JR 137

Me too. If they’ve got a free trial period, I’ll wait for the season to finish airing then binge watch it during that time. Most of those services have a 7 day trial period. The frugal side of me says do that. The other side of me says if I really want to watch it, $10 isn’t too steep. I mean, movie tickets alone cost more than that. But yeah, free trial period will be the way I go if possible. I wonder if they’ll release a whole season at once, like Netflix does with a lot of them, or if they’ll release episodes weekly or periodically.

There are far cheaper alternatives. Do you belong to a church? Does it have a basement or large enough area? Ask your preacher, minister, priest, rabbi if they would consider renting you space. I did this for many, many years when my tenant space was tripled in rent to force me out for a retail store chain. It costed me a little less than a 1/4 of the rent (they already own the space). The one church I taught out of did not charge me rent at all for the first three years. Just a thought. The only thing you will need is insurance. The church will require you to hold your own insurance. But this is not a draw back since you have to have it no matter where you teach. Unless your privately wealthy and can pay for claims out of pocket that is. As someone who isn't particularly religious, do you think it's poor form to ask a pastor, priest, rabbi, etc, to rent out a space in the church for the gym if you don't belong to his or her congregation? I don’t think it would be “poor form” if you’re not a parishioner/member. It wouldn’t be good to pester them if they said no, but that’s not exclusive to a religious place either. Their house, their rules. I’d imagine they’ll be a bit more selective about who’s coming in and what’s going on than more public places. For example I don’t think they’d be ok with renting out to a bunch of guys looking to hold a bachelor party. The worst they could do is say no and tell you you’re a heathen. I doubt you’d be dealing with the priest/rabbi/etc. in this. Most likely they’ve got a different office-type person who handles this stuff. As far as I know, my former sensei isn’t a parishioner at the church he rents from. Maybe a friend who helped him get in was? I attended a seminar he held there a few weeks ago. It was different training in a gymnasium setting than a traditional dojo setting. But after getting over the visual part (all of about 10 seconds), it was actually better. Far more space to do what he wanted. The only drawbacks were no mirrors and not much, if any storage space.

Another thing to consider is local gyms. My former sensei renter space at a local gym for a period of time. It was supposed to be temporary, but ended up being longer term because it was working out very well for everyone. He made a great arrangement with the gym - gym customers got a free trial period and discounts to karate, and karate students got the same to the gym. He got several new students, and so did the gym. And all karate students had access to the lockers, showers, stuff like that. It was great until the manager got caught stealing my sensei’s rent money. Apparently he never told the owner my sensei was renting the space. When that came out, the owners wanted him to stay under the same deal, but understandably declined and went on his own way.

And they’ll juggle around the times and days on you. A friend teaches Zumba at the Y. They change her night and time every 4 or 5 months. Move it up an hour, back an hour, stuff like that. If you’re looking for a specific age group, you’ve got to consider what you’re going up against. The Zumba teacher does very well with the kids’ class until swimming season starts. She does very well with the adults, but then the yoga schedule will change and she’ll lose students to that. She doesn’t get paid per student, but if the numbers are too low she’ll get moved or replaced. If someone’s going to teach MA and get paid per student, that’s an issue. If you’re contemplating teaching at the Y, look at their schedule and try to avoid being scheduled against popular group activities. If you’ve already got a core of students and are just looking to relocate, that’s a different story. But don’t lose sight of the scheduling because you could miss out on potential students. At my local Y, going up against yoga, tabata, and spinning/cycling classes would be a sure fire way of not getting new adult students. If someone was trying to get more kids, those times would be great for kids’ classes; the parents could have the kids in MA while they did yoga. Just some thoughts.

My former sensei ran 2 dojos - one in a commercial space, and one in a church hall. The commercial space was a good 45 minute drive each way for him, the rent kept going up, and the landlord was more and more an absentee landlord every lease renewal. He sat down and evaluated. Everything. The commercial space wasn’t worth his time and the numbers weren’t justifying it anymore. He closed it and focused on the church hall dojo. He’s got less students overall, he charges less in tuition, and he’s making better money. There’s drawbacks to this arrangement though. His schedule is a bit erratic because he has to change things when there’s church events in the hall. This was all stated from the outset and they give him an agreed upon notice of it. I think he’s got to move class every 1st Saturday, religious holidays, etc. Some potential students may not like that if they’re looking for specific nights due to other commitments.

Me too. I think it’s a subscription YouTube service with its own original programming, kind of like Netflix. But I’m not sure.

