monkeygirl

I bench press...... (drumroll please) 47.5 pounds!!!! But then again I only weigh about 100 lbs. The trainer at my gym says she knows 30-year-old women that can't do that, so I feel good

OK I know you asked this question quite awhile ago, but I'll answer it anyway. The problem was, I couldn't tell where to come back to attention! I had to bow to the judges, but I couldn't even find them! I was mortified. It wouldn't have mattered so much where I finished, just as long as I could have found the judges again. Unfortunately, I hadn't the foggiest idea where I was.

Welcome to karateforums!

Does anyone know of any dojo ...um.... jackrabbits? Dojo Jackrabbits being the male version of dojo bunnies

OK Alphabet boys are gone...no problems with them now. After reading some of your posts, I feel a bit better. However, now I have a problem...one of the students' brothers has a crush on me! A 16-year-old...and he's really cute! I've never even SPOKEN to the guy, but he has a crush on me. How do I know? HIS MOTHER TOLD ME! I'll admit it's kinda lame, but at least he's close with his mother He told his mom and sister (the student) to say hi to me, so they did. The mom was like "he thinks you're pretty cute". Getting to my point: is it okay to date this students' brother? He's coming after me first, and I'm not gonna chase him. So if he asks me out, is that okay?? I told my mom what happened and she just kinda giggled. Oh and he's thinking about joining classes...not sure if it's because he wants to train or if he has alterior motives Of course, I would keep it out of the dojo...that's a HUGE no-no!!! One of our instructors got kicked out for ... let's just say he was doing some rather "interesting" katas with his girlfriend after hours...idiot

I feel your pain <---- 15 year old girl! When I first started assisting/teaching (on a volunteer basis) a year ago, I had some of these problems. Not right away, because kids don't give a crap if you're just holding shields...but the second you're put in a position of power, the problem kids come out. If you have a fair-sized studio, you'll run into all types of kids. Sweet adorable kids, well-behaved kids, nice talented kids, nice UNtalented kids. And then the bad ones. 11-year-old boys who run around naked at your sleepovers, stalk you, etc. Little boys who giggle to each other on the floor. Dogpiles and mosh pits in the dressing rooms...all things to be sure to watch out for! I find that all the troublemakers are boys, but that could be just because we don't really have a lot of girls. My advice if they're making fun of you: don't let it get to you. If you're in front of class, you can't let your composure falter. Whatever you do at ths point, don't punish them!!!!! They're making fun of you because they haven't learned to respect you yet. You're like the substitute teacher in school...except they have a lot longer to get used to you. If you punish them now, they'll only hate you. If the other kids are joining in because this one kid was making fun of you, then you can tell that he's a leader. If he wasn't a "leader" of the kids, they would all roll their eyes and tell him to shut up. So if he hates you, they'll hate you too. You may want to talk with his parents, but that's a bit touchy. I try to keep away from parental politics. For now, just teach classes as you normally would. Play a game or two (if your school does that) at the end of class if they're good. If they're bad, do a hard drill or something you know they don't like very much. After awhile they might notice the pattern. Use a lot of praise when correcting them, and just generally keep things positive and exciting. "good kick!" (only if it was) "nice punch, but it'd be even better with your other hand. Very good!" Just don't overdo it, or the kids will think you're a fake, and you'll have nothing to show for it except some headaches and bags under your eyes. It's a fine line to walk, but you'll learn it, trust me! Like I said, I had a lot of these problems, too, and I was even younger. Well, I gotta go teach Karate Day Camp...last day!!! (Amen)

I agree completely. Getting your 1st dan black is like graduating from kindergarten...a huge achievement at the time, but there's still more! More myths that I have heard are about a blackbelt's age. I agree that a blackbelt is a respected rank, but is there REALLY any reason why an 8-year-old can't be respected? It may sound absurd, but slow down and think about it, and I think you might understand. Since blackbelt is just the beginning, people really shouldn't get so upset about it. If an 8-year-old finished college, everyone would freak out, but they'd be amazed--not angered. I guess some people get upset about 8-y-o blackbelts because in some schools, blackbelt automatically equals instructor. Most 8-year-olds I know are still building their basic vocabulary, say nothing about TEACHING. Assisting with classes is quite different. There may be a rare case where it works, but they are very rare. But then again, I know of some 40-year-old blackbelts that I wouldn't want teaching me. As you said, I believe the overblown image of the blackbelt is to blame. While blackbelts (and martial artists as a whole) try to be better than the average person, they're still human! I'm not a blackbelt (yet), so I don't say this from personal experience, but I think I'm pretty close. That's my opinion, anyway--I'm sure we'll hear some others

