SaiFightsMS

I wore shoes most of the time in karate. Started out with the Pine Tree shoes but wound up liking Feiyue shoes better. My reason was the way the sole had wider coverage and my food did not try to turn sideways so badly in certain stances. http://www.mafootwear.net/feiyue.php?gclid=CISL8a7chKkCFROI5godKl8Oqg

Congratulations Heidi. Seems to be she is one of the longest serving KF Senseis.

When things like that happen consider it part of your training and suck it up. Am I a hard liner? Not really, I have seen more years of training and you may be in the process of being groomed to do more assisting later on. I got stuck working with a family of 3 kids one time with the attention span of ...... I did my best whether I liked it or not. Ultimately 6 months later sensei kicked them out of class. They proved themselves to be just too disruptive and were taking away too much from the rest of the class. Who failed us or them? I see failure on both parts.

I had to think about this one a bit before I could respond. I worked with a mixed group of kids and adults. Working in adult class could be much easier. Working with the kids class learning with them was more challenging and in many ways provided learning experience the adult class did not provide. There was one boy I often got paired with for nearly 2 1/2 years because like you we were of a the closest size in the class. We were also of a similar rank. Our biggest issue was sparring - at first in the lower ranks neither one of us were very good at it. Now I am talking a bit over a 25 year age difference at the time. One of the last times I sparred with him I knocked him clear across the room. Now don't get too outraged. I caught him stepping back and hit him with a center punch at less than full power. We both learned different lessons in that encounter. When it comes to something like focus mitt training though there should be an implicit understanding. You hold the mitt correctly or you get hit. Your age should not matter. Particularly not in a situation where the mitt training is to be done with power. You want to mess around when you are holding the mitt you better have your mouth piece in, your helmet on and depending on the level of the kick your cup. My question is when it is the boys turn to kick/punch at the mitt how does he do then? One discipline lesson I remember in kids class was before class one day one of the boys managed to insult a girl calling her fat. Now they were of a similar size and same rank. Come time to spar sensei made sure the two of them were paired up. About the 3rd time the boy picked himself up off the floor it was considered his lesson was learned and in the process he learned to respect the girls ability. That was the end of that problem. It is the kids that had problems outside of class that tended to benefit most from karate. It may have taken some rough lessons at time but if they stuck it out they gradually began to have improvements shown at school and at home. This does not take place overnight it takes time. And with some it takes much more time than it does others.

I remember after I thought I had learned my first kata and how much I wanted to go on and learn another one. But my much wiser teacher knew that it was not time yet for that. It took several years to begin to understand that the number of katas I knew meant little, it was my understanding of the kata and my skills in even the most basic elements that were important.

When I was working on Kanku Dai there were other movements I spent my time working with. It seems to me t hat for everyone there are different parts of each kata that call to them first to concentrate on.

I remember testing on a kata I had worked on for over 4 years. I was the only one in the dojo deemed ready to test with it. I did it with power, precision the best stances I had ever performed with and the audience was just dropping their mouths open at times. Afterwards I was told by many how impressive the kata was. I was thinking about all the things I could have done better.

As enigmatic as this may sound a kata, or moves within a kata are not truly yours until you have done it enough times to have internalized it and made it your own. You can be taught bunkai but until you really feel it inside yourself it is not yours. When the muscle memory kicks in with the instinct you have learned from other moves you have learned ideally one day you will feel the purpose of the move. Or see ideas on your own how you can use that move for a purpose or to lead to another move. Some moves this takes more repetitions than you can count.

Two issues here the kiai and germs. Now germs are one thing and not to be shared. Training while contagious is far different from training through an injury. The Kiai is a an expelling of energy to add force to an action or a move. Most kiais do have a noise component that just comes from the expellation of energy. Listen to an upper belt doing a kata and while there is not a kiai on every single move you will more than likely here a sound on every single out breath with every move. Not necessarily loud but noticeable and you can feel the force behind the move. While working on your own do moves with no kiai, with a kiai and feel the difference.

One hard life lesson is when you live under another s roof you are subject to their rules. One of the things I got from my training was to always to my best. And that it applied to all areas of my life. Even a silly lie in an awkward situation can come back to bite hard and hamper things down the road. Much of the world see things in shades of grey. As one builds integrity, and inner strength there is less and less grey and more and more that is black and white.

Been there done that but it is not good. Find a positive path to channel that energy into. A path to improve your life.

Retaining your cool and your tongue are always useful. One of the things we can learn from martial arts is self control. Without specifics and knowing age involved an apartment may or may not be a good solution. One thing that can always help is to keep your stuff picked up and in a good order. And to help keep other stuff picked up and clean too. And to do it quietly with respect even if it is not easy.

Congratulations. Many words have indeed passed here over the years may they continue and continue to contain wisdom.

October 2001! In some ways it seem like that long ago and in some ways it seems like only yesterday.

This was for me one of the first places on line I found to discuss our passion for martial arts in a respectful manner exchanging information, asking and answering questions. We made friends here, we shared information. We learned.

You might want to look at the Chinese Feiyue martial arts sneakers. http://www.mafootwear.net/feiyue.php

Happy Birthday!

I sure missed this and a belated congratulations.

Welcome to the forum.

Welcome to the forum.

Welcome to the forum.

Sure hope to be making regular visits.

It has been a while how is everyone doing? I see a few names a remember and a lot of new ones. What's up with everyone these days.

Welcome to the forum.

Congratulations Heidi.