In my incoherent rambling above, I wanted to have one part stand out, so I’ll ask it here in a separate post... If applicable to you/your school, why are certain ranks allowed to wear different colors and/or combinations of colors? I’m not being condescending when I ask this - doesn’t the belt itself do it’s job of identifying the wearer’s rank? It’s something I’ve wondered for a while but never asked. Neither my current organization nor former organization do this. Everyone wears the same thing, white belt through founder. Edit: Possibly a Japanese vs Okinawan thing? The more I think of it, I don’t think I’ve seen Japanese karateka wearing anything but full white gis.

I completely respect what you’re saying, and I constantly ask myself why it drives me crazy when I see everyone wearing something different. A friend of mine used to train at what they call an American karate school (no idea what makes it American, other than not using Japanese terminology, but that’s another conversation). He said they were allowed to wear whatever gi they wanted, so long as it was a gi and it didn’t have anything outright stupid on it like Girl Scout/Boy Scout merit badges, unaffiliated organization patches, etc. The mentality was as late it as you’re training hard, who cares what you’re wearing. I saw a group photo - one guy had on a solid white top and bottom gi; out of the other 30, I don’t think anyone had anything matching anyone else. So many different colors and combinations of colors. The camo gi, Stars and Stripes gi really stood out to me. Some of those flashy demo-team looking gis, There was a guy who I thought was wearing jeans with a gi top, but they were denim gi pants. It gave me a headache just looking at it. I know I should think it doesn’t matter, but I just can’t. Everyone wears a white top and bottom gi in our organization. Organization kanji on the left chest, and organization logo on the left sleeve. EVERYONE. Just the way I like it My former sensei used to do the same. Some time after I left, he started allowing black gi tops. I think it was when he separated kobudo out of the curriculum and made that its own entity of sorts. Kobudo students were allowed black tops during kobudo class, but now anyone can wear a black top whenever they want. I don’t understand why certain ranks are allowed certain colors or combinations of colors. Doesn’t the belt itself do an adequate job of signifying the rank? A general may wear more medals, stripes, badges, etc., but isn’t the actual uniform still the same? Again, I know it shouldn’t bother me. In all honesty, what’s it to me? What does what someone’s wearing have to do with my training? When did I become the fashion police? Who am I to tell people what to wear? Who’d ever listen to me anyway? But it still bothers me when I see it, and I can’t control it. I keep my mouth shut, but it’s still in my head. I think I need counseling

How did I miss that? Next thing I know, you’re going to tell me I posted about a dozen times in that thread, yet I don’t remember it. Getting old sucks.

I think this might be a clue as to one of the reasons why people are starting to question the relevance of traditional martial arts in general. There are of course many useful self defence tricks and principles in traditional arts. But it takes years to learn them to a sufficient standard for them to become really useful. This is in my opinion a fault with the culture of how they are taught rather than the style itself. Especially in the west where we seem to favour quantity over quality. When you can book onto a course for security guards where you'll learn physical intervention techniques within a few hours, it does beg the question why would we spend 5 years or so learning the same thing. Of course traditional martial art has lots of other things to offer beyond self defence, and in my opinion, and obviously the opinions of others, that makes it worthwhile. But for someone who just wants to learn to handle themselves in a scrape, I suspect a lengthy and formal martial arts path may not be very appealing. The his falls into what I was going to post... Let’s just say the enrollment problem isn’t the teacher, business model, etc.; but the state of MA in his area. Will running a SD school really be a long term fix? How long term? Maybe I’m wrong, but overall I don’t see the people interested in SD being long term students. I think they’d be a lot of turnover. Pure SD doesn’t seem nearly as deep of a curriculum as traditional MA or even MMA does. It seems more like a quick fix in a sense. This goes along with the business plan - how long does the CI expect to retain students for? How populated is the area? In a small area, he may not get as many students at one time, but they may be long term students who train for years. A SD school in this area might attract a lot of new students, but after a few cycles of turnover, who’s left? In a large metropolitan area, this isn’t an issue, in a small town with no metropolitan area within a reasonable drive distance (casual customers’ reasonable distance, not a dedicated student’s), it could be feast followed by a severe famine thing. If the area can easily deal with high turnover, then no theoretical problem. If it can’t, he’ll be back to square one after the initial interest wanes. I’ve never run any business, let alone a dojo, so take my post accordingly.

There’s a Karate Kid reboot coming out on YouTube Red. I’d explain what I know of it, but the trailer is far better at it... There’s some swearing in it, so be careful if you’re at work. Thoughts?

Happy Birthday, Liam. Is it March 21st? If so, you and my daughter share a birthday. She turned 5 today.

Double ended bag. I didn’t watch very much of it, so no comments on the instruction from me... Slip bag approximately 50 seconds in...

