Zaine

Congrats!

My level of motivation also goes up and down with time. This is normal. Maybe try going to another dojo and do some cross training. Or, try to find what it is that excites you about karate and focus on that for a while. Or, take a small break. Take a couple of weeks or a month off and see if that absence makes the heart grow fonder.

I would perhaps send them an email or call them over driving to their dojo first, but I don't think it's odd at all to inquire about it. You don't ask, you don't get.

It should be noted, however, that I got this Chinto from Shobayashi Ryu, which does use hips to generate power.

Something that I enjoy doing is watching videos of kata performances and trying to guess what kata they do based on the unintelligible yelling that they do at the beginning. My record for getting it correct is very poor. A fun side game comes out of this where you just say what you heard them say. I've heard some pretty funny things come from the yelling (I swear I heard one competitor say "chicken soup").

For the US, it depends on which state you are in. Prohibited weapons are a state issue, usually. In Texas, there are no banned weapons that relate to kobudo. Anything from Sai to Tekko are completely legal to carry around.

I think it depends. If my student went out and got a Dan rank with another school, I would consider them to have a Dan rank with that school. When they came to my school, I would expect them to wear the rank that they earned under me. I would respect their decision to test, and that they have a rank in another school. They would just need to earn the same rank with me to wear it in my school. Full disclosure, I have my Nidan from the INKKS, and certainly didn't have any communication with my original sensei about it. There's a lot of complication behind that, but even if we were still communicating, I wouldn't mind if he still views me as a Shodan. Similarly, with my current dojo, they know that I am a Nidan, but I wear a Sankyu when I am at that school because that is the rank that I achieved with them.

I love the idea of framing holes in the wall and labeling them. That's hilarious.

That is correct. He used the Shimabukuro/Shimabuku name interchangeably.

Welcome to the forum, @KorroddyDude, it's great to have you! I'm not sure if Kyan taught Naihanchi Nidan and Sandan, either. However, I know that Eizo Shimabuku, one of his students, did teach it. Eizo Shimabuku might have learned them from Motobu, who he trained with as well.

My first school went through different phases. We never used the WKF gloves, but something in between those and boxing gloves. We eventually transitioned into MMA gloves that were more padded than competition MMA gloves. This was during the 2000s when MMA and UFC were having a big boom. Eventually, we incorporated Kyokushin style fighting into our curriculum and sometime eschewed gloves altogether.

Well I do now.

This is a good point. Psychologically speaking, this is really sound theory. It's why we suggest that you change out of a work uniform/clothes when you get home if you're having trouble de-stressing at the end of the day after a shift. The act of putting on the gi can help you get into the right mindset for doing martial arts because you associate those clothes with doing martial arts.

Tennis definitely comes to mind with this point.

Create a routine of practice. When you're on your own with training, it's easy to put training aside for other things. Going to a dojo is really good motivation for practicing on your own, and when that is removed from the equation, it's easy to let it go to the side. Make solo training a habit. Put it on your calendar. Create alarms around it to remind you. Set a schedule. If you went to the dojo Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (for example), then train for an hour on those days at the time you would usually go.