Coco

Alot of people on the forums say they will pass when their senseis think they are ready... Well guess what? Your sensei can definately be wrong, dont take his word for it. If it was up to my sensei, I would be a blue/brown belt, although im only a green at the moment, and he thinks I am totally ready to go to my next belt, but I dont think im ready, so guess what? Ill stay back. As for the failing belts, I can safely say many schools have started to let kids pass the belts grading easly, because if they really passed who deserved to pass now adays at some dojos, they would have no students at all... (my dojo is an example, yes, its an uber mcdojo)

Yeah that was a real wake up call, ill start chaning from now on.

You will just get faster, stronger with time. You might wanna add some pushups/crunches to your running aswell, so you can train endurance AND strength. Practice is the key.

A week of vacation will do you great, and if that dosnt help it... Seek medical help!

I am almost sure that I will join a BJJ class soon. I have never seen or done this sport, only bits from the karate I do at the moment (my teachers usese bits of jujitsu with bunkais), and i was wondering, what are some things to look for on a BJJ dojo? What kind of stuff do you do? Is it effective on the street/fighting? Can you give me a little more info about this sport and what kind of stuff you do? Thanks

Err.. well yeah i finally got into a fight... what happened? Seems like they were moving(they are all related) and they wanted to woop my * before they left... So im walking alone(my bro didnt go to karate with me) and then this kid aproaches me and goes like, where u goin, b*tch? he grabs me and i suddenly stop... i knew this was trouble.. so the stands right in front of me, and tries to pushme backwards with both hards, at that point i reacted and blocked both hands to the sides, then pushed him back, out of pure reaction and i accidentally pushed him a lil too hard... then 2 other kids came, and helped him up. This other kid whos about 5'4 (im, 5'6-5'7) slaps me and i got really really pissed off so im like " What the f*ck? " and i punch him right in the nose, then this other kid i pushed comes and pushes me, then i kick his his thigh(i think it impacted his kneecap cause he couldnt stand up) and while he is down i front kicked the other last kid into a garbage can before he could do anything, then i ran like hell... Thanks for all the advice, now they moved off, (not before toilet papering my whole yard and egging my windows) and i dont think theyll ever be back, now they know whats waiting for them. Oh and as for the other little kids it seems they were the gangster kid's brothers or something cause they were packing boxes into the truck at the moment of the fight but were too busy to notice.

I dont know if this has been posted alredy(im in a hurry) but if you train only to look forward to pass belts and wearing a darker piece of cloth around your waist, you are not getting what martial arts is about. You should show up to karate, and try to improve youself each time, and dont think of what you did wrong, but how to improve it. Dont get mad at anyone, it wasnt your fault, the sensei is supposed to correct you when watching you perform the techniques, and also, the person who tested you would have been having a bad day or something and felt like failing people. I belive this was a good experience , belive it or not, it has opened your eyes to see that you CAN FAIL, just because you go to this level without problems it dosnt mean you wont fail in the future. Also, training 4-5 days a week can be your biggest problem. If you train 4-5 days a week, you should be 100% sure you are doing the techniques right, and look for perfection in your techniques, not just do them because you can.

I wear a full white karate gi for my shito ryu dojo, and loose shorts and a t-shirt for muay thai.

Very very intelligent post although I have to disagree with some things... For example, you said training 4-6 years is not worth it for ONE fight... But what if that fight decided if you kept living or died, or if you could decide if your mother/brother/sister/father/whatever could get hurt? I think you will open you eyes wider once some muggler comes up to you and tries to steal from an old lady next to you, or tried to steal from your mom, or yourself, even. But it is also very true on the point that I see many people come and go in my karate class, because they want to 'kick some butt'. People like that dont usually last more than 1 or 2 belts, or many GET like that once they reach a higher level like brown belt. Great post.

Well, so far i am a green belt (5th kyu), but i have watched every single color (around 10-11) take their test... and guess what? the black belt one wasnt ANY different. For my school, which would be considered a mcdojo by many, to go to black belt you just go up, warm up, whatever, they test you for a bunch of techniques, they ask you how to do all the punches/kicks, they give you a HUGE vocab list of about 100 words, they make you spar for about 5 minutes, they test you on seienchin and bassai-dai, they make you the bunkai for both and they make you do uppon kumite. Takes about 30 mins for the whole test.