Unless it’s an affiliated school, I’d be very willing to bet that your rank won’t transfer over. Different organizations do things differently - syllabus, techniques, etc. Your rank is subject to the chief instructor’s discretion. While you won’t be “demoted” in the sense that you need to somehow turn in your belt and/or certificate, you may have to start over and go through the ranks again. Some teachers will let you wear your previous belt while others will have you wear a white belt. Forget about the belt around your waist. While it took plenty of dedication and work, at the end of the day it’s just a piece of fabric in this situation. You know what you’ve done and what you went through. You’ve got abilities. Those don’t change because you’re asked to wear a different belt. When you get to the UK, look around and see what’s available. Don’t get hung up on the rank or even styles. Get hung up on finding the best fit dojo for you. If you find the right teacher and classmates to train alongside, the rest will all work itself out in time.

As singularity6 said, the only thing I can think of is the Century Versys bag. I don’t think it’ll have that loud rocking/bouncing noise a hard plastic base filled with anything substantial will. It’ll topple over, so if you’re doing anything beyond moderate power stuff (or perhaps even moderate power), you’ll have to pick it back up. Have you considered a double ended bag? I’ve been meaning to rig up a slip bag aka maize bag. Perhaps that’s an option too. Or simply have someone hold a kicking shield and focus mitts.

The belt doesn’t make the person, the person makes the belt. I earned shodan in early 1999. It was a lot of things to me. Most importantly, it was an outward sign of all the work I put into my training. The days of having no clue how I’d ever be able to do the things my seniors were doing. The days when I looked at lower ranks struggling and forgot how hard what they were doing was when I first learned it, then getting reminded when I learned something new. The days when I thought I was really good, only to line up across from a senior a few minutes later who’d soundly remind me I wasn’t as good as I thought I was. The days when I thought I was absolutely horrible and I’d never get better, then remember where I started and how far I’ve come along. The most important thing I felt was that I was now taken seriously as s student by my sensei. Don’t get me wrong, he took every student seriously, regardless of rank; but being a black belt was I guess proof that I was a serious student and not someone who was there just to pass time. Being a black also meant that I was officially a person who the lower ranks were supposed to look at and copy when they forgot or didn’t quite know what they were supposed to do, technique-wise and etiquette-wise. I’m fortunate enough where I’ve started over again. During my first time around I saw black belts and put them on a pedestal of sorts. I thought they were super-human in a way. Earning my black belt, I realized how human and flawed their technique was. How in this sense they were still just like kyu ranks - struggling to learn the new material, and trying their best to perfect and maintain their previous stuff. Earning shodan was like being a white belt all over again - there was this whole new way of looking at things and doing things. I wasn’t expected to be a robot who was supposed to do everything I was taught to do the exact way I was taught; rather, I was expected to take the material, learn it, and make it my own rather than a be carbon copy of my teacher. Now that I’m a kyu rank again, I have the luxury of seeing those things that I didn’t see as a kyu rank before. I also have a deeper respect for the senior ranks who are getting older and their bodies aren’t doing what their brain is telling it to do. Some people from the outside or even the inside might look at them and ask themselves why would someone give them a black belt. They might walk around thinking they’re better than them, they’re more skilled, etc. They have no idea how hard it is to advance through the ranks because they haven’t yet. They’ve got no idea how grueling the test itself is because they haven’t gone through it yet. They think they know, yet they truly don’t have a clue. It’s kind of like people who don’t have kids thinking how hard it’ll be, how happy they’ll be when it happens, etc. They’ve truly got no clue until they go through it. If all goes well, I’ll test for shodan again in a year and a half to two years. I’m pretty sure I have a good idea what the test will be like. But I’m also sure I’ll be surprised by how far I was off in my thinking.

I’m glad you brought this up. IMO there’s a major difference between kids and adults in karate. For the kids, especially the younger they are, the true aim is to get them to love karate, not to turn them into the adult definition of karateka. Keep them motivated and give them a foundation for when they become adults and take the training seriously. If a rainbow assortment of belts, games, parties, and the other quote-unquote McDojo stuff is what’s going to get them to stay, so be it. They’re kids. The more kids growing up loving and training karate, potentially the more kids will stick with it as adults. My only condition to kids training that way is that it ends at late adolescence at the earliest. 10th grade seems like the right time where all that stuff is a distant memory, with the kids stuff becoming less and less up to that point. Just my opinion.

I like and agree with pretty much everything you’re saying, but I have one thing to add... The inherent difference between wrestling and karate (and pretty much every belted MA) is while there’s no belts/ranks in wrestling, there’s a lot of competition. Wrestlers will use their competition as a measure of progress and success. And there’s an off-season. If karate had the same amount of competition and off-season, I think the belts could easily go by the way-side for kids. A record is a quick and tangible reminder/indicator of progress. Take away the whole or almost the whole competition aspect from wrestling where all they’re doing is practicing against each other week in and week out, and a lot of kids are going to get bored with it, regardless of how fun the coach makes it, how much they’re actually improving, etc. Adults like to see tangible and measurable progress in pretty much any endeavor. Kids significantly more so. Furthermore, kids in wrestling, and pretty much any other sport, who don’t see any success don’t stick around very long. How many kids willingly and excitedly come back after an “0-for” season? How many kids would come back to karate without being promoted for a long time? In their minds they failed.

