DisgruntledGirl

I agree to that as well. I hope that you did at the very least let him know how you were feeling before leaving. I myself was about to leave my dojo fairly recently and spoke with my Sensei about it. Little did I know that he had actually been working on things that I was "bothered" with and had implimented solutions like right before I had decided to "quit" but I just didnt know that he had ('cus I didnt attend a "meeting" that I was supposed to ) Might wanna have a chat with him. Maybe you at one point innocently stated that "you were not bothered by belt progression" when many/most people say that but in actuallity do want/need to get that new belt and maybe he took it too far or took you way too litterally.. ...but then again.. years at a low to mid (my assumtions here, I dont know how your schools ranks go) kyu rank with you asking for advice and with you thinking that you were at least "good enough" for the next rank... seems a lil much to me.

First off, I would say that if you have other options (other schools near you) you shouldnt let this bad experience stop you from training in MA period. If you have other schools near enough to go to you should give them a look. If you have managed to keep interest for as long as you have, being treated the way you have, then you must have at least a little passion for it, more so than you would probably have doing any other form of exercise anyway. So you should try to give it a go again if you get the chance and maybe after a little time of cooling off. (note: you may need to start from white belt again... but Im almost SURE that it probably wouldnt take near as long to get you to the belt after the one youve already got) You said that you are "overweight" and I'm wondering if maybe it was even just an "aesthetics" thing for your Sensei in that he didnt want new comers to think that "he didnt train hard enough to make you lose weight" (which most know has nothing to do with anything). I just dont know what his real deal was. I could see him maybe extending your time in each belt if you needed it to get you to a certain level (being "overweight" and "middle-aged" and all... if that affects anything at all, for some it does for some it doesnt) but YEARS as green belt... especially when you actually straight up ask what you could do to get better... just doesnt make ANY sense. Good luck and I hope you dont give up on it entirely.

Agreed. While I have never done any other style, from what I have read and from how my Sensei describes a lot of things I'd say the style is like 80-90% Shotokan and as little as 10-20% other styles such as shito, goju, ju-jitsu etc mixed in with I think a tiny bit of purly "original to the style itself" stuff.

Style: Shindo Jinen Ryu I will give the Japanese and English names for them... but I dont really know what half of them are yet (just counted and I'd probably know about 10 or 11 of them if I saw them, the others I havent learned yet) Japanese..........................English Fudo-dachi.........................Rooted (45) Stance Gankaku-dachi...................Crane Stance Hachiji-dachi......................Natural Stance Hangetsu-dachi..................Half Moon Stance Heiko-dachi.......................Parallel Stance Heisoku-dachi....................Feet Together (parallel) Kiba-dachi.........................Horse Riding Stance Kokutsu-dachi....................Back Stance Kosa-dachi.........................Cross Feet Stance Moto-dachi.........................Short Front Stance Musubi-dachi......................Heels Together, Feet 45 Neko-ashi-dachi..................Cat Leg Stance Reinoji-dachi.......................L Stance Sanchin-dachi......................Hour Glass Stance Shinko-dachi.......................Side Stance, Feet 45 Shinsentai...........................Natural Position Teiji-dachi...........................T Stance Senkutsu-dachi....................Front Stance

While I understand your frustration if your son truely did perform below his abilities but I think in many schools Tekki Shodan is indeed higher up than it is at his school and maybe he knew that and as such maybe it was just a mistake on his part for playing it too safe just cus he thought he could. (though in all honesty, I'm with you in thinking that maybe he was just a lil smitten ) Just so you can get a better idea of how different things can be, in the school I attend: Tekki Shodan is a red belt kata (4th kyu) Bassai Dai is also a red belt kata (4th kyu) and Jion is a brown belt kata (3rd Kyu) in a 10 kyu system So, Bassai Dai and Tekki Shodan are kinda considered on the same level for us... but I'm not that far yet so I have no idea if one is any harder than the other. Indeed things are different... I initially had a slightly "bad" oppinion of your son too when you said "yellow Belt Kata" as that is 9th kyu for us, but felt slightly better about him when you said that it was actually a step above my school's yellow (your yellow being my orange and my orange being your yellow)... but where my oppinion really changed was when you said that it was Tekki Shodan... thats when I started to get the oppinion that you were maybe being a tad harsh... a little harshness would have still been understandable seeing as, by my shools curriculum, it is still a tad "beneath" him... but not too much so.

