Lupin1

My instructor likes to quote his instructor saying that for the first twenty years of your training, your karate belongs to your instructor. After that your karate belongs to you.

For us it's different for adults and kids. Kids used to average about 9 or 10 years. Pretty much the rule of thumb was if you started when you were between 8 and 10, which almost everyone did, and stuck with it, you'd get your black belt around the time you graduated high school. Of course now we have a new ranking system with junior black belts, but I think it's still set up that you'd get your adult black belt at around 18. For adults it's about 4 years of classes twice a week and practicing on your own in between, but it really depends. I can't really look at my journey because it was so weird (I got to 6th kyu as a child, which took me 4 years and I just got 4th kyu a week ago, which took me an additional six months of adult study plus five months of training on my own). Right now I can only train in the summer and am training on my own the rest of the year, so at this rate I'll probably never get my black belt until I find a school I can train at full time. But it's not really bothering me right now. Off topic to unknown style-- Neshamat Elohim Yad Reyqa -- is that Hebrew?

We don't have them at my school and I like that. I'm one of those who would be thinking about how big my butt looks in the gi. But I use my big bedroom mirror at home a lot to check my technique and stances and stuff. It's very helpful every once and awhile, but I think it'd be distracting in class.

So I'm now offically a 4th kyu green belt. He had us all run through all the kata we knew up to the green belt kata and promoted me on the spot right in the middle of class the second we finished. It was pretty cool. Last one before brown! (although training off and on the way I am, I doubt I'll be getting that any time soon. It's not a race, though)

Some dude in my class who was a Marine made a very good point that most people don't have the stomach to dig their fingers into someone's eye socket and pull an eye out and I sort of agree with him. That's gross. He said (and I'm not sure if he's making this up or not because I think animal rights groups would be all over them if he wasn't) that in the Marines they would bring in a dog and get someone to try to gouge the dog's eye out to see if anyone could do it and not one of the big tough Marines had the stomach to. So I wouldn't count on that technique in any fight.

I try to concentrate on my successes in the past and remember that life goes on even if I screw up-- it's not the end of the world. That tends to calm me down just enough.

Like Isshinryu5toforever said, our entire system only has 8 empty hand kata. At my school we also learn about 5 or 6 kata from other systems, but still-- our system only has 8 empty hand kata and I don't think it's lacking at all because of it. But I understand wanting to learn more kata. I'm impatient to learn all of our kata (I'm more the kind where I'd rather learn them all decently and then work on making them better instead of concentrating on one at a time. But then I've never been the kind who can work really hard on one thing at a time. I'm a bit ADD-- I need to switch things up). I even bought a $50 DVD to teach me the next two kata in my system because I was impatient to wait for my instructor to teach them to me.

Well right away he grabbed him by one arm and kept it straight. The first thing my friend who's teaching me some Akkido taught me was that you can't control someone when their arm is straight. He should have bent the guy's arm and got him under control (on his stomach on the floor) and then got him cuffed right away instead of giving the guy a chance to fight. Although the guy who commented and said the cop shouldn't have even touched the guy and should have stayed back pointing his gun at him and told him to get down on the ground had a point, too. Not sure that particular guy would have listened, but it seems like more of a cop thing to do.

You're welcome for people with dozens of years experience in martial arts taking time to honestly answer your question that you asked because you wanted their opinions.

That's a very good point. I think most people work under the assumption that kids are inherently lazy and won't work without their parents pushing them, which is, of course, usually erroneous. But many times I think you're right. Of course, the parents have to be involved enough that they think it's important to take the time and effort to get their kids to every class and pay the tuition and stuff.

I asked my weatherman friend once about the partly cloudly/partly sunny thing and he said it had to do with percentages. Partly cloudy has a smaller percentage of the sky covered by clouds than partly sunny.

Wow. That really stinks. I hope they reschedule soon!

I still like the movies that got me into karate best-- 3 Ninjas!

What, you think us ladies aren't capable of disrespecting men?

Oh hey! I just realized today is my one year anniversary! Cool! It's also been exactly one year since I restarted karate (I joined this group right after my first class)!

The age thing is definitely an issue. But to be very, very honest, as a 23-year-old female, if I were grappling with a good looking male anywhere near my age, I would probably be having distracting thoughts. Nothing very inappropriate, but enough that it would be distracting.

So apparently that should read "The Importance of Silly New Englanders Realizing That Terms Have Different Meanings in Different Places". I've lived at sea level my entire life and to us "snow level" means how high the snow on the ground is. Apparently in other places it's the actual official term for what elevation the snow will fall at. Opps...

Here's our winter storm watch for tonight and tomorrow from the Weather Channel website: SNOW LEVELS... SNOW LEVELS WILL FALL TO NEAR 6500 FEET EARLY THURSDAY MORNING... BUT WILL RISE TO NEAR 8000 FEET DURING THE DAY THURSDAY. 8000 feet of snow!? And I don't even have a shovel...

We have our Christmas pageant tonight... My kids are signing Oh Come All Ye Faithful in English and Navajo. I think after all the hours we put into this thing, I'm going to be very happy when I don't have to see anything Christmas for awhile... Happy holidays! Update: That was the first nativity play I've ever seen where baby Jesus was an actual one week old baby. And strapped to a cradleboard, none the less. Very cool.

Awesome! Congrats!

Hmm. So you are going to run it more like a club (prez, vp, secretary, etc with everyone on equal footing) or more like a traditional dojo (sensei, senior student, respect the higher ranks, etc)?

As you know, my school doesn't give formal tests. But I am going back home for two weeks for winter break and will get to go to one or two classes during that time. I've been working the material for an average of an hour a day the past month or so and I've taught myself the green belt kata and I've been practicing that. I'm really hoping it gets me a promotion to green belt (4th kyu) while I'm home. I was close to being ready for my green belt when I left in July, but he said it wasn't my time yet. I'm sorta hoping next Tuesday or maybe the Tuesday after (if we have class that day-- I don't know if we will) will be my time. We'll see...

Here's my instructor's martial arts blog, if anyone wants to read it: http://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-12-02T19%3A20%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=7 And here's his youtube channel. There's nothing on there of him, but there a lot of kata performances by our senior students and instructors both recent and older. http://www.youtube.com/user/BushiNoTeIsshinryu My favorite is the most recent one-- Mr. Lee's Nijushiho. I was there when we taped it. He wasn't very happy with it, but I like it.

Thanks, guys.

Go to your student government right away and start finding out the procedure for becoming a club and applying for funding and all that. Then after break start advertising. Besides keeping up with all the student government requirements, there's not all that much to it.