Lupin1

Completely agree. I don't expect pricing on every ad in every newspaper, but if I go to their website I'd like to be able to get a general idea even if it's just the base line with "additional pricing options available" or something like that. But when all there is is a "contact us" page with boxes to enter in my contact info without even a text box in which to explain what I'm looking for, I'm very reluctant to put down my information.

I do completely understand this, but I still would love an idea of what I'm getting myself into. If my budget is $75 a month, I may be able to swing $85 or $90 for the right school (and I would visit a school if I knew it was only $15-20 over my budget just to see), but one place around here is $130 a month and I don't care how great they are, I just can't swing that. It also wouldn't be that bad if, upon visiting those places, they laid it out on the table and let you take it or leave it. I actually visited an awesome Kyokushin school that did this-- they didn't advertise prices beyond their introductory deal, but when I went for a trial class the guy laid it all out before the class started and told me it was completely up to me if I chose to continue after that class. Although I chose not to study there, I respected that approach much more than the pressure some places will lay on you the moment you're in the door. Also to be honest, I'd feel much more comfortable visiting a school that advertised their prices, even if they were over my budget, just because I'd know what I was in for. The schools that don't-- I may be in for a great experience like the Kyokushin class, or I may wind up trapped in some back office for two hours while five different people surround me and each give me their own sales pitch and try to convince me how worth it it is (another experience I had). In the end-- I understand the strategy, and know it must work because many of the schools that use it are extremely successful businesses, but for me personally, it turns me off. I feel much more comfortable going into a known entity. And I feel like, if I do end up going here, my interactions and classes will be more straight shooting and up front. It may be an unfair judgement on my part, but it is my initial takeaway.

We don't "auto grade" but we do move all the beginners up at the same time for the first few belt levels. For the kids we usually start groups of 5-6 beginners all at the same time and keep them learning together (usually half the class doing warmups and kihon with everyone else and then half the class separate working on basics [my job]). After they all have the general pattern of the first kata and the majority of them can do it decently without prompting or too many pauses, we'll move the whole group up to the next belt. Since we continue working that material along with the new, it's ok if everyone doesn't have it perfectly or to the same level. We follow that pattern usually until yellow belt (our fourth belt for the kids and the first "official Isshinryu" belt) when they start being graded each in their own time. It keeps them motivated in the beginning and keeps them coming as well as gives a much needed confidence boost to the ones who maybe aren't quite "getting it" yet. As our first few kids belts are mostly just made up ranks to give the kids smaller goals and keep them motivated (we don't even have those belts for the adults-- they just keep a white belt until they have all four beginning kata down), it doesn't matter as much and it keeps them excited and happy and showing up long enough to give it a fair chance. So honestly I can see the benefits in both. I certainly don't think anyone should advance to black belt that way and not even into the intermediate/advanced kyu grades. But in the beginning when everyone's just learning, the confidence boost may more than make up for the leniency and a lot of times the small discrepancies even themselves out along the way.

I'm considering dabbling in another art a few nights a week for fun and exercise. At first I was planning on going back to Judo, but I'm frankly a little afraid of all the injuries I saw and incurred in my year studying that art. My other thought was BJJ to work more on my ground game. I'm looking around at the different schools in the area, though, and something that's been bugging me is the fact that no one advertises their prices. It seems to be very common in the martial arts world (along with gyms and many fitness programs) to not give prices until after bringing someone in for a meeting or a trial class or after getting contact information for them. As a fairly shy person who doesn't like confrontation, this keeps me from even considering schools that may be a great fit for me. I don't want to be pressured and have to say no after someone spends a bunch of time trying to convince me to join their class. I have a set budget and I just need to know if a school fits my budget before I spend my value time (and they spend theirs) going through the sales pitch. Why are prices in the martial arts such a secretive thing? Can anyone shed some light on it for me?

I second everything Dave said. Even just a handful of kata are more than enough for a lifetime of study (not that I'm focused enough to stick to that... but in theory...). If it makes you feel any better, I'm a brown belt and I just finished learning Nijushiho.

I would never try to get my boyfriend to join. He wouldn't appreciate it in the least bit. He's a huge guy who concealed carries and, even unarmed, is big enough that every fight he's been in he's simply Hulk Smashed and destroyed and it's worked just fine for him. There's no way he would respect doing hours of kata and kihon with just a few partner drills a class and due to that fact, I don't want him there. As for getting a significant other to join in general-- I'd say don't get your hopes up. Martial Arts is really something you have to personally be drawn to in order to really get into it. If they go just for you, they won't put in the effort or they'll resent it and it'll end up driving a wedge more than bringing you together. I'd say suggest trying a few classes-- maybe tout the exercise benefits or see if she'd be interested in a woman's self-defense class or something. But if she isn't interested or, if after giving it a try she decides it's not for her, you'd both be much happier looking for some other pastime you can share.