Ok there is only one more problem... I can just "drop" karate that easly... seems like they added mt just the day after I renewed my 1 year contract for karate, which means i have to do 1 more year - which is till about july next year(will get me to a brown/black belt). Is bjj any good? My karate teacher implies some jujitsu he knows into the bunkais of our katas and I kinda like it, I might try it out aswell. As for mt, I am going to ask to go and watch a class before i start going, and no, I dont think there are any 6 years old doing muay thai at the gym... Oh and one more thing, do you think if i start doing muay thai and bulk up a little as I grow up , it will slow me down in karate? Thanks for the replies so far Coco

Where I am looking forward to train, its 6 classes a week , 2 hours a day and u get free boxing classes 7 days a week... for 49$ usd a month, which comes out to be 2 dollars per class...

As you might have read on some of my other posts, I have been into shito ryu karate for about a year now, and earned the rank of green belt(5th kyu). Recently, I have noticed that a new gym opened up, and that it had muay thai! From reading endless posts/articles on this site and others, i have concluded that muay thai is pretty much the thing if you want full contact fighting and if you want to know how to defend yourself on the streets. Anyways, i would sign up, but there are a few questions on my mind before it...I have come to you guys for help. 1. The classes are monday, tuesday, thursday, friday, and saturday, but I wont be able to attend monday or friday because of karate. Do you thing 3 lessons a week, 2 hours a lesson is enough? 2. There is people of all ages. There is only 1 muay thai class in the whole gym with people of all ages, do you think ill be too intimidated to spar against bigger, more experienced people, or maybe the class will go too fast for the younger students? Im 14 3. Do you think training 6 days a week is too much? I would be doing karate mon wed and fri, and muay thai tues, thurs and saturday, also i get free boxing when i sign up for muay thai. 4. Do you think i can handle it? So far in my training, i have been slowly building up my physique, as you can see in other posts, to fit them to karate, but i hear muay thai is much much tougher! 5. Am i too young to start muay thai? I know kids in thailand start whne they are 8 or whatever, but do you think being 14 years old will be too young in a class of a bunch of adults? Also, i would like to know what kinds of stuff muay thai is about, and if it is worth going to learn it.. as it costs alot of money after all. Also, do you think training on more then one martial art will affect my schoolwork? Oh - and there is also brazilian jujitsu classes, which is worth learning more, jujitsu or muay thai - OVERALL? Thanks in advance, Coco

The stupidest thing ever happened to me tonight... Since I have decided to train extra time, extra hard (7 days a week, at least 2 hours a day) it means that on mon/wed/fri , days that I go to the dojo to practice, i stay after class, which ends up being around 830-900 , pretty late and dark for a green belt to be walking around with a karate uniform, anyways, tonight i stayed after class to practice my katas and whatever and then as im walking back, around 3-4 kids prolly 11-15 yr old see me walking by... In this ocassion, no they werent taller stronger faster, they were around 5-5"3 and weight no more than 130 pounds, anyways, as I walk by them ,they go "oh look a green belt!" and then one of the kids goes "i whoop your *" and then they all start laughing... yes, I did control myself but i felt like going up to them and teaching them a lesson... (which im 99% positive i could have)... What the hell is wrong with people these days, karate is just another sport why do we have to be descriminated?!

This is weird... i itrain on a shito ryu dojo, and the bunkais for alot of the katas have jujitsu implied into them, like one for heian sandan you do the wrist twisting thing... im not sure if my teacher edited the bunkais to mix them with jujitsu or they are like that, but id rather go with karate anyways.

You said that the karate instructor is old and weak and the TKD one is stronger and stuff... That dosnt have anything to do with the way they teach, the old karate teacher can be weak, but he may be very wise and he might know much more about the art than your strong TKD teacher, who may happen to work out more than practice his art.

