crash

and the militaries that have people teaching with no combat experience tend to be trash at war when they finally get a taste of it….there’s a pretty good example of that going on right now…I’ve never seen a boxing coach who didn’t have at least a few fights/smokers on their record. How successful are those coaches? angelo dundee never fought, he was ali's coach terry edwards never fought, yet was an excellent coach cus demato, tysons coach, 0-2 record there are many others who either never fought or werent very good, but knew the mechanics of fighting at a higher level than most actual fighters. as far as the military is concerned, most of the leaders come from officer candidate school and other leadership courses/schools within the military. before the middle eastern conflicts the US military had reached a point where most leaders had not seen any combat, yet we were still one of the greatest militaries in the world. even now there are many, many, leaders within our own units who have not seen war. yet are fully capable of leading and teaching the units they command. How many other great fighters did they "produce?" When you get into the professional levels of competition, it's hard to tell which coaches are good, and which ones are made to look good by the talent of their athletes. this is true, would Ali have been as good or better with a different coach?, would Tyson?. that is something we may never know. every coach brings something different to the table. sometimes something so simple that another may not bring that may make all the difference in the world to that one fighter as an individual. i heard someone quote a statement from an old "master" once that most never really consider fully. but have seen it come to be a gamechanger more than once through my years in this game. the quote is, "move, just move. if you stop your dead", everyone always wants to break down the movements of Kata, or what is a block and what is a punch, or how do you transition from this to this, etc.... but ive seen point fighters and sport karate fighters win real fights far more often than someone who gets caught up in all the technical stuff, why? because they knew how to move. how to keep the opponent off balance and on the defense... this isnt rocket science guys, the ones who can relax and see what is in front of them and react accordingly are the ones who will be ahead of the game, those who freeze, become stagnant or panic will always be behind and playing catch-up., good coaches, teachers, instructors in any field who can teach that and make their students see the big picture are always the ones who have a higher success rate.

and the militaries that have people teaching with no combat experience tend to be trash at war when they finally get a taste of it….there’s a pretty good example of that going on right now…I’ve never seen a boxing coach who didn’t have at least a few fights/smokers on their record. How successful are those coaches? angelo dundee never fought, he was ali's coach terry edwards never fought, yet was an excellent coach cus demato, tysons coach, 0-2 record there are many others who either never fought or werent very good, but knew the mechanics of fighting at a higher level than most actual fighters. as far as the military is concerned, most of the leaders come from officer candidate school and other leadership courses/schools within the military. before the middle eastern conflicts the US military had reached a point where most leaders had not seen any combat, yet we were still one of the greatest militaries in the world. even now there are many, many, leaders within our own units who have not seen war. yet are fully capable of leading and teaching the units they command.

lets see, there are boxing coaches who have never fought, some who fought amatuer but never made it to the pro level, and a few who never fought at all, there are military instructors who never went to war, the list goes on, academia has its place, even in the combat arena

the book of boba fett is good, the last three episodes are more of a continuation of the mandalorian...must see if ya want a cool surprise and know what happens to the baby.......

is this a trick question????...lol..... if so then, YES it is japanese , if not it would be called Kung-fu........hmmmm....lol

while this type of "franchise" is , or was, fairly common back "in the day", the world has changed a lot since then and the federal gov. rules on franchises have increased and are more closely moderated than before. as a franchise you are required to follow whatever rules corporate decides to put in place or bring forth, (him being corporate, you are teaching under his name so its in his best interest to know what, and how you are teaching, its his reputation (name)on the line and he will have a say in how you operate.) failure to comply can result in fines, etc.... while you and your instructor may be good friends now, what happens if he sells or passes the business on to someone else. you could then be stuck with having the hassle of changing the business name, license, documents etc.....starting your own dojo, under his "system" or "style" but under your own name could be a better option. you could still partner up, cross train, etc.. but it would be your own operation without any possible 'red tape" or distractions of interferance from outside parties.

im not disagreeing with what you state as far as pricing is concerned, (especially in other types of business or sales,) but pricing isnt the end all of a sale in any business. "curb appeal" is often the closer of a sale regardless of price. when a potential student walks into your dojo what do they see?, how are they greeted? are they invited to watch a class or take a free class? what is the condition of your dojo?, what type of floor, equipment, etc... compared to the competition?.... while pricing should be competitive to the area and competition, the level of instruction and professionalism should be the first concern, and will dictate what you will be able to charge. this will also build your reputation as time passes and you become more established.