I would say train in shoes. For awhile my instructor actually made us train in street clothes-- shoes included-- at least one day a week. His rational was that if you're going to be attacked, you most likely won't be wearing a gi and have bare feet. I personally prefer training in bare feet, but he has a point...

Awesome! Good luck! That sounds like a dream come true!

I got pine sap (at least I think that's what it was) on my gi last Halloween night when I wore it hanging out in a graveyard in Salem, MA (awesome story). Must have picked up some kind of a curse as well as a stain because no matter how many times I've washed it, oxycleaned it, spot treated it, even bleached it a few times-- the stain hasn't even faded in an entire year. It's not that big a deal-- more an annoyance than anything else. And I plan on buying a new one when I test for Shodan sometime next year, so I'm not too worried about it.

The resource officer for our middle schools has his office in my library. He was telling us the other day about the Krav Maga class they're taking. He seems to love it. A little more brutal than I personally enjoy, but these guys need to know that stuff...

The kids class is usually kept around 10-15 students with 2-3 instructors and one assistant. Adult doesn't really have instructors and students-- we just all work out together and the more advanced help the less advanced, although 4 of the 7-8 adults are official instructors. For such a hands-on activity that can be very dangerous without constant supervision, I'd say any higher than 10-1 for kids is too much (and even then I wouldn't feel comfortable without another adult in the room). For adults 20-1 would be absolute maximum, although with that level you certainly wouldn't get much individual help and attention and poor habits could form unnoticed fairly easily.

YES! I've got no advice, but I have the exact same problem. My instructor keeps yelling at me to pull my toes back when I kick, but my toes don't go back... Front kicks on the bag are my worse nightmare.

My instructor had some severe complications due to cancer a few years ago and now can barely stand up. He still comes to class and trains religiously-- he just modifies everything and takes it very slow or else he'll fall over. A 5-year-old could probably kick his rear just by knocking him over, but I would never, ever in a million years think I'm a better martial artist than him.

Meh, personally I think kids are too protective of kids. They need a little rough housing to grow and develop properly. If you were clearly not hurting either of them, I see no problem. That said-- I greatly dislike the phrase "do you know who I am". To me it implies seeing yourself as above other people and if someone used it on me, in my eyes they would have immediately discredited themselves. You should have dealt with it as one adult being disrespectful of another adult and his property, regardless of who they are within the dojo.

I'm sure it depends on the person. One of the things they always used to drill into us in JROTC was "even if you don't respect the person, respect the rank". I could never do that and still can't. If I don't respect the person (and usually it's because they've shown that they don't respect ME or someone else), then I don't respect the person. I won't be outright disrespectful to them because I, as a person, strive to treat everyone with respect regardless of how I feel about them, but I won't go out of my way for them like I do for people I respect and I'll take everything they say with a grain of salt until they earn that respect back (which doesn't happen too often). That said, people usually all have my respect as a given until they lose it, so in that sense, it is given rather than earned. I give my respect freely from the moment I meet someone unless they do something (again-- usually involving treating another person badly) that causes it to be lost.

Depends on the system. The Marines who brought Isshinryu to the US studied for maybe a year and half with Shimabuku before he awarded them black belt and when they left him he gave them certificates with the rank he thought they may one day rise to. Upon returning to the US, many of them immediately assumed that rank and began teaching with maybe two years under their belt. Granted the training was harder and many of them were able to train every day, but I still usually try not to think about it...

I enjoy going to different schools and seeing how things are done differently. I don't think I could seriously train at another striking art school just yet-- too confusing while I'm still trying to get the basics of Isshinryu-- but I like experimenting and seeing what's out there and how it compares to what I've learned.

why don't the adults chip in? I think most do at some point. I know I've thrown a $20 at them here and there and most of the adults have bought bos or kicking paddles or things to donate to the club along the way. We just don't do it on a regular basis like we ask the kids to mostly because the adult program isn't entirely official or sponsored by the club. Right now (besides the founding instructors) it consists entirely of people who started out in the kids' program and didn't want to quit after we aged out, so we come, help out with the kids' class, then stay and work with each other for 45 mins or so afterwards.

That's how it is at my school. The kids pay $1 a class just to help buy and maintain our (sparse) equipment. For adults it's free, so the vast majority of the adults come in early and volunteer with the kids' classes to help out and give back to the club.

