Zaine

I'm interested in why you hold that position. If this were a question of someone not feeling ready to test, I can see why a CI would want to encourage and gently push a student to the next rank if the CI felt that they were ready. But if this were a moment of the student being comfortable with their level and they had no desire to advance, then why should the CI care? That seems like a great way to drive away a loyal student.

Congrats! Well deserved!

That's awesome, Brian, congrats!

Welcome to KF! It's great to have you!

I had my first class last night. I went for a trial period before enrolling my kiddo so that I could get a feel of it and make sure it was a good environment for her. I caught the last 30 minutes of the kids class, but it seemed really fun and the Sensei was very interactive with the students. Since she inherited my ADHD, I think it will be a great place if what I saw was a typical experience. I had genuinely forgotten how much fun I had in a classroom. I've been mostly solo training for the last decade and I've gotten used to that. I knew it wasn't ideal, but it was good enough. Stepping back in to a classroom was a breath of fresh air. I got to learn their first three kata, the first 3 in the Taikyoku series. There was a 7th kyu there who was learning Seisan, so the black belts and I got to talk about the differences between in the Shobayashi Seisan and the Matsumura-Seito one. Afterwards we did some Naihanchi bunkai drills. I got the overwhelming sense that they were there to do karate because they loved it and that was so refreshing. The two black belts there have been doing it for longer than I have (and I have 18 years) and sometimes you find people like that who are burned on it and just going through the motions. Seeing that not be the case here was awesome. It was so much fun to train with people who are as passionate as I am about karate.

For a cheap, no thrills makiwara, my old CI would take a nice, thick piece of wood, take a pool noodle apart and glue it to the wood, and wrap it in canvas. He nailed his to a tree, but had a version with a longer piece of wood, made a very simple base, and weighted it down with sandbags so that it wouldn't rock. That's not an awful solution for apartments if you're worried about neighbors. If you're looking at a heavy bag set up. I hope you have a lot of spending money.

North Sentinel Island and its inhabitants, the Sentinelese, are exactly who I am thinking of. I'd love to learn the way of launching a spear from a huge bow. I'm sure I could suss it out on my own. I think I would prefer that over trying to find a authentic teaching experience.

It has been years since I've stepped foot in a dojo to be there long term. A large portion of my training since Shodan has been relegated to a lot of at home practice, forays into other styles, and when I could I got together with old training partners to practice. I've been pretty happy with this. I've moved around not a small amount since moving away to college 12 years ago so paying for a long-term membership to a certain dojo did not seem like a good use of my money (which was limited many times in the last 12 years) or time. However, now my child is interested in starting. My original instructor hasn't taught for over a decade, and there is no Matsumura Seito school anywhere near me, so we're both starting from White Belt again. It's cool being a WB again, but it is a little weird being in a white gi. My first CI preferred black and at 3rd kyu we wore a black top with blue pants. I'm looking forward to studying Shobayshi-Ryu, and seeing her excited for a lifelong passion of mine is great as well.

I would not be surprised to learn that there was some system of combat that came, or still comes, from an uncontacted tribe or maybe an island nation that didn't get out and for some reason no longer exists.

Went for a run on a local greenway and halfway through did about 20 minutes of kata practice. It was a nice 80F here, which is very mild for the Dallas area, and the shade made it even better. That said, I was absolutely drenched when I got back to my car. I also very clearly did not eat as much as I needed for the intensity. Still, a great workout.

I drink a protein shake both for calories and added protein. I have ADHD, and sometimes I forget to eat. I will be hyperfixated on something or in a fugue and then suddenly 8 hours has passed. In general, I prefer to get my macro and micro-nutrients through food, and in the past meal prepping has done well for me because I can plan these macro/micro balances in advance. Multi-vitamins in the past haven't done much for me. Mostly, I just track my calories to make sure that I am eating enough to be healthy. I work out enough that I'm not trying to get in a range, just trying to get over a minimum number.

