Nidan Melbourne

There is some potential for some students who train in the GKR system BUT from what i've seen is that the techniques they learn are dodgy at best. I went to watch a class last night because i bored out of my mind and i didn't have my class on (i don't train in gkr but another school completely). And the techniques they were doing were off and wouldn't really help. They did sparring at the end and it was poor. It was along the lines of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKNtAkRDarg There were 4 students there: 2 white belts, 1 red belt and 1 blue belt. 1 of the white belts had a bad case of lordosis (excessive curvature of the lumbar region of the spine) and the instructor was getting him to do techniques that he clearly couldn't/struggle to do. As we all know for a back hand punch you step forward, have plenty of hip rotation, front hand goes up to protect your head whilst punching. They weren't doing that at all. And this was during a kumite drill. And I am NOT criticizing GKR because of this. But IMHO they really do need to overhaul the style to make it an effective one

i agree with you on that front ps1 as some students wouldn't feel comfortable teaching others, which is a legit reason not to. It is completely up to the student to decide if they want to teach to help teach lower ranked students and to improve their own technique

Its good to hear that it got resolved so quickly. I hate it when the people you expect to lead you and the student body do that to the president and the student body. I am happy you took affirmative action against the board. I would have done the exact same thing!

I agree with Patrick on that point. What would you use them for? As i feel that any post with 10 points can go either way for it.

I'm not surprised parents are complaining about their kids being tired and sore. We get it all the time from our parents. Most of them who complain actually don't stay and watch to see what we do. We work them hard and stretch their brains with a bit harder stuff (really good for your brain when you work yourself harder - neuroplasticity my friends) We tell parents that it is expected that they may be sore and tired afterwards from working hard. As the kids are young their bodies adapt to physical training to become stronger.

John kreese from the karate kid

It does make things difficult for that to occur. We have 1 kid who is 12 that trains with the adults but it is purely because he can't get into the advanced juniors class because his parents can't get off work to drop him off. But he does goof off and doesn't do what he is supposed to. And us black belts often get paired with him to make him realize that he can't act like that. So we work him really hard

Sounds extremely shady to me. The grading fees at my dojo are included into the training prices. And we have no grading requirements outside of the dojo. We don't get told we have to attend any camps or anything like that. so we don't have to worry about like your describing. Although we do have people coming from schools that we have close ties with, and we do charge them for the grading. The only reason we charge them is for insurance purposes and also for a grading fee. So it usually works out to be about $AU50-100. But will be more for a higher ranking grading and less for the lower rank grading. We don't refuse to tell them how much it will cost.

For me personally i prefer having titles for the head of schools. My sensei is a head of style, BUT he doesn't tell everyone to call him kaicho or anything like that. But he informs everyone to call him sensei.

Baaaaad idea to date in dojo. The only time I think it is ok if your dating someone who trains with you is if your dating someone outside of the school then they join your dojo. Then if you break up with them when they're training at your dojo then it will become extremely awkward

Yes it is a mix of Goju and Shotokan. I was bored the other day and looked up their site

It greatly varies at my dojo. For our juniors we have classes 4 days a week and adults 3 days a week. If they train every of those sessions (so either 4 days/week or 3 days/week) you'll get tested every couple of weeks for a 'tag' and you need 5 to grade. so it will take just above a month to grade. As the required minimum of lessons before you can grade is 30. No one grades before that. We have probably a good 40 students who do that, and are very skillful (even our white belts who train 4 days/week with us and extra at their other karate school - but aren't counted towards their tally of lessons to be considered for a grading). So it will take just over 3 1/2 years to get, as all our students once they get past green belt (inclusive) they will take much longer to get their 'tags' It took me about 6-7 years to get my black belt, i trained 2-3 times a week but took a few months off due to knee surgery.

haha as much that is funny that you had your finger on the microphone. But then again it is unfortunate that it was the case.

People should earn every single belt that they grade for. So they should know their curriculum and be quite proficient at it as well. There is more leniency on a couple of the lower ranks as they are generally less experienced, but orange/red belts should be able to do the basics well. Not because they paid their tuition fees but because they earned those belts.

good job on not only looking after your own family but other people too! You are one of the reasons why i am proud to be a martial artist. I respect and and am humbled when i see people do that

Hope you had a wonderful day! What did you get up to for it?

go through the latest NAS results - in australia or the UK and you will see that GKR students regularly achieve outstanding results.... http://www.nationalallstyles.com.au/media/nas/pdfs/tournament-reports/nationals/2010/national-titles-2010.pdf What about WKF Championships? And since you mentioned Australia what about at any of the AKF Tournaments?

