Lupin1

I'd say it's a marketing thing. My old instructor used to like to tell us certain moves were "deadly". It always made me smile a bit. I think "deadly" is in the practitioner. Humans are fairly fragile. Most people-- even untrained people-- have the physical ability to kill. They just lack the mental ability. Good people generally don't want to kill. It takes a lot to overcome that when necessity warrants it. I know I could physically kill someone pretty easily with the martial arts I know. I wonder, though, if I'd have the mental resolve to actually do it. I pray I never have to find out.

Spoken like a Texan.

Nice! Congrats on the promotion and on the (early) graduation! Lots of work ahead, to be sure, but you got this!

I got promoted to nidan tonight! It's been almost two and a half years since I got my shodan. My training was a bit sporadic for awhile after shodan. I've been training and teaching very consistently for the past nine months, though, and I finally broke through! Woo! I'm no longer considered a "new" black belt! Next up-- official instructor certification!

If they're Isshinryu, I'm guessing they can keep their belt, though they will have to learn all the "extra" kata we do at our school. If they're from a different style, it depends. If they're just visiting, they can wear their black belt. If they plan on training with us long term, they have to start at white belt, though they'll most likely advance much faster than normal.

I like books for learning theory and history. The books that show you moves in little black and white stills are not helpful to me at all.

Happy birthday, Noah!

We teach the kids the first way. Usually once they hit junior black belt I'll teach them the more advanced way. I don't hold the stationary end against the small of the back, though, I hold it against my stomach with enough hanging down to be the tail. I just put on my belt and measured the "tails". They're almost exactly 12".

Way to go!

I don't talk much and I don't know much...

That looks amazing. Now I just need to figure out what Youtube Red is....

Happy birthday, Liam!

I definitely agree. Our one high schooler is in 10th grade right now and is a Jr Black Belt. She still primarily attends the kids' class, but she acts more as an assistant instructor during that class. She helps with the games rather than plays them and helps hold bags and work with the younger students. We've invited her to start attending the adult class and she's started staying for a bit, but she doesn't usually stay for the entire thing since she has to get home and do homework. It's enough to get her working more seriously on more advanced stuff, however I don't think she'll make it to shodan before she graduates high school. She's just not working consistently enough to make solid progress.

We've restructured our rank system before, but only for children. The ranks for adults remain: White Yellow Blue Green Brown Black For children it's slowly expanded over the years. First white belt was split into three belts for children. Previously it took kids about a year to get through white belt. In the 80s they were fine with this, but as the decades wore on and kids started expecting more immediate rewards, that didn't work anymore and kids would get frustrated and quit before they ever got to yellow belt. So for kids it became: White Purple (equivalent of adult white) Orange (equivalent of adult white) Yellow Blue Green Brown Black Around 2000 my instructor started noticing a huge attrition for yellow belts and thought it was due to going from a belt every 3-5 months to staying the same for over a year. So he split yellow into two and added a yellow belt with a black stripe. That didn't do much, so it only lasted a few years (coincidently, when I was in middle school I dropped out at yellow with a black stripe). In 2010 he made the latest change to our children's rank system. He noticed all the other schools around here gave kids black belts after just a few years and that our blue/green belts were better than the kid black belts at other schools in the area. He wasn't usually one for changing things based on what others were doing, but he was noticing a lot of kids quitting or getting picked on because they were only blue or green belts while all their friends who had been studying for less time than them were black belts. He held the belief that everything under shodan is meaningless anyway, and the entire point of the colored belts was to give people motivation and keep them coming, so he had no qualms with changing around pre-shodan belts, as long as the standards for shodan and above remained the same. So he added a junior black belt rank that was the equivalent of adult green and brown belt. Now it takes kids 4-6 years to get to junior black belt and then another 4-5 years to get to shodan from there (longer if they start younger, shorter if they start older). It takes an average adult about 5 years to go from white to shodan. Here's the current kids' ranking system with the adult equivalent in parenthesis. White Purple (white) Orange (white) Yellow (white) Blue (yellow) Green (yellow) Brown 1 (blue) Brown 2 (blue) Jr. Black 1 (green) Jr. Black 2 (brown 3+2) Jr. Black 3 (brown 1) Shodan Honestly, I can't say how much all those changes have affected retention rate. I think it's more of a change in demographics of who we serve than anything else. We work out of a Boys and Girls Club. When the karate program started in the 80s, the club served mostly pre-teens and teenagers and so that's who did karate. They had longer attention spans and moved up the ranks more quickly-- often starting in middle school and getting to shodan by the time they graduated high school. Now the B&GC serves mostly elementary school kids with a few middle schoolers. The majority of our students now start in 2nd or 3rd grade (we won't take younger than that) and so learn much more slowly. A kid starting in 2nd grade will still take until around graduating high school to get shodan, but now that's stretched to 11 years! That's a long time for a kid to wait for black belt, so it makes sense to add a Jr. Black Belt. There's also the problem that high school kids never go to the B&GC anymore, whereas they used to be the primary demographic. So we lose most of our students once they hit middle/high school and stop going to the club. Very few stick with us once they get into high school. We just have one high schooler now and she works part time at the club. If it weren't for her working there, we would've lost her along with everyone else. But for the rest of them, they at least have a chance to get Jr. Black Belt by the time they finish 8th grade so they leave with a sense of accomplishment. We don't charge tuition or have any testing or belt fees, so we're not trying to retain students to make money. We want to retain them and keep them coming so they can learn and benefit from studying karate. All our changes have been based solely on what's best for our students and what will motivate them to try hardest and stick with it for as long as possible. In the end, though, we lose them all. So those are our reorganizations and our challenges.

