Holland

It depends... I mean, I run a school with about 150 members on the active roster. I charge very little though (40 dollars a student as opposed to the 80 dollar average in my area.) If you charge 100 dollars a student and have 30 students...each one you lose really hurts...but if you have 100 students paying thirty bucks each it does not hurt as much. I offer family discounts as well .. its forty for one student, 55 for two, 65 for three and ten for each additional. While this seems to be throwing away money, what I have found is that family units that take karate with me stick with it. If one student gets discouraged then the others in the family keep them going. This is especially true in my adult class. Admittedly though, my philosophy is not to make money at karate. I charge enough to cover my building costs (I have a 4000 square foot building leased) and I can keep the lights on. I teach because I love what I do. I also vary workouts a lot. I am a high school P.E. teacher and there are nights where our warm up is a game of dodgeball. We laugh and joke and I try not to have a superiority complex just because I am senior in training.

Is he a good teacher? Does he teach good karate? Realistically these are the only questions I think about when deciding whether or not to spend time training with someone.

I am in need of some more jigsaw mats for my dojo and I was wondering about the least expensive place to buy them. I found this site https://www.jumpkicks.net which sells the ones I want but for only 18 bucks each which is pretty cheap. I was wondering if anyone had any experience with jumpkicks.net or if they have any other suggestion.

I own/operate a dojo with about 110 on the active roster. I would be happy to offer advice. Given, it might be ludicrous erroneous advice, but at least I don't charge for it.

My older brother was my first black belt and my wife was my fourth. I have my sister in law, and three nephews in class. I even taught my dad for a while. It can be done, just be fair.

Heh...too much. I run a school and thus I am there three nights a week for 3-4 hours a night. Then I train on Saturday mornings with my weapons instructor for an hour and a half... Then every other week or so I drive two hours to see my empty hand instructor....

If they had no interest in learning your style I would probably allow it. Generally people who come along those lines are moderately poisonous to what you are trying to do with your school. People who are interested in "starting new" in your style can also be problematic. Most have no interested in coming to you with an "empty cup" but rather have a hard time adapting. I have had two students from the former scenario and probably 10 from the latter. Neither of the two worked out and only 2 of the 10 from the latter did. Its a tricky line and unfortunately few people are willing to walk it.

We have it like this: Ju-Kyu- White Belt Ku-Kyu- White with a green stripe Hachi-Kyu: Yellow Belt Shichi-Kyu: Orange Belt Rok-Kyu: Blue Belt Go-Kyu: Green Belt Yon-Kyu: Purple Belt San-Kyu: Brown Belt Ni-Kyu: Brown with one black stripe Ik-Kyu: Brown with two black stripes Sho-dan: Black Belt

The one I own: Cape Fear Isshinryu Wilmington North Carolina My Sensei: Cunningham's Isshinryu Tarboro NC Tim Cunningham (6th dan)

Glad to be of help. Since they specialize in martial arts, they are less expensive than other sites. I have never had to make a claim, but they have a large clientele, so I imagine they are a pretty good company.

https://www.karateinsurance.com (if only all things were this obvious...) That is who I use. Relatively inexpensive.

While I like the Agena Sai from Carbone, I think for the money the shureido are just as good if not better. I do like Carbone's Tonfa though a lot. I have a pair of them and the shureido, and while I think the shureido can be manipulated faster, the Carbone Tonfa are incredibly well balanced and once you get them going, they have an incredible flow. Murasaki Kobudo is not bad either and Crane Mountain makes some nice stuff as well. I have some Kamas and Tekkos from Murasaki and I have worked with several crane mountain weapons that my friends have, including the eku. (which is really nice.) But about the kamas...as I said the Murasaki are nice, but the are unsharpened and I don't know if you want a live pair or not. But it is a mightly nice looking weapon that feels great to use. I am less fond of the shureido kamas as they basically feel like hatchets.

