DarthPenguin

There might also a difference with regards to countries in the west. Speaking as someone UK based (and taking shotokan) it is not uncommon for someone to get their black belt in 3 years (from what i have seen). Most reasonable students seem to stick to the minimum timeframe throughout the kyu grades and only seem to slow (if at all at 1st kyu). Does seem to take longer than the minimum for most people from 1st to 2nd dan though. This is also under the KUGB, so a substantial and well thought of organisation

Valid point! Totally agree also, much better term

Monday 27 March Warm ups Warm ups carried out as per usual Kihon Couple of different combinations from the usual ones. All focused on correct movement of the hips and shoulders, seemed useful ones from that perspective Kata Worked on Bassai-Dai. Don't technically need to know it yet but was nice to learn it

yep an autodraft - seemed the easiest with people being in different locations and timezones. Also means that the placeholder team is equally drafted so if anyone wants to step in last minute they can take that one

I think that some of the different views also are due to the different meaning ascribed to the black belt level. Some people look at it as having completed the basics and you are now ready to learn properly, in which case i can see why some people would advocate for more dan ranks and assessments. Others (and this is the tack i think Wastelander is taking) look at it as a sign of 'mastery' of the art - you have completed the syllabus and now it is about personal development. To my mind it is more like the bjj style of black belt : once you have got it then it is down to you to develop yourself - thats the formal instruction done (though i am very very very far away from bjj bb so i might be wrong here!). Unfortunately the general public often conflate the two: thinking of someone being a martial arts master after getting bb even if it is the older school 'finishing apprenticeship' that taken 3-4 years.

Yeah it definitely does sound interesting and am curious to hear a little more. For the 'live testing' is it via a webcam or do you have to visit someplace in person? Am also curious how you are finding the online tuition : do you require a certain base level of karate knowledge to be able to reliably demonstrate the techniques and improve them from the videos? I have always found that with bjj instructional videos it does make a difference if you have some familiarity with the art etc. Sounds like you have hit on what you were looking for though which is good I remember seeing a video of a jka 7th dan training with them and performing one of their katas a while back. Looked interesting

Added placeholder team. If someone else would like to be added as 2nd manager (i think this is a good idea) to confirm that no active management takes place for the team then please PM me your email address here and i will add you. Have set the draft for Thursday and set a randomised draft order for fairness. Please let me know if any issues with this

No-one else has objected so i will do that now just so we can get things moving.

If we can't get another player what is everyones thought on my adding a dummy team : we draft it as auto draft, leave everything on auto, no trades/waivers etc (unless everyone decides it is needed for some reason) and let it run in the background. Since it is not a head to head league it shouldn't skew the head to head results and would let us get the league set up

SAturday 25 MArch Lifting Session Still full of heavy cold so cut the volume a little from plan Trap Bar Deadlift 70kg x 5 80kg x 5 95kg x 5 107.5kg x 5 122.5kg x 5 the final set actually felt easier than the penultimate one. Really focused on pushing the floor away. Standing KB one arm press (L + R = Total Reps) 16kg x 22 16kg x 22 16kg x 22 16kg x 22 16kg x 22 Triceps pushdowns 10kg x 25 Was going to do a few high rep se†s but started to feel lousy so stopped there. Also fitted in 3 sets of hip lifts at 11 reps per leg Total poundage : 4135kg time taken : 31min density : 133.4kg/min

What i would take from that is that different facets of your personality/abilities have a root in nothing - the so called empty cup. So it is rooted in nothing, then expands/branches out into something (the unfolding part), with at the root having been nothing. You could then theoretically 'prune' a branch and return to nothing restarting the whole process

on a (slightly) related noet : if you fancy filling a spot on a fantasy baseball league Aurik there is one spot left!

that reminds me of the paradox of the shaolin momks : an order of pacifist warrior monks. I think i read something once on it where they said that in order to truly be a pacifist you need to be able to fight so that you can then choose not to. Otherwise you are simply someone who can't fight. Also sounds a little similar to Kit Dale's philosophy for learning BJJ, where he empathises learning concepts and principles rather than techniques believing that you can then naturally adapt a technique to the situation if you know the concept of how one should work (he says he doesn't have a favourite technique as anything performed is dependant on the situation)

