DarthPenguin

I would echo the other posters comments but also mention that trying to self teach, without significant prior experience, is likely to result in learning faulty movement patterns and having a lot of hassle down the line trying to fix the faulty muscle memory. Once someone has a lot of experience and has developed a lot of awareness of exactly what their body is doing when they perform a technique then yes you can probably self teach to an extent e.g. bushido_man has his 5th dan in TKD : he can probably relatively easily pick up variants of techniques from karate etc. and seek to add it to his technique repository by making some adjustments. Personally, i would suggest googling all the clubs in the styles you like the look of that are near you and just popping along for a trial lesson and see what you actually like when you try it for real. Plenty of times things are different in practice to what they seem like when viewing from a distance

Congratulations! You going to try and push on now for your 5th? Fantastic achievement though

Fantastic, well done!

I wonder if that is a difference between different shotokan classes / clubs. At mine we start the gohon kumite at white belt and they do it in their grading too. My instructor lets people do free sparring straight away too (though obviously it is a lot gentler for the lower grades and usually the white belts etc will be paired up with someone a lot more experienced).

Tuesday 3 December Lifting session Quite a compressed session as needed to get it done in 30min. supersetted every exercise with a set of deadlifts and took max 1min rest between sets of the superset. Managed to get it all done though which was good! Trap bar deadlift 70kg x 5 90kg x 3 110kg x 2 120kg x 1 130kg x 3 130kg x 3 130kg x 3 130kg x 3 130kg x 3 130kg x 3 130kg x 5 Seated overhead press 20kg x 5 30kg x 5 42.5kg x 5 47.5kg x 5 55kg x 6 Cable chest flye (weight is per hand) 25kg x 11 25kg x 11 25kg x 11 Overhead cable triceps extension 30kg x 15 30kg x 15 30kg x 15

Monday 2 December Karate Session Usual warm ups to start the class followed by grade required kihon. Went onto kata working bassai dai first and then backwards through the Heian's until Heian shodan. Did a couple of rounds of jiyu ippon kumite at the end

Saturday 30th November BJJ Session relatively straightforward session . Worked on scissor sweep from closed guard and some options when people defend it. Nothing much to write about tbh though was a good session to get more reps in

Friday 29 November lifting session squat 20kg x 5 40kg x 5 60kg x 5 75kg x 3 90kg x 3 90kg x 3 90kg x 3 90kg x 3 90kg x 3 90kg x 3 90kg x 8 Bench press 20kg x 5 40kg x 5 62.5kg x 5 70kg x 5 80kg x 6 Cable seated row 55kg x 12 55kg x 12 55kg x 12 55kg x 12 55kg x 12 OVerhead triceps extension 25kg x 20 25kg x 20 KB jefferson curl 8kg x 8 8kg x 8 8kg x 8 KB seated good morning 8kg x 8 8kg x 8 8kg x 8

Tuesday 26 November Lifting Session Seated overhead press 20kg x 5 30kg x 5 40kg x 5 55kg x 3 55kg x 3 55kg x 3 55kg x 3 55kg x 3 55kg x 3 55kg x 8 Trap bar deadlift 70kg x 5 80kg x 3 90kg x 3 97.5kg x 5 112.5kg x 5 127.5kg x 8 Cable lateral raise (superset with seated row : reps are total of L + R) 10kg x 20 10kg x 20 10kg x 20 10kg x 20 10kg x 20 Seated row 50kg x 12 50kg x 12 50kg x 12 50kg x 12 50kg x 12

Best of luck (not that you will need it!) for the 5th Dan test At your school will that officially grant you the 'Master' honourific or is it 6th Dan for yours? I look forward to hearing about it

Congrats!

Monday 25 November Karate Session Warm ups as per usual Then went through grade required kihon. Moved to Kata next and got a useful comment on Bassai Dai - the very first move i have always had it slightly wrong in my head and had the two hands being separate during first move with left hand then coming to rest on right forearm. Instructor pointed out that this is not the case and it should remain in contact throughout and just slide down. Easy to implement improvement though which is good! Also ran through all of the Heian katas multiple times. Spent a long time personally working on the ending section to Heian Yondan with the 3 stepping forward blocks in back stance. Working on really emphasising the back stance for the final one to make the stance shift for the knee strike as clear as possible.