You have to remember that the "ryu" systems (along with Shotokan and codified Aikido, Judo, etc) only started to come into being in the early to mid 1900s. Before that every individual instructor simply taught his own blend of Naha-te, Shuri-te and Tomari-te mixed with some Chinese Boxing, Kobudo and anything else they may have picked up. It was expected and accepted for serious karateka to study with multiple instructors and blend together what they consider most effective into their own personal style. The general public seems to have this notion that the "traditional" martial arts have been exactly the same for hundreds to thousands of years and we're just know changing them in modern times. The truth is the vast majority of styles as we know them today are less than a century old and have never stopped changing. Changing your karate and making it your own IS traditional. People just don't like the idea of change.

I've tried doing just that several times, but I'm dead in the morning. I wake up over an hour before I need to be out the door as it is just because I need time for my coffee to take effect before I can even get dressed. I really wish I could do that.

Remember that rank is a designation showing where you are in learning *that particular dojo's* curriculum. If you change styles or sometimes even transfer dojos within the same style but in a different organization your rank often times doesn't go with you, because you don't know *that school's* way of doing things. If you learned the orange belt material from your dojo, ask to demonstrate it (I would definitely ask first rather than just doing it), but demonstrating moves not from that school probably won't help you and may even reflect poorly and come off as reckless (as a spectator I'd be worried for the uke's safety-- being taken down by someone who you're not sure has been taught to do so safely can be terrifying).

I would never want to wear my judo gi to a karate class. The thing is like a horse blanket-- thick, rough and HOT. I'm not sure how much physical conditioning you do in your class, but I'd probably pass out after half an hour in a judo top (I've worn the bottoms before though-- they're just like heavy karate gi pants with a bit of reinforcement in the crotch and knees).

As everyone else said, take your time with the initial healing process. After it's done its initial healing, just know your limitations. I broke my left ankle when I was 5 years old and I've had problems with it since. Any little tweak will make it hurt for a few days and I've re-sprained it badly enough to need x-rays 4 or 5 times in the past 20 years. Just continue to take it easy and if there are certain jumping kicks or twisting moves that put stress on it, DON'T DO THEM! At least for a year or two until you can restrengthen it (you should get at least a little PT after to learn exercises you can do for that). Let your instructors and training partners know you have a weak ankle and are going to need to be gentle with it. Don't try to be macho or push through any pain. Modify any movements that might hurt it. If there's a jump spinning kick, just do a normal kick. Cut out major foot-twisting turns and make them simpler. My instructor calls it "old man kata"-- effective karate is meant to be effective into your old age when your mobility isn't what it used to be and a good karateka can adapt his karate to maximize what his body can do.

