Spodo Komodo

Fair enough, it is pretty normal for a white belt to spar against yellow or orange in most of the schools with which I have trained. Eight lessons is really not that much experience under your belt so the gap is wider at the moment that it will be when you are a blue belt and they are wearing brown*. The hardest bit of training comes at the start when you go from being a non-karateka to being a karateka - when you become a bit more comfortable with the techniques you can relax and enjoy using them. The best way to get good at sparring is still to spar though. (*assuming your belts go white-yellow-orange-green-blue-purple-brown as in many Wado schools)

It doesn't always work in your favour though Joesteph, I had a senior moment last night at Tai Chi. We were beginning a new form that the senior students in the class were learning for their grading and I was just going along with the voice of the instructor. After a while I noticed that a few people were watching me and I couldn't hear the voice any more - a certain sequence of moves had led me into the karate kata Naihanchi and my subconscious had taken over. I got a round applause which wasn't entirely sarcastic

My straights and crosses are pretty feeble considering I used to box regularly for my hall at university (I did win sometimes ). My uppercuts and elbow strikes are a different matter, I am fairly short and barrel-like so I can get quite a bit of power into these but then my useful kicks tend to be knee-strikes to the thigh/kidney rather than long range high-level jobs. I think I am about equal on the kick/punch ratio I just lack in the long-range department versus the close-in nasty stuff. Always so much to work on...

Hi Rateh, that was the online price, a high street optician is slightly more expensive but in the UK you can get a discount on complex prescriptions from the National Health Service so there isn't that much between them. I have a fairly complex prescription and when you include shipping and taxes it bumps the price up greatly. I can get a monthly disposable contact lens that would not allow me to read the fine print in a newspaper but it does allow me enough clarity to practice karate, I just have to swap back to my glasses after the lesson to go home. The requirements for a 2-6 hour karate session and the requirements for driving or reading are quite different and you can often "make do" with much less.

To quote the Zen Shin Ryu website "the style is non-contact based" so it's not what I would choose myself. You can only get a real feel for a club by going along though, just go with your eyes and mind open and see which one suits you. I would say that Kyokushin would be the better style but if you add up all the factors and it doesn't suit you then who knows?

Sorry, bit late to this one but I have been wearing contacts for karate for over ten years. It took a bit of a while to get the right solution and lens combination as some solutions really irritated my eyes and some types of lens just flipped straight out. Eventually I found a combination that I could wear comfortably and I have never looked back, well I've looked back but I didn't have to squint to do so There are lots of types of lens and solution out there so if you want the convenience of using contacts I would suggest shopping around for something that works. Mind you I am blind as a bat and I don't have the option of wearing glasses - mine cost over £150 quid a pair from the cheapo opticians.

One thing I have noticed is that in the East, labels are not applied so exclusively as in the West. In Nepal I met people who followed Buddhism and a form of Hinduism (or even Christianity). Many of my Chinese friends are Buddhists who also study the Tao and all of my Japanese friends show reverence to Buddhism and Shinto. If a system is rooted in a particular religion then it can be useful to know something about the basic ideas of that religion but I don't think it necessary to become a devout believer to the exclusion of all else. I am a Buddhist but I have no trouble with Taoist Tai Chi, I have found it interesting and useful to read a little about the Tao though.

Good attitude to have, if you are getting lots of quality sparring you are probably getting a good deal there. If they are just using you as a punching bag then that's not so good, is there a good atmosphere or is it intimidating? Well technique comes first, then power and speed can develop. If you have access to a friend and some focus mitts you can practice what you are taught in your lessons and apply it to a sparring situation without having to pick yourself off the mat each time. As you get better at the techniques then your sparring will naturally improve and you can concentrate on the speed of delivery. Can't help you with the gym, I tend to stay away from them and do other things for exercise but if you are losing control then maybe you need to try meditation or something similar in order to understand your emotional response a little better. There are plenty of basic breathing meditation instructions around and regular practice can really help you to keep your head together under pressure. Good luck and I hope you get to land a few yourself soon!

I have just started to give Tai Chi another go, I did a bit as a relaxation practice a long time ago and then ditched it in order to do more exciting things like Karate and Iaido. Recently I have been out of the Karate dojo with back and knee injuries and so I decided that rather than go mad I would give Tai Chi another try. It was a very pleasant experience in that this time; with a fair bit of Karate kata application (bunkai) practice under my belt it was mostly making some kind of sense from a fighting point of view. The satori moment came during a move called "brush knee step back" which suddenly transported me back to defending myself against a flurry of round kicks to the kidneys during sparring at the dojo and all of a sudden I began to see some of the applications for other moves in the form. I now have a new and deepening appreciation of Tai Chi after a handful of lessons, something that I would never have got if I had continued in the relaxation/moving meditation mode of thinking. It may just be beginner's enthusiasm but I think that there is a lot in Tai Chi for someone willing to spend some time unpicking it.