Zaine

I totally get it, and to your point, I actually really like virtual programs. It is my very firm belief that MA schools should use the pandemic as a means to start doing virtual classes. I would love to see Zoom class options, videos, online cirricula, the whole 9 yards. I've heard good things about GMAU certified courses, so I would definitely start there.

I haven't heard of that. At its core, I don't think it's the worst method in the world. The issue you're going to run in to is that this is a very "hardcore" method of training. A part of teaching in general is being flexible in the way you teach. With things like karate, a largely recreational activity, there are a good amount of people who are signing up for fitness, or a reason to get out of the house, or because a friend is doing, and the list goes on. For that group, that way of training isn't going to work. Human behavior loves milestones, which a belt system gives, it loves goals, which a curriculum sets, and it loves seeing quantifiable change. The method of your teacher can only realistically offer the last and only barely. If your goal is to be a teacher, then I suggest, on top of training with this teacher, start going to a traditional dojo who is going to give that pedagogy to you.

Without going in to too much detail, I've met a number of people associated with that website (I was a 5th kyu when the Texas rep started training with my dojo, which is not affiliated with this website) and I do not feel that it is a good program to pursue. Others might have a different opinion, and if they do I would love to hear their experience with it. It could be great and personal experience is just getting in the way. What I can say is that they're MSSR, which is what I am a Shodan in, and in their videos that I could find their katas seem different from what I learned so the main instructor must be from a different branch. Knowing what I know of this particular system, the videos didn't give me a lot of confidence. I am also a little suspicious that their VP is a 7th dan after 25 years of training. It could be legit, but to me that seems like a very short time to achieve such a high rank. Finally, I couldn't find many testimonials that were outside the organization itself. When I'm deciding on programs, one of the things that I like to see is credible secondary reviews to help me get an idea of what to expect and I can't find that here.

It wouldn't happen to be cranekarate.com, would it?

When I searched that I got different results. Could you post some links so that we can have a better look? That said, in general, martial arts flourishes in person because it's helpful to have friends to practice with. I'm a little wary of the set up you describe as it screams "cash grab" to me, but I could be wrong. At home karate is possible, in my opinion, it just takes a lot more work. There is no one there to correct things in a fast manner so if you're unfamiliar with the art (or just MA in general) you can develop some bad habits that will be difficult to break. I would be a fan of programs that are relatively close by, so that you can take a trip there every other month to get some in person corrections. I would also want to be a program in which there was some sort of private forum in which you could post videos of you doing techniques to get feedback that way. But, as I say above, some links would help so that we can take a look at what they have going on.

Congrats!

Congrats!

Similar to Wastelander's point, if Shodan isn't the end of the curriculum, then I definitely wouldn't be okay with staying put. If, on the other hand, that at Shodan I had everything available to me to learn, then it wouldn't really matter either way.

I played them a few years ago after the first season of the show came out and I went down a rabbit hole. They're fun, if a little limited by the technology. Completely skippable if you're no interested in emulating it or tracking down a copy, in my opinion.

Congrats CTTKDKing! Very well deserved!

In the timeline Trevor comes before Simon. Trevor was the second to fight Dracula in Castlevania 3, with Simon being the 4th after Christopher, who stared in the Gameboy games.

This one is based on Castlevania 3, so it has Trevor and Sypha, so if you like that one (it's my favorite of the NES era) then it's perfect.

Karate was there for me in exactly the way that I needed it at the exact time I needed it. I've been doing this in one way or another since I was 12. Karate, for 19 years, is how I've framed a lot of my experiences and learning. Without Karate, I imagine that I would be a lot angrier. I can see a person didn't bond with his brothers as keenly as he could have. I can see a person who did not have the outlet to frame his understanding of who he was to himself. A big part of Martial Arts for me is introspection. I learned a lot about how to pick apart my feelings and get to the source of them. Without karate I don't think that I would have come to the idea that learning is 70% self-study and that would definitely have made getting a Master's a lot more of a struggle.