I'm proud of my black belt and the years of work it represents, but I recognize that black belt does not equal master. Black belt is like a high school diploma-- you've got a solid base and are ready for more advanced study. It's an accomplishment, but it's an accomplishment that almost anyone can achieve if they put in the time and effort. That's how I think of it. At my school I'm currently the lowest ranking adult as a shodan (hopefully almost nidan). Every other adult there has been studying since before I was born. I think that's gone a long way in keeping me humble. I've got a black belt around my waist, but I'm still a total noob compared to the rest of them.

We wear all white until shodan. After that you can wear whatever you want. Most people stick to a combination of white and black (I usually do either all black or black pants with a white top), but you can wear whatever you want. My instructor tells us in the 70s his classmates would get really into it and wear things like tie dyed gis and all denim gis trying to be unique.

Happy birthday Alex!

Awwww. Thank you Patrick! I'm all teary eyed now. This is an amazing community to be part of. It's very rare to find such a welcoming, positive, well-managed community on the internet. I'm very proud to be part of KF!

We just do Tuesday and Thursday. Tuesday is kids' class from 6:30-7:30 and adult class 7:30-8:30. Thursday is a mixed kid/adult class 6:30-7:30. We used to have an adult class on Saturday mornings, as well, but no one ever showed up.

Honestly, the few times I've had to use my karate and found out I actually sorta knew what I was doing. When you're learning it, it's easy to feel like you're just going through the motions and it wouldn't be effective in real life. But the few times I had to use my karate I made it work and surprised myself.

Thank you everyone! I had a great day!

As a New Englander, you know I have to go with the Pats. But I have to admit I'm starting to feel a little bad for the rest of the US...

I had an access code that unlocked the door. The lock had a numeric keypad over the deadbolt. I'd just type my code into the keypad and the door would unlock. No phone required. Even if I didn't have a code, though, I could've gone to the neighbors house and used their phone to call my boyfriend. He would've been able to open the app on his phone and remotely unlock the door for me from Texas (where he was on his business trip).

Congratulations, everyone! It's wonderful to be part of such an amazing community with so many great members! I'm honored to know and learn from all of you.

I do worry that sometimes I look like an easy target. I look much younger than I am and I'm naturally a very sweet, kind, giving person. I have a friendly face and smile a lot. I try to put on my best "don't mess with me" face and try to walk tall and confident when I'm out alone, but I'm not sure how well I pull it off.