It was a massive effort on the day. as we have to perform 25 kyogi from seeiunchin to get our shodan but for nidan it is 25 from sanseru. There was no requirement for me to do it but I was thinking "hell why not I'll do extra requirements"

Today i taught my juniors kicks with focus on a good front kick and roundhouse kick. Adults we focused on takedowns, throws and some locks. Which I was pleased about as I love teaching that stuff. My sensei was unfortunately out sick today so he couldn't teach or come in (he has meningitis atm). So it was up to me and a fellow 2nd dan to look after the classes for the day.

Depends massively on the teacher(s). At my old schools headquarters they ran might mites which was for 4 - 6 year olds, and was run by a good friend of mine (and was one of my teachers for a number of years). Goju-Ryu Karate is really good as it has a combination of hard and soft techniques. But i know a lot of kids that age have been doing Brazillian Jujitsu. as most schools run programs for kids that age.

thanks for your opinion on it. Cause when i watched the video i thought it was odd that i didn't really see many instructors go around checking on things.

I agree with you on this. I find it really strange how she expects you to avoid her "private" parts when sparring. Its a martial art for crying out loud. every student of a MA expects to be hit everywhere. The girls in my classes that i train in don't care if they get hit in their 'private' parts aka breasts. and no one wears chest protectors in my school unless they have a chest injury. I understand guys hesitate to hit girls because it is perceived to be wrong. but in martial arts how are girls going to learn how to defend themselves if they don't feel comfortable about being hit. and when they are hit they throw a massive tantrum. But most females who do martial arts understand it is something they have to be comfortable with. especially if guys do try and feel them up and they have to learn how to prevent it from happening. and if they are getting attacked that they need to know what being under such pressure is like so they can perform their techniques well. In Martial Arts everyone is equal so you can target wherever you would strike. I am a guy and i expect to be kicked in the groin when sparring (hence why we still wear cups to protect them) and that i should be able to protect them if i wasn't wearing a cup. so for girls you should be able to defend your breasts. Besides it helps you with distancing. everyone don't forget that it isn't 100% of men will attack women. even if the percentage leans more against men who assault women, there is still a fair percentage of women who attack men. I fight females majority of the time in class (as in my class there are about 6 females and 8 males) so we fight girls a lot. and they understand that when we punch we might do a movement that might graze their breasts but it isn't intentional. many of us senior graded students in the adults class have two distinct fighting styles. one is our usual fighting style for logic and to figure out what works really well. the other is more realistic when we do self-defense simulations that we attack like an assailant on the street would. for the senior gradings (Blue belt and above) all students will be matched up with a senior student that is physically bigger than they are and have to survive and we see what their reaction would be. some of the females who have gone through it used to go to my sensei and say "he hit me in my private area and i don't like it" and now then they realized that they were stuck in their preconceptions that attackers won't attack their breasts and they changed and learned from it. But we don't do this with juniors as there aren't enough junior black belts to do it, and that they aren't old enough to know how to do those self defense situations just yet. But many of the juniors started to train from when they were 6 years old they will grow up being comfortable being hit all over.

As much as some instructors say that it is wrong. but he/she is right that it can waste energy. Although you bounce they can't predict when you are going to move. as they are used to you bouncing forwards and backwards.

You need to practice the kata with the correct sequence more than 100 times in a row without a mistake in it. Otherwise you have to start again.

Most of your BJJ chokes you should be cutting off air as they are blood chokes. So damage to the wind pipe and larynx shouldn't be an issue. Gene LeBell chokes people out all the time and I've never heard of anyone having any ill effects. I personally choked a guys out about a year ago and as soon as I realized he was out I let the the choke go. I'm sure if you held the choke for too long it would become a concern as your partner is not getting blood to their brain. Actually whenever you apply a choke onto a person there is always a risk that your going to damage the windpipe + larynx. My sister works in a hospital as a doctor and she has seen that people have crushed windpipes due to a person applying a choke to someone too hard. if you hold onto the choke after someone has passed out for too long (more than a few seconds) you are at serious risk of giving the person irreversible brain damage. when you apply a choke to someone and they are struggling, their blood pressure increases dramatically. If they unknowingly have a blood clot or plaque buildup somewhere in their body, and you choke them out there is the risk that they can dislodge and cause a stroke or heart attack. But what some schools fail to do is teach beginners when to tap. when i started BJJ the instructors made sure we all understood when to tap and if we are applying a choke or lock or anything like that we have to let go immediately. and also we were told to keep an eye on our partner so we can let go if they aren't tapping