Lupin1

We sort of had that for the adult class the other night since our head instructor was sick and none of the other instructors are able to go to the Thursday adult class. Everyone just sort of did their own thing. The nidan practiced his sai kata, the other brown belt and his junior black belt son worked on their bo kata, I took advantage of the mats to work on my breakfalls since that's something that's hard to work on at home, then I moved over to work on some empty hand kata and a few people tried a few applications. It was basically just hodge podge whatever you feel like. I liked it, though. Sometimes it's good to just be able to have the time, space, and equipment to work through things on your own. Gives you time to process better. I generally try to stick with things that are hard to work on at home-- things that need the mats or weapons or a partner. And like sensei8 said, don't try to learn anything above your level or have anyone who's not an instructor teach you anything-- classes are for learning new things, this time is for working those things and, if you ask me, that's even more important.

My karate class is through the local Boys and Girls Club, so it's basically free-- the kids get "charged" $1 a class and they just bring the dollar to each class and put it in an old coffee can-- I'm not sure if anyone even keeps track of if they pay or not. I remember when I was a kid forgetting my dollar all the time and no one really said anything. I think that just all goes to helping buy belts and heavy bags and sparring gear and stuff, although I'm sure the club's equipment funds help with all that, as well. The adults don't pay anything, but most of us help out with the kids' class, which is right before ours. My Judo class is $40 a month, but that's through the town's recreation department, so it's run by volunteers, we use the rec department's building, and we probably get a little help from public funds for buying mats. So both of them are a lot cheaper than they would be because they're mostly volunteer run and receive donations or public funds. I do po' man's martial arts-- two hours of martial arts four times a week for a grand total of $40. Not bad.

Sounds like a great workout! I'd say keep going for a few more classes. I doubt every class is that much physical conditioning with that little technique. They probably mix up the butt-kicking workouts with more technique and kata oriented classes, which is probably where you're more likely to learn the etiquette.

Can I just say-- the month of ukemi drills really paid off today. I foolishly stood on my swivel chair to try to hang something up by the ceiling. When I went to push the stapler in, the chair went spinning and I fell off hitting the tv stand and taking the tv down on top of me. Landed nicely on my back with a good slap. Would've been a softer landing if I wasn't holding my breath, but for falling so suddenly from a height, spinning, hitting something, and landing on a hard floor, I'm impressed with how little it hurt. That was like an hour ago and the only thing that hurts is the wrist the tv landed on. Thanks, Judo!

I think three year olds can learn a lot from martial arts, but I don't think they can actually learn much martial arts. If you're going to have a three year old class and give them belts (belts are fun), give them white belts with colored stripes. The vast, vast majority of kids probably aren't ready for a colored belt until they're 7 or 8. And if I was there and heard someone making fun of a three year old, I'd put them on their butts and then verbally humiliate them.

Maybe it's the fact that I was a Catholic school teacher for two years, but I feel differently when it comes to kids. I feel like all adults who parents choose to put in positions of authority over their kid, be it a teacher or scout master or coach or karate instructor, has the responsibility to help the kid obtain good character. Now if you know for a fact what you're saying might conflict with what the parent would teach, then I wouldn't say it, but generally the core values of respect and responsibility and all that are pretty static throughout society.

Ben Franklin worked his entire life to systematically improve his character. He split what he believed to be good character up into 12 virtues and concentrated on one virtue each week evaluating himself at the end of every day and every week and then every 12 weeks starting back with number one. Adults can definitely work their entire lives to improve their character. As an adult, however, I tend to resent other people trying to push their idea of good character on me. If I'm displaying bad character, call me out on it, but outside of that, I feel like I should deal with my own character and let others deal with theirs.

My philosophy is you're as worthy as you make yourself. There's no such thing as being inherently unworthy. With how much you're practicing, you sound pretty worthy to me.

My instructor told me I could stop by his house anytime and he'll show me some old videos or work on my kata with me (he's home on disability, and I think he's really bored). He also does Tai Chi in his driveway every Saturday morning and said anyone's welcome to join him, although I'm not sure anyone ever does. I haven't taken advantage of any of it yet, but I feel like I should. Again, as long as it's all adults, I see nothing wrong with instructors inviting students over or students inviting instructors over.

