mazzybear

I sat my grading for 4th Kyu last night I got a pass B, which I'm delighted with because of the work I've had to put in over the last few months. Back in september I was promoted from 8th to 6th Kyu due to success at the national Kata championships. Since then it's been pretty crazy trying to learn stuff I bypassed with the promotion plus normal grade work, at times I felt a litlle out of my depth. But last night made it all worth it, to come away with a B from what my instructor considers a pretty difficult grade, just blows me away. Now the work for brown belt starts here. M.

They make it look so easy in the video too, I think starting at 5 mins is a good idea, but think it's one of those things the more you do it, the longer you'll last. Kind of like pull ups, last week I could only do 1 so I done countless sets of 1, now I can do 3. I think this will be the same. M.

I tried it last night, it was very uncomfortable after 5 minutes or so. But I would think it can be split over the day, say 3 10min sessions, and then work my way up to the 30 minutes. Let me know how you found it. M.

Simply to be the best version of me I can possibly be To put all I can into my training and hopefully that will lead to grading for my Shodan.

I think you've done the right thing in finding a new Dojo, that kind of environment can't be good for training and I'll bet yu won't be the last student to find another class due to this behavior, the other students will begin to resent the focus always being on this Maria character. She sounds delightful, and probably not as good as she thinks or the instructor is leading her to believe she is. Sound more like he has a very unhealthy obsession with her. It's all very well holding up a top student to inspire the rest of the class, but this definately sounds weird. I hope you are enjoying your new class and can resume your Martial Arts journey in the way it should be enjoyed. M.

I've not had any serious injury to my hips, the only thing I can think of is when I was a kid I was jumping on a bed and fell off, nothing broke or dislocated but I did have a good limp for a while. I was always sporty through my teens and early 20's and never suffered any effects from said injury. I did gain quite a bit of weight when my sporting activities lessened, I've lost 3 1/2 stone and am now back to my ideal weight of 10st, I don't know if that would have any affect on flexability? Thanks for the advice. M.

Thanks for the advice guys, I'll be sure to try it all out. I especially liked the video for the Asian squat, made me chuckle. I've seen a slight improvement with the stretches my instructor gave me, hopefully these will help further. M.

Hey guys, Not too sure if I'm posting this in the right place, but here is my question anyway. I've been training in karate now for just over a year after 20+ years away from it. I still struggle a bit with my round house kicks, I just can't get my hip up and over to execute the kick properly, so was wondering if any of you can give me some execises/stretches to open my hips a bit? My instructoe says it's quite unusual for a woman to lack flexability in her hips, it may be due to the fact I sit most of my time at work. He's given me some stretches to try daily at home but would be grateful for anything any of you could offer on top of these. My other kicks are ok and I can get good height on my side kicks, it's the round house I seem to struggle with. Any suggestions would be gratefully recieved. M.

Thanks for the input. Yeah, I probably shouldn't have said anything, but with a beer or two I say things too easily But the conversation in general did get me wondering if what I had read was right, so who better to ask than the guys on KF. M.

I was recently in a friend of a friend's house at a party, this guy had a 3 tier samurai sword rack on display (just a cheap ornament type as opposed to real weopons) I told him he was displaying them wrong, which he seemed to take offence to. He had them katana at the top and tanto at the bottom with all 3 having the blade edge downwards. I told him it should be Tanto to the top, Katana to the bottom and blade edge upward with handles to the left. I'm no expert on this but sure I read somewhere it was all to do with the order a Samurai would attatch each weapon to his armour and how the sword would be drawn. He basically told me I was talking nonsense (personally I think he just didn't like being corrected by a woman ) Am i right in what I said, or am I indeed talking nonsense? M.

It's not something that's practiced at our club, and to be honest I'm not sure I see the point. Once you hit 1st Kyu in our club you are required to do most of the stuff you mentioned in your post. You must be 1st Kyu for a minimum of 6 months, attend at least one black belt course (as of 2015 the SKF will require all candidates to sit a referee course too) and have 20 competition stamps before sitting your Dan grade. So I guess if you do all these thing you don't need to show your commited through a non existent belt. Having said that though, I don't suppose it does any harm. M.

Try this Gi, http://www.blitzsport.com/Adult-White-Diamond-Karate-Suit?sc=8&category=2253622 they go up in half sizes so you can get a 165 no problem they do shrink but the shrinkage is factored in in the size. Blitzsport deliver worldwide but I don't know the costs but there should be a page telling all this on the site somewhere. I have this Gi and love it. For the price it's high quality and has that satisfying 'snap' we all love. M.

Personally I would enter as a beginner. I started training again after 23 years. I left when I was 12 and 5th Kyu, so not quite the same stage you were at. But it's amazing what you forget about it. You really don't want to feel out of your depth and be disheartened from carrying on with your training. So my choice would be go in as a beginner and if all goes well enter the next one as an intermediate. This way it will give you a better idea of where you sit in it all. Good luck with the competition however you decide to enter. M.

