MatsuShinshii

Understood and I agree that in some respects it is too late to start over or make a huge change without loosing some or most of our students. I was certainly not suggesting that I would go through with this but I do in fact think that going back to the two belt system would improve the competency of our students and produce better martial artists. To me belts are the goal for most students due to ego. Again when I was coming up the goal was to perfect and absorb everything that was learned. Rather than concentrating just on the level you are in, you concentrated on all of what had been and was being taught. I just feel that it made better all around students and IMHO I feel that students actually progressed with more skill and knowledge than they do today. This I believe is why instructors have to harp on students to return to the basics. It is human nature in some to be lazy, if you will, any only concentrate on what they are being taught rather than to go back and practice what had been taught. Some feel this is a waste of time or they feel that they should not need to practice something that a test told them they had some degree of competency in. I see it every day even though I only use four belts. Once the next level is achieved the previous level is almost all but forgotten. "How fast can I climb to the top" or "Now I want to have that" is the normal mentality today. If belts were not in the picture the student would strive to perfect the techniques and applications taught rather than racing to the next belt so they can look cool or show off to their friends. Again just my 2 cents on the subject. To the bold type above... That, right there, that's the billion dollar nail being hit by the trillion dollar hammer; right on point!! I appreciate your comment. Most would not agree these days. I guess I'm a little old fashioned but I still believe as my Shinshii taught me that the belt does not make the man but rather the man makes the belt. If one is not ready, one does not get to wear the belt. Nothing worse than a paper tiger wearing a belt that they do not deserve or measure up to. Unfortunately this is exactly what happens with the rainbow system. Requirements are dropped and over time the slippery slope of a black belt becoming JUST ANOTHER belt comes into play. Anyway I appreciate that your kind words.

Depends on your organization. Ours requires you to go through a three day class on everything from harassment classes to the law to insurance to what is expected of us, life safety and first aid, etc. etc. You have five classes a day and at the end of the third day you are given a test. This covers the organization to some degree, at least legally and insurance wise to allow you to teach. The actual certification comes over a time period of being watched instructing classes, teaching senior Dan grades, taking a written and physical test, and finally if you pass the rest, testing in front of the board of instructors. Once completed you are awarded your teaching license and title. Can I ask what organization, federation, association you belong to? What grade/rank are you? I am assuming that you do not belong to an organization if you do not already know your organizations requirements of you are not of a sufficient grade to test. Please don't take this as an insult. Most traditional schools will not allow anyone to teach on their own until the reach Sandan. If you are in fact a Sandan and do not have an organization for some reason you don't necessarily need a teaching license to teach. I know a few very good instructors that left their organization years ago and produce very proficient students. A license only means that your organization says you are qualified to teach. Not that you can teach. If it meant that, a lot of instructors would never have become instructors as not everyone is cut out to teach no matter how skilled and knowledgeable. What style of Martial Art do you teach?

I guess my question would be, how do you know they have a pre-existing condition unless the student is forth coming. I would imagine that if they told you this and you allowed them to train without their doctors release you would be held somewhat responsible. I have had students come to me with a doctors note stating that they were limited in certain activities in which case they were allowed to sit out while performing these activities but I've never had a student come to me and say "if I do this I could die".

I guess I came off wrong or was taken wrong. I did not force any of my students to quit nor would I suggest it. I simply talked to both students about how they think they were progressing and listened to their responses. Both students knew the problems they were having. I simply posed the question of whether this was working out for them and if this is truly what they wanted to do. One came to the conclusion that it was not working for him and the other as I said is still with me to this day and is one of my oldest students. Definitely senior to 95% of my students in terms of years but definitely not in terms of grade. He has been with me for over twenty years and only graded to Shodan three years ago and barely passed by the skin of his teeth. He is not coordinated so most things come very hard to him and he does not pick them up in a normal rate of progression. Having said that he does not have the word quit in his vocabulary and I can honestly say I respect him greatly for this trait. The other thing I can say about him is that nothing seems to get him down. Students half his age pass him up each year and you never see him get down about it. He is the very definition of a Karateka. He doesn't concern himself with belts or what others are doing, just on his personal perfection. Having said this I also can not hold up the rest of my students to meet the needs of one. This would not be fair to them. I definitely did not give up on them. And even if I would have the student that is still with me would not have let me give up. I look at it as the guy that stinks at basketball but is a phenom in wrestling. Or my personal challenges with some of the dances my wife wanted me to learn. I picked up an some but others I really never took a liking to and just didn't do well at it. Believe me, the teacher and my wife made this all too clear. But in the broad scheme of things it just wasn't for me and that is ok because I am good at other things that do fit me. At least that is my philosophy.

