Wastelander

This isn't the case for all martial arts schools today, though, thankfully. I've been training for 5 years and suspect I won't be testing for black belt for another year or two--and that's if I keep working hard to learn the curriculum, keep helping to teach and keep working to develop my technique and understanding. I also know that my Sensei's girlfriend trains at a dojo under an instructor who believes that no one with less than 15 years of training should test for black belt.

You will notice that almost the only people who have the philosophy of "it's not about the black belt" already have their black belts. I have not tested for black belt yet, although I suspect it will be coming in the next couple of years, but my goal isn't the belt--it's what the belt represents. I don't have a "long term goal" for my training because there is no stopping point, but humans are goal-driven by nature. All of us seek to achieve an end result. Because of that, I set short-term goals. One of those, for me, is to achieve the basic level of proficiency necessary to be a black belt, but it doesn't stop there. Beyond that I have further goals to learn the entire curriculum of my style, to teach my style to others, to develop my own personal style (not in the sense of "I'm now Dai-Soke of Wastelander-Ryu" but in the sense of "This is how I do things"), and to learn things from other arts to help build up my own. Even if I never test for black belt I will still reach the same level if I continue my training, but since the test is there it gives me a baseline to go off of.

Once I get my rent situation straightened out (they billed me for two months instead of one) I'll have a little extra money I'm thinking of putting toward a webcam for this project. I think it would be a really cool idea!

From what you describe, if he isn't doing the testing I don't think he should be charging you testing fees. Then again, I'm still just a kyu-rank assistant and I try not to get involved in politics. It just seems like if you are handling all of the business and all of the training and all of the testing then he isn't doing anything to earn 50% of your testing fees. All he did was train you, which you've already paid for, I assume. One thought would be to slightly increase tuition and stop charging testing fees

I didn't know much of him other than noticing a few of his books being well-reviewed by other karateka. This is a horrible experience for the victim and the families of those involved and I can only hope that he gets what is coming to him. I am also aware that, unfortunately, this type of thing keeps happening in the martial arts community (with karate, in particular, it would seem) and it casts it in a very, very bad light, but my thoughts are first-and-foremost on the well being of the victim. I don't feel there is much to be done but express condolences and righteous anger, unfortunately.

I think the idea would be to plan ahead for when everyone would be online

The problem is that it specifically says "throw it away" and people see that as "this doesn't work for me so I'll just forget it"--you may interpret it as being wary (which is fine--wariness is good, in my opinion) but I think that most people take it for what it says, verbatim.

I have a major problem with this concept. I will grant that Bruce Lee was a fantastic martial artist and the overall concept of JKD--that you should always be advancing your art and learning and building on what you know--is a good one, but this line is always thrown about in discussions about JKD. I hated it the moment I saw it quoted with Bruce Lee's name next to it and I've hated it every time someone has mentioned it since then. I don't want to derail the thread too much, but I will say that just because something doesn't work for you now doesn't mean you should "throw it away", and just because something does work for you now doesn't mean it will always work for you. I feel that the very statement of "throw away what doesn't work" is counter productive to the entire ideal of always working to advance your art and building on what you know.

So they really do cycle it the way you describe. Interesting. It sounds like, to me, they are trying to cash-in on the MMA craze by giving people samplings of everything and getting you to sign up for their MMA class where, in theory, you would put it all together. I don't feel this is conducive to truly learning any of the arts you would be studying, although it might be sufficient to win an amateur fight or two...maybe. I really think you would be better off finding a more regular schedule.

Human beings have an innate desire to name things, so if you aren't part of a "style" now you eventually will be when you or someone else starts calling what you do some name you or they came up with. In regards to Dave's comment, specifically, I think that people want to know if you have a base style because otherwise it seems like you just made your own style up out of nothing. Even if you are working a mixture of equal parts Goju-Ryu, Muay Thai, Taekwondo, Capoeira, Sambo and Catch-as-catch-can they will want to know that those arts are where it came from. If you can't put a name to it then you probably made it up because EVERYTHING has been named or will be named--it's human nature. All that said, I have no problem with people who practice "style-less" martial arts as long as they have credentials, even if those credentials are regarding their training under someone else with credentials.

Well, Skype can give better quality but I think for the purposes of getting larger groups of people together over video chat for training and discussion of martial arts we might be better off with using TinyChat. TinyChat is just a simple chat website where lots of people can join, with or without webcams, and those with webcams and mics can be seen and heard while others can use the chat beneath the webcam window. I don't believe that there is a limit to the number of users. If we did that then we could just schedule days to have conferences, or even have "keynote speakers" through it on occasion. Just my two cents--I don't have a webcam at the moment but I do like the idea.

What JusticeZero has said is all true--even though you are legally an adult you must adhere to the rules of the household in which you live and, regardless of the rules, lying is bad. As an adult you must take responsibility for your actions and take your punishment in stride. That said, I would be practicing karate very hard at home.

