DWx

Congrats to them! and good luck to you for next year

The 1st and 3rd pair seemed to say the same thing so I took an educated guess and assumed they said something like "Thai boxing". Google translate seems to match both? Thai boxing, kickboxing = มวยไทย Google link No idea for the 2nd.

I'm aiming for 01/01/2101 If medicine keeps advancing, I reckon I'll make it

Found this interesting, article on the history and variations of the kata: http://www.ikigaiway.com/2012/a-historical-walking-tour-of-seisan-kata/

Some great points so far, I especially like the idea of having confidence in yourself to do it. I also think that whether you put yourself in such a position also has to do with a combination of either having a fight or flight instinct and whether or not you are a sheep or a wolf. If there are a lot of bystanders, sometimes I think everyone waits for someone else to make a move because surely someone will step in to help? They themselves aren't confident enough to do anything so just wait for someone else to. Can't remember where but I once read that if you are in a position where you need to ring the emergency services, instead of shouting "someone call 911!", what you should so instead is to specifically tell one person to make the call otherwise in a crowd of people, everyone assumes that someone else will step up and do it.

Congrats Ulubis Minor

Good post. Gender shouldn't come into it. I know, as other's have said, society fosters this idea of men never striking women, partly because they are deemed not to be as strong or as much of a threat to men as other men. But in the dojo to hell with that. If a female student comes to the dojo and expressly states that she wants to train harder and to be hit, then all other students should respect her enough to do this. If not you are doing her a disservice. If she should get attacked on the street or find herself in a similar situation you think her attacker is going to go easy because she's a woman? Likewise it is worth reminding men that females can and sometimes will hit them just as hard as men. Just take gender out of it, all students, whether male or female, have a right to ask you to ease up and strike lighter if they feel that the contact level is too much or to increase the contact levels if that's what they want from their training. My rule for the dojang is to ignore gender and to always let the lesser skilled and experienced student dictate the contact level. If they are comfortable going harder then the more skilled person can respond to this and increase the intensity accordingly.

Awesome congratulations That's a massive achievement. If you don't mind sharing, what kind of plan were you on?

Happy Holidays

Welcome to KF 1Weedhopper Not to be a downer on the situation, but some people are just limited by their own body as to how flexible they can be and how well they can stretch. I've been training since I was a kid and have never had good flexibility no matter how much or how well I stretch, just have to learn to work with what you've got. Having said that, I find this is a good resource for stretching and flexibility (just substitute all the bits about tricking for martial arts): http://www.trickstutorials.com/index.php?page=content/flexibility Important thing is not to force the stretch and make things worse, so I'd use the leg stretcher but don't try and force the splits or you may end up doing more damage. And always make sure to warm up properly before any stretching.

Congrats

Being enthusiastic is great. Enthusiastic students make it a pleasure to teach and work with because they always are trying hard and wanting to have a go at things and often put in way more effort than everyone else. The thing is though, enthusiasm is a really good thing but it's worth trying to control it a bit and channel it appropriately. Being enthusiastic sometimes means that the student doesn't recognize their own limits and that's when either they themselves or a training partner can end up getting hurt. So by all means throw yourself into it, but remember getting an injury today will stop you from training tomorrow and no-one wants that! And enthusiasm can quickly turn the other way if the white belt is trying to do what the blackbelts are doing and failing each time. So never tire of learning evergrey but channel your enthusiasm and look after yourself

The only issue with alternating weeks that I would see is that if either school follows a strict curriculum where something specific is taught and built upon each week, you'd have to try to catch up on last week's lesson first before tackling this week's material.

