PerKr

I can see online practice and ranking work for kata and kihon. The problem comes when the grading syllabus includes formalised sparring. Could work if you had someone to spar with and I suppose this could be solved even for me if there was an online dojo with members within a reasonable distance. If it was me judging someone else, I wouldn't really be satisfied with just one camera angle though. Easy to miss details. Personally, I would love it if online tutoring and grading was considered legit up to 1st DAN. Perhaps with VR tech evolving we will see that in time for my 60th birthday or so

binge watched season 1 and 2 as soon as I saw then available on Netflix. William Zabka is pretty convincing, isn't he? rewatched karate kid as well and noted that his kumite was very convincing in terms of point sparring. couldn't say the same for Ralph Macchio. Or the kids. That might just be me not being familiar enough with karate styles other than shotokan though. Really looking forward to season 3 and might watch the previous seasons again, just because.

Thank you. Glad to be here

Read another topic about a disrespectful student and reacted to the grade of said student and the kata this student was asked to perform. So I went on the internet to check whether the grading requirements were as I recalled them; 9th kyu (red belt): Taikyoko Shodan 8th kyu (orange belt): Heian Shodan 7th kyu (yellow belt): Heian Nidan 6th kyu (green belt): Heian Sandan To my surprise, I find that there is a one grade difference in terms of what kata is used for grading within JKA and it's Swedish branch. Constant throughout the grading syllabus. A similar difference is there for the Kumite. And note the belt colors and order. I don't think it's a huge deal in real life but it's odd that this difference is allowed to live on within JKA in a time when aligning the branches would be so easy. Is this difference due to a recent change in the JKA grading syllabus or has it always been this way?

Hi everyone. Thought I'd introduce myself first and start asking questions later. I'm an old fart, let's just get that over with. At 40 years old, that's just the way it is. May not be that old for a master black belt but for someone like me it definitely is. My martial arts background? Well, back in the mid 90's I joined one of the local karate clubs and stayed with this club for about 5 years I think. Practice was 2-3 times per week. After those first years my attendance was sporadic as I went to university about a 100 miles away, then had kids and life just became too busy while I had also found that I didn't enjoy the practice as much when my original sensei wasn't there as often anymore. While I enjoyed kata, and I recall us practicing katas like bassai dai, kanku dai and kanku sho despite my lowly kyu rank, kumite just wasn't something I ever enjoyed. The direction it took simply didn't suit me. It probably didn't help failing graduations while seeing higher graded practitioners with questionable form. So here I am, about 20 years after I last visited the dojo, wanting to take up karate again. And very specifically I want to take up shotokan. And I find that my old club was disbanded many years ago as the senseis didn't have the time, there weren't enough students and so on. Similarly, the shotokan club in the neighbouring city has also been disbanded and the closest club is an hour and a half away. So I look at alternatives and there's a Kyukushin club in the neighbouring city but practice collides with choir practice (don't laugh, it has been very good to me so I'm not giving that up) as well as life in general (kids, working on the house). There's aikido available in our old dojo so maybe I'll look into that when the next beginner class starts. Anyway here I am, not seeing any option other than to practice with myself at home (and anywhere else that's convenient) if I want to get back to and retain the level of skill I had. I know I can do it but it will be challenging considering I also want to improve my form and correct whatever errors I had, some (hikite and stance issues) of which I have been told of while failing graduations, others of which I hope to capture on camera, so that if the opportunity presents itself I can pretty much continue, and advance, from where I once left off. Until that opportunity presents itself I'll be the eternal whitebelt (which I am fine with, I do this for myself and would gladly stay with a white belt until I have earned a black belt even if I was back with my old club). On here, I hope to find advice on exercises, literature, videos, equipment and anything that furthers the goal set above. Lots of text, hopefully I don't come across as a complete fool