greenbelt_girl15

Hi there! Becuase of my profession (high ropes course facilitator) I have well developed back and upper arm strength, but my shoulders are begining to slump forward. I was told that to balance myself I need to start working my chest more. So two questions 1. Is this true? 2. If it is true what are some good exersizes for the chest that don't require equipment and if possible won't work my arms any further. thanks!

4 years for me

In Cuong Nhu we have a plain black belt then red stripes.No gold or lettering until 6th dan.We have a story that symbolises what our belts stand for.To make a long story short... A white belt is like a seed,a green belt is like a young tree starting to grow, a brown belt is a tree with strong roots and tough bark, and a black belt is a phyically weathered and mature tree.Each red stripe in dan ranks indicate the fruit of the tree.At 6th dan you have a black and red belt with gold stripes indicating both the tree's rings, autumn indicating age and wisdom.And 7th dan is a mostly red belt with the wearers name in gold.

haha. guilty here

I think it has health benifits.I try to drink at least one cup a day

I prefer to wear a gi while I train.It's easy to move around in and it gives me a feeling of unity with other cuong nhu'ers.

Thank you

I just took the second part of my brown belt test this evening and passed. The Grand Master of our style came up to teach us for a week and so we finally got to test since our instructors aren't high enough rank to test us any more. Both of my instructors were brown belts until tonight.They both got their black belts which pretty much ment more to me than getting my belt. They have both been teaching for years and have never had the chance to test. I'm so happy!

congratulations on passing. that fist test can be hard.

If you have a hard time balencing on one foot try looking at one spot on the floor or wall and your balence should improve.

We use a car around town, but we are in a village that is off the road system so if we want to go to a different town we have to fly. I prefer small 6 seat planes to jets, since you can see what the pilate is doing and have a great view since you don't get very high.

That sounds bad... How long did it take before you could breathe without pain? I heard that sternum/rib injuries take more than 2 months to heal. It took at least 4 weeks, and it still hurts if someone hugs me hard or if my ribs get squished in any way.

AikiGuy- No I'm not a full instuctor yet,I'm a greenbelt with one brown stripe and I'm only 17,so I was a little intimidated by her and didn't know what to say to her. The parent is in charge of both the homeschool class before karate ( which most of the students go to) and the open gym class after karate, so she literally emailed every parent who was bringing their kids and told them that the time of karate was changed.

My worst injury was a broken rib when I was 14 and had just gotten my green belt, I was sparring with another greenbelt and we were both in full gear (except chest protectors) and had been sparring for over 5 min. we were both wearing down, but instead of taking a break we sped up, and my partner caught me right where the ribs and sternum meet with a full force punch,I signled a timeout but then continued for another min. it was only when I was trying to take my gear off that I realized that I couldn't breath well or bend down to get my shoes on.

Hi everyone, Last week my sensei asked me if I would like to take over teaching the young childrens class(ages 3-6) on fridays since it is hard for him to take all of his lunch break to teach. I said that I'd love to and as I started planning what I was going to do, one of the parents called me and said that she had switched the time of the class to 12:20 since it was hard for some of the kids to get there from school in time.Now I didn't mind this much, but then she said that she had also decided to shorten the class to 20 min. since she didn't think that the kids needed to play "games" during karate because there was open gym after karate anyways ( we use a school gym for our dojo) My sensei had told me that I could lengthen the class to an hour if I wanted to and I was planning to legthen it if the kids seemed to have a long enough attentions span ( which they did). But I'm not sure what to do now.Especially since my sensei is on vacation for 2 weeks. What would you suggest?