There are multiple problems with this. First, if one of my black belts lost their cool on a yellow belt and jumped all over them, I would be on that black belt even harder. Giving push ups because you connected? First, I can say that I never, and I mean never, give an adult push ups for doing something wrong. (Ok, I won't say never, but I have probably done it like twice in the last 8 years....) That is just an unneeded display of power mongering. People come to train, to learn, to get in shape, and to fellowship. No one pays monthly dues to be miserable and get humiliated. Also, apparently this black belt saw nothing wrong with the fact that they belted you. I would have apologized once, and that would have been it. I mean, geez... if you stay in karate long enough you will unfortunately be on the give and take ends of a hard technique more than a few times and believe you me, it is much more comfortable to be the guy who gets hit than to be the one who feels like a jerk for having hurt a class mate. Since this black belt is a co-owner of the dojo, I would probably find a new place to train. The philosophy of the place is obviously not conducive for mature training. I know that investing six months into a place can make you not want to leave, but I don't think this situation is going to get any better over time.

My lobby has a door to the workout area and that door gets closed when the parents get too loud. Kind of my way of casually showing them to keep the volume at a respectful level.

Give me a student with average skill but with a great work ethic over a student with a ton of atheticism and little work ethic any day.

For our school rank requirements are... Yellow Belt (Hachi-Kyu) Basics, Basic Kicks, Seisan Orange Belt (Shichi-Kyu) Seiuchin (and all of the yellow belt stuff) Blue Belt (Rok-Kyu)- Naihanchi (Sho), Plus orange belt stuff Green Belt (Go-Kyu)- Wansu, Kyan No Sai Purple Belt (Yon-Kyu)- Chinto, Tokumine No Kun Brown Belt (San-Kyu)- Kusanku 1 black stripe (Ni-Kyu)- Sanchin, Kusanku sai 2 black stripes(Ik-Kyu) Sunsu We also do a goodly amount of yakosoku kumite, free sparring, and in some cases, additional weapons. After black belt we add in the traditional isshinryu weapons katas along with some empty hand not found in Isshinryu and some additional weapons.

For the money I like Cheness swords https://www.chenessinc.com/ Steel, unsharpened, but sharpenable. Hand made, full tang for under 200 bucks.

Our lineage is a bit convoluted. My original instructor was a student of Dan Glover who trained under Russell Best and Don Bohan. My current instructor (since 2001) is also a student of Mr. Glover, but got his black belt under a man named Chuck Chau who was one of A.J. Advincula's black belts. In weapons, my instructor is John Maisenhelder. He trains in weapons under Kyoshi Jim Logue, Kyoshi Doug Perry and originally was with Hanshi Joseph Ruiz. Good stuff. Isshinryufanatic just tested for Go-Kyu this past weekend. Hopefully he is still sore.

Actually I have seen it used in Shorin Ryu as well. I have seen Okinawans use it as well as americans so I would not necessarily attribute it to the west. Of course many use the red and white belt at 6th, and go to all red at 9th. But I have seen both ways.

My brother is the chief photographer for New Bern North Carolina's newspaper. He is also dojo sempai. Its a mighty nice advantage to have someone around with all of his equipment and such. Thanks for checking out our site!

For black belts I go with Shureido. I also think they have the best colored belts as well, but they are pricey at about 20 bucks each. If you are an instructor I would recommend promoting people into Ronin belts. They are cheap (about 5 bucks each) but are very nice quality compared to most. Plus the colors are nice.

When I go to see my weapons instructor I carry a shotgun carrying case that has all of my weapons in it. (Short ones that is.) Since I never know what he is going to want to teach I feel that I should always have tonfa, sais, tekkos, jo, bokken, kama and all of my longer weapons to boot. When I come into the building I look like I am planning to invade a small country.

Well, I could have posted each tidbit in seperate threads, but I thought I would practice efficiency. The part about my test was probably not necessary...the website plug was though, as if anyone comes to this part of the state I want them to know we are here and to come by and say hello. I worked at Sears for 7 years selling T.V's. Now I am a high school P.E. Teacher...guess old habits die hard. No worries, I am not too easy to offend.

I started training in Isshinryu in 1989. Took a few years off in the late nineties. Testing for Yo-dan in February and run a school in wilmington nc. (https://www.capefearisshinryu.com) Nice to meet you.

Ewwww. I have run my own school for the past 8 years and I can not imagine pulling a stunt like that. Unbelievable. Good luck finding a new school!