You have to remember, too, that we're talking about adults pursuing this usually as a hobby in their free time. People do free time activities to make friends and enjoy themselves in addition to the physical and mental benefits of hard training. While a paying customer should expect an instructor to always be professional, I see no reason why they can't be friends with their adult students and training companions. Some of the mentors I've had in my life that I have the most respect for I also consider my friends. Granted, I also have a lot of respect for bosses and teachers I've had who aren't friends, but the ones I've shared friendship with have only gained more of my respect.

I had to laugh at the names of some of the movements when I looked at the website for the Kenpo school near my house. I can't imagine my instructor yelling "do the sword of destruction!" and me doing a roundhouse punch (which is all it is) without laughing. My favorite is their name for a simple front snap kick-- intellectual departure. I think perhaps they've suffered a few too many of those. Of course, that's not all kenpo. The other kenpo school by here, which my friend's family actually owns, uses very normal names for their techniques.

A couple years ago some of the guys pitched in to buy our instructor karate Santa boxer shorts...

I never liked the idea of having the western idea of character building in the martial arts, at least not for adults. For kids, they seem to get that in everything they do-- school, scouts, church, sports-- it's ingrained in every facet of their lives and I agree with that. Kids need that guidance and reinforcement to build those qualities. But as an adult, I don't like people trying "fix" or build my character. That's my responsibility. If I'm doing something wrong and someone points it out to me, that's one thing, but it's up to me to decide to fix it, figure out how, and implement the changes. I don't need some old guy in white pajamas going out of his way to tell me to be honest or considerate or anything like that. I know those things by this point in my life and it's up to me to live them. I go to martial arts classes to train, not to be preached to.

That's me. I got punched in the nose once in middle school and, rather than freezing or going bezerko on the guy who hit me, I started laughing through two fist-fulls of blood. I'm fine with getting hit. It just takes a lot to get me to hit back.

Is footwork one thing? Stepping, shifting weight, turning, feeling the flow as I move, balance, and keeping myself solidly rooted while still nimble and ready to quickly move in any direction. I could easily spend 3 months working on just that. If that's too broad, I could even spend all that time just working on seisan stance and stepping in seisan stance. Forget all the other stances.

Teaching is a skill, art, and talent unto itself. Not everyone who's skilled at something is qualified to teach it and I've seen gifted teachers teach something beautifully to someone seconds after having learned it themselves. Even though I, as a brand-new Sankyu, have already started helping with the teaching of our beginner kids, I don't think teaching is ever a necessary goal for anyone. I mean, I'm a natural teacher. I've been teaching my little sisters and neighborhood kids since I was little. I've got a degree in teaching and was a classroom teacher for two years before moving to the school library where I still have ample opportunity to teach. But my skills as a teacher and my skills as a martial artist aren't connected in my eyes. My martial arts goals are for me. My teaching goals are for others. Some of my teaching goals now involve martial arts, but my personal goals for my martial arts could easily keep me busy for life. And I agree that some people just shouldn't be teaching. Some people don't have the patience or they don't have the knack for explaining things in a way others will understand or troubleshooting others' performance and figuring out a way to remedy problems. One of our black belts, although he wants to teach, lacks all those things. He's currently not too happy that I was asked to help with the beginner kids instead of him, but I wouldn't want him teaching kids. I don't even like it when he tries to teach me. He just doesn't have it. It doesn't make him a bad martial artist, just a bad teacher.

So I guess I have to amend my first "2013 Martial Arts Goal" because I already accomplished it. I got promoted to 3rd kyu brown belt tonight. It's kinda sad because now there are no pretty colors left and I've got a long journey now with six (difficult) kata to learn before my black belt test, not to mention all the other stuff. It's scary to think my next new belt (we don't do stripes or anything like that) will be black belt in a few years. It's also a huge step up in what people expect of you. Now in the kids' class they've got me standing up in front of the class instead of in the back and when we were working an aikido drill in the adult class my partner, another brown belt, made me do it until I got it perfect whereas before he would have just let me go through the motions. It's gonna be a long journey, but I'm looking forward to that-- a chance to really focus and take my time to really get into the meat. It's a good day.

