Lupin1

My instructor tells us that training in weapons for years will make your empty-handed fighting better. He says gripping the weapon will tighten your fist and if you get used to doing the movements with the weapon in your hand, eventually when you take the weapon away those empty-handed movements will have more power. Of course, we still don't start weapons until 4th kyu and then only stick until black belt. I can see the practicallity in at least learning stick. You could pick up any blunt object and use it as a stick and if someone a lot bigger and stronger is coming at me, it might give me the edge I need to get away.

Good luck, Shawn!

Wow. Just three? Do you have really small classes or something? My instructor's been teaching about the same length of time as you and he teaches only two classes-- a kid's class that's limited to 15 students at a time and an adult class that usually has six or less and he's promoted 11 people to black belt in all those years. You must be very demanding.

And as a white belt in a class of almost all black belts, I have to say I get the most attention

Good luck!!! Don't worry about it-- no one expects you to walk in and be Bruce Lee on your first day. Unless you go to like an exclusive MMA club or something, people are going to be all different shapes and sizes and the majority of them are just going to be there to have fun and get some exercise. No one's in the business of judging brand new beginners. I'm sure you're going to love it. Just don't go too hard on your self for the first few weeks until you learn where you're at and what to expect of yourself. If you go in there expecting too much, you're sure to be disappointed. Just go with the flow and have no expectations until you learn what's what and you'll have a blast!

Since in elementary school, I've been growing my hair out and then cutting it off to donate to locks of love (actually, it's about time to do that again-- It's almost down to my butt right now) and then growing it out again. So I've been in that akward stage of too short to put up and so long it gets in the way a lot. I think the bandana is a good idea. Or a sweatband if you don't mind looking all 80s. I always used headbands or barrettes, but a man would look silly in barrettes. Your best bet right now would be sweatbands or bandanas until it grows out long enough to put up or you decide to cut it. There aren't many options when hair is in that awkward stage.

Man vs Food, House, Malcolm in the Middle, Project Runway, Medium

I wonder if this instructor used to be in the military... I swear some of these ex-military people just don't understand that in the real world screaming at an adult professional and making him do burpies and stand in horsestance won't solve any problems (and some is bolded so as not to offend any ex-military people here). Adults in the real world talk about things when there's a problem. Sheesh...

Maybe if you force them out of their comfort zone a few times and then try it? Tell them one day to line up in reverse order of rank. Then you want it to go green, white, blue, yellow, brown, orange, black. Then to mix the belts up the next day have them line up by height and then by birthday (January first all the way to December at the end). And THEN after mixing them up for awhile tell them they can line up where ever they want and see if you get different results.

Awww. That's such a cute story, sensei. I think it's very natural for a 7-year-old to be afraid of big strong black belts. Especially in a very physical enviornment where people are being loud and showing thier strength and there's that air of discipline. A karate dojo is a very different place with different rules and a different culture. It's natural for a kid to be scared at first with all that.

The Dean of the College teaches the karate class at my alma mater. Too bad he didn't start until after I graduated... Before that we had a self-defense class, but they never had enough people sign up for it, so it was always cancelled (which is ok-- it would probably end up just being Tae Bo or something, since none of the faculty knew karate back then).

Did anyone else, upon reading the subject line, automatically think "FEAR does not exist in this dojo, does it? NO SENSEI!"? I have to admit I have the same fears. Of course, being still very new to the adult class and the concept of those little bits of pain (the instructor would never demonstrate anything that hurts on kids, but he demonstrates stuff that gives a little pain to us all the time), even those little things scare me sometimes. I see him demonstrate something on each of the black belts and they all yell oww and make a face and say how much it hurts, can you blame me for being scared when it's my turn to experience it? Of course, I apparently take the pain better than the black belts. I tend to laugh when things hurt and pretend they don't. That and according to every tattoo artist I've met, women just have a higher pain tolerance. I do get a little nervous about getting seriously hurt, though. Maybe not as much as older people-- I'm still in that stage of my youth where I'm deluded into thinking I'm invincible, but the fact that I don't have insurance makes me worry. I'm pretty sure if anything were to seriously happen the club's insurance should cover it (I think), but especially when working with people who are known to not have the best control, I get nervous.

