Nidan Melbourne

yeah i've been in a couple of them previously and it was a long day. but the interesting thing is that many of the competitors were disqualified before they even started due to their inability to have a presentable gi

How do you feel really badly?

that's true a lot of schools would have low fees yet still produce world class karateka. Even though we have our memberships people can still cancel it at any point in time without paying an exit fee or the likes. They can choose to either pay it fortnightly, monthly or in full. The fortnightly and monthly it is a small fee (like those commercials for skin products where you can either do 5 payments of $30 or pay $150 straight up). If they pay in full and cancel we refund the remaining fund. So if they pay $2000 for a 4 year membership and cancel with 1 year to go you get $500 back. As it works out to be $500 per year.

That is always frustrating. For our students to grade we require them to get 5 'tags' before your eligible. But we don't charge them for each one. our "cheapest" membership is 30 lessons so that includes all testing (aka gradings), belts, grading, and part of each membership is allocated to helping us hire out the space that we train in.

there is always going to be trouble. But i actually like learning kata from other styles also.

I probably had mislabelled it. it is more like a minor tournament. Although i am going to be entering the state tournament in march with a couple of the kata that i mentioned before. As i usually have a set of kata that i can pull out for any tournament. Bassai Dai haven't learnt that one yet. As i don't do Shotokan so it is a bit hard to get time to train with people who do. As a friend of mine trains in the Karate Victora Squad who learns (obviously) learns kata from other styles so i've been learning them off him.

that's quite a smart thing to do in terms of having people grade. I'm guessing your hombu has a file on every single student (+ photo) that trains at all your dojo's? Since my school has only 1 dojo we don't worry about a massive file. But apparently my sensei is opening 2 more schools and will be having me at one of them (oh boy that will be insane) he will be most likely following suit in what your doing. As he wants to open 2 dojos; 1 will be open in the next couple of years and the other one in about 10 years time. as we are looking for places to open them obviously and that has excellent exposure (so lots of foot traffic and cars will see it) and parking. Oh and also has an affordable rate of usage of the space. Our Hombu carries the Master File for each and every student. All testing, and I mean all testing must be approved by the Hombu, no matter the rank/tenure. Soke was adamant about that and there was no way to get around that. Even if you owned your own dojo, you still had to get the approval of all tests in-house by the Hombu, or the grade was not valid without Soke/Dai-Soke's approval. Now that they're gone, our Testing Department approves all testing cycles both in the Hombu and in each Shindokan dojo. No exceptions!! It is good to hear that your hombu approves everything when it comes to grading. It must really help to keep numbers down at a grading for quality assurances. What do you have in the master file? Our sensei has told both myself and the other instructor who are going to head up the two new dojo's that we have to be ensuring that everything that the students are going to learn there are going to be of a high quality and that we don't let people grade until they are ready. And that he will be popping into those dojo's every couple of weeks to check on what we are teaching and if anything needs to be changed. We get advanced warning when he comes, as all students at our specific dojo must attend. As it is to check to see if all students are learning their specific syllabus according to rank. All our gradings in the future once we open up our new dojos will be at our hombu (which is our current dojo). And we have to provide a list of all students who are eligible for the grading. As we might have too many students that are wanting to grade so we will either tell them to wait till the next grading (which is usually 2-3 + weeks later) or we will hold two/three gradings over a couple of days. Say we have 80 students wanting to grade, we will split it up into 4 groups and grade two groups one day and the other two the next day. So it will be over the course of a weekend. So group 1 will grade in the morning, group 2 in the afternoon. and the same process the next day for groups 3 and 4. and apparently when my school opened 5 years ago, the very first grading that was held had close to 50 participants. so we had to do three gradings over the course of 1 day. As we had 35 juniors grade and 15 adults. Each of our gradings are 2 hours long (except for black belt gradings) so overall it went for 6 hours.

Fair enough!

has anyone really seen this all that much in the past? I remember being told by my shihan that "back in the day" there were 5 belts (even if they are only there to keep our pants up). White Red Green Brown Black which then turns back to white from training for your whole life

Yes!! No less than 3, that's in our By-Laws!! Gotta love by-laws For our gradings: we have 3-4 instructors for the adult gradings (my sensei, a colleague of mine who got his 2nd dan at the same grading as me, and then myself and an extra sempai if available) for the class. But we usually have 15 students in the grading and 4-5 of them are actually grading. and we have a few black belts who attend the grading for the heck of it really help push the grading candidates really hard. so it works out to be like 9 black belts pushing the candidates. for our junior gradings we have 6-7 black belts (that's including my sensei) and the number of candidates are variable due to the number that have fulfilled the pre-requisites. at my shodan/nidan grading we had Shihan, 2 sensei's and 3 sempai's on the panel and there were 7 of us grading. and when i went for my black we had 5 instructors to 20 candidates

Hear you...I missed out on a tournament and a few road races I wanted to run in due to this injury and I don't want that to happen again if at all possible. just make sure you work hard on your rehab over the long run and make sure you are fully aware of what your body is saying when your pacing yourself for runs

I agree with sensei8 to look around and decide if that school is right for you.