Unfortunately the area is a very weirdly set up space that minimizes the space available for training One area is like 17x13, and the other is about 8x6 And that 600-800 ft of space also includes the viewing area for parents ah, my bad, I was thinking you were teaching teens / adults. i wouldnt teach children myself out of a home dojo.... just way too much liability involved on so many levels. in that situation i would rather teach out of a community center / rec dept. or church or community college program.. continuing education programs at community colledges are sometimes a good venue to build up students or start from.

that equils roughly a 25 x 30 foot area, you could double your class size fairly comfortably and still have room for a couple stand up bags, a couple speed bags, heavy bags and such. you could then set up "station" type drills to go along with the normal day to day teachings / instruction. space management is important, but quality instruction can be given even in small spaces if programs are designed properly. monthly fees would be my first choice. as that would be easier to transfer to having a commercial space should you later choose to make that move. private lessons could be done on a class by class schedule if someone were to prefer that type setting/commitment.

congratulations Patrick

gotta agree with wastelander, keys between teh knuckles is a bad idea. as is a belt and 99% of most other objects. a weapon has to be a weapon, not something that is just going to scratch or bruise, adrenaline in an altercation will negate the effects of most all "small" types of defense. and hitting the right spot that a small weapon would need to strike is almost impossible on a moving target...thats why youre taught to aim center mass with a firearm. improvised weapons should be in the club, staff, or pointy type categories, with a little heft to them. but the most important thing to always consider is the escalation of force laws. could you escape? could you first defend yourself without a weapon? did you fear for your own life or the life of others? etc... when a weapon is brought into play you will be grilled on every aspect of your defense.

as stated above, situational awareness, confidence, etc..are usually the main focus in a "womens self defense" type series of classes. with this being geared towards the fitness side you could include rapid stance changes with jabs, straight puncehs etc... just basic moves with a cardio emphasis.. also stretching and light strength type exercises such as planks and leg lifts/flutter kicks... depending on the average age of the participants., you will have to evaluate and build from there.

Seems sensible. It also reminded me how different things are in the USA compared to over here - we now see the occasional 'high street' location for a martial arts club, but it is unusual - strip mall style classes were never a thing over here. Usually most styles seem to be taught in the evenings, a few times a week, by an instructor/s in a rented space for the session - could be a sports centre, a church hall etc. Full time academies have started to spring up a little more now but they seem to be mainly BJJ or MMA schools (though there are both a Taekwondo and Hapkido one near where i live - but it is very much an exception) Over here the issue seemed to be that the 'better athletically talented' individuals moved towards styles like BJJ, Muay Thai and MMA (if it can be called a style) with many fewer people taking up a more traditional style, so they seemed to start trying to remove barriers (making it easier to progress; gentler training etc.). Some styles just make it hard for adults to train it - as a personal example i decided i wanted to try Judo and started looking into classes. There are judo clubs all over the city but almost all of them refuse to take adults (certainly beginners). Only a very small number allow adult beginners to come along which then also reduces numbers. Thankfully for me, the class that my son attends was one of the few that would permit an adult - though at another of their locations! stand alone dojo's, whether in their own bldg or in a strip mall type area have always been the norm here since the 70's. whether a full traditional style or a sport oriented style, they both are effective for self defense or competition, ive seen traditional styles such as kung-fu and others with some amazing form work at tournaments. its the watering down of the arts that was the problem. and becoming more exercise based to compete against the gym scene and the "cardio kick boxing" crowd. when i ran a dojo it was 5 days a week, starting at 6 in the evenings and going through 9, 14 years old and up. it worked out really well. i could hold the occasional 8 week class at the local college three times per year and gain new students as well as putting on demos at the local high schools for advertisement type purposes. now it seems most dojo's would have a hard time making it if it werent for the child enrollment, getting the teen and adult interest back is key to furthering the popularity of the arts once again. and to do that i think first getting back to the roots of "karate" is a must.