Another issue for me, no offense guys, is I'd find it a bit boring to watch. I don't even like watching TKD in the Olympics and I know what's going on there and semi-sort of follow the fighters. I'll watch the odd match or two or if I know it'll be a good fight I'll watch, but with TKD largely it's 2 fighters standing there for the majority of the bout and only engaging maybe 20% of the time. I suppose it'll come down to the rules and how the WKF and IOC intend to run it. I mean with TKD for some reason, they decided that roundhouses are worth far more points than any other type of kick, head shots don't net any additional points and hands to the head aren't allowed. All you see for the whole bout is mid-section roundhouse after mid-section roundhouse and as a spectator sport it's not great to watch. If they can formulate the rules so that it makes for interesting kumite, then I'm all behind it. In fact, I'd love to see kata in the Olympics but only if the ruleset did allow somewhat for individuality and stylistic difference and not require competitors to be clones of one another.

Congrats to your students

Anyone played the remake of the old Apple II game Karateka? http://store.steampowered.com/video/217270 Had totally forgotten about the original game , I used to borrow my friend's copy and play on my gameboy when I was a kid ( ). Might have to buy this remake later tonight

Perhaps you could work it so you do one night a week Muay Thai and one Karate? Or alternate weeks? Unfortunately no-one can really tell you want to do - some tough decisions to make!

Does sound good. Sounds like you'll be exhausted by the end though

Welcome Epyon For me, that is the single most important thing I've taken away from Martial Arts. Not giving up even when things get a bit tough

Not a Karate practitioner but I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, Karate as an Olympic sport will only result in increased exposure and popularity and it'll most likely result in loads of people wanting to get involved with Karate and other martial arts - which can only be a good thing. But hand in hand with that you'll get (as what happened in TKD) more and more schools just specializing in Olympic Karate or even more and more McDojo's to cater to the ill-informed who want to go to the Olympics. Also one of my pet peeves with Olympic TKD is that whenever I mention TKD to anyone I get the "oh like in the Olympics". I personally don't liked getting lumped in with that as all their thinking of is Olympic sparring which in no way reflects the style as a whole.

You might want to have a quick read through of some of these threads Epyon if you're still concerned: http://www.karateforums.com/mcdojo-vs-hobby-vt43430.html http://www.karateforums.com/mcdojo-vt38428.html http://www.karateforums.com/the-art-of-the-mcdojo-vt38651.html

Wow, thanks for posting BlueWaveKarate. I would have thought that she'd have at least offered a partial refund or, like you asked for, a slight discount on the next purchase. I thought your emails were good too, not like you were being rude or demanding in anyway. Guess there's not much you can do though

So have you guys seen the bid for Karate to become an Olympic sport at the 2020 games? http://www.thekisontheway.com Website doesn't actually give all that much info on the nature of the competition but it would be run by the WKF. Doesn't say much about whether it'll be kata or kumite. It'll be the 3rd time Karate is bidding for inclusion and apparently bookies were favouring Karate over the other 8 sports which are bidding and had been given 1/2 odds for inclusion at 2020. (BTW Wushu is also shortlisted for 2020 but there doesn't seem to be much info around for it)

Welcome to the forums Epyon. Honestly, your dojo doesn't sound like a McDojo at all. 18 euro/month is very affordable and seems to be a lot cheaper than you'd pay in the US (or UK). From what you've described, the grading schedule seems pretty normal and 5 years to 1st kyu is again a typical time length. With regards to the gloves, lots of schools and styles will wear them. They are there to protect you and your partner during training. They allow you to make contact in a safe way. In the video you posted, I'm not sure what the rules are but the fighters are not really punching full contact and definitely not punching full contact to the head. So it's really a choice between semi/light contact without gloves, or heavier contact with gloves. And especially if you are a beginner, gloves are more likely until you start to develop better control. As far as splitting the classes up into grades, that's pretty common too in a lot of schools. It allows the sensei to teach certain things to certain levels and you get more focused training.

...if there were no rules and no witnesses! Sounds like Seagal would want to fight dirty http://www.mmafighting.com/2012/12/4/3722150/morning-report-steven-seagal-accepts-no-rules-fight-against-randy-couture-no-witnesses