I technically need 7 as we have 65 competitors in the group. I probably am going to drop Gekesai anyway. And Sensei8 yes I am allowed to choose that order. We are permitted to choose any kata we want. and are still allowed to have some variation in the kata but obviously can't have a massive difference in it. The only change in order i would make for myself is depending who i am up against also. As there are some extremely strong karateka competing so i might have to bump up some of my stronger kata to them.

Hawkmoon you forgot to put 'Other' in the poll. Our poor friend MasterPain is left out of an awesome option. lol

At my school we do: All Kyu Grades: 10 x 2-3 min fights 2nd and 1st kyu grades 15 x 4 min fights Dan grades: 20+ x 5 min fights awase kumite, light kumite, point sparring and jyu kumite

at my dojo we have about 7 junior black belts as they worked hard to attain the rank of black belt. BUT they aren't allowed to grade for 1st dan until they are a minimum of 14 or 15. and we have about 300-400 students at my dojo (17 classes per week overall) and we have between 17 and 25 Black Belts (including Dan Grades). But we don't allow students to grade for their black belt until they are 12-13 at a minimum. so they will be on it for 18 months before they go for their Shodan. and 18 months for us is a minimum before you can grade for shodan

That is a very interesting order of belts. What would you say if a visiting student came from another style and was say a 4th dan black belt?

Yes!! That's been exclusively established by our Soke: One student at a time. *On an average for Kyu's: 1-3 hours, depending on ones rank tested for. *On an average for Dan's: 1-3 days, depending on ones rank tested for. *The thing to remember is that our testing cycles last for two weeks. Week one will be for the Kyu's and week two will be for the Dan's. For Kyu's, there are "sections" for testing. We'll divide the number of testing candidates by number of "sections" that we've available, usually 12. For example...If we've 200 Kyu testing candidates, then there would be about 16-17 students per "sections". In that, we've got to place them in "sections" that are rank appropriate, and if need be, we'll create a new "sections" to accommodate the number of testing Kyu candidates. In that, there will be at least one Sandan or above to administer their said testing panel. For Dan's, they too have "sections" for testing, but not as many because, for one, we've more Kyu's testing than Dan's for various reasons, as well as obvious reasons, tenure and the like. If we've only, for example, only fifty Dan candidates in totality of the testing cycle from Shodan to Hachidan, then we don't need the usual 12 "sections", like with the Kyu's, we'll have. For example, we'll only use 10"sections" with about 5 testing candidates per "sections", and of course, we'll add more "sections" are required. We'll complete the Dan testing from Shodan-Yondan in the middle of the week, but only if we've testing candidates for the Godan and above. Then comes the fun. Godan - Hachidan testing candidates will use only one "sections" because the testing panel is much larger; more eyes on the testing candidate, so to speak. We'll test them, if we have any, and quite often, we won't have any Godan and above testing candidates. This is in a nut-shell, so to speak. To your second question. YES!! We've plenty of high ranks to tend to the needs of the areas in which you've inquired about. All high ranks MUST be at the Hombu, no exceptions!! that seems like a lot of work! do you do other gradings throughout the year or just at that one grading?

that's quite a smart thing to do in terms of having people grade. I'm guessing your hombu has a file on every single student (+ photo) that trains at all your dojo's? Since my school has only 1 dojo we don't worry about a massive file. But apparently my sensei is opening 2 more schools and will be having me at one of them (oh boy that will be insane) he will be most likely following suit in what your doing. As he wants to open 2 dojos; 1 will be open in the next couple of years and the other one in about 10 years time. as we are looking for places to open them obviously and that has excellent exposure (so lots of foot traffic and cars will see it) and parking. Oh and also has an affordable rate of usage of the space.

Thats great what your doing CredoTe! Hopefully the student gets and utilizes that help that your trying to give him/her! HIGH FIVE!

that does sound very relaxing indeed! My sensei wouldn't be that nice.

Hey all, I am competing in a state tournament early next year and want your opinion on what order i should do my kata in. the kata i will be doing is: Seienchin (Shito-Ryu or Goju-Ryu version) Saifa (Goju-Ryu) Seipai (Goju-Ryu) Kurarunfa (Goju-Ryu) Gekesai Dai Ichi (Goju-Ryu) Anan Jion (Shotokan) Kanku Dai (Shotokan)

and its our pleasure to be a part of this great forum! how long did it take overall to compile the list?

This morning: 4 hrs of open mat of BJJ continuous fighting. about 10 minutes rest overall. tonight will be: 3 hours gym - weights (various) - Cardio 90 minutes

better kicks than i can do