Nidan Melbourne

If you want another game we do one called "Elvis" but you do need a fairly big dojo to do it safely. But you can add rules but the 4 listed are the ones that can't be removed General rules: - "FIRE" you RUN in a Anti-Clockwise Manner in a Circle - NO overtaking - MUST STAY ON THE MATS (if you have them) - "WIND" You have to TOUCH a WALL or the MIRROR - BUT YOU CANNOT TOUCH a parent, other student, weights etc) - "EARTH" you have to TOUCH the GROUND and stay down until another command - "ELVIS" you have to DANCE like Elvis. How you get out (eliminated) - "FIRE" you can't get eliminated - "EARTH" last one to touch the ground - "WIND" last one to touch a mirror or wall - "ELVIS" WORST dancer The WINNER is the last person standing This game was a favorite among students but we do it for last class of term and during holidays. Also the students keep excited for that and games.

I'd love to attend a krav maga class. Because they look awesome!

The funny thing is in one of my demos on my dodgy technique they got one i didn't think off. So i was very impressed and that they felt proud and their technique improved so much since then

That is so true. Get them to interact with you and answer questions they will enjoy it. Whenever i ask them a question to demonstrate a technique or tell me what i am doing or even what i'm doing wrong (on purpose). They seem to get excited.

Personally I think that they originally came from other styles, but got incorporated into karate throughout the years. So eventually it became part of the art that is karate. I think when Karate was still a young art, those who were teaching it picked up some of the skills from other schools and thought it would be important to utilize.

I can't take him seriously and his videos are long enough but i don't think having him in person would be all that good

Everyone stayed safe. myself and my family basically hung out in our pool throughout the day and didn't want to get out. And our pool was freezing

Nope. Because i enjoyed the first few seasons but it had kinda gotten repetitive over the seasons.

Hope everyone over in the US enjoyed the day.

I agree; how many is it now Patrick?

Thanks for the article tis an interesting read

Do you still have any of your old certificates? cause they should have the schools name on it.

Well not everywhere really. In Australia we can apply for insurance through the Australian Karate Federation, but also through insurers available to the public. But It makes things easier to apply through the AKF when applying for membership with them.

There should be no further arguments/discussions about rank, this person should no longer be a student at the school. Refund all dues not "used" and show her the door. Keep the video as evidence in case she considers suing. Can someone call her now? I totally get what your saying. It is not that hard to figure out how much to refund at all. At my school we have multiple membership types, with the longest being an 18 month membership. If someone at my school gets expelled or quits they have the remaining time/lessons refunded. If they have to take time off and they payed by time (say the 18 month plan) the owner of the school with freeze the payments and will contact the bank to not to do the direct debit that month. But if payed purely on a lesson based you just have to let the owner know, and you can return when you want. This lady should be expelled for her behavior, and that she is threatening legal action is shocking! How does she not understand what Martial Arts involves physical contact? I think she is of the belief that whatever rank her friends go for she should receive the same rank as well. @Jaypo good plan to get all your ducks in a row prior to the meeting. Since you have video evidence of the grading you can easily prove that she wasn't up to the same standard. Also @Jaypo what is your ranking system for adults & juniors and promotional criteria? At my dojo we don't film the gradings because everyone is fully aware of how we do things and that no matter what you do we will treat everyone fairly.

what about opening your own school and not branch out under your current instructor?

Our dojo does something similar, although we still have grading. We pay a flat fee and no extra costs for anything, including belts, exams, etc. For coloured belt grading we are observed always, our attendance is also taken into and stripes are given monthly if the director feels we have earned. When we have earned six stripes we are ready for grading, so if we are invited to grading then we likely will not fail, since we have been observed throughout and earned the stripes. Our classes are not huge, so this is doable. I know that black belt grading is different, and not done at the dojo, but I don't know much about it. (I'm a beginner, not an instructor, but hopefully posting here is ok as long as it is relevant - - let me know if only instructors are to post here and I won't again.) Wouldn't your belts, exams etc be included into your flat fees?

Thats great the your instructor is very talented and has the skills of a 5th dan. Do you think he/she will grade soon? Can't speak for his skills/experience relative to his rank by Kyokushin standards...just saying that he was as good as at least some of the 5th Dans at my previous school. Not sure when he's up for testing for Sandan but according to the syllabus he needs to have a minimum of 3 years at Nidan. I think nearly everywhere you train to grade for a certain dan grade you have to train for a minimum of years that is equivalent of the grade your going for (3 years for 3rd dan, 4 years for 4th dan etc) He is probably due in the next year or so.

