aefibird

Thanks Grr! I don't particularly want vids though, I was hoping to find good stills shots of lower grade kata. :-/

Hi all does anyone know of any good Skotokan kata websites? What I'm wanting is something that shows kata broken down into steps - I want it to print off for my beginners class! That means I need Kihon, Heian Shodan and Heian Nidan. I was hoping to find kata done as drawings, or even little cartoons, seen as the print-offs are going to be for my kids class. If we can't find anything really suitable on the net, then my instructor and me are going to have a session with my digital camera - he'll do the moves and I'll take pics and then print them off into kata sheets. Basically, I'd rather just print off someone elses sheets (far less hassle and a lot less swearing at the digital camera from me), so anyone know of any good ones (before I do a search on google)? Thanks a lot!

Well, the shotokan organisation that I'm with holds belt grading sessions every three months. In THEORY a student could test for their next belt that often, but they'd have to be the reincarnation of every single karate master that ever lived. As far as I know, no-one within the FSK has ever tested every three months. From white belt to orange the average time is about 3 months, but after that the time people wait between belt tests is 6 months or more. I took my shodan after 4 and 1/2 years,although I think the average for the DSk is about 5 years. Obviously, it depends on the person testing as to how quickly they advance. Some people 'get' karate quicker than others, and this is reflected with the time between promotions (unless its a McDojo, in which case you get your next belt just for turning up on time!!). At my Aikido dojo, there is a grading roughly every 9-10 months. Most people tend to grade, as the gradings aren't very frequent, although again it depends on the skill level of the people grading. Basically, if ya aint good enough, ya don't grade!

Welcome to the forums.

jONN, I love your signature!

OMG, thats a terrible thing to say!!! Was it a teacher that said that to you, Battousai? That really sucks.

lol, I've seen plenty of adults fall into the trap of using belts as a means of saying "I'm better than you" and bragging.

In both my Karate club and my Aikido club there isn't a set structure to the lesson. In Karate, it depends on who is there at each class. Beginners and lower grade classes start with a set warm up/stretching time. Higher grade classes still have a warm up/stretching period, but you are expected to warm up yourself and not follow the instructors set routine. Beginner classes always have some basic training & drills in them. Higher grade classes are flexible and we do stuff based on the people there. Eg, this week we have been working a lot on kicks and we concentrated on that on Tuesday and tonight. In Aikido we start with warmups and kokyu session (breathing). After than we always have a period of time where we practice rolls and breakfalls. Then the techniques for the lesson are written on the whiteboard. Sensei demonstrates and answers any questions and we work through them in pairs. Every so often we change partners. After 15 mins or so of working on a particular technique Sensei calls us all back together and either goes over that technique again in the same way, or looks at how it can be used in a different way.

Good luck with your grading KaratekidUK! Don't forget to let us know how you get on. Which kata do you have to do?

Shorinryu Sensei, how did you manage to get an honourary 3rd dan in TKD? (Just curious, 'cos you said you've never done TKD!!) Thanks

Natural, if you truly do wanna stay in the background then 'showing off' and doing facy moves and kicks isnt going to help you. Just stick with what your instructor has been showing you in class. Keep quiet and be respectful and hopefully this whole situation will blow over. If the guy IS serious in his threats, though, have a word with your instructor or even the police.

Hi White Warlock, welcome to the forums! Thanks for sharing a bit about yourself with us. It is sad that someone with as much dedication to the Martial Arts and years of training as yourself should be considered infireor by some people, just because you haven't got a black belt/ fancy certificate/whatever. Like gheinisch's Hanshi says, my karate instructor reminds us regularly that anyone can have a belt (send me £3 and I'll get you whatever colour you want, lol! ) but it taked dedication and perseverence to gain knowledge, which is worth far more than a long piece of cotton or satin.

Hi jONN13! Welcome to the forums.

Hey KarateKidUK! Welcome to the forums! Nice to see another Brit here... ^grin^

Sano, I agree. Jet Li would be cool in it!

LOL, after having to suffer playground duty each week (I work in Junior school - that's age 7-11), the way some of the kids run around out there looks like 20 mins of randori practice, but they're not tired at the end of it! Aaargh, I wish I had a fraction of the energy that some of the kids I teach have. Hmm, although it is darn well cold in the UK - they probably run round so much to keep warm! The randori idea is a good one, though. I'll have to suggest it at next staff meeting...

You are confusing two things here. With exercise your bones might get a better structure, but when you put more stress on it, your bones will get weaker. It's the same when you would keep on hammering on a wooden board. It will get weaker and weaker. I'm not confusing anything. I went to school for this kind of stuff, and needed to know everything there is to know about the skeletal system. You can make your bones harder. Krunchyfrogg is correct. You can make your bones harder. Stress on your bones can encourage your body to increase them in structure, to compensate to the battering that they're taking. Did that make sense?? Ah, it's late and I've had waaaaay too many bottles of beer tonight!

Does your style have a grade that comes between 1st Kyu and 1st Dan? I know that some styles have an 'extra' grade and some go straigth from 1st Kyu to 1st Dan. Just curious...

Tal, your Shotokan belt system is the same as in my dojo. I do agree, it is a bit too many. What's with all the stripes, hmm?? I think that nine coloured belts, plus white is a bit of an overkill. it means people can leap up the belt system, but then get frustrated when they get to black and have to wait ages to grade between 1st kyu and 1st Dan,and then find out that it is at least a couple of years between 1st and 2nd Dan. In one way, the high number of coloured belts gives people false hope that it is easy to progress quickly at karate. from being able to (theoretically) grade every 3 months or so, they then have to wait 'ages' to grade for Dans. Plus, lots of colured belts is a little bit McDojo-ish IMO. I'm not knocking any style that has lots of coloured belts, I'm just wondering if there's a need for so many kyu grades and coloured belts.

I wouldn't suggest you quit if karate is what you love doing. Try keeping your head down and being quiet. Be as respectful as possible and hopefully people will come round to liking you. To me, you just sound young and a bit 'cocky' - maybe you need to try hanging back a bit, especially if people are complaining that you're hurting them when you spar. Maybe that's why the instructor chooses you as his stretching partner - to see if you can 'take it' as well as 'dish it out'. I know that it must be hard for you to come over to a foreign country and try and make friends and fit in, but I think you just need to relax in your attitude a bit. You're probably trying too hard to make friends and are scaring everyone away with your attitude and what they think is "showing off". Can I ask, why does your sister want to quit when she gets her 7th kyu? Is she unhappy with the club too? Good luck, Natural. Keep on training!

Good post, White Warlock. When I spar, I spar to improve my technique (whether I'm training with someone with more or less experience than me). If I spar with someone who's less experienced than me then I'm also sparring to help them in their technique and try and bring them on a bit - not in a superior "I know better than you and this is how you should do it" type of way, but (hopefully) in a way that we can both learn something from it. If I'm sparring in competitions, then I'm sparring to win, but it doesn't mean that I can't learn stuff from it and improve. The thing with competition sparring is that you often haven't fought against that person before, so their technique and style is unknown to you. It keeps you on your toes a bit, because if you spar regularly with people at your own dojo then you get to know their fighting stratagies and techniques and you can sometimes predict what they're gonna do.

I don't know. Sorry. It is a great quote, though!

Delta1, about your grey gi (the one without patches), did you actually buy it grey, or did you dye it yourself? It's just I've never seen grey gi's on sale in the UK. Thanks!

Swedish Ju-Jitsu? Sounds interesting!! How does it differ from 'regular' Ju-Jitsu/BJJ?

Now now... play nicely...