tekki

I go to class between 3 and 4 days a week, depending on what my schedule allows. Lately it's been more like 4 or 5x per week, because I've been doing a kobudo class on Sunday afternoons in addition to my regular karate practice. I also do usually work out on my own on the days I don't go to the dojo, and then there's my weekly yoga class too.

All of these have applied to me -You take a non-MA exercise class at the local health club (aerobics, yoga, etc.) and you catch yourself saying "Oss!" whenever the instructor says anything remotely motivational to the class. -You go to you nephew's basketball game and you catch yourself bowing as you enter the school gym. You then feel somehow guilty because you walked across the hardwood on the way to your seat with your shoes on. -You reply "hai" to your instructor in a foreign language class that is not Japanese.

I said just about the same thing to the new black belts at my dojo a couple of weeks ago when our instructor asked each of the higher ranked black belts to say a little something during the promotion ceremony. Except I used a reading analogy. I said that when you make your first dan, you are just getting to the point where you can read "Dick, Jane and Spot." Strictly speaking, you CAN read. However, there's much more schooling to learn and so much more to read and enjoy. So it is in the life of a martial artist. When you get to black belt, you do understand your art, but on the most basic level. If you just quit then, you never even scratch the surface of the richness and depth that further study and training can unleash. To stop at shodan is like saying "Okay, I can read 'Dick, Jane and Spot, I can read. No more reading for me."

I have a pair of the TKD shoes. I have them for when I am training by myself on a rough surface (i.e. a concrete floor), when I am teaching in the church basement (also a bad surface) or for tournaments so I don't have to walk around the gym/arena barefoot when my events aren't on. They're the best footwear for the job, but IMHO there's no substitute for bare feet when it comes to karate practice. Actually, I've never trained at a dojo that allowed anything but bare feet. I've never even seen traditional karate practiced shod, and the TKD I've seen is barefoot 95% of the time too.

It's funny how much crescent kick turns up in the Shotokan kata, but you just about never practice it in basics in most classes at Shotokan dojos. Roundhouse kick is far more emphasized, but it's in none of the kata. Come to think of it, I've never even seen any traditional karate kata with a roundhouse, just TKD forms.

I have only gone to dojos where I have been a member before or are somehow affiliated with where I train or used to train. I never really had the nerve to just show up anywhere and ask if I could take part in class without some kind of personal contact there already. FWIW, I did visit a TKD dojang the other day while in another part of the state on business. The school has an extensive MA supply store attached, carrying items for various arts, and some miscellaneous Asian-themed gifts and knick-knacks too. The head instructor of the school was manning the shop and of course, he asked me if I practiced martial arts. When I told him that I did, and I told him of my background, we got into a pretty good discussion, and he showed me around the school. It was amazing how many people we both knew, despite living 80 miles from one another and practicing two different arts. So basically, if I'm not in Syracuse, Rochester, Albany or NYC, I don't take class. On vacation, I simply rely on gym facilities in the hotel or on the ship when available and either just practice by myself or do other stuff for exercise altogether.

My first school was the karate club at the university I attended. I saw one of the posters advertising the first class of the semester and I never looked back. The school I train at now I walked by a few times over the course of six months. I thought it might be a good match for me based on what I saw of the classes through the window. One day I went in and introduced myself, tried a class and the rest is history.

Be sure to drink a lot of water and stretch. Also, try eating bananas. They have potassium, which serves to break down he lactic acid your leg muscles are producing, which is what is causing the soreness. I can relate to what you're talking about. I played a lot of sports as a kid and in my teens, but the sorest day of my life was the morning after my first karate class. Keep it up, and in a short time, you will find that your hapkido training will transform your body.

I'm going to be 30 this summer. If I have encountered any age decline, I can't really notice it because I have more than made up for it by training smarter and becoming more skilled in my art as the years have progressed. I have also incorporated yoga and some pilates into my regimen in order to keep my body toned and supple. The breathwork in yoga has also improved my endurance and relaxation, which has also helped my karate. One of the things that really motivates me to keep at it is knowing that my karate practice is slowing the ageing process. Would I be in better shape if I were doing this at 16 or 18 than I am at 29 doing it now? Sure. But I know I feel better now than I did when I was 18, and not really doing much of anything because I had pretty much given up on sports. Even when I played sports, I'd get into pretty good shape during my seasons (spring track and fall soccer) then I would be burnt out when the season ended and would decline quite rapidly in the off-season. Karate is a way of life to me and I don't ever want to go back to the way I was without it, physically or mentally.

