Lupin1

I've thought about asking my boyfriend to train with me a few times and some people at my school have suggested it, but I don't think it would work out. Karate is something you need a personal interest in to really embrace as an adult. My boyfriend is a very large guy who's won every fight he's ever been in using the "Hulk smash and destroy" method and he always concealed carries daily. To him, everything we do in class would seem impractical and worthless and he wouldn't appreciate the tradition of the kata at all. So sometimes it's just better for people to have their own seperate hobbies.

Our classes are run during the school year only. The club we run out of is only open until 6 in the summer (as opposed to 9 during the school year), so we'd have to keep it open just for us. We used to do that, but we've found we'd only get one or two students who actually show up in summer. And that was on a good day. There'd be times it'd be only the instructor. On top of that, others would see the cars in the parking lot and the door unlocked and think the club was open to the public and come in, even if we put signs on the doors (people don't seem to read signs). Because of all that, we just stop at the end of June and pick back up in September. It takes a few weeks for the kids to get back into the swing of things and regain what they forgot over the summer (just like in regular school), but it is what it is. Our head instructor, however, invites the adults to come to his house and train in his backyard on nice summer evenings, but so far this summer he's been in the hospital and going to follow up appointments, so we haven't done that yet.

This is interesting stuff. We do about 5-10 minutes of static stretching with the kids at the beginning of every class. The only dynamic stretch we do is leg swings and we only do five on each leg after we've done our static stretching. We've literally been doing the same warmup for at least the past 20 years (at least since I started when I was . Adults are expected to come a few minutes early and warm up themselves before class starts, though we usually start with some slow, easy kata to warm up before going harder. Next time I'm in charge of class, I'll have to try to add some more dynamic stretching into our warm up.

We were told both the "white belt becoming green then brown then black" story as well as the "wash away your knowledge and hard work" story, but both were presented as myths. Of course, that didn't stop my 8-year-old self from believing them with my whole heart. Now, however, I wash my belt.

Ahhh, the old "in my day, we had higher standards!" routine. Explain to them that the younger belts have the same standards they did and that they're remembering it differently. Bring up a comparison of their parents saying school was harder in their day or kids behaved better or something like that. Things get changed around in our memories. What looks "too easy" to them now seemed harder when they were first learning it and it seems harder to the kids learning it now. It just looks too easy to your advance students because to them now, it IS easy stuff. As teenagers, they're probably experiencing this phenomenon for the first time, but it's something that happens a lot in different arenas as you go through life (as in some of my examples above). Sit them down and explain that to them. Then if that doesn't work, do what my instructor does and tell them when they're instructors and teach their own classes, they can set the standards. Until then-- your class, your rules.

I practice martial arts because I enjoy it. It gives me a chance to do something active a few times a week and, most importantly for me, lets me volunteer teaching something positive to the kids. Being completely honest, if it wasn't for helping out with the kids' class and feeling like I'm doing something awesome for them, I probably would've quit a few years ago. The kids keep me going.

Way to go! Thanks for all the quality submissions!

Just 20 period. We only have one class for kids that meets twice a week. We have a waiting list several pages long, but we only have three instructors and between work and health reasons, none of them are available for more classes. I'm just a 1st Kyu right now and I've been working with the beginners' group since I was a 4th Kyu. Hopefully in another year or so, I'll be able to help expand our program. Right now we're talking about giving the beginner's group their own class to let them focus a little more (it's distracting having them try to learn the basics while the rest of the kids are sparring or something on the other side of the room). We're also considering a separate class for younger kids as right now we don't take below 3rd grade and a lot of parents of 1st and 2nd graders are asking about it. My thought is with these groups feeding into the regular kids class, we'll also eventually have to split that class into an intermediate and advanced to keep numbers down. That's my dream for the program, at least, and our head kids' instructor also wants to expand but just doesn't have the means right now. I don't know if it'll ever happen. We've been at just the one kids class and one adult class for 30 years now. We'll see, I guess.