I’m not trying to discount your guys’ experience with Shureido USA, but I’ve never had any regrets dealing with them. I’ve only bought 2 K-11s and a KA-9 which I exchanged for my second K-11 from them, and spoke with them a few more times. They’ve always been great with me and their suggestions were always right on. The sizing of the gi and how much it shrunk was pretty accurate. It’s a little bigger than they said it would be after shrinking, but nothing outside of an inch or so. Maybe I’ve been lucky. All I know is I’ll keep doing business with them until my luck changes. If I wasn’t happy with them, I’d go elsewhere too. I’ve been burned by a place or two that a lot of others really liked, so it is what it is. I’d love to start an MA supply store in my area. I’d have all the stuff in all the sizes and a seamstress (my aunt) come in periodically to do alterations. The market for this stuff being what it is, I’m quite sure I’d be closed rather quickly though. Unless I got into the whole online ordering end of it too. Now the wheels are turning. Anyone have any startup cash for me?

I like the approach. If I had to cut colors out, I’d leave the eliminated colors alone and just test for the next rank when it was time, basically phasing them out rather than having a lot of people wear new belts. I mean how long would a now defunct belt color be around, 6-12 months max? The most important question IMO is how does the curriculum change. Does it in essence stay the same, only the student doesn’t test and promote often? i.e. if there was 1 kata each at white, yellow and orange, do they still learn all 3 kata and get tested when and how they would’ve previously been tested at green belt? Our progression is 10th kyu white 9th kyu advanced white (kind of an oxymoron, being an “advanced white belt” ) 8th kyu blue 7th kyu advanced blue 6th kyu yellow 5th kyu advanced yellow 4th kyu green 3rd kyu advanced green 2nd kyu brown 1st kyu advanced brown black I wouldn’t mind at all if the “advanced” in-between ranks were eliminated and the material was absorbed into the corresponding rank, making 5 kyu ranks. So if brown (2nd kyu) and advanced brown (1st kyu) were combined and all there was was a single brown belt, yet all the 2nd and 1st kyu material was still taught.

Congratulations

Happy birthday, Alex

We have various events at the dojo and honbu, but none of them are over the top as far as I’m aware/concerned. There’s an annual black belt dinner for the dojo. As far as I’ve been told, our CI and his wife (dojo co-owners) invite the black belts to their house for dinner. They grill some food, and people bring some side dishes and drinks. Nothing elaborate by any means; just a way to have a fun meal together. Our honbu also has an annual black belt dinner. From pictures, flyers and word of mouth, they make a large party reservation at a nice restaurant (not an upscale NYC restaurant, but a middle-range NYC one), shirt and blazer dress code. They charge a flat fee for tickets, and it works out that honbu picks up a portion of the tab. Kind of like a 75/25 student/honbu thing. It’s just a way to get people together, in-town and out of towners. We do a beach training with a bbq afterwards in August. Everyone throws in a few bucks for the pavilion rental and burgers and dogs, and everyone brings drinks and side dishes. And a holiday party. Everyone brings food and drinks, and black belts buy a gift or two for the kids in attendance. The kids get a raffle ticket of sorts, and that determines the order they choose a wrapped gift. Nothing formal, elaborate, expensive, nor fancy. We just get together a few times a year outside of training. It genuinely strengthens a great atmosphere. We’re small enough of a dojo that this stuff doesn’t get anywhere near out of control.

I’ll be 42 in June. Not that I was some stretching machine during my first stint in karate when I was 18-25, but I was a hell of a lot more flexible than I am now. I’ve been back at it for just over 3 years, and my flexibility progress is no where near where I thought it would be by now. I’ve tried a ton of things, and honestly, it’s just not working for me. Everyone’s different. Some people have that natural gorilla strength despite never touching a weight plate. Some are ridiculously fast despite never doing any formal running. Some people can put themselves into a pretzel without ever seriously stretching. I think with flexibility, there’s a level of “flexible enough,” and beyond that is just for showing off, so to speak. A lot of people are flexible enough to not have any realistic issues in MA. Some, such as myself, aren’t. My lack of flexibility causes me to have to work at it and around it more than the norm.

Stupid question... how old is he? How old are you? I agree with most of what you’re saying. But as we get old, it seems like we get exponentially less flexible. Or at least I do.