Your in good company as I am also 50+. I appreciate the explanation and advice. You have very valid points and is definitely something to consider. I will definitely pass this on to our board.

No. We do not allow beginners to participate in Kumite until Rokkyu. Instead they participate in one point sparring drills, learn the bunkai and partner to practice this at slow to moderate speed until they develop control, distance management and timing. And as said previously, only with advanced students who have the skills to anticipate the twitchy, erratic and unpredictable actions of a novice. The beginner has no or little control. Never put a lower rank with a beginner unless you want that lower rank to get seriously hurt.

I hate to point out the un-popular facts but... Stances are natural in nature and were developed as such in To-Di (Karate). The deep or un-natural stances were developed as a means of conditioning the legs and as a means to teach one movement and transitions from one "stance" to another to beginning students. No one fights using deep stances in real life confrontations. For one it is a weak posture and easily taken advantage of. They are merely a method to teach the student how to move and to develop the muscles needed for the art. So to clarify; if someone attacks you and you shift to your right out of the line of attack and then you shift to the left or forward to avoid the next attack, the students body just moves effortlessly without thinking about which foot to move next and they also are able to shift and counter at the same time without thought because as previously pointed out the Kata contains these movements and stances and they are drilled into our body mechanics and thus muscle memory over years of training. And as previously stated the higher ranks do not utilize these stances. I understand some use them but every Kodansha I have ever trained with have relaxed their stances to a more natural stance. The deep stances or rigid stances taught to Mudansha are supposed to be a way to teach them the correct body mechanics just like strikes and kicks are taught rigidly at first. The student through years/ decades of training develops greater skill and the stances relax and become more fluid and faster as does techniques such as strikes and kicks. It's the normal progression and comes with knowledge, skill and years of training. I can tell you that I have never seen my Shinshii perform a Kata the way they are taught to students nor do I. In fact if you really want to see an example of a higher grade (Judan) perform a Kata and see how their stances compare to the way they are taught to beginners look up Hohan Soken performing Kata. If that is not relaxed, up right, natural stances that fluidly move from one to the next I don't know what is. So in short Stances are taught the way they are to condition and teach the beginner student how to move and how to transition from one stance to the next. They are not meant to be utilized in Kumite or in a real fight. For one they are slower than natural stances and for two they are as I mentioned easily taken advantage of.

Understood and I agree that in some respects it is too late to start over or make a huge change without loosing some or most of our students. I was certainly not suggesting that I would go through with this but I do in fact think that going back to the two belt system would improve the competency of our students and produce better martial artists. To me belts are the goal for most students due to ego. Again when I was coming up the goal was to perfect and absorb everything that was learned. Rather than concentrating just on the level you are in, you concentrated on all of what had been and was being taught. I just feel that it made better all around students and IMHO I feel that students actually progressed with more skill and knowledge than they do today. This I believe is why instructors have to harp on students to return to the basics. It is human nature in some to be lazy, if you will, any only concentrate on what they are being taught rather than to go back and practice what had been taught. Some feel this is a waste of time or they feel that they should not need to practice something that a test told them they had some degree of competency in. I see it every day even though I only use four belts. Once the next level is achieved the previous level is almost all but forgotten. "How fast can I climb to the top" or "Now I want to have that" is the normal mentality today. If belts were not in the picture the student would strive to perfect the techniques and applications taught rather than racing to the next belt so they can look cool or show off to their friends. Again just my 2 cents on the subject.