We're also at a rec center and we try to keep it at about 20 students. We usually start beginners groups of about 5 students twice a year (depending on how many openings we have). How many of those stick with it can vary. We've had beginners groups where they were all gone within a few months and we've had groups where they're all still going two years later. Usually out of the 5 or 6 we start, about two make it to yellow belt (about 6-8 months). If they can get through to yellow belt, they usually stay for an average of two years. We also tend to lose them slowly after yellow belt. Rather than just up and stopping all together (like beginners do), they'll drop down to once a week, then they'll show up randomly once every few weeks or make a "false return" where they start showing up every class for a month or so and then they stop.

Also want to point out that you said you got your brown belt several years ago. At my school, at least, if you take more than a year off, you're sent backwards for a bit until you get back up to where you were. I'd look into other schools in your area and talk with them. See if you could find a school with a similar style. Most likely you'll have to start at white belt again, but since you already know a lot and will pick things up faster, you'll probably be able to grade up more quickly by testing more often or even skipping belts.

We don't do too many games, but the class before holidays or school vacations we like to do relay races where they have to race down to kick or punch bags or pads a certain number of times before running back. Before class one day the kids were getting crazy playing tag, so we had them do "kata tag" where if you got tagged you had to do the white belt kata to get unfrozen. I was also thinking it could be substituted with bombardment (get hit by a ball, stop and do a kata) or with kihon (do ten front kicks and ten roundhouse kicks to get unfrozen).

There's a place around here that forces you to buy uniforms, sparring gear, t-shirts and a gym bag from them. But I'm pretty sure they're upfront about it just being a school requirement and not being for insurance reasons. You could look into it more, as others have suggested. I don't think it's a terribly shady requirement in and of itself (schools are allowed to want students to have uniform gear for which the school can assure quality), but if they are lying about the insurance thing, that's pretty shady.

As a female, I always wear a shirt under my gi (just a plain t-shirt-- usually black). We require all our kids to wear shirts under their gis for modesty and hygiene reasons (we don't trust them to wash their uniforms as often as we'd like). Male adults have the choice, though they all choose to wear shirts. When I did Judo, most males chose not to wear anything under their gi tops while the females were required to wear plain white shirts for modesty. Personally, I see nothing wrong with sports bras under gis for those who choose to in an adult class. The vast majority of sports bras cover more than the vast majority of bikini tops, and those seem fine for modesty in most people's eyes.

I agree with those saying it depends on the reason for rank at your school. Some school are very strict with it and to them, it's an indication of skill-- no more, no less. For other schools, like mine, the rules are more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules. Basically, the only rank my instructor very rarely compromises on is Shodan (and even that is flexible for older practitioners or those with disabilities). Every other rank is just a tool to keep people motivated on their way to Shodan. If my instructor really did what he wanted, we'd drop to just white and black belt (maybe brown). Everything else is treated very flexibly and given out for different reasons at different times for different individuals to give them what they need to progress in their individual journeys. They have to be at least semi-proficient in the requirements for the belt, but beyond that we might require a much different level of skill in those requirements for different students depending on what they need to become the best karateka they personally can be.

I think it's because we're free. I honestly don't think too many kids would come to us if it weren't for that. We don't advertise, we don't have a nicely decorated dojo or top of the line equipment, we rarely compete, we don't do flashy jumps or spins or teach kids weapons, we have them do kata over and over and over again, we don't have club cookouts or holiday parties, we don't have fancy uniforms and patches-- we're just not all that great except for the fact that we're priced right. Granted, our instructors are awesome and the kids learn real, traditional karate, but that's not usually what attracts kids to a karate school. Some adults, maybe, and some adults do come to us for that reason, but not the majority.

Water bending from Avatar: The Last Airbender. I have a water bending tattoo...

I spend the night at my mom's house twice a week so I can attend classes. My little sisters all still live with her and they don't work until later in the day and so blast the TV loudly or yell and fight until 2am while I usually try to get to sleep by 10.

His loss, in my opinion. Rec center classes usually serve a different demographic than stand alones-- oftentimes they cater to students who can't afford a more expensive school. I say good for you for jumping in to continue to provide that opportunity for the citizens of your community.

