DarkMonkey

Whatever happens Angus will have a life left over already that contains the material for a hit film. If he keeps this up and manages not to get himself killed we could have a true epic by the time he's 30: Angus: The Way of the Crouching Fire System Maybe it's just me... Take care mate.

And I think all that "Black belt is only the begining" -- "Karate is forever" stuff is very much a trick to keep you in it. Of course being a black belt does not mean much, but after you've been in a certain martial arts for say six or seven years the improvements you make over the time you put in decreases dramatically (I don't know this from my own experience but I have heard from others and it seems very logical). When you reach a point such as this it is not always clever to just blindly follow the "Train forever" philosophies. It might be time to stop training formally and just do your own routenes and do something else with your time (something that will improve your body in larger chunks proportional to the time you put in), perhaps a different martial art if you have not cross trained before. My take.

Not paticularly. Only things that are really relivent to modern scenario's. Mainly I prefer to spend my time reading practical things if I read anything at all. On an unrelated note. 1000th post for the shotokan forum. Hooray!

Either that's a double joke or I worry for your sanity.

You can have love without marriage.

I don't like the idea at all. As somebody said, either you are good enough for the next belt or you're not. There is no being 'too good' for the previous belt, if you are not good enough for the next one then you are simply a 'good' yellow belt or a 'good' orange belt or whatever. My shotokan club (in the UK) gives out tempoary grades (or at least Andy Cherry does when he comes down and grades us) and it seems to me that 'EVERYBODY' grades successfully, at least at the early colours (up to purple at least) even small children who obviously are not very motivated or interested in karate at all. Yet to keep them keen and the monies coming in the style seems to have incorporated a 'tempoary' rank that is to say 'You are not good enough to grade but because we know you are only interested in silly belts we will give it to you anyway but attach the word 'tempoary' as to not insult the people who actually work for their gradings. ... My view.

Bah, you should have calmly explained the irony in what the Sensei was saying and then walked out, now they'll not understand at all Hrumph. I wanted an exciting climax too. BOOOO.

Ahahah. Angus is a god. I could start going into the 'don't get into trouble' type philosophising, but I won't because, quite frankly, Angus makes this board fantastic, haha. Almost every week we have some new crazy situation he's got himself into, it makes for great reading That is not to say I, uh, condone any of this. [cough]

Well I was feeling pretty sick, sore throat and a headache, I was pretty worried I woudn't feel up to grading but I skipped the pre-grading lesson and just took the actual grading and I made it through, even though I almost messed up the kata twice dispite knowing exactly how to do it and having practiced many, many times. A conbination of nerves and a slow head (due to the illness...). Can't have been bad though the rest of my performance I was pleased with and I graded with no bad comments from Mr. Cherry. Most people get a '[Name] XXKyu - Work on your stances, more speed' etc. etc. But I just got a '7th Kyu' and that was it, so I presume I impressed sufficiently that he found no easily noticable flaws. Ho hum. A good day all round (appart from me feeling like ****) my friend double graded like I did before him and my other hard up pal who did not have the funds to grade last time also double graded, which was nice

Thanks for all your comments, keep them coming, for my benefit and for others, and because it's quite interesting. I do not think I'm that bad, actually I think I'm quite good, I do concur that he bothers pointing these things out because I'm fairly promising, there is another adult red belt and he is so apaling but he hardly bothers telling him to correct pretty much everything because he doesn't take it in. I'm still finding faults constantly, which is good, and I really appreciate recieving the critisisms, but sometimes I just get annoyed at myself for doing it like that for so long, sometimes I get annoyed that our sensei took so long to point it out. Like I am grading the day after tomorow and only at the last lesson did he point out that I was stepping back into backstance rather than forward into backstance in Heian Nidan. It's annoying because when you go home you like to pratice but you don't want to practice your bad habits so it's nice to be corrected quickly on things, but with a list like mine, it can esape peoples notice. The club is growing quite fast too, there are loads of new white belts which require constant checking, so I guess there isn't time to watch everybody. Anyhow, keep talking.

I'm a Chiken. But Dragon I suppose. even then I have trouble really hurting somebody if they have me cornered. Well, at least I imagine I would have.

It can be used in different ways of course but the one we've been doing a lot is right leg forwards slide in with right hand Uraken turn left leg Ushiro-Geri

23? pah. You are in your prime years. It is rediculous to suggest your progress might be hampered by your age, if you have coordination problems I highly doubt it is that. Our sensei is utterly fantastic but he started Karate when he was like in his 30's so that is just bullshit. Keep practicing your best and coordination should follow. if it doesn't you could practice your aiming and balance by just going at your makiwara or anything you like. Just keep going for it. bull>

Backfist (Araken (can't spell)) followed by a high Oshira-Geri (can't spell) is very effective and extremely hard to counter or stop.

Well... All other sports have sponsorship so why, rationally should Martial Arts be different? I don't see why everyone is so caught up in the 'traditions'. Like it's offensive to wear a training shirt with Coca-Cola on it... why? Who is it offending? The Japanese guys who decided they wanted to create something that would make you a killing machine? I hope they are not crying at the blatent disrespect of it all. Just a thought.