If you have tried getting involved with other things to get into shape, and have been disappointed by trainers who have written you off or intimidating environments in gyms, take heart. The martial arts are quite different, almost to a person. There are few sports or physical activities that offer you the same opportunity as an out-of-shape adult to start as raw beginner and, with a decent instructor coupled with honest effort on your part, transform your body and re-invent your lifestyle for the better. As a matter of fact, I just read that the trainer from "The Biggest Loser," Jillian Michaels, was an overweight teenager when she began training in martial arts as a teenager. I started training when I was 19, at time when many people are giving up sports in their lives. I am 29 and have spent my twenties in better shape and more athletically capable than I ever was as a teenager.

You should still do some two-handed push ups. This will help with muscle symmetry. Also, when you do puch ups right, you are working more than just your arms. You are working your core as well and one armed push ups put the emphasis more on the obliques, while missing the muscles in the middle. If anything, to make mu push ups more challenging, either do them inclined with my feet on a bench, swiss ball or bed, or else I load a backpack with heavy books and do the push ups with that on my back. There are so many things you can do to mix up push ups, especially as a martial artist (think different hand positions like knuckles, shuto, fingers, diamond and wide)

The high you get from training, in time, will overshadow any high you ever got from a substance. Any strenuous exercise releases endorphins, which can give you a high in and of themselves, but I think the "karate buzz" is even more intense. This is because of the feeling you get from focusing on your breathing, the stretching, the adrenaline rush from sparring and the sense of accomplishment you get from perfecting your form. Unlike you, I did not practice MA when I was a kid. (I started at 19) However from my experience from the sports and physical activities I did do when I was that age and from my observation of the kids in that age group who train at my dojo, I can safely say that training when you are 12 and training when you are in your early 20s are two different things. You have so much more potential to learn and get that "high" from your training when you are a bit older and can learn to appreciate it for what it is. Best of luck with your new journey.

The first option is objectively the fairest, but the bad PR that you will generate will far outweigh any benefit you will get from going this way. The second option as you originally set it forth is a bit shady. There's the danger of putting yourself on the slippery slope of inflating rank. However, I like the approach where you come clean about the error, but tell the yellow belt recipient that you feel he has the potential to grow into the rank however he might not be ready to test for the next rank the next time a grading is held. The benefit of this is that the student will get a shot of confidence, and when he does test for the orange belt (or whatever the next rank would be in your system) he will be that much stronger a player. The third option, I'm not so crazy about. The rank inflation issue just doesn't sit right with me. I know it isn't much, but I wouldn't want to end up on the slippery slope.

I teach mostly kids, and I find it very easy to tell the difference between the kids for whom it comes difficult because they have below-average natural ability and the kids who don't want to be there. Patience is key for the students who fall in the former group. Fortunately, I find having the requisite patience very easy. I can easily sympathize with these kids because as a child I myself was athletically a late bloomer. To have the opportunity to to work with students like this and get to lead them into a state of physical competence and increased confidence is really where the rubber meets the road in karate as far as I'm concerned. You need to have patience with the kids who don't perform well because they don't try too. This is a harder patience to garner, I do admit. What frustrates me the most is the injustice that these kids get to be there, wasting time and energy that could be spent on those who actually want to learn karate, and when I think that there are kids who would give their right arm to take karate but cannot due to parents who cannot afford it, parents who can't or won't take them to the dojo or parents who forbid it because they misunderstand karate due to their narrow minds. But there have been a number of times I have seen kids who I write off as non-interested who eventually have the proverbial bug bite and fall in love with karate, double up their effort and go on to accomplish great things. My goal when I teach is to be there for whosoever will and properly convey what I've learned. The day we begin writing kids off is the day we lose much of what is special about our art.

I screwed up royally. I thought it was a poll on one's personal preference for martial arts. I voted for "karate" because that's MY love, but upon reading the question as carefully as I should have in the first place, I see what you're asking. Given those parameters, I think Muay Thai would be the way to go, if you are convinced that you "don't do" kata. A second on the list might be TKD. Most schools do forms or poomse, which are analogous to kata in karate, but some eschew the forms empahsis for a focus on Olympic sparring or the like. It sounds like you are willing to have to do some forms, you just don't want a system that is based upon extensive forms practice. As for karate, it's virtually never taught without forms. In fact, there is a saying that "Karate IS Kata." When I first started karate, I was shocked at how much of an emphasis was put on kata and how little sparring we actually did. However, in a short time, I saw how doing kata was teaching me how to move better and more efficiently. I also saw how beautiful a well-performed kata actually was and I experienced how it felt to nail a kata. But to each his own. Good luck.

