Lupin1

As an elementary school teacher last year, we were actually told that posting grades for the entire class to see was illegal and considered bullying on the part of the teacher. I think that description is a bit overboard (too many things are considered bullying nowerdays), but needless to say I took down my "progress charts" where kids could earn stickers when they got a certain score on tests so kids couldn't see how many stickers the others had. It makes sense. As an adult, I would be devastated if it was displayed in front of all my peers that I failed in some endeavor (but I'll still go home and post about it on Facebook...). Sharing your successes and failures with others should be at your own discretion. That said, there's no point in giving a test if it's impossible to fail and so if a student shows up on test day and doesn't put in the effort and doesn't live up to what he or she has been doing in class, I'd fail them. But that should really be the only occasion someone should fail-- if they're not ready, don't let them test, and if they just have a bad day on test day but have shown they're ready and gave it their all, promote them provisionally and after a few good classes, take away the provision informally with a handshake after class or something. We don't do tests at my karate school except for Shodan-- people are given a new rank when the instructors feel they're ready for it and it's just announced at the closing of class and everyone claps for them and they come up and shake hands. So you can't really fail, although when people are kept at one rank while all their peers are progressing ahead of them, it can have the same effect as failing a test.

Not sure if I've posted here or not, but it's changed a bit. Kids: White Purple Orange Yellow Blue Green 3rd-1st Brown 1st-3rd Jr. Black (equivalent to adult 3rd-1st Brown) Adult Black Adults-- White Yellow Blue Green 3rd-1st Brown Black It's a lot different than when I was a kid in the program a decade and a half ago where once the kids hit yellow belt (about 2 years in), their curriculum and progression became exactly the same as the adults' (he had split the white belt into three belts for the kids so they progress faster in the beginning to keep them interested). But he was losing way too many kids at yellow belt because they became frustrated when their progress all of a sudden slowed down because there was a lot more required for each belt (that's when I quit). So he just recently added the three degrees of junior black for the kids so they continue to have fewer requirements than the adults for each belt and go through them more quickly right up to junior black, where it becomes the same as the adult brown belt curriculum and slows down. In the end, they still hit adult black belt right at the same time.

Oh yeah. In that case, definitely. Hopefully your instructor will have noticed you keep getting whacked in the face by your belt and will automatically order you a smaller size and if not, hopefully he read your request for a smaller size on your form, but if not, definitely buy yourself a smaller size.

I certainly wouldn't bother buying a new belt you may only have for a week or less by the time it ships out to you. Ask your instructor if he has a size two you can borrow until then, or perhaps ask a higher rank close to your size if he or she has their old orange belt they'd let you borrow. Definitely not worth buying a new one at this point.

We actually spent some time in my class a few years ago training with yawara and had one of our students make a pair for everyone in the class. I make sure I have one in each jacket pocket whenever I walk alone at night (it's legal where I am) and when I'm walking through dark or shady areas I keep my hands wrapped around them as I walk. At work I keep a heavy pen with me at all times (thinking about buying a tactical pen for next season). Not technically a weapon, but I'm required to have a pen with me anyway, and works the same if anyone ever tried to grab me.

I agree that it's probably best to study arts very different and complementary to your own until you get a very solid base. I tried TKD once when I was doing volunteer work for a few years on the other side of the country and that was all that was around there. I did it for about a month and it was so different yet so close that I was getting very confused. Now I do both karate and judo and they're just so different that I can do both of them and never get the least bit confused. They complement each other beautifully and besides getting the irresistible urge to do ukemi all over the karate mats all the time and sometimes accidentally going harder and faster with my takedowns than my classmates are accustomed during partner work, learning judo hasn't negatively affected my karate at all.

