Lupin1

Idk. I lived out by Albuquerque for two years at around 7,000 feet. I trained out there and then moved back to sea level. The benefits of having trained at high altitude lasted maybe a few weeks and weren't all that pronounced. I'm not sure it'd make too much of a difference. You'd probably be better off doing interval sprints. Walk two minutes, sprint all out for a minute, walk two, sprint one, walk two, sprint one, repeat five or six times. It gets your body used to ramping up the oxygen and heart rate really quickly and then cooling down quickly.

Part of it is probably not being used to the exercise-- it takes awhile for your body to adjust. Just keep at it and it'll get easier and easier (and the weather cooling off in the coming months will help, as well). The other part is probably improper technique, which is to be expected for a beginner. My Judo instructor once told us that you can tell the master because he'll be the one barely breaking a sweat (I'm sure he was exaggerating to make the point). The better your technique gets, the less you rely on effort and physical strength and the more you start relying on your wits and technique. Movements just get smaller and more efficient over time and there's really not all that much you can do to rush it.

As kids we learned never to ask that question early on because the answer was usually "well, I was going to start you on it tonight, but now I think you're not quite ready. You'll start it when you stop asking about it". Same answer for "when am I going to get my new belt" (since we don't do official testing cycles.

That's funny. When we teach our kids to spar, the ridge hand is one of the first moves we teach them (left punch, right punch, ridge hand is their very first combination).

In order to be a good instructor-- you have to know how to teach! Yes, some people are "naturals" at teaching just like some people are "naturals" at martial arts-- but it doesn't mean that person doesn't have to be taught and put a lot of work into mastering that art! A serious martial arts instructor should take the teaching part of their job as seriously as the training part-- they should do research on effective teaching methods, practice new methods, and constantly reflect on what they can do to improve. Teaching is an art in and of itself. Not everyone can be great at it, but everyone should always work to get better.

As far as I can remember, my club always required a full, plain white gi (except for the few years we had summer training). Since coming back from the summer, our head children's instructor has expressed the desire to move to just gi bottoms, belts, and t-shirts. Most of our kids don't have a lot of money and a good percentage of them go back and forth between multiple households and so having a clean, well-fititng gi at every class isn't usually a priority. He was just going to do whatever t-shirt they wanted, but I suggested getting a simple club t-shirt and he said he has some money in the budget for it, so we might be doing that. I know a few other local schools have this uniform and the TKD school I visited for a weeks weeks did it (still have my t-shirt from them). Does anyone else do this? What do you think of the idea?

I read (there's something very therapeutic about reading), spend time outdoors by the lake or in the woods, and breathe. I'm not all that religious any more, but still like to think of spiritual things-- I'm more into karma and good spiritual energy now and making my soul stronger and wiser. When bad things happen to me or I get overwhelmed, I just try to think of it as part of my journey and think about how the experience can strengthen and grow my soul. I used to meditate, but one time while I was meditating in bed it felt like something jumped on the bed and it was one of the scariest experiences of my life, so now I'm afraid to do it.

Just wanted to say, I'm sorry to hear that. Know you have friends here, as well. Sending good thoughts your way.

I take some Vitamin D during the winter as the number one place people get it is from the sun, which we don't get much of in winter here (dark when I go into work, dark when I come out). You can definitely feel the difference (like how you just feel better when you get more sun).

Definitely agree with this. We require white for kyu ranks because it's traditional, but if I ever have my own program, we'll wear black. One thing male instructors (which all mine are) don't take into account is that when a female student reaches a certain age, having to wear white pants can cause severe anxiety which can lead to attendance dropping or a girl dropping out altogether.

His rationale is that black belts have earned the privilege of wearing what they want. Once they reach dan ranking, their training is their own and they can decide what to wear for it. We've got everything from the very proper, traditional Korean guy who wears a starched and pressed immaculately white gi every single class to the guy with the dingy faded black gi with the sleeves chopped off. It helps that it's a small, non-commercial program so we don't have to worry much about looking good for potential customers.

My school just requires all white karate gis for kyu students. We recommend light weight for kids and middle weight for adult beginners, but as long as it's all white, anything goes. As for patches, we don't wear any. There is the option to wear an Isshinryu patch upon reaching yellow belt and starting the first Isshinryu kata, but not a single person takes advantage of it and thus most people don't even realize it's an option. Black belts can wear "anything they're brave enough to pull off" as my instructor puts it. Most stick to some combination of white and black, but apparently a guy once wore blue and one black belt cuts off his sleeves.

According to this video, it may actually be better that he's closer to you. You guys have a Nash Equilibrium!

Nearest Isshinryu dojo is probably in another state. It's not too big up here. I don't know if I'd consider the fitness center real competition. I think a fitness center karate class is going to attract different clientele than a free standing dojo. Give it time. You'll probably find it's not that big a deal. If anything-- reup your programing if possible and advertise it. I'm sure running out of a fitness center, they're not able to offer nearly as much variety as you are. Take advantage of that.

A trick I learned from my instructor which was repeated later on by the instructors when I took Judo-- Bring a notebook (even a pocket sized one) and a pen or pencil with you to class every day. As soon as class lets out, write down things you think are important or things you want to practice more or tips you were given or anything else you think you're going to forget. Refer back to it when practicing.