Thats true. It's genuinely a tough one (and no right / wrong answer). I can see how in a smaller style, quality control can be more easily maintained and you just have white/black/instructor. It's once things start branching out a little further that i could see the issues creeping in. You can't just go by the strength of the affiliation/main organisation. As an example (am being a little circumspect here deliberately) there is a large bjj entity who have had several world champions (produced some amazing fighters), who would objectively seem to be high standard of belt level. I also know of someone who runs one of their gyms and got their black belt in a very suspect time (one usually only achieved by top of the food chain world champs), and most people on the scene here agree that this individual does not deserve it and is nowhere near the required standard. But the strength of the parent entity makes them seem valid. When the parent entity was smaller it is a lot less likely that they would have slipped through the cracks.

It just showed how great Gretzky was that Mario was the closest to him really and the distance was still quite vast

Nothing to be embarrassed about! Life comes first, bjj will be there for you if/when you decide to pick it up again! Glad to hear that the kyokushin is going well too

Thursday 23rd March Lifting Session Bench Press 20kg x 5 40kg x 5 52.5kg x 5 57.5kg x 5 65kg x 5 52.5kg x 5 52.5kg x 5 52.5kg x 5 52.5kg x 5 52.5kg x 5 Gorilla Row (reps = L + R) 24kg x 10 24kg x 10 24kg x 10 24kg x 10 24kg x 10 24kg x 10 24kg x 10 24kg x 10 24kg x 10 24kg x 10 E-Z Bar Curl 32.5kg x 5 32.5kg x 5 32.5kg x 5 time taken : 37min total poundage : 5375kg density : 145.3 kg/min Also did a few straight leg hip lift sets when i got home (placing leg on a raised object in yoko geri position and lifting leg using hips). did 2 sets of 10 on each leg. Am going to start doing these more often as i think my hip flexors need strengthened for higher kicks! Session today was quite tiring as full of a really heavy cold, but managed to get through it which was good. Amended the assistance work slightly and did a little less than originally planned but got all the sets in of the main lift and main assistance lift which is what is important.

definitely!

I'd be leery to attempt to tie anything to competitive achievements. Reason being is that there comes a point in competitions where natural ability becomes a big factor in who is able to compete and who isn't. It's easier for great athletes to demonstrate skill in competition. But great athletes aren't always the best coaches and instructors. There are lots of people out there that are so naturally gifted that they pick up on movements easily, and don't struggle with physical skills. Hence, they don't have to troubleshoot as often as the less naturally talented, who have to work harder and smarter to get just a little bit more out of everything. These are the folks who tend to become good coaches and teachers. Case in point here. Knows the curriculum for shodan, but due to the competition standards set by that instructor, can't be a shodan. But may in fact have the competence to teach and coach the movements, given the chance. Both completely valid points, which then leads to the slightly circular argument of do you go back to a slightly differentiated grading system to indicate differences in skill/knowledge level, and you get back to the dan system. I do know that judo (at least over here) dealt with the competitive issue by having a technical pathway, whereby someone can progress based on knowledge rather than competition results. BJJ does similar (i have found) once people are beyond a certain age (or if they are non competitors) as most people recognise that an athletic 20yr old training 6 days a week is likely to beat most hobbyists (unless a massive skill disparity). Personally i quite like one of Wastelander's ideas of different level of instructor grade. So you get a white belt, a black belt and then something like a 'junior instructor', 'instructor', 'senior instructor' to reflect the depth of knowledge of the style that can be transferred. Am also curious if you could implement something 'PhD style' to the 'senior instructor' banding, where someone has to make a contribution to the body of overall knowledge. I am envisaging someone being required to do some cross training and bring back something useful to improve their base style. Could even be that they do a lot of yoga; weight lifting; calisthenics etc. and bring back some strategies for improving the styles warm ups; conditioning work. That would lead to the continued growth of the style, and with it being people at the 'senior instructor' level they should have a deep enough understanding of the style to identify areas that they can improve on/adapt

