Nidan Melbourne

My Shihan, has a couple of Punching Bags that hang up along with a few dumbbells and other pieces of exercise equipment that live near the front desk. We use the bags to allow students to go full force in the bags (Adults Mainly), as it is far safer to do so on those than it would be to go full contact all the time on partners. ALthough we also do run Exercise Classes that use them and use the mat space for various exercises.

Aaaaaaaand this is when I jump in; I understand your frustrations around some rigidity or how some styles of karate (or other arts) fight in the dojo for Health and Safety Reasons. This is where as a Shodan; you should already have an an idea of the WHY around why they may want you to do spar in a certain way. But seems like you haven't broken the rules to find what actually works for you in terms of kumite. For instance; I am a 2nd Dan in Goju-Ryu. Do I spar anything like other Goju Practitioners? - Absolutely not, I fight somewhere in between a karateka and a boxer. Is it evolving as i learn more? yes it will I understand that it may be a high learning curve. but depends on how you train outside of class. Although I do question how your teacher explains the concepts and at what rank they do so. By that I mean that I explain say Zenkutsu Dachi and minor details very differently to a 9th Kyu (White Belt) vs. how i explain it to a Shodan. Or are you talking about the learning curve once you were promoted to shodan? Also a "Good" Fighter is separate to what you may do in the dojo itself. In Tournament Situations; it is very much about experience and how you train and learn. However in Self-Defence situations; it is a different situation because everyone reacts differently. But being a "Good" fighter seems like you would seek out fights to prove that your better than someone else. From my experience in Cross-Training; I found that Simple is often more effective than something that overloads you with information. So I learn Balintawak Arnis (GM Bobby Toboada started this), where you progressively build up to Level 6 (Completion of the Art/Black Belt Equivalent) then Level 7 (Fully Qualified Instructor). Level 1 you learn the basics, then as you progress up each level you review the prior levels (and demonstrate competency showing you have improved). By the time your doing your Level 7 Examination; your demonstrating Levels 1 - 6 you are a competent person who can/should react at full speed. I understand the want to prepare students psychologically, as to be able to deal with being hit. But things do change quickly when you are punched in the face without gloves. Bareknuckle Boxing back in the day, was definitely the norm as that's how a lot of arguments were resolved back well before any of us who are savvy enough to use a computer were born. I know full well my grandfather most likely settled a lot of fights back when he was a young lad before immigrating from the UK to Australia in the 60's. Considering how nearly all young men served in some way shape or form in the Armed Forces throughout the world around the 1920's-30's. So Violence was the norm, and being hit the face wasn't nearly as much of an issue as is it is today. Because back then our equivalent of being punched the face back then was being shot and killed. Like others have said; to have proper full-contact sparring regularly, you either need to have really good insurance OR have students sign waivers not holding the club liable for injuries sustained in the course of their training. From what I've gathered from your post; your looking at doing full contact all the time. But the one thing I have learnt, is that no matter how much you condition your muscles through repeated trauma can cause a lot of issues later on. Unfortunately there hasn't been much research the long term damage or health concerns; as not many people are researching Martial Arts in the Health, Exercise or even Sports Disciplines. This is in the form of those of whom have passed away and we see what has occurred to the body after a lifetime of training. Now Abdominal training can only go so far for each person, before the damage accrued just leaves the person at a higher risk of trauma as the body wouldn't have the ability to recover. I have some friends that have trained in Kyokushin for a long long time; and they have found that they have had a lot of issues around their internal organs because of the amount of trauma that they had faced during their training. But with the amount of training that modern day instructors have, and their ability to help students with post-training recovery which may help with the reduction in long-term complications. And this varies greatly from each Martial Art and how the person trains; of which varies greatly for those who train for Competition vs. those who train for their own enjoyment. The Psychological side of things; I won't fully comment on because I am not trained in Psychology. Nor are (I assume) the majority of people who comment here. But Experienced instructors do learn a lot of tools that are psychology based.

Thanks for the shoutout @Patrick

Hope your hunt finds you well and hopefully Google is your best friend. Have you spoken to your Renshi about recommendations of where you and other students can go and reach out to? Like I know my Shihan were to close, he would recommend clubs in the surrounding areas that were good and had similar standards. As he wouldn't want to let any of his students down in the training front.

