fine with this and ends up getting their promotion that night, but if we see anything glaringly wrong or the person shows a lack of motivation while we're "testing" them, we'll hold off until the problem remedied.

We don't test, we just promote students when they're ready and we try our best to keep it a surprise. I know I've almost always been surprised by my promotions. I'd feel ready for weeks but it wouldn't happen. Then finally after I'd given up expecting it every class and committed myself to continue at the rank I was, boom- I'd be promoted. We always promote at the end of class when we line up to bow out. We line up and do any end of class announcements like normal and then just before the "kiyotsuke rei", the main instructor of the class will suddenly announce "sam's going to purple" or whatever the promotion is. Everyone claps, the promotee comes up, shakes hands with all instructors present, then goes back to his spot. Usually while this is happening the main instructor talks about how hard the person has been working or how it's still only the beginning or what not. Just a short speech. We finish out class as normal. Sometimes if the promotion was planned we'll have a belt ready for them after class. Sometimes they have to go down to the office for their belt. Adults usually have to go online to buy their own belts and sometimes kids have to wait a little for their new belt to come in. If they have to wait they get a stripe of electrical tape on the ends of their old belt until their new one comes in (that's really the only time we use tape stripes). There's very little pomp and circumstance.

My head instructor keeps a YouTube channel, but doesn't post our entire curriculum to it publicly. He shares a few videos of our earlier kata, some videos from the 90s for nostalgia's sake, and a few videos of just regular classes so people can see what we're normally like. The commenting feature is disabled on all of them so we don't get any trolls. The rest of his YouTube videos are set to private and he sends us the links via e-mail when he thinks they would benefit us (for example, when we start a new kata or start working a new self-defense set, he'll send us the YouTube videos so we can get an idea and help ourselves learn them more quickly). He is making it his mission to video our entire curriculum from white belt to the advanced Dan ranks before he and his wife retire to Arizona later this year. He wants to have the record for himself, but mostly he wants us to have it before he leaves.

I wish we did stuff like that. The Boys and Girls Club we operate out of is closed from December 23rd through the first Monday of the new year, so we had our last adult class of the year way back on December 15th. It was special this year, as it was the class I got my black belt and we went through the entire syllabus in preparation for that, but usually it is just a normal class. The last kids' class of the year was two days later on December 17th. Usually we have relay races, take a group picture, give Christmas goody bags to the kids and generally have fun, but our kids' instructor couldn't make it that day and I ended up running the class last minute (that was fun-- first class as a black belt and I'm in charge-- surprise!). I did a few relay races with them then I took them to the mats and worked on some breakfalls and rolling from Judo. They love that stuff and we don't do it nearly as often as we should (especially with the icy winters here), so it worked out well and they had a lot of fun. We ended with a little "demonstration" kata where everyone sits against the wall and one belt level comes up at a time and performs their kata for everyone to get them used to performing in front in a group with a little pressure and to allow the lower belts to get a taste of what's coming and see what slightly more advanced technique looks like. We finished it off with me performing my newest kata (Sunsu) for them, which they've never seen before and enjoyed. Overall it's usually a fun but fairly anticlimactic end to the year.

We don't do tests except for Shodan (sometimes, as my recent story tells...), we just promote people when we think they're ready, but we like to tell them "every class is a test" and we've certainly put off promoting kids due to attitude and slacking. We had one kid who was half way through the next belt's material and who had been ready to move up for two or three months, but we held him back because he was slacking and coming up with excuses to leave every class early (we're at a Boys and Girls Club, so he just went downstairs and played in the club). There are also two girl cousins who started the same day and have been promoted the same day straight up through the ranks, but we purposely gave one girl her brown belt the class before her cousin because the cousin just wasn't putting forth the same effort and we needed her to step up her game. And, to be perfectly honest, I probably could have had my Shodan last Spring if I had put forth the effort, but I was in a rut and it took me until recently to snap out of it and so I was a 1st kyu for over a year because of it.

This is why I'm starting to like that we get summers off. The club we run out of has different hours in the summer and it just got too confusing for us to be there after they closed (people would see cars in the parking lot and think it was open and come in). That and hardly any kids would ever show up in the summer. Now I like having the break, even though it makes people progress a little slower and it can be an ordeal getting everyone back into things in September. We also generally lose the most kids right after summer break. But those who do come back are usually refreshed and remotivated and ready to work hard again. They're excited to be back and that excitement gives them some good momentum so that we usually end up doing a lot of promotions right before Thanksgiving.

Knowing how NH winters get, I wouldn't risk it. A few days solid of below freezing or a single night below zero and the thing would be toast.

Hopefully you can go! Just got an e-mail back from the organizer. I'm signed up for April 2nd!! I'm so excited! This will be my first karate seminar.

That's funny, last night I just stumbled across that he's doing his first ever seminar in the US in April and it's only about a half hour from my house! I e-mailed the organizer this morning asking if there are any spots left (keeping my fingers crossed!).

I, too, want to get back into "one-derland" (weight under 200 lbs). I lost a ton of weight a few years ago but have let some of that creep back in the past year or two. I want to get back on track with that. I think I also want to step up with teaching a bit more. I'm probably not ready quite yet to start my own program (though my instructor seems to support it when I bring it up to him), but I hope to step up more and maybe offer to plan and teach the beginner class on my own or step up and teach more pieces of the intermediate/advanced class so I can get more comfortable teaching at that level. Finally, I want to work more on my sparring game. It's just not where I want it to be, so I want to see if I can find someone willing to spend more time with me on that to bring it up to where I want it to be. Edit-- I also want to add attend at least one seminar. I've never been to one and I feel like I'm missing out.

We give them one warning. If they don't stop, they're asked to leave class for the day. We've had too many kids get hurt due to horseplaying in class. Karate is serious stuff and people can get seriously hurt if they're playing around with it.

Hey! Awesome! Feels good to be able to go into the holiday with all the worry behind you and a sense of accomplishment, doesn't it?

What are your personal Martial Arts Goals for 2016? A whole year stretches out before us. What are you going to do with it?

So, how'd everyone do with their goals? Go back and quote what you said and let us know how you did with it (or just write up what your goals were if you didn't get a chance to post at the beginning of the year. Goal one-- I did pretty good with this. I wasn't as systematic as I wanted to be, but the burst of work I put into it over the course of the year did pay off in the end as I did earn my black belt at the last adult class of the year. Goal two-- No dice for this one. Just not enough time for an after school club with me expected to run a homework club four days a week after school. I also don't think the principal would go for it. I'm considering now trying to start a small program at the YMCA by my boyfriends house (over half an hour away from my current school and I'd do it opposite nights, so there'd be no conflict of interest and I could continue attending my current dojo and learning). My instructor's all for it, but we'll see. Not sure I'm ready just yet. I'm content to stay in the planning phase for awhile.

Yup. One of my "martial arts new years goals" from last year was to get my black belt by the end of the year. I didn't think I was going to make it (which was fine with me-- everything in its time), but I guess I just barely squeaked by. Really looking forward to the next year now.

Congratulations!