That's pretty much how you pronounce "tai sabaki" but that isn't a kata name--it refers to moving your body in relation to your attacker (typically to avoid being struck). That said, however, a little Google-fu does reveal that Yasuhiro Konishi created a set of kata called Tai Sabaki Shodan, Nidan and Sandan: http://www.google.com/search?q=tai+sabaki+kata&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

I marked both "Yes" and "No" on the question about being a karate instructor because I am an assistant instructor and do get paid for my time, as well as the question about being competitive or non-competitive because some of us compete and some of us don't. I will also mention that you repeated the same questions several times in the questionnaire.

Sorry, Ev--the closest Kyokushin dojo I found was in Ellisville, which is over 2 hours away.

Ok, so how do you handle it when they see you perform, and it becomes obvious that you have had prior training, and they ask you again?I also wonder about that--don't you have a problem with blatantly lying? When I started training in Shorin-Ryu I told my instructor about my Judo and Shuri-Ryu training and he didn't give me any propaganda speeches or comparisons beyond mentioning a difference between what I was doing and what they teach. This is a interesting topic. I can see both sides. You don't want the hassle, vs. being honest. Well honesty rules, doesn't it? There is no lying in a fight. If you are going from dojo to dojo, it almost seems like you are testing yourself, or challenging them. To be fair, shouldn't the dojo you are trying, know that. I would wear a white belt, but be honest about the years I have practiced. If pressed about my grade, I would say black belt, and try to leave it at that. The only person you need to talk in detail to is the Sensei. And, don't show off. As far as sitting through a properganda session, you are the one that is asking for a free lesson, have the manners to put up with them. I don't have a white belt anymore, just my brown belt from Shuri-Ryu and my green belt from Judo. When I asked about it he said he didn't mind and I could borrow one until I bought one. Later he flat out told me "No." when I asked him before I was about to buy one. He said that because my basics from my Shuri-Ryu training were so strong it wouldn't be right to have me in with white belts as anything other than an example of a high level brown belt. I'm pretty sure I turned a nice bright shade of red when I asked if he was sure

Ok, so how do you handle it when they see you perform, and it becomes obvious that you have had prior training, and they ask you again?I also wonder about that--don't you have a problem with blatantly lying? When I started training in Shorin-Ryu I told my instructor about my Judo and Shuri-Ryu training and he didn't give me any propaganda speeches or comparisons beyond mentioning a difference between what I was doing and what they teach.

A pocket knife, my keys, my belt, my cell phone and sometimes my CZ-82

I'm sorry to hear about your experience, but I will say that he may have at least a little bit of a point--you were looking at the technique he was teaching from the perspective of a Judo blackbelt while he was teaching it for beginners. A technique that you don't feel will work because your opponent can just drop you with tai otoshi may very well have a way to defend that very thing once you get the basic idea. I can't say that for certain, of course, without having seen it, but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. As for those people's conditioning, I personally feel that conditioning has very little bearing on the quality of training--I go to the dojo and pay to train technique and I can train my conditioning on my own for free. It is unfortunate that he was putting down your Judo training, though, and doesn't exactly make him look good. My Judo instructor here put down my karate training but he at least tried to keep a bit of an open mind and force himself to say that it wasn't wrong, just different . Good luck with the BJJ/JJJ/Judo dojo!

In my first dojo I don't think we had one single person with a gi any other color than white. In my second dojo, however, we had a couple who would come in blue, but that's just because they already had them from training BJJ and our instructor didn't care. I think that pairing blue and white is good for competitions and demonstrations, but I'm not too fond of it in class, personally.

Well, I thought it was more like the jumping front kick in Chinto, but it's very close to the "crane kick" that everybody wants it to be so I suppose that's good enough . It certainly was a great kick!

Congratulations!

I understand the concept of using the dice, but there are more than 3 numbers on a die--what happens if someone rolls a 4, 5 or 6 when you're only counting to 3? As for the quotes, I was just poking fun because a few years ago I had actually memorized and acted out the entire Monty Python and the Holy Grail movie with my friends

I like the idea (although the only D&D I ever liked has been Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale video games) but I am a bit lost on something--they count to three after having rolled (I'm assuming a D6) to find out when they go, but that means that they each have a 50% chance of not going at all. Do you relabel the die? Also, incorrectly quoted Monty Python is incorrectly quoted

My Shuri-Ryu sensei was the step-son of a Chief Instructor (Shuri-Ryu has a Board of Chief Instructors and one Head of Style) and so we trained with the Chief Instructor (a Hachidan) regularly. It's really not that scary once you understand that training with him isn't any different than training with your usual sensei in that he knows WAY more than you. He just also happens to know WAY more than your sensei