lordtariel

Like Bushido says, if you have an instructor that knows how to deal with such people, it most definitely does. We have had a couple that started about a year ago that I have noticed that made remarkable progress. It's important to find an instructor that can deal with these types of problems.

Grouchiness, irritability, odd dreams about grilled steaks, ect...

I saw one recently on myth busters where they were trying to see if a katana could cut through another sword. They had a swordsman and a machine that would swing the sword correctly with maximum force and it couldn't even break a rapier. Bent it all to heck, but didn't break it.(the recoil from the snap shattered the rapier though) The closest they were able to come to breaking a sword is when they used a two handed Scottish claymore vs a viking broadsword where it put a big old gouge in the viking broadsword.

Congratulations.

Well, there are fifty-some katas in our system, but I believe you wind up knowing about 12-15 by black belt. That's not counting the non-required katas that you pick up over your ma career. I only needed six to get to 5th kyu, but already I know(not mastered) 14, 9 of which are advancement related

Exactly, a broken bone or sprained ankle is going to get a lower priority in line than the guy having the heart attack or the 8 year old with the 104 temperature. Also, a lot of cities have urgent care facilities that can get you through faster if you have a non life-threatening injury. Heck of a lot cheaper too.

Possibly because you were getting more carbohydrates in place of your normal servings of meat? Hard to say based solely off of a week. Did you have any meat withdrawal symptoms? I know I did when I went mostly vegetarian.

In some cases that's true, in other's it's going to goad some people into fighting. Also, if they know your a better fighter than them, they might not hesitate to pull a weapon or try and pull cheap shots which, they wouldn't have necessarily done right away normally.

Wow, I guess it would depend on the situation. Have you talked to him about your concerns? He should be understanding if you have a legitimate reason for not attending. As long as you address the issue politely I don't think there should be a problem. Participation in a tournament might not mean competing. You can participate by helping set up and tear down, help the various table officials, help load gear into vehicles, ect. That's how people at our dojo who don't want to compete get around the requirement.

Welcome to the forums.

Let us know how it goes.

There are always exceptions to things. Starting at 8 and sticking with it hard core(20-30 hours of training a week for 14 years) till your 22, you might get there, but that is an exception that is few and far between. For the most part though, it's simply unrealistic. Say you get shodan at 16... then it's 3 more years to 2nd, 5 more years to 3rd(not sure the average time between dan ranks but from what I understand it's exponential), that's already at 24.

6. What are the payment plans like? Contract, month to month, ect. 6-a. If it's a contract, how can I get out of it? 7. Is the instructor at least first aid trained/Red Cross certified? 8. What organizations are you affiliated with?

Any technique is good in the right circumstances. I probably wouldn't go any higher than stomach level, but a good front kick can easily double somebody over.

I was thinking about reading these. So is this series of books still going? Or does it go across multiple series?

Again, a big problem in the US is that you have a bunch of different people teaching Tai Chi. You have the people that legitimately knows the martial applications of Tai Chi and trains with them, You have the people who say they know what they're doing but have learned from a video(Yes, even Tai Chi has their McDojos), you have the people who are into it for the health and internal applications, then you have the people who just wave their arms around looking for the "good vibe," bringing that loving kindness energy into their spleens. Seriously, I trained with somebody who told us to send loving kindness energy into your SPLEEN! Unfortunately, finding an instructor that knows the martial applications can be a hard task.

My recommendation as well. At least spend enough time to learn how to work your way back to your feet when you're on the ground.

What did those poor bricks ever do to you? Seriously though, there's nothing wrong with a breaking demonstration, but there needs to be something else of substance in the demo as well. I'm not that into breaking demos, but some people are.

I'm just trying to say that it's not the ONLY source of protein out there. A lot of people I know say that you need meat for protein. You can get it from tofu, beans, nuts, and veggies as well. If you're not vegan you can also get them from eggs, cheese and milk. We are omnivores, designed to be able to be on both sides of the fence.

Congrats.

I've known some 60 year old Tai Chi people who didn't have any problem knocking me down. But seriously, a higher ranking belt should know the limits of the person they are working with and scale the challenge level down to just slightly above the level of the student they are working with. The trick is to make it challenging without making them feel hopeless.

This seems to be one of the prevailing attitudes about vegetarianism. It's not necessarily true. You can get your protein with a vegetarian diet, and in fact, it's more nutritious because your substituting your meat serving with vegetables and grains, which have far more vitamins and minerals than meat does. And to top it off, there's no saturated fats in a vegetarian diet and there's far less calories in vegetarian food than in meat. Also, just because you're vegetarian doesn't mean you have to eat wierd, foo-foo foods, but at the same time, you can't just eat pasta, cheese and breads. Some people are vegetarian or vegan because of their stances on animal abuse and cruelty, and I'm fine with that, but I like meat. I like it a lot. However, with heart disease on all sides of my family tree I need to make sure I watch myself. My father had a major heart attack at 50 and has had two since. I don't restrict myself to no meat, but I make sure I only eat a serving at a time. That's 3oz(85 grams for you crazy metric people ) or about the size of a deck of cards. Also, I could eat a 3oz serving of meat, or two to sometimes even three servings of a vegetarian meal. I'm a bottomless pit when it comes to eating, so I'd prefer to eat more.

You need to remember,(Unless this is formal kata competition where you are required to select it from a list and perform the kata exactly) in an open kata competition, the judges probably know the kata you are performing. If you mess up, just keep going. Don't pause, don't grimace, and don't stop. See if you can spot my mess up in this kata: I missed about five moves out of the kata but still wound up taking third because I didn't stop in the middle. In a different tournament, I had to improvise like crazy because I split into a different kata and had to work my way back. I didn't place in that competition, but I beat the opponent I was performing with and got a compliment from the judges about the fact that I didn't get rattled and did a fair job recovering. As for the rest of it, just remember, tournament's no different than practice, just with people from another area. Don't worry so much about the winning. A trophy or medal's just another surface to collect dust. Experience is the best way to get over nerves. The more you do it, the less nervous you get. You get to a point where you're nervous before, but not during.

Welcome to the forums.

Congrats to you both.