I was having a chat with an American Friend of mine the other day, about different sports around the world and then shared sports that various countries play and their respective leagues. and how some sports barely exist in others. What Sports do you follow, that are outside of your own country? He had to get reminded that the "national" sports in each country might not exist in another country or has a small % of participation. When he asked about the Major Sports in Australia; where we have - Australian Rules Football (AFL) [Mens League is well over 100 Years Old, Womens League was created in the last 10 years]. Our primary national sport - Rugby Union + Rugby League - National Basketball League (NBL) - Soccer (European Football) - A-League (Mens League) and W-League - Cricket We have small participation amounts in sports like Ice Hockey and American Football. Before you ask why we don't have larger amounts of Ice Hockey participation. It is because Australia as a whole is a very hot country, even with our seasons; it can vary from 2-3c (~37.5F) to 50c (~122F). SO it would cost significantly more to keep Ice Hockey Centres at a low enough temperature to prevent the ice from melting and to keep it as a playable surface. Then American Football - is already similar to Rugby Union, Rugby League and our own AFL. So there is a smaller following of the sport in relation to being a player, however there does seem to be a decent following in terms of viewership. Although what was funny, is that he had no idea about what AFL was (understandably) so I told him to watch the attached video to get an idea of what it is. And btw Handballing you "punch" the ball from your hand, similar to the first couple steps of Saifa. Restarts after scoring, take less than a minute to do. International Sports I watch (when I can); - NBA (America) - Euroleague (Europe) - Rugby Union - Rugby 7's

This was part of my morning training from yesterday, I did add that note section just in case I forgot what shorthand I used also I knew that if I shared I could make it easy to show you guys.

Can't say that I have met anyone like that in my 20 odd years of training. But it does make me think about my early days.

So this is my Template I use to help plan out my training, then just print it off for me to go. I have a secondary sheet on the same document; which helps me keep track of how often I do each of the exercises/skills. Now on both Sheets I have - Exercise Now this is the most obvious thing for the Warm Up and Main Training. You just have to identify what your doing - Sets How many Groups of Repetitions you have to do. - Reps How many times you do it - Load This might sound strange, but if I am adding any form of weight for a Set I add it here. If unloaded; I either leave it blank or write 0. - Skill Type Whatever form of training area that item is. Kihon, Kata, Pre-Arranged Sparring, Breakfalls etc. I'm looking at making another sheet that gives me a tally of how many of everything that I have done. So at the end of a training phase, or when I review my training I can clearly see how often I do everything.

I should probably add, when it came to Throws and Breakfalls Training we had to be careful and limit to more advanced students when it came to training on Wooden Floors. Like I learnt how to fall on Wooden Floors; did it suck? yes it did. But definitely made me appreciate that having those "golden' rules when it came to learning how to do them and also teaching others. Throws are the same, as each throw has different mechanics to them; we had to have solid awareness of what is on the ground and what the surface is like.

You're doing great! Take it one day at a time. I have a little training diary that I make sure I do something everyday and fill it out.

Depends on what i'm wanting to focus on in any one day. Having been in the game for a long time now, and I'm training on my own; I like to go by feel and listening to my senses outside of sight. Why? because if your in a situation where you lose access to your vision; then you need to rely on everything else at your disposal. Kata - I go through the "Standard" way, then change it up. I did some on the beach recently, including in the water. Pre-Arranged Sparring - "Solo" Edition. Makes you look like a complete Psycho, but this allows you to work on that internal intensity outside of class.

This is more directed towards those who have multiple locations. So for context; the club I first trained at had 4 locations (2 of which I never visited). So our Hombu Dojo used Mats for both floors, and the Dojo I was based at didn't use any mats as we trained on hard floors. So the only time I visited our Hombu was for Grading Purposes. Now out of curiosity; for those who have multiple locations or teach for several clubs. What surfaces do you teach on and how differently do you teach when on different surfaces?

that is so true when it comes to a temporary space. Both clubs I've trained at have used a rented space, both at recreation centres (one now at a school). We can have signs up (Banner ones) and mats out for training.

Thats great that the owner happened to be watching and spotted the issue.

We use the Shodan-Ho designation betwen 1st Kyu and Shodan. But we have the same issues as those who promote students straight to Shodan from 1st Kyu. Over the years, I have noticed that more kids quit once they get to Black Belt than the Adults do. I remember going through the Kyu Grades; and was told NOTHING about the Dan Grades and what training is like after attaining the rank of Shodan-Ho. Although to be fair, at my dojo at the time there were no students ranked above Shodan. We had several Shodan-Ho Students, even when I transitioned to the Seniors Class there were only a handful. But when I graded to Shodan-Ho, I had 1 classmate going for Shodan who was the most senior student there. However club-wide, my instructors (1x 3rd Dan, 3x 1st or 2nd Dan) were some of the most senior. But from what I know all up I think we had 3x Sandans (including my Club Owner), 3 or 4 2nd Dans and a handful of 1st Dans. My current club, we have 1x Godan, 1x Yondan, 4x Sandan, 5x Nidan, 8x Shodan, and several Shodan-Ho. But the reason we have so many higher grades, is because of my CI (Godan), our Yondan came from another club, and the remainder have come to the club as Black Belts and were consequently promoted. But it is possible for a student to have started in 2008 and be promoted to around 4th Dan (if awarded BB in 2012).