Freestyle

We all wear solid black gis, with no patches, embroidery or kanji.

We toyed with the idea of stripes and half-grades but ultimately settled on a white, yellow, green, purple, brown and black belt system. No temporary grades. The student must be able to demonstrate the requirements for the belt to be earned plus all previous requirements.

I was a 3rd dan in traditional karate. Now I'm simply a "black belt" in freestyle karate. I run my own class and I am "independent", in other words I no longer belong to a large organization. I work out with anyone I think has the skill, been doing quite a bit of cross training lately, kickboxing and grappling. We don't emphasize dan grades after "black belt". 24 years training. Teaching for 20 years. Glad to be here.

Greetings - I am a freestyle karate and self defense instructor with 24 years of experience. Your site looks like fun so I figured I'd check it out. Thanks!

I have a doctorate level, post graduate degree. However, I learned to teach karate by teaching karate. I've been teaching for over 20 years and learned by doing. I'm not sure my degree has helped my teaching ability, I am sure that my experience in life has...

Our school charges no fee for belt tests. I agree entirely with Tessone's post a couple pages ago...

You can be sued for anything in the US. I would suggest that there always be a designated referee to stop the action if it gets out of control, especially if there are people participating that you do not know well. Good luck!