In my school, we don't really have a "instructor training course" per se. In order to begin teaching, you have to be a member of our BlackBelt Club of elite students, and you have to have been in this Club for at least a month or two. Generally, we don't promote people to teaching until about blue belt (about a year of training). When (and if) they get promoted, they are not directly promoted to Instructor. They go to one of our Leadership Teams. Generally, kids class students go directly to STORM (super team of role models). Adults class students will go to either SWAT (super winning attitude team) or STRIKE (super team responsible for instructing karate excellence). It's rare that anyone is promoted directly to STRIKE. From these teams there is room for promotion within the teams. STORM is lowest, SWAT is next, and STRIKE is the highest of the "teams". The teams basically represent the amount of responsibility and teaching time that the members are given. The teams provide a training ground for future instructors. The instructors/asst. instructors and members who have been on the teams for awhile, nurture and bring up the new team members, show them the ropes, etc. From STRIKE, you can be promoted up to Assistant Instructor. I've never seen anyone lower than 1st brown achieve this rank. From Asst. Instructor, the next step is Instructor. However, you must be a blackbelt and over the age of 16. In short, adults will end up going through anywhere from a year to two years of leadership training before they become instructors. Because the team members are hand-picked, this cuts down on some of the "crappy instructing". The intensive, experience-based training has made amazing changes in some people. However, sometimes it still happens. Some people just weren't meant to teach!

Well, he was very very sorry, he kept apologizing over and over again. But I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that my 19-year-old brother was feeling the need for.... vengeance It's cool now, we're all friends again

Woo! Fighting's always nice I can imagine Muay Thai would be very cool. Pick our brains, eh...? Not like Hannibal, hopefully hehe Anyway, welcome to the forums! As you can tell, I am one of the goofiest people on here. Get used to it

no no no, you have to join Tae Kwon Do! Whatever you choose, best of luck and least of injuries!!

Whoa 15 year layoff? ...that's my entire lifetime!! Welcome to the forums!

My nickname has a nice little story behind it. My older brother and I got caught up in this Speed Racer marathon on TV a few years ago. (go speed racer...) Well, at one point, my brother got a little annoyed at how I was climbing all over the furniture, and he started calling me Chim-Chim. Since I adore my brother, I thought the nickname was awesome, so I didn't really fight it. Then, one Christmas he got me a monkey Gigapet (yes, back when gigapets were cool), adressed to Chim-Chim. Ever since then I've had this obsession with monkeys. My entire room has monkeys everywhere (even a little Yellow Belt monkey)...you should've seen my last birthday party! So, when it came time to choose a screen name a few years ago, monkeygirl seemed only natural.

This is a difficult question to answer...I know from experience. On May 15th (the date still haunts me) I was sparring another brown belt, one much larger than me. Keep in mind, our school does not allow facial contact, and head contact must be kept light. Well, the guy I was sparring was testing, so he was going pretty hard. Before I know it, I'm looking straight into this guy's heel as it comes flying towards my face. His heel slid neatly into my right eye, and I hit the floor. I thought I was going to die. If I managed to live, I would probably be blind in that eye. I went to the emergency room and got fixed up. I had to wear a patch over my right eye, because it was making me see double. After X-Rays and catscans, it turned out that I had an orbital blowout fracture. What this meant was that I had a tiny fracture in a bone near one of my eye muscles. It trapped this muscle when I tried to look up. The result: seeing double. Because it was trapped, it probably wouldn't get better on its own. However, the surgery was an extremely delicate process, and by performing it, they risked permanent blindness/death. So, to this day, I still see double at certain times. I've learned to manage it, and it's nowhere near as bad as it was, but it will probably never go away completely. I now have to wear a face cage on my helmet when I spar, because I can NEVER get hit in the eye again. Doing so would cause a re-break, and then we'd have to have surgery. Unfortunately, the cage took quite awhile to come in due to some delays from the gear company. I got out of practice in fighting. The facecage is the painful reminder of what happened that day. Once I got back into fighting again, I was scared out of my mind...I had flashbacks the first time anyone threw a kick at me again. After diligent training, I've managed to conquer most of my fears and bring my sparring back up to its old level. Now, the guy who hit me claims that I walked into the kick. That may very well be true...it all happened so fast that I don't remember exact details. I should never have made my face/head such an available target. But at the same time, he never should have thrown that much power anywhere near my head. If he had hit me with that kick anywhere else, I probably would have broken ribs, etc. instead of eye problems. The moral of the story: Control (meaning your opponent controlling their power while YOU control your guard) means never having to say you're sorry.

Argh I'm AIM (I hate AOL), Aero (I'm really not an airhead) and Coke (I prefer Pepsi )

Now sewing I can do...I am the official person to come to when you need a patch sewn onto your gi.