Another thing in favour of the abolition of additional dan ranks is what happens in a lot of the grappling styles (and possibly the full contact karate ones too but i am not directly familiar with this). My son's judo teacher is an international judo competitor. They are also a 1st dan and i don't think they have any plans to change that anytime soon. Most of the serious competitive judoka i have met are also 1st dan or maybe the odd 2nd. They leave the additional dans til post their competitive career. They need their black belt to enter the top level comps etc but once they have that then they are not bothered at all. (as an aside i did once ask my brother in law what would happen if someone who was a high level competitor in another grappling art took up judo and won the national champ as a green belt or similar as i think it is theoretically possible - he said no one would care and you would likely get presented your bb on the way to the podium!). Similarly with bjj, while there are degrees, what is important is black belt or not black belt. I say to people i have a black belt instructor i train under, said the same under my old one too. Didn't ever mention which one had more degrees as no one really cares most of the time. Skills are what is important i think. Issue i can see is if in a non competitive style then it is hard to separate out who is good from who is not without an additional ranking system. What i mean by that is : (theoretically) if someone has multiple dans then they should be skilled in a system and more so than someone with less dans (with obvious exceptions in some cases). Moreover, if it is a decent sized accrediting body, then for the layperson / interested student there is some kind of external validity of the persons skill. Without this, and without competition, then you are left with someone just saying they are a black belt and thats it. This then could lead to some more unscrupulous individuals, earning a black belt and then trying to profit a lot from it, when they aren't really good enough to teach (i am thinking of the mcdojo type people who get a shodan, invent an offshoot and instantly become a 10th dan in their made up style). For the new entrant it would be hard for them to tell if the person is actually skilled and could lead to wasted time or even worse. Obviously if someone is able to say : X times champion of (insert popular event here) then this would supersede it. Lineage could partially help e.g. i notice that Wastelander has carefully laid out his in his signature (which is commendable) but that also relies upon some knowledge to be aware of who is 'good' or how to check up on it. e.g using a bjj example, Cesar Gracie was notoriously hard to earn a black belt from. IF you got one then you must be excellent whereas there are some people who aren't as stringent in their requirements

When i check league members you are showing. We need one more now

waiver and trade timescales updated to 3 days for each. makes sense since i think it will be quite a casual league

Interesting thought - seems very similar to old school bjj actually. From what i have seen there used to only be three belts : white, blue and dark blue/navy to denote instructor (Royce changed to wearing one of these a few years ago - not sure if he still does). The curriculum idea from your late sensei is also similar to bjj : in essence you should 'know everything' by black belt and the subsequent training is refining your own style and techniques with black belt degrees being for time served (in essence). Personally i think it is quite a good idea but i can see it having some issues in the modern world with student retention "why hasn't my child got a new belt yet", "i'm better than X, why are we the same belt" etc. and it would require a decent amount of maturity from the practitioners for it to work. It almost seems like the kind of thing that is more suited to established "lifelong" martial artists who enjoy learning and for whom rank is merely a barrier to be overcome to learn more. Seems like it would work well for a 'boutique; style - something small and close knit with high standards etc but not as well suited to a larger scale style

Monday 20th March Karate Session First session post grading Warm ups Usual warm ups Kihon Slightly different to usual, a lot of focus on hikite and working mainly brown belt / black belt required grading combinations. Good for practice (even though i don't need to know them yet!) Hips felt a little funny when doing sequences of kicks, but i was really trying to focus on hipping in and out and they felt a little better later. I think issue with kick height on some kicks is a strength one in hip flexors not a flexibility one Kata Lots of run throughs of Tekki Shodan. Have the moves down and now just need to work on the details and rhythm. Made a minor change to my foot position for kiba-dachi which seems to be good and gentler on my knees - will work not on making it muscle memory

Thanks! Was working on Tekki shodan over the weekend and last night and was told by one of the 3rd Dans that they thought it was already at grading standard! One of the benefits to going back through the grades again is it is (relatively) quick to get things back up to speed. The CI also has us practice the techniques for 1 - 2 grades up regularly which helps too Got a couple of useful pointers from the Grading Examiner too. Couple of things which i thought i was doing but he suggested i amend a little - an example of personal perception of something being slightly different to external perception. Have also made a slight tweak to how i perform horse stance and it feels a lot better on my knees. I realised that what i thought was parallel with my feet was actually the insteps being parallel which is actually slighly outwards but not enough that i point my knees out. Corrected in by a couple of degrees and feels a lot better already