I actually often worry that I am that student that "lacks control". It is a hard thing to judge really and for some things it can be different what is acceptable from dojo to dojo and for other things it is still different from person to person exactly what is appropriate. I'm on the opposite end in fact to you guys problem in that I find the really higher ups... go almost too easy on me. I like to feel more than gi contact. If I miss a block and its my fault, I dont mind an occational bruise (though I dont want to be beaten to a bloody pulp either, cus that'd be mighty easy to do). But I do try to lighten my own strikes etc for "lower" belts (even though I'm fairly low myself) and toughen 'em up slightly for higher ups... but sometimes I find myself not so much being "told" to pull back but just reacting from my "opponents" reactions to things and we do generally have an understanding that if it is "too much" it will be made known though usually in a very light-hearted manner. In your case however because there is a marked difference between how much the lower ranked strikes hurt over the higher ups you might want to bring it to the attention of the one who's hitting too hard and not necessarily the sensei. You can even bring it up in a manner such as "That's a bit too hard for me, I dont mind hitting you more on the harder side if that is what you prefer but would you mind lightening up a bit as I've got to go to work/school/whatever )

Ah see. That was one of my points too. For some it might be more difficult having to learn the new words... but for me... someone who had never learned any kind of fighting art before... heck, I did not know what a "revearse" punch was, and I had to be told what a "roundhouse" kick is so whether you teach me gyaku or revearse, mawashi or roundhouse... meh... learning the japanese is realy no harder. Now if you had learned another fighting art in english I can see how it might seem harder cus you already had the english terms to go on. I see both sides of the argument. I can see why some find it "pointless", its just that I do not. Sure other sports get by with only "needing" to use their own language (I liked the dance reference though, even though I do not dance) but to me thats what gives a lot of MAs their edge in that most people no matter where you are from, no matter what language you speak if you study Karate you will know what an instructor is asking you to do, (even if you dont speak his language or he yours) if he asks you to do a mawashi geri. I still see others points in that you will still need a translation to get the finer points of what he is teaching if it is a true seminar... but to start out the class, for him to see where you are at already, all he needs to do is say a few words and no translation is ever needed, you just do what he says and from there on it can be determined how much translation is needed.

I can see part of where you are coming from in the "uselessness" of the language of origin in learning an "Art" if all you are wanting to learn is how to defend yourself. But there will always be at least two reasons why I think it woudl still be a good idea to be taught: 1.) for some it is and will always just be "cooler" if taught in the originating language even if it is not exactly conversational and is only a few words here and there. 2.) Even if you dont find it "cool", for nothing other than tournaments in which you have participants from many countries, it can be very usefull if everything from scoring to the names of the forms to anything else that can be said in one or two words can just be said one way without need for translation. I personally never intend to enter a tournament mind you, but you have to teach for one the way you teach for all. Yeah, it's not needed in your day to day classes, but for some things it can just make life easier.

Wow! That is kinda sad. I could see two same-ranked belts maybe trying to figure out who goes first or whatever... but never arguing over it. Are these "adults" (meaning people over at least 15 or so) or little kids? When I was a white belt there was another white belt girl there that started before I started... at that point neither of us knew much so it often ended up being whoever ended up there first kinda thing but still usually it was her first. We both tested for our yellow belt at the same time and by that time I realised that the person who had been there longer went first so she was always first. But for a little while befor the test for orange belt she had missed *a lot* of classes but not really knowing how it worked I still had her go before me but after a few classes she started insisting that I went before her just cus she knew that she wasnt going to be testing at the upcoming test date... I looked a lil puzzled at first, but went where she said just to get on with class. Didnt really matter to me where I went, dont think it really mattered to her either. Kinda weird that such high ranking people in your school could get quite so nitpicky. I could halfway understand a "discussion" between say a 1st dan and a 2nd dan because those ranks are not obvious by ones belt... but not an actual argument.

Shindo Jinen Ryu Yeah, thats what I mean. Sure if I had to take a guess I could have probably guessed that he was "trying" to do Taik... San... but he just appears very wobbly. None of the techniques are executed anything like the way I'd expect a style that would do that particular kata (I wouldnt expect too "soft" of a style to do those... but maybe they do, I am fairly ignorant on those kind of things) would execute them, particularly the soto uke (at least when we do it its a soto...)... seems rather exagerated and just different I spose... not even the punches look right. Everything looks a bit odd.