I think that's great. A proper way to give back what you have gotten out of your love for the martial arts. One day I hope to do the same. M.

Congratulations on the first step of your MA journey!!!! M.

My top 5 has to be: 1. Enter The Dragon. 2. Streetfighter. (Sonny Chiba, not the cheesy computer game one.) 3. Bloodsport. 4. Kill Bill Vol. 1. 5. Shogun Assasin. Loads more like: Blade, Kickboxer, Fists of Fury, China O'Brien and Warrior. But the above are definately my favourites. M.

Have you considered accupuncture? I know some folk dismiss it straight off, but my Uncle suffers from sciatica (he'd normally be the type to dismiss such things, but was at the end of his tether) and tried his first session last week. He said while the pain wasn't completely gone, it did help considerably and is going for his second session this week. Maybe if the physio route doesn't help you may cosider this. Hope you are pain free soon. M.

It's pretty much the same with my instructor, he makes very little, if any money from it. But our equipment is always in good condition and is replaced if it's not. We rent 2 differnet halls in different towns and I don't think either come cheap. But his passion for Karate, and teaching it, is plain for anyone to see. That is why he has gained infinate respect from his students. He doesn't need dojo etiquette for us to show respect. I think a relaxed environment is more codusive to learning. If you're not worrying about who and when you should be bowing to, you can just sink into the the class and concentrate fully on what's being taught. By all means bow at the end of the class and show your respect to one and other then. Some more experienced MAists may disagree, I'm only 5th Kyu after all, but I like it this way. M.

At our club the kids go through 2 belt systems. In the juniour class they have white belts with their coloured stripe in the middle, white/yellow stripe, white/orange stripe and so on. When they reach 3rd white/brown stripe the can come up to the cadet/senior they start over again with solid colour belts yellow,orange,green and so on. I think it's good they start from the beginning though as in the junior class it's just making sure they have the basic punches, kicks and can remember their Kata straight through. Coming to the cadet/senior class can be a bit of a shock for them because now they have to learn Kihon, Ohyo and Ippon Gumite and their form has to be spot on, whereas the juniors are cut a bit of slack with their form. The instructor likes them to have fun in the class so they are more likely to stick with it, whereas if the were getting roasted for not having perfect kicks they would likely chuck it. Some do chuck it after comig up because they can't handle the change, but generally those who stick with it go on to attain their black belt. The majority of our Dan grades actually started as juniors, so our intructor is definately doing it the right way. IMHO anyway. M.

Reading some of these I have to say I've never really relised just how relaxed it is in our dojo. My instructor refuses to be called Sensei, instead he insists we call him by his first name. We bow only at the end of the class when the Dan grades line out in front of the Kyu grades and we all bow to each other. (we also bow at the beginning and end of kata/kihon/ohyo as standard) Everybody wears a white Gi, but I'm not even sure if that's a rule or more that nobody wants to stick out more from the others. Relaxed it may be but even so there's definately no lack of respect for our instructor, when he talks we listen. Some of the younger ones sometimes push the boundaries a wee bit, but they are soon checked by the older ones and not necessarily the Dan grades, the Kyu grades will tell them too.I think basically the one rule is treat everybody with the respect that you would expect to be treated with yourself. We recently had a juijitsu club come in to give us a demonstration, our intructor insisted on stricter etiquette on this occasion making sure we called the visiting instuctor Sensei. I guess it's basically down to the inividual instuctor how he wishes to run his Dojo. M.

I think if you ask most instructors, they don't do it for money, they do it for the love of the art. I know that's certainly the case with my instructor, once he's paid for the upkeep of the equipment and the rent of the hall, he has very little profit. Maybe if you concentrate on where you are now instead of 10 years down the line when you MIGHT be Sandan, you might pick up the love for it again. If you feel it's "waste of time" right now then you're not going to like the constant hard work and dedication it's going to take to get to Sandan. It sounds to me like your focus is all wrong in looking to Karate as a way to make money, you should be looking at it as a tool you can incorporate into other aspects of life and maybe things will change. Just my opinion though. Hope you figure it out. M.

I love those videos, they crease me up every time. Too funny. M.

I agree 100% with this. My instructor is 63 and still makes things look so effortless. He is of the mind if he has to use others to demonstrate for him then that should be the day he hangs up his Gi and packs it all in. The guy is a machine, it's awesome to watch sometimes. If he catches you skimping or not doing it right then you have to do it all again until you do it properly. M.

I've been using heat pads off and on which seem to help. The doc says not to compress as this can restrict breathing and lead to chest infections apparently. He did slay to try and sleep on the injured side as much as possible which kind of surprised me (I would have thought this would aggrivate the injury) but after lying on it for a while the pain definately lessens. Thank you for the reply and the well wishes. M.

I'll be sure to do that, definately don't want to risk further injury. I'm nightshift this week and won't make class until Thursday, so my ribs will get a wee rest. I won't take any pain relief on that day and try the plank. Hopefully they should be good by then. Thanks for the advice. M.