Neo Dragon

Thank you for that article. Im starting to strugle with "Brown Belt Burnout", so I think this has helped me some.

If I were you unless you are looking for a specific type of wood for your bo I would recomend looking in some of your local hardware stores, and then modifying it to your specifications. Ex: sanding it down, adding decorations etc. Its cheaper and if you know your woods well it will give you something of comparable quality. Most people in my dojo do that instead of buying it cause around here they price from 20+. Hope this helps.

This is useful. Thanks.

Well actually that's not every class and usually only the head instructor is the one who does it; but the Black Belts are definitely pushed and expected to perform better than everyone else so its not really that much of a difference from everyone else.

Thanks for the advice guys. I tried saying "so how should it be done" and then asked several questions on the integrity of there stance and they didn't know what to say. It worked; but ive still got a lot to learn. Plus this will help me if I ever have kids one day. Ive deffinitely fould that youve got to have more than a firm understanding of your system to be an instructor.

Okay I have a problem. In my school I have been promoted to assistant Instructor which is almost unheard of for anyone who is at the brown belt rank. My instructor has told me that since he is starting to get older it is becoming more difficult for him to keep maintaining the school so he want's me to someday take over for him. My problem is that some of the lower ranks are disrespecting me by telling me things like "oh I don't need help with that" or "i don't think that's the way it's supposed to be done", and they will sometimes goof off in class when Im teaching and not really listen. I tell them to stop, even threaten to make them do push ups; but they keep persisting. I want to be able to maintain a stable environment without having to resort to "quit or Ill tell Sensei". It sounds childish and noone will ever respect me if I can't make them respect me on my own. I suppose I need to talk with my Sensei cause I dont think I actually can directly punish them myself. Do any of you have any suggestions? This is starting to make me frustrated cause I don't think they take me seriously and it really ticks me off.

In my class some of the black belts who are considerd to be assistant instructors will sometimes get to skip the warmup exercises; but thats because they are there for the entire night a good three to four hours so by the time the last class comes around theyve already done this two or three times already so It can be tiring. hope this helps.

Its a kata that originated from the Goju system and was latter incorporated into the shito-ryu system. It is a power demonstration kata that puts more emphasis in Kiya and Ibuki breathing rather than tequnique. So its relatively easy to learn; but requres a great deal of energy projection on the practitioners part. I dont have a video of myself or anyone I know performing it; but Ill post one when I find it. EDIT: found one. The way my system does it is much differen't of corse; but the basic jist is the same. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2240416169660848843&q=seienchin&hl=en

LOL yeah I kinda wait a while before I let my friends and girlfriends see me do it. I love ta scare the new white belts with that kata. There so funny watching there reactions.

Im saying yes cause people tend to fear what they don't understand. plus after people witness the seiyichen kata the first time they tend to stay some distance from me.

My instructor believes that if the kid can do the tecniques then theres no need to hold them back. Yes it is true that perhaps a kid can't fully understand and perform Karate the same way an adult can; but when they do mature into an adult then they will be much stronger than a martial artist who started as an adult. In theory anyway. Hope this helps.

Red Oak has proven to be useful for endurance in striking practice (I use red oak for my Iaido class). Its also relatively cheap. Also Id recomend a taperd bo staff cause it allows the weapon to bend and not break as easily. Hope that helps.

Well if you wanted to say the ultimate weapon then that would be the atomic bomb. LOL but although I dont train or even own one I think that the Naginata is one of my favorite weapons, because it combines the use of both a bo staff and a sword. I also like its chinese counter part, the kwan dao.

Ive got the same problem. Ive lost several matches that I could have won if id been more aggressive. Im a gentle natured person and im thinking that you probably are too; but I think it comes down to being able to control the situation and be assertive. Thats very hard to do.

we have one similar to that one, where a ball is suspended on the end of a rope and we have to hit it while its swinging around. It pretty tough; but its fun.

course if ya think about it its hard to find any type of Kata online. Most instructors dont want to show off there Kata for fear of people "stealing them". Or learning them for free, so I think thats why things are hard to find.

yes it does help. He seems to be pretty popular. Might check it out sometime.

Man where did you find that website? I was looking around on it and I found all kinds of stuff. I saw several weapons including the Naginata wich is gosh near imposible to find anything on, and theyve got about half of a whole sword system in one spot.

Havent thought about using a video camera before. Good idea. Do you think that his instruction is reasonable quality though? And do you have a link to any of Hanshi Heilman's equipment?

Im am of the opinoin that it is better to study under an instructor and I would normaly not even really look into this; but there aren't any schools around my area that teach it. Ive found though that by doing it infront of a mirror that tends to help show some of your mistakes. Thanks for the suggestions guys. And sorry about putting it in the wrong place. Wasn't sure where it went.

Like everyone else said okinawan Karate doesnt use the wakizashi; but I would recomend that if your a more expierienced practicioner try to reform a kata youve previously learned to match that weapon....Or you could just make one up on your own. Thats always interesting to see peoples own persona Kata's. Thats my two cents anyways.

I was thinking about buying this because Im very interested in Kobudo and there arent any instructors in my area who teach it. I was wondering if any of you have this and how good is the quality of instruction. http://www.centuryfitness.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10051&storeId=10051&productId=87765&langId=-1&product_parentId=13754&crumb=13501&categoryId=13754&parent_category_rn=13753

oops didn't mean to DP

yeah the kids are always getting into something. Its hilarious. There was this one time when this new little white belt just starting kiyaing (is that even a real word? ) right there in class and we werent even doing anything at that moment. It was funny. He was just yelling for no apparent reason other than I guess he might have though it was cool or something.

hey everybody. I was just googling for some info on various Kobudo weaponry the other day and I kept running into this site. I thought it looked pretty interesting so I decided to join. I love the martial arts and have been training for the past three years and I still love it.