I don't think the multitude or organisations and splintering that has occurred helps either, is like a more extreme version of the crazy amount of alphabet belts in professional boxing. In the bjj world everyone just focuses on their instructor lineage and doesn't really bother about their governing body (unless entering IBJFF competitions). You are a X Belt under Professor Y who got their Black belt from Professor Z etc Maybe a solution would be to adopt a similar model for karate. Individual instructors could then monitor the standard of their lineage - it would become well known that the Instructor McDojo tree was made up of Mcdojo's and people could easily avoid it. The disparate bodies could then arrange tournaments/competitions that align with their institutional viewpoints. So a JKA tournament, a WKF tournament etc. Would be quite a shift in emphasis but it might help a lot of the fall from popularity started in the 90's with the entrance of certain groups. ( i wont name groups, i dont like the term "mcdojo" and dont want to get into that debate / conversation. karate reached a point where the next step in evolution was to go "mainstream". to reach as wide an audiance as possible. so you had the corporate type groups set up in every strip mall. in the process it became watered down and more exercise type activity than "karate". then with the popularity of mma, that was added in for advertising..the tournament scene dropped substantially as more and more of these groups went the way of intra-school only competitions and seminars.) the open tournament set up was the best option to display your style to a greater number of paricipants and guests. point fighting is fun but the best thing about the open tournaments was the forms competitions as far as seeing new and amazing styles. karate just needs to get back to its roots, build back up in the media, and learn from the past so that the same mistakes can be avoided for future growth.

true iaido is a philosophy of morals, without a zenful approach of "mushin no shin" it isnt really iaido. that would be a problem of being self taught. now if you just want to learn sword kata that may be do-able with time and patience

self training and self teaching are two very different processes. learning any martial art by oneself is never going to be as good as recieving training from a qualified instructor/teacher. with 18 years of karate training, (as long as it was quality training) you may know the foot placements and body movements as iado and kenjustsu in general are similar to striking and moves as karate. but you would have to be able to staudy the fine nuances of the art to really "get it" properly. and then there is the spiritual side to iado that you would almost have to have a teacher for. could you learn the forms, probably. but could you learn the art as a whole....possibly, but it would probably take much time and intense study to become even somewhat proficient. if there is no other way then studying alone may be the only way, just make sure you are thorough and no shortcuts are taken. which is very hard to do if not impossible.

I've never understood what is wrong with having distinct styles that focus on different areas of combat - current opinion seems to be that everything needs to include everything. I always quite liked the approach that GSP (i think it is uncontroversial to rank him as a top 5 all time MMA fighter at worst) took to training - whereby he learnt the art itself and then adapted it to his personal style for mma. He achieved a 4th dan in Kyokushin. Wanted to learn ground fighting so he got a bb in bjj. Wanted to improve his wrestling so he took up wrestling directly etc. In my opinion if you try to learn the arts separately, you can learn then much more deeply and find the techniques that work for you personally and integrate them into your own personal style. If you learn mma then you learn the style that your coach has chosen, which works for them, but if you are extremely different physically/style wise from your coach then it may not suit you e.g. i am 6'4" and about 225lb (in American measurements ) so what suits my much smaller coach may not suit me at all. Nothing wrong with having a karate school that focuses on karate; a taekwondo school that does taekwondo; a bjj school that just does bjj. to make a comeback this is exactly what karate needs to do. get back to its roots of whatever the style may be and focus on just that. and then self promote through an active tournament scene and demo's. somewhere along the way in the early 90's the tournament scene dropped substantially with different organizations and groups starting intra-school only type tournaments and activities. this took karate and the martial arts in general, out of the spotlight of the general public to a large degree. one of those " if youre not already involved you wont know or see it" type situations. sure, tournaments and demonstrations arent for everyone, but those were a major source of advertising and exposure for the martial arts. until some form of publicity is reached on a higher level karate will remain stagnant