In our system we do the 1st and third taikyokus so this spurred me to look for vids on youtube of others doing it... In my search I found this guy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6N-dF9BX7Y and while I didnt look hard at all thats pretty much the only Taikyoku Sandan I found on youtube (I think it might be bundled in with all of the taikyokus in other vids though but I wasnt prepared to really look for it right now) Just curious if this is just a stylistic difference or if this guy just does one really weird and peculiar Taikyoku Sandan. I was laughing while watching but then realised that there are many systems out there that differ (My style is closely related to Shotokan, but at the same time isnt Shotokan)... I just didnt think it'd differ *that* much. Can anyone tell me what style he is doing though just so maybe I can get a better sence of why he does the moves the way he does?

I honestly dont know how many katas there are in my system, but I know there are about 23-24 up to Shodan. I dont know how many more there are per Dan level after you reach Shodan though. Oh and currently, I *technically* only know 2 ... but I was walked through my third the other day by a black belt "student", and while I know what technique/stances to do where in it, I havent been critiqued on it yet and I wont need to really know it anyway untill *after* I pass my next test.

Even though he might have a negative view of TKD I dont think that you should necessarily take what he said too much to heart. Though I guess it all depends on the type of person he is to begin with. One time there was a guest Sensei at our school and he had me doing some combinations of kicks I had never done before... and he joked a few times with me and said "We are not doing Capoeira here you know. " Cus while I also have fairly high kicks, because what I was doing was new to me, my balance had not quite caught up with the kicks so sometimes I'd be wabbling and flailing about. My situation and yours might be slightly different because I *knew* the Sensei was joking with me cus I myself knew that I was wabbling all over the place. If however you thought you were doing the technique exactly as you thought you were supposed to he may have very well just been commenting on how high your kicks were and this may not have been an insult even if he doesnt have a good oppinion of TKD... or you may have been doing the technique slightly off from the way you had been instructed and that might have been his way of "playing" with you to let you know to change it a bit. Either way, if it was a remark just on how high you can kick take it as a compliment, if it wasnt however, I'm sure he will fill you in on how to change it if it does require some adjustments. If you think you need to (you will know this better than us), then ask him how to make your kick better, but I have found with many of my questions (depending on the type of question) if I wait it out for a short time the answers will inadvertently be revealed right before I finally go to ask.

I dont think I ask that many questions to be honest.... but I do think I remember the post that you are talking about in that I would stupidly "question" the sensei as to what I was supposed to be doing or whatever. And these type of "questions" could never really be answered beforhand I dont think so I am not sure talking directly to me about the history of this or the other would fix that... they would be more about him correcting me in the middle of a technique and because I had/have so little understanding of the thing I'd do stupid things like start off with "b-but, if I did that then..." implying that I wasnt sure how it could work with the correction. Wasnt really a matter of a lot of questions. Was more of a matter of ignorance and every once in a while getting mixed up and whatever came into my head came pouring out of my mouth without filtering. I'm pretty sure I've fixed that for the most part a little while ago though (probably started right after making that initial post a few months ago ).... I hope I have anyway. I really do think I come off a lot more annoying in these forums than I'd like to think I am in real life. Lets just hope anyway

I'm sure this have probably bin covered over and over in here but I just figured I'd start a new post about it anyway. I've read articles etc that totally put down the whole use of Japanese terminology etc in the study of Karate (in english etc speaking countries) as I have also heard stuff like "It just wouldnt be Karate without them!!" I was just wondering what many posters in this forum feel about them.... if they care at all one way or the other even. Me personally? I kinda like the use of the Japanese terms for the techniques. I find that it gives you a lil bit of solidarity with other karatekas in that even if you dont speak the same language, if most/all people who studied Karate used the same terms, then at least some small level of understanding of what someone is talking about in reguards to training can be reached rather easily without much interpretation.... and other than that, being new to any of this kinda thing, I didnt really know the english terms for many of the techniques before anyway so its not that huge of a leap to learn the Japanese word along with the English at the same time. However I dont tend to like, (though have no issue with using them either) the etiquette words so much. Like Usu uss whatever it is or Hai, I'd typically rather just say yes or "I will try" or hello or whatever your interpretation is that that word is supposed to mean. When it comes to words other than techniques I use them because it is expected or wanted (though not pushed "too" hard) but not necessarily cus I like to. Oppinions?