I have to amend my previous post by adding that there is some control over the CI's and their Dojo's on the insurance side of things. Basically we can not have students trying to catch bullets in their teeth or other overtly dangerous acts not covered within our policy. So yes the CI's have control but there are common sense aspects that the organization enforces and if broken, the CI/Dojo can be removed from the organization for serious infractions. I believe this constitutes a certain amount of control. Didn't want to make myself a liar.

This is TERRIBLE!! This is one of the reasons why we have a No Vote of Confidence. Just ONE vote is enough to table a vote in the hopes of removing said board member!! I'm speaking about the member that was rude and demanding and dictating; I would've done the NVC so fast that heads would spin. Imho, NO GOVERNING BODY should dictate ANYTHING at a dojo that's not theirs!! That, for me, is enough to separate myself from the terror that lays before me!! Our SKKA/Hombu has NO AUTHORITY of any shape, way, and/or form over any dojo within the SKKA network...NONE!! I do as I please in MY DOJO, whether they like it or not!! And because our By-Laws were specifically written the way they were, NO VOTES ARE ALLOWED TO AMEND THAT RULE...NONE!! I don't even have to allow someone from the SKKA/Hombu in my dojo if I don't want to, and there's not a thing that they can do, except whine about it to a deafened ear. The SKKA can't just pull the Shindokan Shield off my door/window/etc. just because. The reasons are few, and there has to be a unanimous vote; this is one of the most difficult votes to pass, almost unheard of!! The Governing Body better know their role, and they better know it better than the Student Body, but the Governing Body IS NOT AN ELECTED KING; there are unquestionable By-Laws, backed up by the scrolls and the like, plus one heck of a Legal Team!! You're not a McDojo UNLESS you want to be one!! They threaten you by pulling your seal off your dojo, and the like, LET THEM!! I'd not succumb to threats and/or orders that involve my dojo because that's MINE, AND MINE ALONE!! Besides, I don't need the SKKA/Hombu because I'm complete in my totality across the board; can't strip that which they don't control...not now...not ever!! This is exactly why I left and helped Kosei start our new organization. The funny thing is as I had mentioned earlier, my old association has no right to the branding since it is owned and registered through and by Shinshii. However we decided to change the branding due to the name change which all parties agreed was long over due. For one taking the old name would evoke a response, most likely legally, from our old association especially since more than 60% of their student body followed us. Yes it would be a futile endeavor on their part but considering that the two of us pulled together for the start up costs and it will take months if not a year to recoup those costs, we didn't want to chance getting locked into a court battle that would deplete more of our time and money. Two the old name was and is generic in every aspect and to easily mistaken for one of our sister arts within the same lineage line. By changing the name and the branding this essentially protected us from even needing to deal with our old association even though they had no rightful claim to either. It was for all intensive purposes a calculated decision on our parts. Our new bylaws are being written so that no one person can dictate to the students or the board. Further more as you pointed out, each instructor that owns his/her school or is renting his/her school without assistance from the organization has complete control of their Dojo and what happens in their Dojo. There is however one exception to that rule. The curriculum taught must meet the standards of our art and must follow Shinshii's teachings. Requirements are set and all instructors must abide by them in order to teach under our name. This of course does not mean that and instructor can not, lets say, teach another art within their Dojo. It only means that the requirements set forth by Shinshii must be adhered to in order for their students to grade to the Yudansha level and above. Mudansha level grading's are strictly overssen by the CI and of no concern of the organization until they test for Shodan. This is when complete control over gradings are overseen directly by and must be signed off by the organization. This is strictly to maintain the integrity of our art and uphold the standards set forth by Shinshii. Side Bar: We adhere to the old ways of testing and require signatures of senior members plus the students instructor on all certifications Shodan and higher. In my role I oversee all Yudansha and Kodansha testing personally and sit in on all testing cycles. For Yudansha testing, myself and the CI oversee the testing of said student. I sign for the grading along with the students instructor and it is then sent to the Hombu (board) where it is signed by our president/most senior instructor to maintain the three signatures we have always required and the copy is filed and the register is entered and all three are stamped before sending the original back to the CI to be presented to the student. For Kodansha, myself and Shinshii directly oversee all testing. Again this is also sent to the Hombu for Kosei's signature and dealt with the same as Yudansha certifications before being sent back to the CI. If, God forbid, Shinshii were to pass this would be amended to just myself and Kosei for Kodansha certifications. Teaching licenses and teaching titles (Shinshii) are direct through myself and Kosei and the CI has no part in this process. Only our signatures appear on the certification/document. Other than that you are absolutely right that the individual CI has complete control over what happens in their Dojo. They can teach kids, they can teach other arts, they can rent it out for parties, etc. Well I may have misspoke. There is one way the organization can control the instructor and his Dojo. Our old association would assist new instructors by means of a loan to open a Dojo. This came with protections for the association in the way of overseeing all aspects of the Dojo until the loan was paid back. Obviously we no longer have the means to do this for our instructors because neither myself or Kosei are rich nor is anyone else that sits on the board. I am not for certain, as I have not had any direct interaction with formulating the Bylaws, but I believe this ruling still exists. But to be blunt I doubt this would ever come into play as Kosei is of the same mind set as I am in that neither of us would be looking to be a bank and neither really agreed with this bylaw to begin with. It may have been removed but again I can not be certain until the Bylaws are published and released to all of the Dojo instructors/owners. We do not presently have any instructors that do not either own their Dojo or do enough business to maintain their rent.