It probably just did that because it wasn't completely healed. Try not to get hit on the nose for a few weeks and if it still does it a few weeks from now, definitely go to the doctor. Also, if you live in an area that's really dry, especially in the winter, it can dry out your sinuses and make you more prone to nosebleeds. When I was little that used to happen to me and my nose would start bleeding in the winter if I even just rubbed it lightly. The doctor told my mom to get a humidifier to increase the moisture in the air and help keep the blood vessles in my nose from becoming too dry and brittle. So if you're blasting your heat in the winter and everything's really dry, you might think about getting a humidifier.

I don't know, sensei. My opinion is, if you have ranks, people are going to be at least partly rank motivated, even if they don't show it. If you were to ask my instructor, he'd probably tell you I'm not motivated by rank because I never mention rank. For the first month and a half I trained we never mentioned what rank I was and I had no idea whether he was going to start me at white belt or let me wear the 6th kyu I had before. I didn't know until I got my uniform and decided I'd wear my white belt with it until told otherwise and then after that he started calling me a white belt. And I like being a white belt for now. But in the end, I have to admit I want my 6th kyu back and then I want my blue belt and then my green belt, etc. My instructor would probably happily say I'm not motivated by rank just like you said for your students, but I really am at this stage and I'm not afraid to admit it because it's completely natural. Of course, I don't just want the rank. If he made me a black belt tomorrow I'd quit and go somewhere that was going to make me work for it. I want the knowledge that goes with the rank, as well. It's human nature to want to experience the non-physical through the physical. Look at pretty much every religion-- Catholics experiencing God through their Eucharist, Jews wearing yarmulkes to remind them of God always being above them, Hindus burning incense to connect to their gods and show their loyalty, Buddhists wearing rough, unfinished clothing to represent their spiritual unattachment, etc. It makes hard-to-grasp things easier to grasp and experience. How much knowledge one has on a subject is a very abstract thing and something we're not very good at judging ourselves. But when we have physical benchmarks in that knowledge, it makes it easier. Someone who wants to gain knowledge in math may work for their Bachelors and then Masters and then Doctorate. Although the ultimate goal is the knowledge itself, you can bet a graduate student wants that Masters degree and is probably thinking more about that than about how much knowledge they're going to have when they get it. It's just easier for humans to grasp that physical sign. As long as those physical signs are there, humans will care about them, whether they show it or not. In my opinion, if you don't want any of your students to be at all rank motivated, you have to get rid of ranks.

I would say all but a few of our black belts fall into this category. My instructor only awards up to sandan and we have 3 or 4 sandans who have continued training, some of them having been here for decades, even though there are no more belts to be earned (unless they want to go somewhere else to be tested, but none of them have). All the rest of us can get pretty belt-motivated, though... We see them training for the sake of training and that's inspiring to us and we want to do that some day, but for right now we're human and we want our next belt as much as anyone else...

Oooo! Now that sounds interesting. Can you post what happened?

Woah. Chillax. No need to burst into flames... What I'm getting from all this is that there probably is no "proper" protocol when you're getting that specific. Rank, yes. Time in grade, sometimes. Beyond that probably depends entirely on the school and how nitpicky they are. I mean, if you want to get very traditional, karate was mostly individual instruction without ranks, so they didn't ever line up by rank. All that's modern invention. And with most modern invention in karate, it varies from school to school and ways of doing things aren't proper or improper outside your particular dojo. One way isn't necessarily more right than another, they're just different.

Hmm. That's a good question. I've only done group classes, but our class is so small and has so many instructors that most of the time I get private instruction for at least half the class. It's a lot different than when I was in the kid's class which had 15-20 kids with usually only two instructors. In the kids class I could go on making the same mistakes for weeks on end before one of the instructors noticed it and then maybe I'd only get a quick correction before they had to concentrate on another kid. When I've got the instructor standing there staring at me while I do a kata several times, I get every little mistake pointed out every time with as much time as I need spent on correcting it. I'm improving a lot faster because of that, even if it is a little more nerve-wracking. I think if you want to improve a little faster or you have things you really want to work on but there's no time in class for or you feel like you're falling behind and need an extra push, it's worth it to pay for some private instruction every once and awhile. I don't think it's necessary, though.