This post was originally published as an article in a dedicated KarateForums.com Articles section, which is no longer online. After the section was closed, this article was most to the most appropriate forum in our community. "If you don't know where you're going, you'll end up someplace else." - Yogi Berra One often hears the study of martial arts referred to as a journey. A bright eyed young beginner energetically takes off into the vast, endless sky of martial arts knowledge, hoping someday to land in an exciting new place from which limitless new journeys are possible. Yet just as a pilot never takes off without creating a flight plan, so a martial artist must never set out without knowing where he or she hopes to end up. In order to successfully bring any student (including oneself) to a desirable place of knowledge and skill, one must constantly ask three essential questions: Where am I?Where am I going? How do I get there?By asking these questions constantly and reassessing regularly, you can stay on course and, though not always at the estimated time of arrival, you will land safely at your destination. Where Am I? or Formative Assessment When you think of "assessment" in martial arts, what's the first thing that comes to mind? More often than not, it's the rank test - that grueling, sweat-inducing day where everything you've worked for these past months and years comes to a head in a single all-or-nothing display of knowledge, skill and determination. It's the summation of all your hard work and dedication and when it's over, you either go back to the starting gate or successfully move to the next leg of your journey. But what about before that? Does any good pilot take off in the direction of his destination and then proceed to not look at his instruments again until he begins his descent with fingers crossed in the hope that he's landing in the right place? Just as a pilot must constantly read his instruments to know where he is at any given moment along his flight path, so must we check in regularly to keep track of just where we are at any given moment in our training. We must get into the habit of constantly assessing ourselves and our students, and teach our students to constantly assess themselves. In the education world, this is known as "formative assessment" - assessment which helps form and reform learning as it's still taking shape as opposed to "summative assessment" which takes place at the end of learning - the summation of all that hard work. Formative assessment is sometimes known as "checking in." We ask ourselves what we're doing wrong, what we're doing right, and what we could be doing better. We assess our confidence in a given skill and use that information to shape what we do next. This checking in must be happening every minute. A student can know she's struggling with a certain move and use the information to determine she must spend more time on it before moving on or that she must seek additional help. A teacher can check in with a student during class by noticing a look of confusion on his face and know he must go back and re-explain a concept in another way. These second-by-second determinations of position, and adjustments to the course of action, are essential to getting to any destination. Here are a few ideas to gain better understanding of where your students are: Observation. Keep an eye on every student. How are their moves looking? What are their facial expressions telling you (confused? bored? confident?)? Who might need a little extra work?Self-assessment. Ask your students how they're feeling about certain techniques or concepts. How do they think they're doing? What do they think they need to work on? Encourage them to ask themselves these questions at regular intervals. Teach backs. Have your student turn around and teach you the move they've been working on. This will not only force them to organize the move better in their minds, but allow you to determine just where in the process they're struggling. "Exit ticket." Have the students demonstrate a certain move or kata as a "ticket" to move on to another activity or take a break. Remember, even if they don't perform the move to satisfaction, this is for you to see where they're at - don't actually hlist=1d them back from doing those things after they've shown you. Games. Especially with younger kids, but even with adults, games can provide a fun, low stress way for you to see where everyone is at. Relay races, stations, contests - all can give you an idea of where work is needed without seeming too much like a test.Where Am I Going? or Setting Objectives Is there any point in knowing where you are if you can't then determine whether to turn left or right? Once you've decided where you or your students currently stand, the next step is knowing where you're headed. This could be in the form of knowing your final destination (long term goal) or just knowing your next stop (short term goal). Goals must be set for every length of time - where do I want to be with my martial arts in fifty years? Where do I want to be in a year? Where do I want to be next week? Where do I want to be in five minutes? The larger questions are important to keep in mind for the sake of motivation and general direction, but it's the more immediate goals on which we need to concentrate day to day. Take care of the inches, and miles will take care of themselves. There are several criteria for setting effective lesson objectives. An objective must be achievable. Setting high standards is always laudable, but if those standards are too high, you're setting yourself up for failure and discouragement. Set a goal that will be a challenge and will take work, but set one that you're going to be able to meet.An objective must be action oriented. A good practice is to start each goal with "The student will be able to." Your goal should not be to "practice kicks" or "work on this kata this many times," but should instead always look to what your students will be able to do at the end of that practice that they weren't able to do before. An objective must be specific and measurable. "Be a better martial artist" is a great goal, but you'll get much further if you ask yourself what makes a better martial artist. Do you want to throw better kicks? Have more consistent stances in a certain kata? The more detail you can put into your goal, the more guidance you'll have in getting there. Keep asking yourself questions to flesh out exactly what it is you want. If you want to be a better kicker, what specific kick do you want to improve first? What about it do you want to improve? Do you want it to be higher, harder, steadier? Set a time limit. If you want to throw a higher roundhouse kick, how high do you want it to be in a month? How consistently do you think you can realistically throw that kick that high in that time frame? The pilot with the goal of "end up in the southwest" isn't going to get nearly as close to their desired location as the pilot with the goal "land on the third runway at the Gallup Airfield in Gallup, New Mexico at 7:30 Tuesday evening." The martial artist with the goal of "be a better kicker" isn't going to get nearly as far as the martial artist with the goal of "throw a roundhouse kick above my own head height on 75% of attempts by November 1."And just as a pilot has to tell ground contrlist=1 where they're going, set up accountability for yourself. Write your personal goals down or share them with a training partner. Write the goals for each lesson on a white board at the beginning of class so you and all your students know what they're trying to achieve that day. Keep track of where you want to be so you know when you get there. How Do I Get There? or Closing the Gap The first two questions help us to identify what is called "the gap." The gap is the distance between where you are - what you know and can do now - and where you want to be when you've reached your goal. The third and arguably most challenging question identifies your plan for closing the gap between your current location and your destination - it's the flight itself. This is a question that needs to be addressed on a case-by-case basis, depending on the individual and their answers to the first two questions. Here's where your knowledge of yourself and your students and of the material you are teaching comes into play. This step will be very individualized and tailored to the situation. The most important thing, however, is to ensure your course of action is constantly informed and adjusted based on the information gathered through your ongoing assessments and evlist=1ving goals. If a pilot notices his heading is off slightly, he adjusts his course immediately. This same flexibility is needed in teaching. As you constantly gather information on where your students are and where they're headed, you should be constantly changing your approach to help them get there. The information gathered in the first two steps can only do good if it's put into use consistently throughout every lesson. Where are you or your students right at this very second? Where do you want to be tomorrow, next month, next year? What specific steps are you going to take to get there? By asking yourself these questions continuously throughout your teaching and training, and putting them to work every second of every day, you help keep your students and yourself on course to reach any destination to which you aspire.