Sensei8, can you elaborate on this statement? I guess I'm having a senior moment but I do not get what you are driving at.

That is interesting that you require a release. I have never required it nor has my association. However after the question was posed I can definitely see merit in it. We have waivers but as previously said, they don't hold much weight in court. Thanks for the input. Worth considering.

Ouch! I need to go to my doctor to get a release to teach now. I guess that's what I get for asking a question. Honesty that stings.

Welcome Mandarin.

Glad to hear you are back at it.

I can't speak for others but when I started we had a white belt and a black belt. Later we added a brown belt and still later added a yellow, blue and green belt. The brown belt was adopted a month after I graded for Ikkyu and to be honest I never missed out on having the rainbow system of belts. The goal then was to perfect the techniques and kata taught not to get to the next color belt. I personally miss the lack of multiple belts. I think it takes away from the revisiting of previous lessons. When there is no colors you are just learning the art instead of learning the next belt requirements. So there is no tendency to move on and forget what you have already learned. Again I can not speak for anyone else but for me, I don't see the benefit of having all of those belts. My old association had 6 colors but to this day I only use four. I took Matsubayashi Ryu years ago and adopted their belt structure of white, green, brown, black. I don't really see the need for more than four colors and personally would go back to two if my students wouldn't have a hissy fit.

I don't know if I agree with your statement. Not all are cut out for MA's. We all learn at different rates and have abilities or the lack there of. Some have a natural ability and natural body mechanics and others are quick learners. The exception is the student with two left feet or one that no matter how many times you show them or explain to them just can not physically do what is required. I agree with you that it ultimately comes down to the instructor as we are the ones responsible with our students progress but what do you do with that one student that just doesn't get it and is getting surpassed by all of his pears? I have held private lessons with two such students over the years and put in the extra effort and no matter how I showed them or how I explained it, they just did not get it. Some students learn visually, some audibly and some by both. If you have exhausted all learning methods is the instructor still to blame or is it time to have a heart to heart with the student or their parents about trying another activity? For me and the two cases I had, I spoke with them. The one already knew what I was saying and had become increasingly frustrated but was happy that he could finally look for something else. The other is still with me and is still lagging behind those that started with him by 6 grades. I have not shown him the door because despite his inability to pick up the material like the rest of my students he works harder than 80% of them and continues to try. The moment he stops trying is when I will speak with him again. I personally do not take this upon myself because I know I did and continue to do all that I can to help them and exhausted every teaching method in the book. There are just some students that are not made for the arts. Just like I am not made for ball room dancing. Just ask my wife, she'll be happy to tell you.