We have a really nice record store really close to me. I'll have to set a calendar reminder

I just finished catching up on it. I thought it was really fun. If you liked the games as a kid, then you'll like this.

If you're looking for a book about teaching, then I would suggest you get a textbook for classroom teaching (as in, K-12 classroom). The reason for this is that it will go a little more in depth on pedagogy and use scientific studies to back up some of the psychology and the like. At the end of the day, there is not much difference between a classroom of K-12 learners, and a classroom of people (of any age) learning martial arts.

I didn't even know there was a new record day! I'm very knowledgeable about new comic day though.

I think Bob hits the nail on the head with this sentence: As someone who has had ADHD all 30 of their years, I can definitely speak towards the idea that teens are lazy. Sometimes, teens are actually lazy. Sometimes, like most people, they need to be engaged. Teenager's brains are still developing and that means that they don't have a fully developed prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is the part of our brains that, among other things, controls our focus. So it's no wonder that a teenager might be struggling to focus during class, their brains are there for it yet. I've been doing Martial Arts in one way or another for 19 years and I still have trouble focusing (because ADHD more than anything else) but I remember being a teen and MA was all I could talk about. It wasn't that I was lazy, it was that sometimes I didn't find that my instructor engaged the class. As my instructor got better at engaging the class, I got better at holding my attention on the instructor throughout the class. The point of all of this is that if you're having issues with teens being "lazy" and not focusing, find a way to engage them in a way that gets them excited for the lesson. When I was teaching middle school, doing this was most of my lesson planning. If you can engage them in a way that they enjoy without alienating the class or embarrassing them then you'll have a student for life.

It would be awesome to see it! I stopped following MMA in the late 2000s so I can't speak towards what older star fighters are doing. I know, however, that Bas Rutten has gotten involved in Karate Combat, which seems less MMA focused. All in all, if people like Bas are doing this, I can imagine that Karate will see a "comeback," as you put it. I remember the boom of BJJ in the 2000s with schools popping up all over my area. Few survived after riding the fad, but the point remains. I hope we can start to see more traditional Martial Arts schools coming back, I would love more options.

Sign me up!

Fusei Kise happens to be a Yondan in Shorinji-Ryu and taught Coffman the Shorinji kata that shows up in the American versions of MSSR. He later stopped teaching it and did not carry it over to Kenshin Kan when he founded that system. So I would say that it's probably more accepted that Coffman added it, as he states that Kise didn't remember the kata later in Coffman's training. That said, you are correct in your assumption. Ananku no Sai is just the unarmed version with sai. The way it was explained to me was that Ananku no Sai was the true version and the unarmed version is to introduce it. Not sure if this is true, you know how Martial Arts legends pass down. As far as the kata's relation to Matsubayashi-Ryu, I'm not familiar enough to comment if the form made its way to me from there. Interestingly, despite it bearing Soken's name, as far as I know MSSR (or at least the variant that I learned) had only Ananku no Sai as its Sai form. It is entirely possible that my instructor either hadn't learned or had forgotten the ones post Shodan. I can't find a reliable list for MSSR katas post Shodan so I'm not entirely sure either.

I got it from Matsumura Seito Shorin Ryu, from Soken, Kise, Coffman, Gagne, and then my teacher.

Wado gives a lot of great information here. If you go to YouTube and search "no sai" a lot of Sai kata show up. For me, I learned Ananku at 5th kyu and then Ananku no Sai at 3rd. I would say that most Japanese (and specifically Okinawan) styles tend to have Sai kata so if you find a style from these regions near you that you're interested I would definitely call them.

When I was teaching Elementary and Middle school we ran in to the same problem all the time. Parents just don't understand the process, or they think their child is ready for the next step before they've put the effort in, or they want to argue that there needs to be an immediate retest for a failed grade. Overall, parents just have a difficult time understanding the function of learning and this probably doubles when it comes to Martial Arts. It's cliché to say something is about the journey, not the destination, but for MA that's true.

Congrats on the double promotion! It's like my signature has said for the past however long, 70% of training is at home.