I wish our school emphasized respect a little more-- especially for the kids. When I was a kid in the program, we called all adults Mr. So-And-So and we knew to be respectful to them. Nowerdays the head kids' instructor is always called by his first name and they argue with him, fight him, whine to him, etc... He's starting to not take it and threatens to make them leave class for the night if they don't stop and that usually does it, but it upsets me a bit to see them treat him like that. I am glad they call me by my first name, though. I hate being Ms. Lastname. There's no respect emphasized for kids from rank to rank, however, especially since with our class makeup right now, almost all our beginners are several years older than our higher ranking students (we chose to only accept older kids in our last beginner's group whereas most of the higher ranks started when they were 7 or 8 ). The adults show all the instructors a good deal of respect, but with each other... It's such a small, advanced group that we don't have the big hierarchy you get in some schools. We never even bother lining up by rank. The entire group is four instructors ranging from 4th-8th Dan, a nidan, and three brown belts. I'm the lowest ranking student as a 3rd kyu. So the non-instructors treat the instructors very respectfully although we don't do "sir" and we don't do titles except when our 7th degree instructor calls our 8th degree instructor "hanchi" and "master" just to get under his skin. And we don't bow to each other or anything like that. It's all very informal, but you can still tell everyone has the utmost respect for all the instructors. The only one no one really shows much respect to is the nidan. He makes it hard for people to respect him. It's not an excuse, but it's true...

Congratulations! Keep it up!

I like the idea of kids programs. They're not "real" martial arts-- they're just movement classes in karate uniforms-- but I see nothing wrong with that. It's developmentally appropriate for kids to play those games and start working on their large muscle coordination and social skills and everything else those classes teach. As long as the instructors are trained in how to teach kids that age effectively and DON'T actually try to teach them martial arts beyond "stranger danger" training and just concentrate on the big movements and stuff, it's extremely beneficial. If I were to run my own school, I'd do it.

The other night one of the guys in the class told us he's been in a lot of bar fights, and if five guys attack you, you should just destroy the biggest one, three of the others will run and you'll be left with only one to deal with.

As a brown belt (which is our equivalent of your red belt), if I ever got caught taunting an orange belt, my instructor would murder me.

Karate is an hour for both kids and adults (I go to both classes, so I wind up doing two hours). It's very unstructured. Kids start with about a 10 minute warmup and then usually some basics before doing kata/sparring/bagwork/partner work/whatever we're doing that day. The adult class is even less structured. We don't warm up at all since most of us are at the kids class and the ones who aren't usually come a little early to warm up on their own, then we usually go back and forth between kata and applications. Do a kata, work some applications, do a kata, work some applications, etc. We don't really do basics or sparring or bagwork in the adult class, which is why I'm glad they let me help with the kids' class. Judo is an hour and a half for "adults" (everyone over 10) and an hour for the really little kids. We usually do about a half hour of warm ups/ukemi drills followed by working individual techniques and like once a week some randori at the end. I'm not quite sure how the little kids' class is structured, but I'm gonna find out soon since they asked me the other night to help out with the kids. I'm only a white belt, so I can't teach them much Judo, but I'm an elementary school teacher, so I can keep them from running around screaming while the instructors teach them Judo.

Should all the millions of adults who can't remember how to do Algebra have their HS Diploma taken away? According to my instructor, in our school, the second you stop training, you put yourself into "honorary black belt" status. Once a black belt, always a black belt, but that doesn't mean they're always going to be training on a black belt level. We have people who stop by every so often after not training for years-- they wear their black belts and they do what they can. No one questions them and no one expects them to hang with the people who come every week. And I as a brown belt sure as heck would never think to disrespect one of them just because they haven't trained in years. To me, they've earned the black belt and it's theirs and I'll respect them even as I'm helping them remember their white belt kata because odds are, with muscle memory being what it is, they're probably still showing better form than I am.

I don't know about that. People's interests wax and wane. Life gets complicated but then clears up. I think if they stuck with it long enough to get black belt, it's pretty likely they wanted to do it at some point. But people grow and change and their interests change. Doesn't mean they never wanted to do it.

"Adapt and overcome" is my absolute favorite. Life is messy. Plans don't work. Don't dwell on it or whine about it-- change course and keep plowing forward.

Why is the first roll called a judo roll? I would get yelled at so bad if I put my hands down like that in Judo. I would never put my hands down like that... Break your wrists if you land wrong... I do keep getting yelled at, too, for doing something closer to the third roll shown where I land by my shoulder first instead of rolling up my arm. The one they want us to do is pretty close to the 2nd roll, but with different hand positions.

I don't think so. That's an advantage of using a vertical punch-- your punch can bob and weave around your opponent's defenses without losing as much power as a twisting punch would in a similar situation.

I was 8 and wanted to be a Power Ranger. We were poor and couldn't afford an expensive MA class (still can't), so I got enrolled in the free program at the local Boys and Girls Club and that's how I "chose" Isshinryu. A few months ago I was looking for a grappling art to complement it and really wanted to try BJJ but all the classes were the same nights as my Isshinryu classes, but then I found a pretty cheap Judo program with perfect class times through the local rec center and that's how I got started with Judo.