Great post I wish I could say I went all the way through my kyu grades with similar-aged peers. That must be a great experience. See, three of my fellow students were ahead of me when I started with my current instructor 15+ years ago... One was a Shodan (we'll call "A"), one a 1st kyu ("B"), and one a 3rd kyu ("C"). Well, eventually I caught up to them. When I made it to 3rd kyu, "B" got his Shodan, "C" had only advanced to 2nd kyu, and "A" quit all together. By the time I earned Shodan, "B" was still a Shodan and "C" earned Shodan with me. So, to me at least, it was cool that "B", "C", and I were all Shodans together... Alas, it didn't seem to sit well with the other two, and they became lax... I eventually passed them up, and they quit, too... It's like your 2nd to last and last passages in your post...you fail, try harder, fail, try again...DON'T QUIT...PASS... I liken these issues to ego, pride, and "know-it-all-ness". As a matter of fact, I just had to address this issue with one of my 16-year-old students. One of the analogies I use with this issue can be found in the movie Forbidden Kingdom, where Jackie Chan's character Lu Yan is talking to Michael Angarano's character Jason. They're sitting around a campfire the night before Jason's training is to begin, eating dinner and drinking, and Jason asks Lu Yan about all these "techniques" that he may be shown: "Buddha Palm", etc... Lu Yan leans to fill Jason's cup with water, overfills it, and continues to pour water into the cup. All the while, Jason is saying, "my cup is full, please stop... hey my cup's full..." "Yes, your cup is full," Lu Yan responds. "How can I teach you anything if your cup is already full? Empty your cup..." My student seemed to understand this analogy well, so we'll see if it takes hold in the near future. As for my fellow classmates that quit, I only pray they would realize this... As for myself, I find that about every 3 - 5 years in my journey I realize I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING, and empty my cup again... why do you do it as a class as a whole? It is interesting how people quit when someone who started after them pass them. I am training with a few people that i taught when they first started. And they are now dan graded students. Which i'm cool with because they are great partners to train wth

Thats good way of doing it. How far in between general evaluations/seminars/general events? what are your requirements? We do gradings usually every month or month and a half. Plus run for 2 hours, and always runs overtime (the centre where we train doesn't love it).

I agree with you on that! train hard and if one person lacks focus they will get hurt. A few weeks back i was doing seeiunchin bunkai with a fellow black belt, and mistimed dodging the attack and blocking it so i got a swift punch to the nose and caused a blood nose coming out of both nostrils. This was because i wasn't paying 100% attention. And I learnt a valuable lesson, and i knew that i should have been paying attention. Mistakes do happen, but without mistakes in training we never truly learn what NOT to do. When i leave the dojo going "that was a great class" i will either have worked so hard and sweated like crazy or have done that and left sore and bruised.

Thats great the your instructor is very talented and has the skills of a 5th dan. Do you think he/she will grade soon?

The system that we test people is fair. If they fail they will either get retested the next class or in 6 classes time. After Gradings if they are weak in something they get a +6 lessons (or at my old dojo a 'G' on their card; which signifies a grading fault/error) so they don't get tested on that part straight away. Say if they got a 'G' on kata; they wouldn't get tested on lesson 18 but would on 24. It is so they get extra practice on that part. At the end of the day it is down to the student to work had at what they have been taught, especially after the class they just attended. If they learn it faster than someone else, great but it shouldn't mean that they can slack off on it. I have taught some students at my dojo in the adults class, picked things up extremely quickly and learnt some potential applications for it. But several weeks later (and of training 3 times a week) they couldn't even show someone else it.

Fair enough! At the tournaments I compete at we can now perform any kata we want instead of having to perform a shitei kata in the first 2 rounds which was the former rule. Originally we had to perform one of these kata in the first 2 rounds: Goju-Ryu: - Saifa - Seipai Shito-Ryu: -Seeiunchin - Bassai-Dai Shotokan: - Jion - Kanku-Dai Wado-Ryu: - Chinto - Seishan So round 1 you would have to do one of those kata then round 2 another. It doesn't matter what style you do you have to do one of the 8. But they are specific and are slightly different to what majority of dojo's do. Which originally was to even out the playing field irrespective of ranking. Since they (the World Karate Federation) removed the shitei requirements, it is all now tokui kata (free choice). The upside of the Tokui is that if you don't practice one of the styles listed above and don't do any of those kata then you can do one of yours. But strategy comes in to play and how difficult each kata is. Clarification: Suparinpei (Goju) is much more difficult than Gekesai Dai Ichi, so Suparenpei is marked much higher.

I love some of these. I do them during kumite

Any way you can upload the video?