TangSooGuy

Actually most karate schools in my area charge 100/ month or more.. The monthly fees sound about normal to me. Where you're really getting ripped is on the kyu test fees. Why do they increase with every test?

it took 4 years to Cho Dan (1989) Another 2 years after that I was an E Dan (1991) Another 3 years to Sam Dan (1994) and 10 years later I got my Sah Dan master's belt (2004) But to be fair, that test takes a minimum of 3 years to complete in our system, so technically I first started the test for Sah Dan in 2002. I only point this out to show that the time to first Dan really doesn't mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. I tested by the book for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Dan, but I still had to put my time and contribution in before testing for my Sah Dan. I fully expect that it will be at least 7-8 years before I test again, but I'm okay with that.

Seems kind of bogus to me. Monthly fees and testing fee are pretty common, and in some cases even association membership fees, but an extra 115 per year seems a bit high. If I were the instructor I would just roll that into monthly tuition, but as was said, it's a business practice to get up front money out of people and not have to raise monthly tuition. My association only charges $15 American from white belt to black belt (which I actually don't charge my students- comes out of monthly fees), and after that $15 a year to renew black belt membership, or you can purchase several years or a lifetime membership where you don't have to ever worry about renewing it again. If it is 115 per year (and I don't know how Australian translates to US) right from the start, it seems a bit much to me....

31 students right now, but I'm still building.... been going for just over 2 years, so I hope to increase soomewhat. My goal is to have about 60 total in th next 2-3 years....if I get more than that who can stay with it, great...if less, I'm not going anywhere...

Summer retention is tough...I have about half my class going on vacation at different points over the next month or so... We are having a demo this weekend, a clinic and picnic in August, and I'm trying to get an amusement park trip put together, but it seems like there just isn't time.... In the end..some may decide not to come back, and it is always a shame when that happens, but if they don't come back, the drive was never really there to begin with. Hold on to the ones you can, and focus on the students who do come to class, even in the summer. Focusing on the ones who leave just isn't productive most of the time. Don't get me wrong, you should ask yourself why thy don't come back, but 99% of the time it isn't anythng you did, and they were going to quit eventually, anyway....sad but true...

Here are some more pics I just got...none of them are great, and I look hideous in most of them, but oh well...at least I'm smiling in the one where I got some food http://img74.photobucket.com/albums/v225/knightshade/tsd/Picture_21.jpg http://img74.photobucket.com/albums/v225/knightshade/tsd/Picture_19.jpg http://img74.photobucket.com/albums/v225/knightshade/tsd/Picture_20.jpg http://img74.photobucket.com/albums/v225/knightshade/tsd/Picture_17.jpg http://img74.photobucket.com/albums/v225/knightshade/tsd/Picture_18.jpg Thanks for bearing with me on my little ego trip, everyone!

There's no real way anyone can tell you. Maybe you'll get it, maybe you won't. I've known plenty of people who have earned a black belt in 4 years or less, and plenty who have not. Most of it will actually be up to you.... Th rest is a matter of your instructor's assessment of your ability, the curriculum of your school, etc.... Something to keep in mind though, being a black belt isn't really an indicator that you have learned the art "very well", merely that you have learned the BASICS very well....there's a lot more to learn after black belt, which is where the learning really begins, rather than ending...

Here are some grainy pics...Grandmaster Shin does like to tie the belt on a bit high, though... http://img74.photobucket.com/albums/v225/knightshade/tsd/promotion8.jpg http://img74.photobucket.com/albums/v225/knightshade/tsd/promotion9.jpg http://img74.photobucket.com/albums/v225/knightshade/tsd/promotion2.jpg

As others have already pointed out, teaching really does give you a much deeper insight into your techniques and training. When you are training, there is often a tendency to go into 'auto-pilot' mode and just do what is being asked of you without really delving into it. Teaching allows you to explore what you want, and take it in new directions. I've had more revelations and new ideas come to me when teaching than at any other time. Beyond that, there is a certain responsibility to perpetuate one's art to a new generation. By continuing to teach the art to new generations, we ensure its' survival. Our goal should be to make each successive generation better than we were. In Tang Soo Do, masters wear a red line through their belt, which signifies the blood of sacrifice and reproduction. Masters are expected to both give something back and pass on what they have learned, and I believe this a good thing. One could write an entire essay on this topic, truthfully, but I will try to avoid that. By fostering leadership skills through teaching, we help our students to become leaders not only in the martial arts, but in their outside lives as well. I firmly do believe that by creating a new generation of teachers, we are helping to create a better society, at least in some small part. Teaching requires leadership, confidence, understanding, patience, love, sacrifice, discipline, etc. It is an essential step to becoming a truly well-rounded martial artist and person.

The official curriculum in the WTSDA has 30 hand Il Soo Sik, 30 kick Il Soo Sik, annd 30 Ho Sin Sul techniques that you are required to know for black belt, but there are numerous other "non-standard" techniques in each category that you pick up along the way as well... Personally, i think Il Soo Sik is very underrated. Done right, it is teh perfect tool to start building towards actual free sparring.