I think 15 might be an overestimation. I suspect that Sensei8 does not either. So that just leaves you two. I congratulate you on your increased productivity in life. Add me to the list for three.

Sounds like everything worked out for the best except the law suite. If your legal team feels it has no merit it probably doesn't. I'm happy to hear you don't have to deal with him. Sounded like this was a bad situation all the way around.

My wife and I recently went out with a friend of hers and her husband and started talking about interests. When he found out I taught martial arts he asked if I have my students get releases from their doctors to train. I probably looked a little perplexed and asked why? He said that his school required all students to get a doctors release to participate in any sports (he is a gym teacher) because of the liability it brings to the school. I remember signing permission slips for my kids and taking them to the doctors for physicals to play sports but never thought of it in this way. I am thinking of implementing this for my 16 to 18 year old students. Do any of you require your students to get a doctors release to train? Do you think this applies mainly to students under the age of 18 or to all students?

Agreed. However the politics of proper instruction, passing on history and curriculum based on strict adherence to Shinshii's teachings and testing are politics I can handle. The endless trivial gripes and squabbles over finances, legal issues and the such I can most certainly do without. The nice thing is they have been working out details of the organization, it's set up and branding, and besides Kosei calling me to tell me how things are going, I have not been invited to any meetings, have not been called, e-mailed, skyped or received any texts what-so-ever concerning the governing of the organization. The only emails I have received where concerning whether I had considered working in a testing cycle for those that were scheduled to test with the other organization before we all left. I have set up a weekend the first week of March in which to conduct testing. Shinshii can not get into the states with this little of a notice so he empowered me to make my judgement's on the senior Dan grades. He said that as long as I feel they are ready he is comfortable since I am 10 times harder on myself than he ever was and that translates to 2 times harder on students and instructors. He figures if I give them the green light he would have as well. Not sure I agree with his premise but appreciate the vote of confidence. So if I agree with the advancement of rank I will sign their grade certifications and send them to Shinshii for his signature. This will all take two weeks to get the certifications back to the instructors but they will be told the day of testing if they have advanced. This is the type of politics I can handle. Other than that my time is now free to just teach and oversee the other instructors. Ten times easier than what I was doing with the other association. Life is good. Knock on wood.

It's funny you said it that way. My Shinshii's school never had a spot in the yellow pages. His Dojo was a large building (pole barn if you will) on his property and all of his students were word of mouth. We have never had a web address. I did have my Dojo in the yellow pages but found it a hindrance due to the fact that I received a lot of parents looking for a school for their children or those just looking for an exercise program or worse an after school program. This is the reason that not many of our instructors opted to put there info in yellow pages and I guess that philosophy bled over in terms of the internet. However I feel that you can put a lot more information on a website than you ever could in the yellow pages for the money. We could basically let potential students know that this is not sport Karate, only 16 and older accepted, only for the serious kind of thing. I feel this would eliminate the weeding out process because those not wishing to join a hard core old school organization just wouldn't contact you at all. On the other hand this would let those wishing to learn traditional old school Karate were to go. It would give that alternative and would cut down the time it takes us to weed out the trophy hounds and the less than serious students.

I think when it comes to self defense anything is fair play. The rules go out the window.

We recently had a meeting and one of our instructors asked why we did not have a website and what the boards position on it was. My question would be; in today's technologically driven society is it needed to do business? We have never had one and have done well word of mouth but this got me to thinking about a few more years down the road and how this decision would effect us. What do you think?

