JazzKicker

Back when I wore white uniforms, before I learned to go easy on the bleach, I had a heavy canvas gi. As we began kicking in class one night, the crotch of my pants ripped at the gusset seam, front to back. It was pretty drafty after that!

There are, sadly, people who think vaccines are poison, that it's their body, their right to refuse, etc. Well, more of those people are dead now, or were close to it. I think it's quite reasonable for a club to require vaccination. It's not without precedent, after all! I can tell you personally, the boogie man is still out there, I had it last month despite vax'd and boosted. It was not pleasant, for several days, and I'm glad it wasn't worse.

I'm thinking about a fresh approach, that will be more fun and with less self-imposed pressure. That is, not so serious. Just treat training as play, and enjoy it. That flies in the face of both traditional and sports science based approaches, I know. I've done both, for decades! But in the last 8-10 years, I've been on & off, coming back to it but unable to muster the routine, the intensity, that I used to have. Training for the next belt, or a competition. Training for "life and death" self-defense. Or, only train hard, at the most practical things, and forget the rest... it's all so fraught. Anymore, I just like how it feels, to stretch out, punch and kick, the mental space I get into doing forms. Maybe that's enough, right?

I started in Shito-Ryu at the same age and got just as far. Then I went off to college, and hooked up with a Tang Soo Do club. Forms were pretty much the same. I went through the black belt ranks and moved on to other things from there, but all these years later I still do those forms. Have fun with it! And if you get stuck, have a question, now we have YouTube.

Imagine you're walking down a path, and every few steps, you find a lovely pile of pebbles. You pick them up and carry them with you. After a few stops, eventually your hands are full, your arms are getting tired. You love all these pebbles, but you have to put some down. If you want any new ones, you have to put down even more. You put down the ones you don't like so much anymore, the ones that are too heavy or too sharp. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have picked them up to begin with, it just means you're done with them.

when your back heals, run away from that guy! You need to see a physical therapist- but if you have metastatic cancer in your spine, you should talk to your oncologist first. BTW I got an ISSA cert 20 years ago, plus SMAC cert (specialist in martial arts conditioning). It's effectively a mail-order course that in no way prepares you for the kind of client needs you have.

What makes you want to wonder? Because the answer to your question comes with age and experience, while you said, "The only thing understandable is if its taking care of a loved ones or dealing with family issues that can mess a person up emotionally." those are certainly valid reasons, but as I mentioned above, life reveals many others.

I have to wonder how old the OP is and how long he's been involved in martial arts. People come and go. It's a rare person who finds the one martial art that works for them over a very long period in their lives. From what I've seen that's usually because they do it professionally. People "age out", particularly with styles like TSD (those jump spin kicks!). They move away, start a family, find a gentler exercise.

In a word, yes. I have a few far-flung training buddies who are still at it, some I keep in touch with on FB. Most have aged out of it, 'retired'. My brother, in his 60's, does a little Tai Chi. I only know one guy locally, a spouse of one of my wife's friends, who's a Shotokan black belt. Honestly once MMA came along, I think arts like karate were no longer of interest to adults. More than ever, especially with TKD, it's a kid's game.

A reminder not to take either rank or politics too seriously! https://uproxx.com/viral/donald-trump-black-belt-taekwondo/

A bit off topic, but if you are still interested in pursuing a legitimate certification in strength training, you should check out the Starting Strength Coach Certification. It sounds exactly like what you were looking for. Now, it's not an easy certification to obtain by any stretch, but it would be well worth your time. I would probably in the future but I really got in to yoga big time when I started re-exploring my kung fu roots since now that I no longer want to teach a belting system. My focus is stance, posture, flexibility and foundation for boxing and kung fu. Certification for strength training is weird due to covid situation but in the future if I have my own place, I would like to become certified. Standards and certification in any field, from architecture to yoga, are important for credibility, and even public safety. It's just the privately issued ones can be of dubious value. I studied for a personal trainer/SMAC cert many years ago, it was basically a correspondence school. At the in-person seminar I realized that many of the other trainees didn't have much background or education to be remotely qualified. I was just as humbled when I tried to get a job at a gym, and the manager flat out told me he'd sooner take on an exercise science major college grad. This, for a low paying job dependent on your ability to attract clients at the gym. Yoga, I know, has it's 200 hour certifications- which if you think about it, amounts to 2 classes a week for 2 years. That level of instruction wouldn't qualify you as a black belt, let alone instructor, with a credible karate association.

My first dojo, long, long ago, offered shito-ryu karate and judo. The owner was the real deal, from japan, and an Olympic judo coach. My main pursuit then was karate, but i did try judo for a while. It was rough! Top level judokas tossed me around and I got hurt. My sensei's advice was to pick one or the other, that I wouldn't get good at either, otherwise. For your situation, the best thing would be to learn 2 or 3 basic throws and how to do breakfalls well.

I'm sure I'm late to the party, but because I now have a work-issued iPhone, I've discovered a bunch of martial arts podcasts. It's been interesting to hear interviews and discussions,and it's inspired me to train more. One in particular was a very lengthy interview with Patrick McCarthy on Whistlekick.

Since this is a day of retrospective at KF, I think this is a question worth asking. Times change, right? Just like there's web alternatives to forums like this now, there's also so many alternatives and expanded knowledge in martial arts. Indeed, it was 20 years ago I answered this question for myself, "Yes", but not in the same way. The things we do in life, like getting an education, become part of us, and with that, we move on with those skills and experience. There's a Zen saying, "Once you cross the stream, you don't need to keep carrying the boat". And so it is for me- I still practice the techniques, the principles I learned back then, and more. But it is became a basis for me to build on. I come to KF for a reminder of those roots, that the learning is still valid today, even if what I practice now looks different.