I love learning a new kata, although I don't like that I'm currently learning four at once... That's a little much...

5 years ago I was a junior in college and hadn't done martial arts since middle school. I was probably 40 or 50 pounds heavier than I am now and not in the best shape, although I did swim laps twice a week. Spiritually I was weird-- that was during my "crazy Catholic" phase-- I was crazy Catholic. I went to daily Mass when I could, prayed liturgy of the hours, helped with RCIA and even spent my spring break that year in a convent to experience religious life. Looking back on it, I feel like it should have been unhealthy, but I felt fine spiritually-- I was fulfilled and in a good place. I'm not religious any more and try not to talk about it too much, but it suited me at the time. Now I'm nowhere near where I was then spiritually-- I don't pay much attention to my spirit at all. I should pay a little more attention, but it's not my inclination anymore. I'm in about the same place mentally-- I entered sort of a "renaissance of learning" 5 years ago and I'm still basically in it-- I'm always looking for something new to learn and I just soak it all in, but I'm very scattered and prone to aimless mental wandering that can make me restless and stressed at times... Trying to learn too much at once and never being satisfied-- wanting to learn everything and do everything but still feeling like I'm lacking when I do. Frustrating. For MA, I just got my brown belt in Isshinryu, so my training in that just started getting more serious, and I just started Judo a few months ago, so I'm still a white belt in that. Five years from now, I hope to have my black belt in Isshinryu and, assuming I'm still in this area, hope to be maybe starting to work towards becoming an instructor (it's a long process at my school, but all our instructors are in their 50s and 60s and we don't have any young guns coming in, so I'm hoping they might make an exception for me to the "you have to have been training for 15 consecutive years before you can even start instructor training" rule). I'm not sure where I want to be with Judo in five years. Right now my goal is to work on learning more ground fighting and complementing my standing art, so the furthest ahead I'm looking is for the rest of 2013. I want to continue doing it for the entire year and then I'll reassess. 10 years from now (again, assuming I'm still in the area) I'll probably still be doing instructor training in Isshinryu and still learning all I can. 20 years from now maybe I'll have taken over our program if I'm still here since right now I'm the only one even remotely (and it is remote right now) in line to do so. Otherwise, assuming I get through instructor training, I guess I'll start a program wherever I am-- probably just a small free program for kids-- like the one we do here-- and maybe work with some adult friends myself... Who knows...

I picked challenging as what keeps me coming back. I love learning and for me this is something that challenges me to learn in a new and different way. If it were easy, I never would've come back.

And remember to keep your stance narrower. My head judo instructor says he loves when karate guys first start judo because our natural wide stances make it easier to sweep our feet out from under us. My first week learning the basic grips, the instructor I was working with must have swept my feet out from under me a dozen times. Good way to learn...

I was sort of thinking that the other day. Like in the beginning before you get your gi (for us about a month and half) is like kindergarten and then white belt through like 5th kyu is like elementary school-- just working on the basic building blocks. Then 5th and 4th is kinda like middle school-- developing your building blocks further and starting to get a little more complicated stuff. Then 3rd-1st (usually brown belt) is like high school-- tying up the loose ends of the basics, starting to learn to take charge of yourself and organizing your own learning, getting a little bit of that advanced stuff, and getting you what you need to start your college/career training/wherever you plan to go once you graduate. And when you graduate (or get your black belt), it's up to you where you go with it. You stand at that school gate armed with the basic skills needed and now you're ready to really begin. Do you learn a trade? Get an education degree and teach? Go for a PhD? It's up to you. I like to think in analogies.

I'm not hyper-flexible, but I don't get the "ah pain!" response as quickly as others. My instructor calls me a "non-reactor". He usually relies on the pain face or grunts or whines or whatever to know when to stop when doing techniques and with me it has to almost be to the point of injury before I'll react and then it's usually a laugh...

The only approved patch for us is the Isshinryu Megami, and you have to be at least a yellow belt to wear it (which is our fourth belt, but it's when we start learning the Isshinryu kata-- before that it's preparatory kata from other styles). I'll admit, though, I ironed on a wee ninja patch to the bottom flap of my gi top. Some people may have gotten a flash of it, but it's generally covered so only I know it's there.... I like my wee ninja...