My Isshinryu class is a free school and we have no monetary motivation for keeping students, but I still see this from my head instructor all time. He's always saying stuff like "you'll never get what we do here anywhere else" and comparing us to other schools with the obvious implication being we're better and he tells us all the time never to show certain things to anyone else. It's all pride with him. Not that it's entirely a bad thing-- it's part of the culture. Our other instructors aren't like that as much, though. One is an instructor at a for-profit TKD school the next town over and he teaches us whenever he can make it and he teaches us kicks just the same as he would teach his TKD students. Then again, I doubt they see our little Boys and Girls Club program as much of a threat to their business-- most of our kids couldn't afford their school.

Mostly low carb high fat with a primal bend. I'm not very strict with it. I keep to it maybe 75-80% of the time. I think that's what's allowed me to stick to it so long-- I let myself cheat a few times a week without feeling too guilty as long as I'm sticking to it the vast majority of the time. Of course, now when I eat junk I usually wind up with a stomach ache or feeling generally sick, so it's making me want to cheat less and less. And pretty much the only exercise I had was running around the amusement park where I worked 60 hours a week all summer, although now that I'm doing 4 martial arts classes a week, I'm starting to see more muscle shaping.

Ahh, but we're a free program.

I'm considering next time (and this guy does whine a lot) telling him this is a karate dojo, not a knitting class, but I'm not sure how that'd go over.

I didn't post my resolutions on here, but my resolution was to keep up the diet I had already started (I started the day after Halloween-- I tell everyone it was my "Halloween Resolution"). I actually did it. It's weird-- this is the first New Years I'm looking back on last year's resolution having actually accomplished it and being satisfied with what I accomplished. It's a good feeling. BTW-- If anyone's curious, I'm down over 70 pounds and almost 10 inches off my waist (over 10 inches off my hips) since last Halloween and still steadily dropping.

There aren't very many kung fu places around here, either. I feel like the vast majority of schools that advertise around here are Kenpo karate or TKD, although now a lot of schools are starting to call themselves MMA or just "Martial Arts". There are things other than karate, like my judo class, and an aikido class I found a few towns over, but they're harder to find.

1. Get my brown belt in Isshinryu. 2. Don't lose sight of the basics in light of practicing new material-- keep up solid practice of my basic kata and techniques. 3. Continue researching history/theory/etc. 4. Keep up Judo for at least a year. 5. Make sure to continue training in the summer once I'm working those 70 hour weeks again. I always tend to let my training fall by the wayside when my summer job gets going. I don't want to do that this year. 6. Grok on.

This is less legal politics and more societal politics, but it came up in my Isshinryu class last night. Maybe it's because I'm getting used to Judo where half-committed moves can lead to injuries, but I've found myself being a lot more deliberate with my partner work in my karate class. Last night we were working an application and I delivered a solid (not hard or fast) hit to the shoulder of the Nidan I was working with. He started whining about it and the instructor said I'm allowed to hit him hard but he can't he me hard back (again, it's wasn't that hard-- it was just solid contact). At first both of us thought it was because he was a black belt and I'm a 4th kyu and he started saying once I get my brown belt he'll be able to go hard with me, too, and get me back but the instructor stopped him and said it had nothing to do with rank and that women are allowed to hit men as hard as we want because we're more likely to be attacked and need to know we can hit full strength, but men can't hit women hard and that if a woman were to attack him, he should try to use some of the Aikido moves we learn to stop her rather than hitting her. It then disintegrated into a weird conversation about being attacked by female body builders on steroids, but I'm not sure I like the "women can hit men as hard as they want but the men can't hit back" philosophy. I want to train the same as the guys in the class (I'm the only adult female) and I don't like having special rules. I'm tough and show a lot less pain than the guys in the class when I'm uke, so I could probably take it better than them. Opinions?