You have the right idea, but not quite... STUFFED ducks are the most evil creatures in the world, and here's why: They're imposters of cute, real duckies. They're evil--by day they act cute and cuddly but by night they eat helpless "*quack* Tasty! *quack*" children. The only good fake ducky is a battered and torn stuffed ducky. My entire bathroom is decorated in stuffed duckies, but this is just to imprison them. How did I come around with this theory? Well, I didn't do it alone. A few months ago, three of my karate-friends and I were at an arcade. We were all pretty pathetic when it came to winning tickets, so we put our tickets together. We ended up purchasing a small, white stuffed ducky, specifically for the purpose of beating it up. We now call ourselved the Ducky Four. (btw benedictbm is a member) We share Death Ducky, as we call him. As a general rule, Death Ducky must be beaten before bedtime. He's been run over by a car at least 3 times. He's almost turned into an art project, because we've been decorating him with all sorts of things that reveal his true identity....pure evil. So far he has: bright orange feathers on his head, an eyepatch, a fake eye (his real one popped out), a "nose" ring, fangs, a noose around his neck, a cast around one of his wings, a crutch (this isn't around anymore because it disintegrated after we ran over it with a Jeep), and a "tattoo" of a big H on his butt. (H is for Herb, the first name of our Chief Instructor. He said that if any of us were to get a tattoo, it should be an H) Additions soon to be made to Ducky: An arrow through his head, a cape and a coffin. "OK," you say. "they're evil, but why beat them up?" This was because it would give us eternal happiness. The reasons for THAT were originated by myself and one of the Ducky Four. Furthermore, they are entirely Top Secret. The other two members of the Ducky Four didn't even know the reason until last month! Nor are they permitted to tell!! I believe that I have sufficiently freaked you out, so I will stop here. However, remember: ALL OF THIS IS 100% TRUE!!!

Well, yeah, if you're gonna hit stuff with it... Usually the only time we use weapons are in katas/forms. If we hit bags we stick to foam weapons. OMG Jeff Speakman in the "Perfect Weapon" that was a horrible movie lol. S P O (if you don't want the ending ruined for you, don't read this) I L E R Wasn't the whole point of it that he would learn the way of the dragon? He never did! He was a tiger his whole life And his girlfriend never spoke....ever!

This may be a long shot, but perhaps your instructor didn't want that particular senior belt to help you. That person may have a bad reputation for fighting that you don't know about, and this was your instructor's way of keeping you safe without embarassing his other student. Like I said, could be a long shot, but you never know. There's always some more politics behind a dojo than you would think

OK, ok I'll admit...I can cook enough to get myself by. If I were living on my own, I probably wouldn't starve (key word being PROBABLY), but there would be a lot of grumbling and groaning involved LOL @ Jack & Patrick.... it's nice to feel loved For all you people who still like to cook, good for you!! Oh, and Diamondick.... *forehead slap*

Long before I came to the school, we had a weapons class which anyone could join. Weapons became part of your requirements. White belts had to know Bo Form 1 to reach Yellow Belt, if in the weapons class. However, this is kind of scary, because a lot of our students are ADHD or come in to develop coordination! Put a weapon in their hands and it becomes deadly.

Let's face it. I hate cooking. I'm not very good at it, either. ("Do you smell what the monkey is cookin'? Of course! She's burning it!") I have actually liquefied bacon. It's not burnt.... it's uh.... fat free! Oh who am I fooling My solution: When I come of age, I shall (drumroll please) marry a man who loves to cook! But not a chef, because he won't want to bring his work home. Just someone who takes gourmet cooking classes but happens to be, say, an accountant. Does that make me a bad person? Call me lazy... call me irresponsible ( ) But I just thought you all should know. Especially since my brother thinks that part of my Blackbelt test should involve cooking. The worst part is that my mother supports! LOL I'd have kids and they'd be like "Mommy can we have cookies?" "Wait 'til your father gets home." "But Mommy, why?" "Because Mommy might break the oven, sweetie." " sniffle... sniffle... waaahhhhhh" And yes, I would probably raise brats like those Anti-Cooks, raise your heads high!!! Don't be afraid, you can admit it!!

Hehe the witch scene "What do you do with witches?" "Burn 'em!!!!!" "Right! What else do you burn?" "More witches!!! ...?" "*oh hush*" " (long silence) wood?" "Right! What do you build with wood?" "Bridges?" "But can you not also build a bridge out of stones?" ".... oh right" "A boat?" "Right! What else floats in water?" "Bread! Leaves! Very small pebbles!" "no no no no no...." (King Arthur, triumphantly) "A duck!!" "Correct!" " (long silence) So.... if she.... weighs the same as... a duck.......................................she's a witch!!!" Once and for all proving ducks are evil Sorry for the long post but it's just too good to pass up

Welcome to the forums! And Hiya, yes, it is just you

I'm McBta Alday, Hte Tempo of Allegra It's so fun when you're Scottish lol Since I can't drive yet, I just put in the first car I ever rode in.