Hey, if you want to, I certainly don't have a problem with it. I'd consider it a compliment, actually...

Thanks everybody! I'm still having a hard time believing it actually. I kept looking down at my new belt and thinking "I'm a master? Me?" Hearing that title in front of my name is going to take some getting used to. Keeping my ego in check was starting to get a little hard to with everyone paying so much attention to me...just not used to it. I'm not going to lie, though...it feels fantastic to have your effort and dedication recognized that way, in front of a few thousand people. All the training, all the effort, all the sacrifice has been more than worth it. Once again though I've come to the end of one stage of goals only to realize that in a larger sense I am only a beginner again. In the Yu Dan Ja community I was one of the most senior members....in the Ko Dan Ja community, I'm just a beginner, a proverbial "baby"....but it still feels good. All I can say is that if I can do this, anyone can. The WTSDA asked us for a quote this year for "Master's trading cards", which were used as a fundraiser for our various Scolarship funds. I said that "Mastery comes not by being better than everyone else, but through being more persistent." If there is one piece of advice I can give anyone working toward this goal, it is that. Be persistent. Quitting truly is the only way that you can really fail. As I saw some of my own role models being promoted to 5th, 6th, and even 7th Dan, I was able to reflect upon how I have really only scratched the surface on how much there is to learn. I also had an opportunity to see the World Championship through the eyes of some of my own students attending their first International event. These things can become kind of "old hat" after awhile, but between the experiences of my promotion, and that of seeing my own students perform very well, it ranks up there with the best martial arts experiences for me. I'm a little bit wiped out today after the events and the flight back (not to mention the 'celebrating' on Saturday night....) but it is a good feeling. I'm glad to be here and I hope that this message board continues to flourish. Overall, it seems to be one of the friendlier boards out there, and I'm happy to be a member here. And Tom, thatnks for starting the thread...who knows? It's conceivable that you could be testing for your master's rank around the same time I'm eligible for my 5th Dan... ...but work towards that Sam Dan first....maybe I'll show up and bring a shinai along...

Hyungs: Sae Kye Hyungs 1-3 (replaced Kicho Hyungs in the 80s) Pyung Ahn 1-5 Bassai Dai Sip Soo Naihanchi 1-3 Jin Do Rohai Kong Sang Koon Sei Shan Wanshu Jion O Sip Sa Bo Sae Kye Jang Kwon Bong Hyungs 1-3 (Staff) Dan Gum Hyung (Knife) Jang Gum Hyungs 1-2 (Sword) Jipangi Hyung (Cane)

4th Dan from Southwestern PA, not far from Pittsburgh , with the World Tang Soo Do Association (not ITF, which is what most Pittsburgh TSD is) I teach out of a YMCA between Cranberry and Zelienople.

I am focusing primarily on IE.....and it works fine in IE 6, although there is still some cleanup to do... I'm not going to change anything for IE, but I can do a check for other browsers and suppy different code to them.... It's not even close to being done yet, but the page with the iframe I'm working on is.... http://www.keystonemartialarts.com/main/calendar.asp ...and yes, there is a reason for the design and the color scheme, but i'mnot getting into that right now....

Well, I actually got my 3rd Dan in 9 years.... but i'll be the first to admit that I was promoted too quickly... It took another 11 years past that to make it to full 4th Dan rank...which I will receive in a few weeks...so really, as long as it all balances itself out in the end like it did with me... it doesn't bother me too much... 1st-3rd Dan in my Association are more preparation for 4th dan than anything else...and it's 4th Dan that is much harder to attain...

Hi all, sorry if it's been done before, but I am trying to get a sampling of what browsers people are using. I am working on a website that uses DHTML menus. The problem is that one of the pages on the site embeds another web page using a IFRAME. The DHTML menus intersect the IFRAMR border for this page. Some browsers are incapable of rendering the popup submenus over the IFRAME, so they get truncated where they gounderneath it instead. This is a known bug in many older and "alternative" browsers, so I'm trying to get a general idea of what people are using so I can decide whether I need to spend my time re-designing the site for those browsers.

Sounds to me like you're the PERFECT type of person to take marrtial arts. Anyone CAN succeed in the martial arts if they are willing to make the CHOICE to do so. People quit all the time, not because they can't do it, but because they choose not to. Sometimes people just can't accept their own limitations, but martial arts is all about overcoming the limitations that can be overcome, and learning to accept the ones that cannot. I'm a perfect example. When I started training I wasa shy, geeky, and extremely uncoordinated 10 year old. I hated sports with a passion, because I couldn't do any of them well, and no one would take the time to teach the kids who didn't excel. Martial Arts training was much different. 20 years later I'm still doing it, and now I'm teaching it to 32 of my own students, and getting awarded my "Master" rank in a few weeks...I always tell people that I'm living proof...if I can do this, anyone can, as long as they choose to.

