Nurvingiel

Good suggestion AoG. Whenever I train on the beach, I just wear athletic clothes (but no shoes) instead of a gi. Ask your sensei if you can do that.

We used to do the turned in toes in front (front and back feet are parallel), but now we do the front foot is straight forward. We changed because of the pressure on the knee thing.I tend to point in my toes out of habit, but I like the straight foot way. I don't feel my stance is less solid with the foot straight. But yeah, ask your instructor.

What style did you see/do this technique in? If it is solely a kung fu technique like Zaine suggested then there won't be a Japanese name. The only thing I could come up with in my own style is hiraken uchi, but I'm not very familiar with this technique. (The ones I am familiar with I'm sure are not what you're looking for.) hiraken uchi (image link) The above link is to a picture of my hand doing what I'm 90% sure is hiraken uchi. This translates from Japanese to "flat fist". It's a bit of a long shot. If the technique is from karate or jujitsu then we could find the Japanese name. Is it possible for you to take a picture of your hand doing it?

Good idea ShadowFox. One thing I'm a big fan of for people new to sparring (and those not so new too!) is controlled sparring drills. In karate for example, we have kihon ippon, which means "one step"*. There is a prescribed series of moves for the attacker and the defender. In tournaments, the winner of a kihon ippon match in a tournament is decided by whose techniques come the closest to their opponent without actually touching, and whose techniques are the best (best stance, best technique, most ki focus). This is a great way to learn because it teaches you the basic mechanics of sparring. We also have two other drills which aren't as controlled as kihon ippon but aren't (mostly) unrestricted like free sparring. Unfortunately, we only do free sparring and kihon ippon (for children and white belts) in tournaments. I wouldn't worry too much about sparring. It's loads of fun and extremely useful to learn. It's also very difficult to learn, and everyone progresses at a different pace. (The same can be said about kata [forms], but I think this is even more pronounced in sparring.) Furthermore, your belt doesn't necessarily determine your skill at sparring, unless a significant portion of each class is devoted to sparring (and even then, I still think everyone has a different pace). We don't spend a lot of time sparring in my style, so people's skill levels are all over the place. I've had yellow belts take points off me and I have a black belt! Now, I'm not bad at sparring, but I think people forget that junior belts can be quite good in sparring. After all, it's a totally different skillset than kata, and is learned in a totally different way. All that to say, it's no biggie that smaller people than you can beat you at sparring. That doesn't mean you're bad at sparring or won't improve or anything. Furthermore, don't forget that small people can have an advantage in sparring too! A tall person is typically stronger with a longer reach, but a small person is typically faster, and can get inside a tall person's reach and cause all kinds of problems. This isn't true for everyone, so you have to get to know your opponents', and your own, strengths and weaknesses. As a short person, I try to get inside people's optimum distance for a technique (where kicks are all scrunched up and not effective) and then quickly move away (I need to work on this moving thing more though). *One something anyway. I really should know that.

We wear layered cotton belts (the typical kind) in our style for all levels including black. Some people have very worn belts because when they achieve a higher dan (level) of black belt, they rip a small strip off it. I'm not sure exactly how it's done.This wears the belt down, and the frayed edge probably allows the cotton to wear more readily than an unmangled belt. Our style's sensei, and a few senior senseis, have more white than black on their belt. I like the symbology of having a mostly white belt at the end, just like we did at the beginning. Chitobandito, that's awesome! Tell your buddy about ripping cotton off it. edit: Shadowfox, personally I don't think worn belts look tacky. But to each his own.