My personal goal continues to be, whatever I do for training, to do it 2-3 times per week. On this "Anniversary Day" for Karate Forums, I'm reminded, the most important thing is to show up, to be consistent. The support of others, in whatever form, is helpful in maintaining that discipline. Earlier this year, whether it was shorter days, or weather, or pandemic-related isolation, things like jogging or doing forms in my back yard, I slacked off on. It always hurts more and is less productive to be spotty. Now I'm back running 2-3 times per week, and it feels much better.

About 25 -30 years ago, I researched this question, and additional information has come along since then, too. Even before then, in my college days in the early 80's, I started off in Shito-Ryu karate, taught by a Japanese immigrant who had come out of their college system. When I transferred to another college, i found Tang Soo Do. The forms were essentially the same! Much more high & jump kicks, though, and overall the style is a little more circular, less rigid. So I already knew from experience that Tang Soo Do was essentially karate, I just didn't know the back story. The official story was TSD was "a 2000 year old martial art with roots in China"....blah blah blah, no mention of Funakoshi or the Okinawan history, before Japan, even. Eventually I started learning about other interpretations of karate like Ryu-Kyu kempo, pressure point theory- and I realized there was much more to what I had been taught. Then people on the web like Len Losik, Dan Nolan, John Hancock revealed what they had found out, too. Later, getting into hapkido, and meeting & hearing stories from Korean masters from back then, I realized how culturally these "origin stories' came to be. Honestly, it's probably better just to train, and not get into it, particulalry with Korean masters- it can be a very touchy subject.

Thanks for your long term efforts here! It shows the karate spirit.

My personal experience has been, every school that had a belt system, including ones in the association that I had been part of, didn't want me. MMA, boxing, JKD, they don't care, just come and train.

Even Billy Jack got beat down in that movie. I haven't personally been in such a situation, but several of my buddies and instructors back in the day were bouncers and/or corrections officers. Even when there was no surprise, they were in charge of the situation, they weren't outnumbered, and they had backup, they would still get banged up.

Great question! It's one I've considered, not quite literally like winning the lottery, but what I would do if I had the money, and more importantly, Time to do whatever. It would be great to have a nice dojo, with hardwood floors, Asian-motif decorating (bamboo, shoji screens, hewn beams, etc.). An area with tatami, and another with heavy bags and makiwara. Good HVAC, too. It would be great to bring in leading instructors, for individual training. Having more time, I'd still probably only train 2-3 times a week for a couple of hours. Recovery time and avoiding injury are important, and money can't change that! That said, part of the simple beauty of martial arts is, it's cheap, and almost anyplace can be a dojo. I've trained in basements, school gyms and wrestling rooms, storefronts, warehouses, fitness centers, firehouses, parks, the beach...[/b]

Great topic! I keep both a bi-weekly training log, and a notebook. The log is a single page spreadsheet that is like a 2 week calendar, days across the top mark the columns. The rows are activities, whether forms, kicks, calisthenics, etc. I also include my running and cycling mileages and body metrics like weight. I've been keeping these records over 15 years. I first adopted it when I learned about sports science, and periodization. It's great to track progress, see what you need to work on. My notebook is usually a cheap schoolkids composition book. I first started keeping one around 30 years ago, when I was training for a black belt test. Our Grandmaster had put out a book based on his notes from training many years, and I thought it was a good idea, especially since I had to write an essay as part of my test. I've used the notebook to record all kinds of things, highs and lows in training, experiences like seminars, things that have inspired me, etc. It's something of an autobiography, really, of how I've learned and evolved in martial arts.

Sounds like this student got pretty far into a de-conditioned state. Exercise is very important for mental health, too. A black belt should already know how to train themselves, know what their current limits are and what to work on. I would recommend starting off slowly with solo training for at least 4-6 weeks, all the usual stuff you would do in a class, just fewer reps and shorter duration.

Great question, and one I've been thinking about in this time of quarantine. Ordinarily I'm more pressed for time, so I go running a couple of times a week, road bike about once a week, stretch pretty regularly, and work in solo MA practice where I can. Working remotely, I have somewhat more time, so I've been able to increase the "karate" portion of my exercise. to about 2-3 45 minute sessions per week, while keeping the other activities constant. There is an upper limit, though, especially as you get older, for how much you can do, and allow for recovery time.

Have a chat with the instructor, just ask him rather than offering anything. Some things that might influence the decision are how formal or traditional the school is, and if there are other adult black belts. i think isshinryu forms are different from shito-ryu, too, so that might set you back. I first started in karate decades ago at a shito-ryu club, the instructor was from Japan where it was a collegiate sport. i got up to 2nd kyu brown belt before I transferred away to college, and hooked up with a new Tang Sood Do club at my college. Turned out the forms where almost the same, and I was given an equivalent rank.

i would certainly hope there was room for self-expression. if you've studied JKD, you know Bruce Lee's entire point was that. And boxers, they don't have a "style', other than being themselves. There isn't an "Ali" style or "Tyson" style. It depends on the school you go to, of course, but also what your degree of self-expression is. If you go to a traditional school but tell them you don't do front stance or reverse punch, you'll have a problem.