I had been intrigued with martial arts ever since watching Karate Kid and seeing my first martial arts movies in the 80s when I was 8. However, it was never really in the cards for me to begin training. I showed interest when I was that young, but my parents never enrolled me. There were no schools in the small town we lived in, and what few there were to choose from were all at least 20 minutes away. As I got older, I got involved in all kinds of other activities, so there was never the time and/or money left for martial arts, though I would say it never really left the back of my head. Then I left for college and shortly after I arrived, I saw a poster on a bulletin board advertising the Shotokan Karate club on campus. I realized that there was nothing to stop me from trying it, and I knew I needed the exercise anyhow so I went. Within a year, it was a passion of mine and has been a huge part of my life ever since.

Excuse me for horning in on the Korean arts forum when I am not someone who does a Korean martial art, but I think I have 2 cents to stick in from my experience as a karate kata competitor. In karate, there is no automatic deduction for doing a more basic form than your level, however you just about never see people doing lower forms in upper-level divisions, and if you do, those people just about never place, regardless of how good their form and technique look. I think the more basic forms make it a lot harder to hide your flaws. Moreover, some judges, no matter how much they're told not to, just discount the less flashy basic kata in their head from the get-go. I wouldn't be surprised if the same holds true in TSD, which mostly uses the same forms as Shotokan, my main style of karate. (we have Bassai as well, I am good a it and I like it )

Here in the US the situation is quite different. I am not sure one can even buy a car with an engine that small in my country. I drive a Hyundai Accent with a 1600cc engine and it is one of the smallest cars you see on the road apart from the Mini, whose engine is also about the same size. As for trains, there aren't that many. I live in a city of 150,000 people and we only get a couple of trains a day. Unless you live in a big city like New York, Boston or Chicago, mass transit is not always reliable and extensive. If I didn't have a car, my only way of getting around town would be the bus and it would take me nearly 2 hours with at least 1, possibly 2, transfers to get the other end of town whereas by car I can do it in about 15 minutes. My dojo is about 5 minutes away by car and 30 minutes by bike but getting there by bus would be at least an hour and would involve a transfer. As far as what I enjoy, my favorite ground transportation mode is the train. Overall, I also enjoy ships having been on 3 cruises and all kinds of smaller vessels over the course of my life.

Actually, I think that there is already an organization that is considered by the IOC as the NGB for Karate. I think the WKF has the inside track, and if the IOC does decide to put Karate in the games at some point, they will already have the NGB decided, as long as they maintain the criterea needed. The WTF was around long before TKD became an Olympic sport, and has its rules and regulations in place for years. It probably made the transition to Olympic event much easier for both the WTF and the IOC. I think you're right. A couple of years back, there was a competition sponsored by the IOC called the "Titan Games" that featured all the combat-oriented Olympic events (WTF TKD, judo, boxing, wrestling and fencing) plus karate. The karate competition was operated according to WKF rules and the athletes involved were well-known WKF competitors such as Elisa Au and George Kotaka. Karate is recognized as an official sport by the IOC, it is simply not included in the Olympic Games as an event. I think the biggest hurdle is the idea, whether actual or perceived, that the Olympic Games have too many different sports already (some sports have recently been dropped, such as baseball and there are also undercurrents that combat-oriented sports are on the chopping block.

All I can think of is that this is the way the uniforms are manufactured. The manufacturer's label is always on the bottom of the left side anyhow. as or why the uniforms are all made to close one way, I guess that's just to keep them true to the name "uniform." Otherwise, it could just be convention, like the buttons on men's shirts being on one side while the buttons on a women's blouse are on the other.

I pay $75 per month. in Upstate NY, I think this is average for a commercial school, though there are some that charge over $100/month around here. When I lived in NYC, I trained at a school that charged $120/month, but the instructor had a good reputation, and the school was small. You got a lot of hands-on, one-on-one feedback for your $120. Also, it doesn't get much cheaper to begin with in a major city, given the higher overhead that in a "cowtown" like Syracuse.

I was 24 when I made my Shodan.

I was 19 when I started. It's a good age to start, IMHO. The only age that would have been possibly better would be early teens.

The dojo was open for a few days in between Christmas and New Year's, but even when I went it just isn't the same. Attendance is sparse and the focus just isn't there. Which is why I'm particularly looking forward to tonight's class, as it will be the first of the New Year for us black belts.

I use a Toshiba laptop.