Well, i just asked because next year im going into high school and i dont know what to expect. My friends have been telling me that there are a load of workout freaks who like to bully 9th graders around, since we are the smallest. If i tried to run or whatever in school and they cought up to me later im dead... if they beat me up and i report to school they suspend them for a week and then they are back to get me... wearing masks and beating me up twice as hard. This has happened to many of my friends which alredy went through this stage , but i have the advantage of being an active martial artst. Sorry if my question was wrong or whatever, but i have concluded that none of you can help me win a battle.

Okay, now since most of you have repeated the same thing over and over, I came up with a new question that I hope varies on answers. What if TWO people came up to me and started to push me around? (yes, they are stonger faster and crazyer then me)

Congratulations! That story was fantastic!

One thing about red bull that I noticed is that it pumps me up for a bit then brings me down super heavily, and leaves me super weak! Oh and I added a new question Thanks for the answers so far!

Well, thats a good idea, but change clothes to walk a block to my house...? Seems kinda useless as nothing can prolly happen in one block of walking but the gangsters always hang around the entrance of my house. Anyways, if me and my brother were both to change after class , we would have to wait about half an hour for the other people to finish, then walk home 30mins to an hour later, which could bring more trouble as it is completely dark. Besides, my brother wont be up for it anyways. Im guessing ill just have to run home. By the way, this topic wasnt about how to not get into a fight when walking home, its about what to do if i get into one Thanks anyways. Coco

I have not been on a street fight so far, but I somehow have a HUGE feeling one is heading my way. Maybe its beacause every time I walk back home from my dojo at about 8:30 pm, I always see 4-5 gang kids walking around making fun of me beacause im wearing a karate uniform. They dont bother coming close, but they yell out at me and my brother. That, plus a bunch of drunk/drug addicts/psychos hang out on the streets around my house. I have been looking though the forums and im mostly going to get the following answers : 1.Run 2.Hit the face 3.Hit the groin 4.Hit the knee I have been thinking really good about why most people post these answers. Running should be the best answer, but the gangsters can prolly outrun me. Mostly, if you are about to hit someone in the face, unless they have a super slow reflex, they will move/block, plus, if I hit a gangster on the face the other 4-10 will jump me... Anyways, I can see that the knee, groin and face would be the best places to hit beacuse there is no fat/muscle to protect those spots, but are there other effective, fast techniques I can use? I also checked out the spinning backfist... whoa thats powerful! Any other powerful/effective techniques I can use? Also, if you post a technique, can you explain how to do it, or have a link to a website that explains? Thanks alot

Holy! where do you get all this info!? Anyways, ill probably switch to water completely, also, I added one more question, so check it out aefibird - Somehow since I changed to diet coke, I misteriously started coughting alot at karate. Noone knew why but it just happened, I didnt even know what had triggered it, but I read what you said, and it just came to me that since I started changing to diet coke I started caughing alot! I also have some asthma background so that may be it! Thanks for all the help so far its helping tons!

As I have been finding new ways to exersice and lose weight, lots of questions have aroused, so I have decided to start a post about it in search of some answers. 1. When doing stairs, is it better to go by 2's or one by one? (one by one seems a little too small as I am not used to going 1 by one and my stairs are pretty small, its also harder to go faster when 1 by 1) 2.Diet coke, any better? (people have told me to stop drinking coke and drink water, but i have noticed diet coke has 0 calories and 0 sugar, so, is it any better then drinking coke?[i know nothings better then whater though]) 3.Red bull energy drink - shall I? (Some people also have told me to try some vitamins while I get back in shape so it gives me some energy and im not soo tired at karate, I bought 50 red bulls but im not sure if i should use them before every karate class, anyone got any info on this topic?) 4.5-5-5-5 , 10-10 or 20? (Do you think doing 5-5-5-5 pushups or situps , 10-10 or 20 at a time would be best? Would all 3 be as effective as the other? Which one would be the most effective? 5.Does gatorade really re-hydrate you better? Is it better to drink gatorade than water? 6.Which help your strength the best, weights or pushups? Those are all of which I can think of at the moment, but more will probably come soon. Also, when answering id reccomend reading my story post, to keep some things in mind. I have to go get ready for karate class now, ill check up on the post later.

That exact same thing has happened to me with a friend I have the same agreement with just about 5 times, and i couldnt walk for about 2-3 days each time it happened.