Well we had our first official meeting on Monday to vote for our new board of instructors and to vote on the bylaws and the new amendments. For what was supposed to be a two hour meeting, four and a half hours later, we finally had a consensus and our new bylaws were approved for our legal counsel to make official, minus a few new rules that I was not made privy too. I spoke with Kosei this morning and asked if the final votes had been tallied for the new board. He said he had the results and that I was not given a seat on the board. He seemed very pleased with this but I was actually very happy with this as well and told him as much. He laughed at my comment and explained that the majority of our student body had voted me into a new position instead that was not on the ballot. I asked him what this meant. He explained that he and others had spoken about how to maintain the integrity of Shinshii's teachings and make it unchangeable. He put forth the idea of me taking on this responsibility as no one was more stanch in his beliefs when it came to protecting Shinshii's teachings. He said that I would maintain the title of Soshi in our new organization and be in charge of our history, curriculum, traditions, oversee our instructors and oversee all promotions and teaching licensing to insure that our standards would not diminish. I asked how this was possible as the bylaws clearly state that all titles other than Shinshii were to be removed in honor of our past teachers and to insure than no one person has power over the rest or is put into a position such as Soke unless a 100% vote was cast. He explained that they had all agreed to this prior to me joining the meeting. Apparently I was told the meeting was a different time than the rest. He said that our legal counsel had already made note of it before the voting started. This position basically insures that Shinshii's legacy will remain in tact because I am the only one that can make changes to it. He explained that this basically means I will have nothing to do with the politics or finances or legal mumbo jumbo or any other day to day running of the organization. My sole responsibility will be to maintain the integrity of the art itself and of it's instructors. Essentially if the board wants to allow kids or wants to change the requirements or add a rainbow of belts or anything that effects the original teachings and structure of the art, I would have to agree to it and I would have to amend those bylaws. He said that to insure that the art stays the same I have the only position within our organization that is not voted on nor does it have term limits. If an issue was locked in a stale mate I would be the tie breaker but would not have a vote unless this happened. He joked that I was kind of like the new Soke but just without any power over the board and their responsibilities. I asked him how he and the other senior instructors felt about this and he said it was unanimous among all of the senior instructors and a large majority of the rest were in favor of it. He went on to explain that he was voted in as the new president, and three of my senior students were voted onto the board and one of our youngest instructors (age wise/ he holds the grade of Yondan) was voted in as the new VP. All 8 positions were filled and all bylaws and amendments were passed. We now have an organization to call our own. Of course there is still a lot of issues to iron out and the structure of the board and their responsibilities are still at the center of discussion. The best news is Shinshii agreed to promote our senior instructors when they are ready to test and will sit on the promotions board (separate from the instructors board) with me and Kosei. He agreed to visit once a year and all senior Dan promotions will fall on this time line. The absolute best part of this position is I am out of the political gobly goop. I have no role within the board of instructors and do not have a say on the comings and goings of the day to day business side of things. I'm pretty much back to teaching and overseeing our other instructors. Pretty sweat gig if I do say so myself. An interesting point was brought up during the end of the meeting that was not included within the bylaws. One of our senior instructors asked why we do not have a website and what was the position of our newly formed organization on having a website. Most said that it was not needed but to be honest I feel with today's technologically driven world your really missing the boat without one. I do not have a say other than to cast my individual vote to my overseeing board member but I agree with this man and think we should entertain building a website. We have a few students that work in IT so I doubt it would take that much to do it. What do you think? Is this essential to an organization? We really are not interested in growing like our previous organization was but I think at the very least it would bring us into the public view and give us some cheap advertisement at the very least. Oh and I forgot to mention that they also voted to change the name and actually unanimously voted for it in all of about 3 minutes. Four of us offered up suggestions. We are now officially under the Matsumura Suide Todi Jutsu name. Our lawyer is in the process of filing it and getting it registered. One of our talented instructors actually came up with several examples of new patches. These will be sent out to all instructors to get the student bodies vote and will be announced next month after the board meeting. Things are moving on their own and I don't have to worry about any of it. This could not have turned out better. Life is good.