Friday 22 November Lifting Session Bench Press 20kg x 5 40kg x 5 50kg x 5 60kg x 3 70kg x 2 75kg x 1 80kg x 1 85kg x 4 Face Pull (cable) 15kg x 15 15kg x 15 15kg x 15 Squat 20kg x 5 40kg x 5 60kg x 3 75kg x 5 85kg x 3 95kg x 8 Seated Cable row 45kg x 12 45kg x 12 45kg x 12 45kg x 12 45kg x 12

Wednesday 20 November Karate Session Warm ups as per usual then worked on grade required kihon. Then went into kata: started with Bassai Dai then worked through the Heians. Did some kumite drills : jiyu ippon kumite then any unannounced 5 attacked with one of the black belts. Then more kata. Was a good class few useful pointers to work on too which is always good!

Monday 18th November Lifting Session Trap bar deadlift 70kg x 5 85kg x 5 105kg x 3 120kg x 2 130kg x 1 140kg x 1 145kg x 5 Seated overhead barbell press 20kg x 5 30kg x 5 45kg x 5 52.5kg x 3 57.5kg x 8 Cable chest flye (weight is per hand - superset with bulgarian split squat) 25kg x 9 25kg x 9 25kg x 9 Bulgarian split squat (weight is per leg - reps are total of L + R) 24kg x 10 24kg x 10 24kg x 10 Seated row (cable) 40kg x 12 40kg x 12 40kg x 12 Overhead triceps extension 25kg x 20 25kg x 20 25kg x 20

Saturday 16 November Lifting Session Squat 20kg x 5 40kg x 5 65kg x 5 75kg x 3 90kg x 2 100kg x 1 110kg x 3 Bench press 20kg x 5 40kg x 5 55kg x 3 67.5kg x 5 77.5kg x 3 87.5kg x 3 Seated Row (cable) 35kg x 15 35kg x 15 35kg x 15 Overhead triceps extension 25kg x 16 25kg x 16 25kg x 16 Jefferson curl 8kg x 6 8kg x 6 8kg x 6 Seated Good morning 8kg x 6 8kg x 6 8kg x 6

Over here it is basically football, football or football. Is not uncommon for someone to be asked "what team do you follow?" (due to the Rangers vs Celtic rivalry) and even if you say "i don't follow football" to be met with "but if you had to choose which one would it be?" People play golf etc. but not watched as much. Same for rugby etc. I would say there is a large difference here between sports that people participate in and those that people watch: lots of people play golf etc. but don't think as many go out of their way to watch it.

For me plenty! I enjoy the NFL (a longstanding Bills fan) and Baseball (Mariners) probably the most out of sports that aren't really National Sports over here. Interesting question!

Wednesday 12th November Lifting session Was under the weather last week plus had tweaked my knee a couple of weeks ago (hence less lifting) so decided to do a slightly different session to get back into it! Did KB swings with 28kg KB EMOM did 7 reps with the rest being remainder of the minute and did 20 sets. Felt pretty decent actually : i thought it would be a lot tougher than it was! Once done i did 1k on the ski erg which sucked a bit more than usual - i need to work on my conditioning i think!!

Saturday 9th November BJJ Session worked on passing knee shield half guard. Either with a smash pass (my preference) or with a knee slide. Lots of reps drilling it and plenty of eco drilling. Rolled a few rounds at the end and managed to survive a round with one of the purple belts without being submitted which is progress! (small victories and all that!)

Tuesday 29 October Lifting Session Seated Overhead PRess 20kg x 5 30kg x 3 40kg x 5 45kg x 3 55kg x 2 60kg x 1 65kg x 3 Cable chest flyes (weight is per hand) 25kg x 8 25kg x 8 25kg x 8 One hand cable row (reps are total of L+R) 25kg x 20 25kg x 30 25kg x 30 Biceps cable curl 25kg x 15 25kg x 15 25kg x 15

Thursday 24 October BJJ Session Session was working on posture for passing guard from knees initially, then drilled standing to pass followed by going for a straight ankle lock instead when passing : baiting opponent into the double ankle sweep and taking their leg once done. Was a good session!

Congrats!

Thats good there are tonnes of comments about the benefits of consistency so am sure you know that! Hope it keeps going well

interesting! I've never been shown a variation that tries to curl back down: when i had been shown it it went straight across into the target. Is always interesting how many variations on techniques exist!