karate saw its height in the 80's, a lot of us were there, the tournament scene was great, dojo's were packed. publicity and media pushed it along. ( for any of you who may have been into sport karate, remember getting your names in the latest issue of Karate illistrated for tournament wins??) the PKA was started and kickboxing became a recognized event. it began to fall out of focus at the time that MMA was coming up. is it making a comeback with the media and such shows as Kobra kai now, maybe, but karate is its worst enemy. wrestling, judo, boxing, have always been around, i wrestled in junior high school before i started karate. but then karate was still focused on karate, not playing catch-up and having to include a little of everything just to try to appeal to everyone. anyone well trained in most martial arts can protect themselves from a common street fight or bully. its been proven over and over. you dont have to be trained in every discipline to protect yourself, most conflicts you will ever face isnt going to be against a UFC trained opponent or professional boxer, but that is what most dojo's think now. so they add this class and that class that they really arent even qualified to train to begin with....lol....thats where the whole "mcdojo" term originated. i havent been on the tournament scene in a very long time now, dous it still even exist? i know a few big ones are still around but is it even popular anymore with todays martial artists. karate needs to focus on its roots and what made it great in its hayday, forget about competing/ riding the coattails of professional groups such as boxing and mma and return to a stand alone sport/activity/discipline and re-form itself to what it should be all along. then it could make a comeback and be what it was at its biggest time.

looked for the thumbs up button, here ya go..lol..... very true about sparring. another good exercise for sparring is somewhere in-between kata and one steps. place two students facing each other in fighting positions, like one step practice. have one remain frozen in position while the other circles in increments, throwing techniques at found openings, once the circle is complete they reverse and go back around in the opposite direction, then switch and the other performs the exercise. repeat with changing the fighting position of the stagnant participant, forward position, side position, left, right, etc.....sounds basic, (and it is) but is very good at teaching to look for all openings and how to position to get the hit, kick, or whatever in. trains the eye and the footwork, im sure you have all seen this or incorporate a version of such exercises. just made me think of this with sparring type practices.

kata is beneficial in a number of ways. but that being said, it also depends on the teaching and the focus put into it. at the very least it teaches proper, strong, form and technique. intensity, form, flexibility, strength, are all things that will develop from proper kata training. learning the intensity and "snap" of a movement with excellent form can be a beautiful thing to watch. going through a kata repetitively, slow, then building up to full speed once the moves are mastered goes a long way in showing where you are at as far as training. but again it has to be taught properly and then practiced with discipline and desire. not just thrown out there with a "meh" attitude. its a way to keep in touch with the basics while also learning advanced skills. a good, positive all around practice.

training starts off with light cardio such as running in place, jumping jacks, push-ups, then to stretching, starting at the head/neck and working down to the feet. then leg stretching, side to side. bent over stretches, american and chinese splits.( as far you can go).wall stretches, etc... then into a few minutes of basic punches and kicks from left and right fighting positions. then into a more intense training with body shields or whatever the class may be for that session. start light and build up the intensity.

I was actually planning on trying to incorporate a few new ideas into the training plan. adding a class of just high intensity type training or such. the thought of this forum just popped in my head to check and see what some others training was like in these more modern times...lol...and maybe bounce some ideas around and see what the reaction would be from others in the practice.

WOW, every one, Thank you all. this is really unexpected and nice. thanks guys. sorry for the late response, cant believe I didnt see this earlier. sorry i somehow missed this before now....and Thanks again

round kick- top of the foot front kick- ball of the foot side kick- heel when the side kick is fully extended it is basically the same position as a back kick or spinning back kick.when practicing a side kick in slow motion or by steps i teach students to get in a side stance, slide the rear led forward while turning the foot to point backward, lift and "cock" or "chamber" the kicking leg (at this point you are now actually in a back kick position, only facing forward...lol)extend the kick forward to the target and end with it pulling back and returning to a side stance.

that is similar to how I did and still would run a class. I always started out with stretching / calisthenics and then into kihon, followed by one steps, or bag / shield work. i always ran a beginners class for white through green belt for heavy focus on the basics, advanced class for all above green would be, well, more advanced...lol... with a 5 day a week class schedule i would incorporate every other day to a more strenuous type workout, cardio wise. the month leading up to testings would be heavier on forms work and other test requirements. i also had a separate sparring class on wednesdays for those who wished to stay longer and participate. though i did keep the sparring class for advanced levels. under green would be taught sparring separatly in the beginners classes. I am now trying to decide if a HIIT type class would be worth trying to incorporate into a future dojo.