My issue with sauna suits is that clinical trials say that they only really shed water weight with the added risk of increased dehydration and hyperthermia. If you love them, that's great, just make sure you're keeping an eye on hydration and body temperature. For me, there is too much evidence against them to be worth it.

I like the encouragement to seek a partner. I think Martial Arts is at its best when you have someone to talk about it with face-to-face, and provide resistance against techniques. Sounds like a solid system for learning. Keep us updated, I'm interested to see how the program plays out in the long term.

This is the first that I've heard of it, but I like the names that I'm seeing. Seems like a Masterclass website for Martial Arts. What has been your experience with the lessons you've purchased? Anything good stand out in particular? Is there anything about the lessons that you would change?

As we think of it no, not really. Rather, the styles evolved into different things. We might find that no one studies Naha-te as it was anymore, but we know that from Naha-te we get Goju-Ryu. Is Naha-te extinct? Or did it simply evolve and take on different names? I am inclined to say the latter. (This is not to say that Naha-te isn't still practiced, just that, if so, it's uncommon at best). I would venture to say the same for kung-fu as well. Yes, dynastic traditions of Martial Arts fell off, but I have to imagine that they lived on in one way or another. Humans are really good at taking what is good and running with it (sometimes far past its use). Martial Arts is the same way. Maybe we don't see this "original karates" in name but their techniques and legacies (and lineages, for that matter) live on through the systems that picked them up.

100% okay with it. Different perspectives are really important and I love branching out and learning from other people. Especially style-agnostic orgs. I think that Martial Arts flourishes when we can get together, organized or not, and share our techniques and grow. Wastelander is right, however, that some schools might not like for you to do that. Personally, I find required loyalty to be a crutch. I generally don't seek others with the intention of moving on, but with the hope to learn more and make myself better. I was lucky in my initial school because my teacher was perfectly fine with us looking in to organizations and he allied himself with a few different schools to create a network. That was a lot of fun because it allowed us to duck in to these other classes (with permission and advance notice) and learn some different things.

Was it ever! I wish I could have stayed. 5k this morning. 28 minutes, so a pretty average time for me. I've been biking mostly this year, so I hit peak a lot longer than I would have like, but it was still a refreshing run. I usually don't work out on Fridays, but I woke up early and felt like a jog before my work day began.

We practiced finger strikes in theory, but never in sparring. Some of our kata (sesain, anansu, passai sho) had finger strikes so starting at 3rd kyu you were expected to do push ups using your fingers. We also his a makiwara board with our fingers but otherwise it never came up. When I left that school, I stopped the conditioning. I'm sure there are situations that I could use them in, but overall it would not be my default, nor do I want it to be.

I did! Thank you for the information, I didn't know that. I thought the two were 1-to-1. This is interesting, I didn't learn it with a hand held close to the body. In the version I learned, the hand is held midway on the other arm (close to inside of the elbow) as a way to load up the next redirection.

In Pinan/Heihan 1, after the first set of moves (to the left and the right), you take 3 steps forward. How was the bunkai explained to you? Lately, I've been going through the bunkai that I know to find the other applications and I'm curious as to what the people here who have learned the kata were taught. I was taught that they were subtle redirects of punches. Subtly moving a punch out of the way to open up the opponents body. Lately, however, I've been thinking about what this movement would look like if applied as a strike to different parts of the body. I look forward to seeing what y'all think?

Congrats!

Congrats! That's great to hear!

Good luck! Can't wait to hear about how you progress!

I'm definitely not an expert but I think its probably not ADHD. We have 3 we ADHD diagnoses and it's very different from each of them. She just doesn't want to be there. It could still be ADHD; it's a spectrum. That said, it's probably a moot point one way or the other. At the end of the day she doesn't want to be there and it's becoming a distraction.

I just got back from a two day trip to the Ozarks in what was essentially 2 days of non-stop hiking through the mountains. It was altogether refreshing, invigorating, and exhausting. During that time, My mother and I also got a lot of karate training in. It's been awhile since I have been able to have all that space and a kata partner. It was just what I needed.