aefibird

If the guy isn't a sempai or isn't dishing out advice with the blessing of the instructor, then i'd go and have a word with your Sensei about him. He sounds like he has a real problem. Maybe he just needs a chat from the Sensei to sort him out. Good luck!

I have... -heavy bag -sparring mitts -fingerless bag gloves -free weights -makiwara -assorted weaponary (jo, bokken, tanto for Aikido) + (second-hand pair of tonfa, second hand pair of octagonal nunchaku, second-hand pair of octagonal sai, second hand bo staff, all donated to me by a karate friend)

Good link!

Hi, welcome to FK!

Hi! Welcome to the forums. Hope you enjoy your new-found martial arts training!

Hi! Welcome to the forums.

No, being 23 isn't too old to be 'good' at all!! I started Karate when I was 20, and Aikido when I was 24. I often wish I had the energy (and flexibility!) of some of the kids in my dojo, but there's no way that I feel "past it" and I sincerely hope to still be doing martial arts when I'm retired. Maybe I'll have got the hang of those pesky Ushiro-Mawashi Geri's by then... LOL

If you and the people are training with are happy doing condition excercises with each other then go for it! Good luck in your training. It does seem a bit odd, however, that you train Kyokushin but don't do conditioning. Do you do full contact sparring on a regular basis?

This is a bit of a dumb question, but is Rohai called by any other names? I know that some kata have different names depending on style, but are still basically the same kata.

Instructors like that are worth their weight in gold!!

I only have one photo of me with my karate club, but you can't even tell I'm on it. It was taken late last year, and I'm stood at the back with the other black belts and the brown belts, but 'cos I'm so short you cant see me for a strapping great green belt lad stood in front of me. I'd like to get some photos of me with my club and sensei and also with the other sensei's I've trained with. They're a good momento of gradings or great training sessions. Same with video, although you usually watch that 6 months/a year later and go "oh my goodness, I cant believe I used to punch/kick/whatever like that!"

Yes, congratulations to Sensei Sherry!

I agree with Sho-ju. I think the core Shotokan kata are Bassai and Kanku (both Dai and Sho) and the Tekki series. Sochin is a good kata to add with those too.

Thanks everyone for your help!

Yesterday a friend of mine who lives in another county phoned me to ask about karate. Her and her son want to start (he's 12). She's asked around and found out that the nearest dojo to them is shukokai. She asked me about it, but I could only tell her generally about karate and not about that style, 'cos I don't know anything about it!! So, what is Shukokai like (in comparison to my style Shotokan)? Thanks!

I've had loads of Karate injuries, but I'm very accident-prone. My work colleagues call me Mr Bump (after the clumsy cartoon character). From Karate I've broken a big toe, both little toes, cracked a couple of ribs, broken a finger, got black eyes, had to have stitches in my eyebrow as well as zillions of bruises and lumps. Oh, and I got a bloody nose on saturday too. I swept a guy and he flailed about going down to the floor and managed to hit me in the face!! I've not had many injuries from Aikido (yet) apart from a split lip during randori practice and a sprained wrist from doing a front breakfall incorrectly. Both Shotokan and Aikido are making my knee problem worse (an old horseriding injury!) and I think I'm gonna have to have surgery on in someday. Sigh. I hope that means I don't have to give up MA.

lol, true. That was just a rough guess, statistically speaking of course!

It's probably about 80-85% hand techniques in my shotokan dojo.

Well, one of the stories about why we have coloured belts is that your obi would eventually turn black through dirt accumulated over years of training. Personally, I think that theory is just pants. The Japanese are obsessive with cleanliness - why would they want perfectly white and spotless gi's but wear a dirty belt? It just doesn't seem to make sense to me!

I was always called Birdy at school, because I kept pet birds. I used to be called Moose too, but I never really figured out a reason why. One of the lads in my class called it me one day and it just stuck. My AIM screen names are SlytherinKarate and KiaiSnape, for the simple reason that I'm a fan of Harry Potter and I love karate. Hmm, not very original.

Well, someone doing 70mph in a 40mph zone deserves to get busted for stupidity. That's one case where a speed camera is useful. My problem with speed cameras is not the actual cameras themselves (they can sometimes be useful in preventing accidents) but it is the governement reasoning behind them and the way that they are used on perfectly safe roads just as another form of taxation. Also, the amount of money would be often better used for other police work. Would you rather your hard-earned tax money be spent on busting someone for driving TWO mph over the speed limit (as actually happened to a friend's uncle) or would you rather it be spent on catching criminals such as murderers or rapists? Many people in the UK feel hard done by regarding speed cameras and crime statistics. We feel that police are being diverted from doing their jobs properly into just being jobsworths who try to catch as many speeding motorists as possible in order to bump up statistics and meet official targets. I think that at one time or another most drivers have gone over the speed limit, but there's a difference between punishing a driver for doing an extra 5-10mph on a perfectly straight and accident-free road and actually catching dangerous drivers who put the lives of others in jeopardy by tearing round city centres like maniacs. It just seems that its always the first sort of drivers who are being caught and the boy-racers who always get away with it. Sorry for the rant.

Dijita, welcome to the forums!

D'oh! Thanks iolair, I forgot to include read/write in my visual/auditory/kinesthetic list. We use that strategy too. You'll have to forgive me, I'm having a very bad day today; I think my brain has packed up and left completely.

It is certainly good news. Back issues of FAI can be bought from https://www.budopromotions.co.uk They sell some pretty good stuff there, including some excellent Shotokan videos by Simon Oliver.

Here's details of a few karate comps, for those that were asking about them a while back. https://www.kugb.org KUGB national championships, 24th April, National Indoor Arena https://www.pckarate.co.uk United Styles Association championships, 16th May, Next Gen leisure centre, Dudley https://www.nakmas.org.uk NAKMAS Open martial arts championship, 2nd May, Salisbury leisure centre, Salisbury https://www.angelfire.com/ab6/wkahq Welsh Karate Association Grand Prix Competition, 14th March, Afan Lido, Port Talbot https://www.bik.org.uk BIKO Open Karate Championships, 7th March, Thornbury leisure centre, Bristol