I'm with Blade on the Facebook. I'm a Facebook fanatic. I also like to sing. I sang in my college choir and I just got done singing with a little group we put together for the Sabbath of Song last week at the synagogue and hopefully we'll do something again soon. I'm looking to find a more consistant choir to join once I get some more time and money (non-religious choirs can be expensive). I played tennis in college and I'm always up to playing a little if I can find a partner of around my ability, which doesn't happen that much (people are either such beginners that it's boring for me or so advanced that it's boring for them). I like to swim and was a lifeguard through college, but I can't afford a gym membership and there are no public pools around here and all the public ponds and lakes have such a small area designated for swimming that you can't really do laps in them. So yeah. I guess it seems like I have a good number of hobbies and very few chances to actually do them. That's pretty much right... Martial Arts may turn into the same thing if I get the job I applied for in the middle of the desert. Oh, and like Blade, I also like History. I was a US History minor in college and love anything having to do with the US Colonial Period. And I was also a German minor in college and I studied that for six years and I've been to Germany once. I'd like to go back some day. I don't get that many opportunities to practice my German.

I don't have any experience in this as I've only ever trained in one style, but I know when I eventually branch out (which I do plan on doing) I want to do a grappling art-- most likely Brazilian Ju Jitsu. That way I'm covered by my Isshinryu in a fight on our feet, but if someone grabs me and we go to the ground, I'm covered there, too. I feel like I'll build a much wider skill set if I do a grappling art as opposed to another punching/kicking type art. Although I have to admit although the concept seems fun and extremely useful, I'm not too anxious to get some big sweaty, hairy old guy wrapping his legs around my neck with his crotch in my face. Ewww. That aspect of BJJ kinda scares me away a bit...

And hopefully very soon you won't have that problem anymore, anyway. At least not until you're a yellow belt who's almost a whatever comes next (orange?).

Which muscles are cramping? I would assume you'd put all your weight on the balls of your feet and lift your heels, then put all your heels, then put all your weight on your heels and lift the ball of your feet, then put all the weight on the inside and lift the outside, all the weight on the outside and life the inside, etc. Just manipulate your feet around and until you feel like you're stretching the muscles that usually cramp.

Haha. But just to specify, maybe he should have the kid stand on his shoulders... We don't line up in the adult class, but when I was in the kid class, the rule was to line up by belts and anything within that belt didn't matter (all 5th kyus, etc were considered equal for lining up purposes). Usually we didn't care who was ahead of who unless we were the highest rank there that night and one of us got to be the senior student and bow to the sensei and tell everyone to bow and stuff, and then we got into little arguments about who would get to do that, which usually resulted in an agreement to switch off. But besides the fact that it went by belt with the lowest to the back right, the details didn't really matter.

I agree with the potassium thing. When I swam for a little bit in high school, I got cramps a few times in the water and had to basically drag myself out of the pool on my stomach like a beached whale... The coach had me stretch (which really helps the cramps go away when you get them) and told me to eat potassium right before practice and make sure I'm staying hydrated. Also-- bananas actually have very little potassium compared to some other foods. Lima beans, plantains and, if you can find them, papayas are really potassium rich (my college roommate was a type I diabetic with really low potassium and she'd always complain when people equated bananas with potassium because "they don't even have that much"). Even pears and tomatoes have more potassium than bananas.

At my school brown belts learn four new kata (all belts 6th kyu and above at my school have multiple kata per belt). They learn a version of Nijushiho from Shotokan (we actually just taped one of our black belts doing our version of it and put it on youtube if any of you want to see it-- apparently it's a fairly unique version), and from Isshinryu they learn Kusanku, SunNuSu, and Sanchin.