A true story: Once we were holding a black belt testing at a ocal YMCa, which had two levels of parking lots, one at the bottom of a hill, and the other at the top. The top lot was smaller, and had been reserved for special guests, etc, and the bottom lot was rapidly filling up. A young man arrioved for his workout at the YMCA, and when he was told that he had to park at the bottom of the hill, he started fuming about how he was amember of this YMCA and should be allowed to park wherever he wanted. He them drove off angrily, and could be seen glowering and muttering to himself as he walked up the hill. Later in the day, one of the parking attendants spotted an elderly woman who needed to walk with the help of a cane at the bottom of the hill, making her way up to the YMCA. When the parking attendant saw this, she rushed over and told her that they would gladly make a spot for her in the top lot. She simply smiled and said, "No, thank you dear, i'll be just fne. It's a nice day for a walk." It turns out that this elderly woman was a grandmother of one of the students testing that day... Amazing how a young man who was there to work out anyway fumed abut having to take a few extra steps, but the elderly woman who had trouble walking at all saw the positive side of things....

We train with both live and practice weapons...I would never give a student just learning the sword a live blade, annd never give one to a kid... However, training with practice weapons gives you a false sense of confidence after awhile. Training witha sword that will actually cut you if you screw up takes things to a different level... As a caveat, I dont normally suggest doing demos with live blades (unless you are demonstrating cutting) because it's too easy for someone else to get hurt... And I don't sugget training with a live blade when you are completely alone, either...you should always be able to seek medical attention if needed... ...and invest in some Quik Clot....

Aww...that's nothing...I stuck the tip of a sword in my leg once... Actually saw another guy put a sword completely through his leg doing the same form... he pulled it back out and finished the form, bleeding all over the place...

SURE it does.... but we weren't sparring with knives or ropes or canes or other improvised weapons, so maybe it WAS out of your natural realm...

Well, I put myself at a 4 after 20 years of training and having achieved 4th Dan... 4th Dan is really only about 40% of the way to being "there"... so about a 4 is right.... the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know...

Delta1 and WW, excellent points to support your ideas on this issue. However, I keep reading things like "some are able to adjust, but most are not." This is the part that keeps tripping me up. How is this qualitative analysis conclusion arrived at? Even if some people have witnessed this first hand, how is the conclusion arrived at that this applies to "most" people, and not just the few that were 'observed'? Maybe I am in the minority, but myself and the others I spar against find that light contact training takes an extreme amount of control and thought, and there have been many times where we've had slips in control and someone ends up getting hit pretty hard. That's when we have to re-focus and concentration back to "light contact". Just going from my own personal experience, the natural tendency is to not pull my punches or kicks. Either I'm "different", or the whole idea that training light contact causes bad habits is somewhat flawed. So when I read the "most" people that train light contact cannot adjust to real life, I can't help but wonder what pool of data this is coming from. Some have talked about "facts" to support this, but I've yet to see any. Only theories. I have to say I agree with you. the tendency is not to pull punches and kicks, and it actually takes conscious effort to not hit someone. In fact, it happened to me this weekend. My friend and fellow instructor were demonstrating free-flowing sparring, basically where techniques are thrown at one another non-stop, full poweer, but under conrol. Well, i got off-balanced and took a shot to the ribs. That was Saturday. It's now Tuesday, and it still hurts...

SevenStar: You seem like an intelligent person, please don't think my reply was directed entirely at you. I'm also not in any way claiming that there is anything wrong with full contact fighting. The problem I have is when people claim that it is superior to any other method of training. I've stepped into "the ring" with full contact fighters. I've "won", I've "lost", most of the time we'd both come out with some bumps and bruises and come out okay... Some of the guys I've sparred with used to be semi-professional boxers. Some of the guys I've sparred with were kickboxers. Some of the guys I've sparred with just liked to beat on each other. I still didn't see anything that gave them any advantage over me in the "ring", or in the real world. I'm really not trying to sound like an egomaniac...again just relating personal experiences. Let me respond to a few things in an attempt to clarify: Mostly because I got hit....and it hurt. But actually I experience a "rush" every time I fight. maybe it's not quite as 'intense' as it would be a "real" situation, but honestly, I think people place far to much emphasis on this... I'm not sure that the "science" has ever been done on it, but I'm not convinced the adrenaline levels in a full contact match really get much higher than in a semi-contact match where the participants are really into it... All I was attempting to say is that some point figters restrict themselves too much when it comes to different targets. I figured you'd agree with me on that one... I'd wager that most could do it, and pretty easily. Again all I'm attempting to say is that breaking is the tool that is used for non-contact fighters to practice techniques that generate power, focus, and penetration. it's a method of ensuring that not all strikes are "pulled"... Okay, when I said "least" important, I was probably stretching things a bit, I'll admit...But even ancient textsindicate that knowing when not to fight, and the ability to avoid fighting when possible is preferable to rushing in headfirst... I probably should never have used the word "style" here...I was actually referring to light contact vs. full contact in that particular passage. Again, I agree, which is why I say it comes down to the individual. I am curious about which "scientific studies" you ar ereferring to, as I'm always willing to learn more. In my experience though, for every scientific finding, there's another somewhere that contradicts it... Okay, one more time...I am NOT saying that there is anything wrong with full contact fighting. But there is not anything inherently wrong with light contact fighting either. The problem is when people only ever think about applying that light contact in competition...and ignore studying what they would do in other situations...