mya

O.k. "John" is very good at Karate. John is a master of Karate. Master John, does not exists unless you are a slave. His mastery is of the Art. Not of the people around him. This of it this way. If John had a Master's degree in science, would you walk around calling him Master John ? No, you would not. Call your teacher Sensei. It is means teacher in the West, (what ever the correct translation may be from Japonese), and if you are in the West you are Ok by it.

So you practiced and attained a Shito ryu black belt and now you returned to the same style and only got 6th kyu in almost 2 years. You appear to be doing the same progression as someone who started fresh in a normal school. What you must ask you is what you want from your training ? 1) If you are looking for a fighting training and your teacher is blocking you from sparing with the experienced students (black belts) and learning advanced technics, then you should leave. In fact you should leave the style and search something that translates to better fighting skills. 2) If you are looking for a black belt to gloat about and show off, then you can just leave and train with the other teacher, knowing fully that your actual teacher will break relations with you, and will probably not teach you more. Or you could just go to a shop and buy a black belt. 3) If you wish to socialize, have a bit of a work out at your current age of 37+ then you are at the right place, and should wait until you get your black belt. You will probably attain brown in around 1 year, and by then you should be fine. This reminds me of a case i heard about a kid whose teacher keep in low rank (around 7 kyu) for more than 5 years. He got bored and asked for a test with country style representative (he had the support of other teachers) and was ranked as 2 kyu. Cloth colour is just a form of incentive or (brag right for children), it is not an indicator of skill. The same way as school grades are not a indicator of technical performance.

The chanced of fight tree persons at the same time are very slim. If they attack realisticaly and the 3 at the same time, you dont even have a chance. One attacks you, and the other 2 just grab and try to hold you. There would need to be a huge skill diference for someone to defeat them. I would play avoidance game, like children play catch. And run from them.

Next time you see him come up to you keep an eye out for his hands. If they go for a pocket, create distance. You dont want him to pull a knife while you are close to him, not giving you to react if he swings it. If he pull the knife, keep that distance even if you need to run. If you get trapped, NEVER EVER try to fight unarmed a armed person, grab a chair. After all its a school. People tend to gain more confidence if they have an advantage. With a chair it will make him talk more and do less. And KEEP the distance. I dont know how you guys in the US have that shoving thing, but where i live no one shoves or pushes people around. I mean if someone pushed or shoved me i would imediatly assume that they where assaulting me and would punch/kick him. Aslo dont let people surround you, its awfull. I was wonce surrounded by 3 people (+wall) and it was totaly frustating. Also if you ever see someone pull a knife on someone in your school and the teatchers dont do anything, you find someone who also saw it and go to the police saying you wish to press charges (even as a minor). This will totaly force to school to act.

My problem with open palm punches is opurtunity. As for me they tend to need swing ala waymaker. If they are blocking/defending, it might be tricky to pull. I presonaly favor vertical punches to the face. Lateral Horisontal punches to the jaw (think of a hook). But these are not with knockout intention or full power, more of anowance and pain complience. So that i can move to the back and aply a choke or trip them. I only punch full power if i know for a fact that he will have no way to defend/move from it.

Train less forms, spar more. No realy, its that easy. You do forms well because you practice them. You spar badly because you dont practice sparing. No solo work will ever save your sparing skills, you actualy need to spar to get better at them. This means finding another human being to spar with. I advise you to make frineds with someone who has the same intention, and that has the same skill level as you. Half my fighting "tricks/taticks" i developed after classes when i would "play" (train) with a few of my friends that where also interested in learning. Just classes is not enuff if you wish to be profecient with the fighting aspect of MA. You need to spar. Just like to learn math you need to study at home. Another advice, train out of sight of you instructor. You will be not in the right mood to try new (probably catastrofic) things with him looking. People tend to be shy. Also another advice that you will learn in a few months, not everything that works for you friend will work for you and vice versa.

Why no one said Fighting skills ? One of the best thing i learned was how to fight.

You can find some of his fight on your tube. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=search_videos&search_sort=relevance&search_query=Bas+Rutten&search=Search http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qhjp8G7p-EY Hes the bald one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpi4uAeKhko

In theory you should train bouth Muthay and Brazilian Jujitso. But check the Muthay school out, it could be awfull and then boxing would benefit you. In practice, you should buy a gun and learn to ignore them. But the training might prove a lot more enjoiable than just buying a gun. Especialy Jujitso. Jujitso sparing must be rush.

The pating on the head does wonders for raizing guards. I had an adult friend that never protected the head, and i started to pat him on the top of the head. Guess what, he started to keep his guard.

Strange, i never heard about it on my goju. And im secound brown so its that they would be waiting for me to learn basics. We do two rotations on the lower defence. The hip rotation. And the elbow clock rotation. But i never heard something about wrist rotation. Now on the upper/high (level) block we do a rotation of the wrist. Strange... Anyway, its not like its a gimping thing. I always saw the traditional karate blocks more like a learning tool than a practical aplication for combat. Sure it works on newbies, and i have had one of my teatcher pull it on me with devastating effect when i was bellow 6 months. A classic medium level hard block with a powerfull medium reverse punch counter. But ever since those days its extremely dificult to actualy do one of those defences in sparing. Now the more advanced defences, from outside to inside are extremely easy to acomplish. Or the advanced medium level block from inside to outside, but with the open hand. I can pull that one with some skill, deflecting the punch and grabing his forearm/wrist. Witch reminds, i actualy managed to sucefuly pull a basic down block to a front kick, but that was because i was predicting his attack. And got lucky.

A small vidio of what the copetitions are like. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMjGQk-k2ZA

Please give me some enlightment. What karate style is that kata from ? And what stances are you using.

Talk to your friends at the dojo, nothing like a open minded and friendly spar without prying eyes so that you can test/train some stuff. I train Goju, and at the end of class we have 30 min for ourselfs when most peple leaves and only some of the higer ranking studends stay. So normaly spar during that time. And we wait untill the sensei move out to pull those stupid/sick moves. There is nothing worse that a back couch when you are trying to learn something for you by your self (+1). So last class this friend of mine had spared with a boxer and brought a boxer guard with high hands all over the head. So i decided to show him that that guard was wrong to use against me. So i proceded to kick him with my aim in his genitals. I have good control so i can stop them realy close. At the first one he complained that he was not using a protection down there. The secound he complained even more. After the third realy closing to close to home he decided to change his guard and start protecting more his genitalia. This is like head shots (punch). If you dont try them, no one trys them from risk of hurting the other. And then no one can actualy protect themsef decently against a head shot. Ever seen baby tiger play fighting, that is the idea to test and play and learn. Just today i was testing how to aply a rear naked choke on a friend and he was not being very intusiastic about it. All he wanted was to flex and pump iron. So i squeesed a bit more and told him to project me fowards. And he did throw me foward to the grownd. Sure he prefered to spend his time pumpin iron, but he learned something valuable more than pumping. And so did i. Sometimes you just need to push others into training. I speak for myslef, as i hate to flex anddo push ups and pumping. And normaly someone picks me up and there we go training that.

First, socks smell, and they smell a lot. Feet smell and some feet smell worse than the socks. But you can wash your feet before you practice, while washing your socks... is just strange. Then, you have the fact that socks cut a bit of your sensivity of the floor. And they grip the floor is a strange sense. They can slip on hard wood, and grip to mutch on some mats. And a sweaty feet in a wet sock just completely sucks. So wash you feet and learn to train barefooted. PS: if you have feet sickness please do us a favor and wear socks.