Welcome! Can't wait to hear more about your family's journey! You've got a lot of fun times and quality learning ahead of you!

We don't have official tests except for Shodan. Or, as my instructor would say, every class is a test. For adults it's almost always a surprise. You show up one day and at some point during the class you'll just be told "you're going to green belt", you get a minute of hand shaking and congratulations, and we go on training like nothing happened and you're responsible for ordering your own new belt when you go home. For the kids it's a little more of a production as the kids' instructor likes to tell them a few weeks ahead of time that he's think of promoting them soon-- usually in the hopes that it'll get them coming to class regularly and putting in more effort while they're there. Then one night after they've shown a good amount of effort for a few weeks, he'll have them do all their kata-- usually in front of the whole class (we take turns in groups so everyone does their kata with a few other kids)-- and then during the closing formation they get called up to shake hands, be congratulated, and receive their belt.

I think it's very easy for adults to turn "loss of interest" into "personal & job time constraints". All that really is is a shift in priorities. When you start out, you're all excited about karate and learning to fight and getting in shape and it's your top priority. As you go along and start losing interest, having dinner with your wife, preparing for that presentation (that you used to be able to prepare for before or after class no problem), or catching up on that new TV show all become higher-priority "personal and job constraints" that stop us from going to class. Human beings are very good at justifying things like that to ourselves, but honestly, there's nothing wrong with it. Priorities do change for whatever reasons and as adults (and kids, too) those are choices we make every day and there's no use wasting your life at a karate class you're not all that interested in when you could be spending that time doing something else. For kids, it's usually other activities that take higher priority. In the 30 something years we've ran our program, we've had maybe 4 or 5 kids go all the way to full adult black belt. For us that's a 7 or 8 year commitment. That's a long time for a kid to stay in one activity at the expense of others. For most of them, it's when they hit high school and want to go out for the basketball team or the school play. For me, I quit karate in 8th grade when I joined the US Naval Sea Cadets and then quit that when I got my first job. Kids move through activities as they grow. It's natural.

You can still do that with junior black belt. That's what we did with it. We call it junior black belt and use an "oreo" belt, but it has three degrees and has its own curriculum (equivalent to the three degrees of adult brown belt), so the kids are still working on stuff. It takes them about four years to get JBB and another 3-4 to get full adult black belt, so if they get their JBB in 7th or 8th grade (we don't start them until they're in 3rd or 4th) they'll get their full adult black belt around 17 or 18. If they don't get full black belt by the time they graduate high school, they enter into the adult grading system as brown belts and continue to work on the Shodan requirements from there. The key is to set legitimate goals beyond JBB to keep the kids working rather than just sticking them in a holding pattern until they reach a certain age. I also don't believe in having the same requirements for JBB as for adult black belt. If a kid meets all your requirements for full black belt at 10 they should get a full black belt. Otherwise, JBB should be about working towards the meeting the requirements for full BB.

I go on reddit a lot and frequent the MartialArts and Karate subreddits. MartialArts tends to be mostly people who attack and belittle any discussion about anything other than BJJ, Thai Kickboxing, and MMA. There's a lot of "this style is better than that style" and "that style is completely impractical" talk and it's generally a pretty negative place for any talk of traditional arts. The karate subreddit is a little bit better, but you still get your rouge person who'll come out to talk about the uselessness of kata or tradition every time you try to have a discussion. I'll make some comments here and there on those sites and maybe lurk on a few others, but for serious posting and discussion I always come back here because it's one of the few sites that's very well moderated to foster respectful discussion and an acceptance that all arts are equally valid for their own different purposes.

Thanks! He's one of the three main teachers of the founder of Isshinryu, and so I'll have to give a small presentation about him during my black belt test. This should help a lot!

Depends on if it's the same test for junior black belt as for adult black belt. My school doesn't charge for any testing, but junior black belts still have to test for their shodan because there are higher requirements for shodan than for junior black belt. For us junior black belt is the equivalent of adult brown belt, only with more of a leadership role in the kids' class.