We don't usually advertise, as we have a waiting list. But we usually don't follow the waiting list in a "first come, first serve" manner. As we're run out of a non-profit children's center, kids have to be members of the center before they can sign up. Then, for the most part, our head children's instructor picks kids who attend the center regularly and have shown themselves to be well-behaved and committed. That means a lot of kids who are on the waiting list but who don't generally use the center or who are behavior problems get passed over. We did put up a sign at the entrance to the center during the last few weeks of our summer program advertising sign ups for karate. We're taking on a new class of 8-10 beginners this fall. We want it to be all 5-8th graders and all kids who attended the summer program at the youth center so that we know them and they know us. Putting up a sign is a lot more than we usually do, but then again we usually only take 4 or 5 kids in a beginner's group rather than 8-10.

Awesome! Here's to 25,000 more!

I'm with JR-- don't rock the boat yet as a new student. Even with an anonymous e-mail. Osu is very common in martial arts dojos and there's really nothing wrong with it. It boosts spirit and camaraderie (reminds me of "Oo-rah" in the Marine Corps). And "sempai" is pronounced sem-pie, as an anime-loving 10-year-old totally schooled me on a few months ago. Think "kiai"-- same spelling with that long I sound at the end. How's everything else with the school? Keep in mind that most karate schools aren't trying to be perfect Japanese culture schools, nor do they have to be. When you study classic wrestling, you don't have to wear a toga and speak Greek. When you play lacrosse you don't have to wear moccasins and speak Lakota. The sports grow and evolve and change in their new environments and it's almost always to their benefit.

Do it! Best piece of advice about the college essay-- make it stand out. Admissions counselors have read a dozen essays about kids' family vacation or how working with someone different changed their perspective or about winning the state championship at some sport. It's overdone. So whatever you choose to write about, pick a very unique aspect of it to look at and write in a different, engaging manner (so don't just write about how much work you put into getting your black belt and how you learned to stick to and accomplish a goal and keep going even when you were frustrated-- that's been done a billion times). I went to a military boot camp thing in 10th grade and wrote about that as it was something not too many kids have done. I wrote it as a narrative story telling a little snippet of something that happened that was incredibly intense and stressful, but that ended up be funny and I used it to tell about how I can take stressful situations and get myself and others through them with a smile. When they called to offer me acceptance (it was a small school), they said over and over how unique my essay was and how it make them laugh and gave them a look at something they'd never seen before. There are definitely those unique moments in your martial arts journey. My advice would be to find one special, unique moment that's not something loads of people have experienced (so not just "when I won [or lost] the tournament and learned the value of hard work and giving my all". Lots of people win/lose at sports. Pick something that's unique to your journey) and write it as a short, engaging narrative that plops your audience down right at the peak of the action and use it to illustrate some aspect of your personality that makes you unique and a good addition to their student body.

I started teaching the beginners when I was a green belt (4th kyu). Our head instructor experienced some complications from chemotherapy a few years back and because of that his balance is very poor, he has very little stamina, and it's very hard to understand his speech. One of our other instructors took over the kids' program, but it's very hard for him to teach the brand new beginners while at the same time working with the more advanced kids, so I was asked to step up. Now I'm a 1st kyu preparing to test for my Shodan this Fall, but for going on three years now, the newest beginners have been my responsibility-- usually with our head instructor sitting by in a chair watching and giving direction and advice-- although I've been doing more and more on my own. I've also started working with groups of more advanced kids when we don't have any beginners or when one of the black belts takes the beginners to switch things up. I was very nervous at first, but I've got a Bachelor's Degree in teaching and I was a 2nd grade teacher for several years (now I'm a school librarian, which is a little less applicable) so, even though I'm not the most experienced martial artist, I am an experienced teacher and feel like I'm able to teach the very basics just as well, if not better, than most of our black belts. And with every group of beginners that comes through, I get better and better.

Depends, I think. I don't own a school, but I'm an assistant instructor in our program. It's a free program run through a non-profit center for kids, so we don't have any monetary motivation for making it easy. We do, however, like to see kids stick with it as long as possible for their own benefit, as we think it's a positive thing for them. For that reason, we've changed the syllabus around and added more belts to motivate them and keep them showing up (though I know my instructor would love to go back to just white, green, brown and black or even just white and black). One thing we won't compromise on, though, is the standards for Shodan. So, although we've added more belts (including a youth black belt) to the kids' program to keep them going, it still takes about 7-8 years for your average kid to reach adult black belt. Unsurprisingly, that doesn't happen very often. In over 30 years running the program, our instructor has promoted a grand total of 14 people to black belt, most of them having started as adults. If we ran the program for money, maybe that would change. Dunno. Probably. That's one of the main reasons my instructor chose to run the program as a non-profit.

Very nice. We're very much the "church hall dojo". We're in an upstairs room of a non-profit community center. We use the room Tuesdays and Thursdays and a wrestling program uses it Mondays and Wednesdays. We've got the floor mats from the wrestling program (they paid for those but let us use them), two WaveMaster punching bags in one corner, a full length mirror along one wall, and the Isshinryu "charts" on metal sign/poster things hanging on another wall. We're also slowly acquiring punching and kicking shields and paddles. Before we used old pool noodles. We're getting an ok supply of sparring gear, as well (mostly second hand).

I don't pass any (pretty short commute) but there are a good 5-10 in town. Most are just too expensive for me, though there are a few I wouldn't hesitate to try if they were less money.

I skipped Judo once because the only parking space left was a parallel spot on a busy road in front of the building. I haven't parallel parked since driver's ed 15 years ago (never once had a need for it). I made three unsuccessful attempts before giving up and going home in disgrace...