Montana

I guess if yoyu're running your school under the permission and support of your instructor, and without his assistance you aren't allowed to run a school...then I'd say he can charge you anything he likes. If that's all he's charging you, I'd say you're getting away pretty lucky.

If I asked you..."What do you drive?" And you replied "A car."..that's the same as you're learning "karate-do". Karate-do is a generic term for Japanese/Okinawan martial arts. Do you know what system of "karate-do" you're learning? (IE: Chevy, Ford, etc)

I wouldn't, unless approved by the head of the dojo in advance.

My thoughts exactly. I've had other instructors come into my dojo to learn as a student. I ask them to wear a white belt because they are white belts/beginners inb this system, therefore their blackbelts have no bearinbg in my class. I do allow them toline up with respect to their higher rank at the beginning and end of the class.

Agreed. To force your kids to participate in something they no longer have an interest in will just make them end up hating it. Let them decide what they want to do. If it's to leave class, then that's their choice. They might, or might not, decide they miss it down the road a ways. I agree with you both. Also, anything above 3rd or 2nd kyu should be a passionate martial artist who can hardly imagine life without it. Agreed, but the way I do it is when a student reaches 5th kyu I give them my standard "speech"..which consists of: "Now is the time to make the decisiion...do you want to take karate seriously and train even harder, because if not, then you might as well pack your gi and stay home. This is when I really expect you to start training hard."

Ummm..pardon me, but don't you mean 8 or 9 to one? Are we forgetting feet, knees, elbows and head butts? How about some good hip throws? Once you have relative control ofthe weapon you don't just want to stand there and gloat about it..you need to do something! Stomp his foot, knee his groin/stomach, short kick the sides of his knees, elbow into his elbows or head/face.

As one of those *ahem* seniors youre talking about, I personally would be a bit offended at being in a class with a bunch of oldies. Sure, I don't have the speed or power I had when I wwas in my 30's, but you know what? I beli8eve very strongly in the saying..."Age and treachery will overcome youth and skill." What I lack in speed and strength at my ripe old age of 58, I make up in experience and craftiness.

Agreed. To force your kids to participate in something they no longer have an interest in will just make them end up hating it. Let them decide what they want to do. If it's to leave class, then that's their choice. They might, or might not, decide they miss it down the road a ways.

I've been teaching for quite a while, and one thing I discovered early on was if you want to get a woman mad, pat her on the head during sparring. It's a good way to get a new female student that is afraid to spar the very first time angry enough to start attacking you!

I can see little aprehension with a technique perhaps, but fear? No. If you are experiencing fear after 3 years of doing the art, then I'd say something's terribly wrong and you need to address that fear and come to grips with it, or take up basket weaving instead. If you have fear inside the dojo, then you can fully expect to have that same fear, if not greater, in a street confrontation. I have a screwed up back and have to be careful when practicing. Rolls, breakfalls and hard kicks with my right leg can cause my back to "pop", and that's not a good thing. Do I fear the techniques? Not at all, but because I have limitations and I know what they are, I use caution and do my best to compensate for them.

Trapping techniques are geared more for self-defense rather than sport fighting. In a self-defense situation you're "generally" fighting an unskilled opponent, or at least one that has little or no martial arts skills, so the traps are much more of a surprise effective than against a trained opponent.

Definitely TKD, and in my opinion, a total rip off! What good woudl a degree from this "university" do you other than give you a piece of paper to hang on your wall? Interesting that I didn't find anywhere on the site about the cost of the program. Sorry, I'd say total rip off.

What style do you train in? Shorin Ryu Matsumura Kenpo/Orthodox What rank are you? Yondan (4th Dan) How many day and times a day do you train? Since my back injury forced me to quit teaching, I train a couple of days/week at the local YMCA and run thru my karate kata and basics a couple of times/week....carefully! [/b]

First of all, any training for a gun defense is better than none. I use a .22, .357 revolver or 9mm semi-auto in our gun defense training. I remove the cylinder on the revolvers, and magazine on the 9mm and make darn sure myself and at least one other gun oriented person in the room verifies it is empty before use. I teach small classes so it's easy to watch everyone go thru their techniques.

What you call "getting off the line", we call change of body, or body shifting. Essentially the same thing. We practice it extensively right from the beginning of training (white belt) and it is a core principle of our art. When you get really good at it, you end up behind your attacker.

Here's my $.02 worth. As I understand it, the first organized system of karate that was developed on Okinawa was Okinawan Te, which is still being taught out there, but not to a great extent. From Okinawan Te, karate started branching out to sub-systems, the first being Okinawan Shorin Ryu Matsumura Seito/Orthodox as taught by Soken Matsumura. This system is still very much alive and being taught. There are offshoots of this system as well, but many people in the Shorin Ryu Matsumura Seito/Orthodox community are striving to not only preserve the art, but to regress backwards to the old methods of doing the art as opposed to going the way most arts are going, and that is the "new and improved" karate.

Edit out the movements? NO! Modify the movments to accomidate being overweight or "old" (I'm 58 and still do kata just fine)...maybe.

Maybe 20 years ago or so a father brought his 13 year old son into my class and asked how quickly I could teach him to defend himself. I looked at the boy and he had stiches over one eye (which was black and blue), and stiches on his upper lip. Worst of all, one of his top front teeth was missing. The father stated his son was being bullied at a private "Christian" school in town and the faculty wouldn't do a thing about it. The father said he took his son to a top notch Aikido sensei in town first, but was referred to me by that sensei for faster learning for self-defense. I accepted the boy as my student and he worked hard, learned fast and everybody was happy. I made sure the father and son understood my #1 rule, and that was that "No student of mine will start a fight, whether physically or verbally, and remain as my student." About 6 weeks later the father and son came into my dojo for the son's lesson and they were bouncing off the walls with excitement and pride. I asked them what was happening and the father told me the bully picked a fight with his son again that day and his son had turned to walk away as to not engage in a fight. The bully then turned his attention on a much younger and smaller student, and the boy turned and said "Leave him alone!" and the fight was on! Long story short, my student cleaned the bully's clock quickly, and efficiently, and did no more damage than was necessary to stop the bully's agression. The father was called to the school and the son was suspended for 3 days. Both the father and the son were happy as can be andtook the suspension in stride. I was very proud of my student for going to the aid of another and he remained in my class for several years afterwards. For me, that's what the arts are all about.

What you're describing is exactly what I'm used to seeing in tournaments for the most part. Good, solid techniques! To many American tournaments I suspect, are going the way of flash over substance. I don't like it, and refuse to support or condone it. If as instructor wants to "play" at martial arts, that is his choice, but for me the martial arts are all about reality and effectiveness.

I woke up this morning, rolled over and felt for a pulse...ahhh...made it to another day! Hey, at this point, that's pretty good! Well ok. I walked my 3 horses 1/4 of a mile to pasture. Sound easy? Have you ever walked 3 horses, weighing 1000-1200 lbs EACH, that are hungry and know they are going for food? It's like holding back a truck that's in drive with nobody at the wheel. WHOA BABY!!! lol That's a pretty good workout in itself!

EXCELLENT!

Well, I was 23 when I started training in Shorin Ryu back in 1975, and I'm still at it. So yes, go for it!

About 20 years ago I bought 4 heavyweight gi's from Century Martial Arts. At that time they cost around $60 each as I recall, and I'm still wearing them. I rotate these gi's around so no one of these gi's gets used exclusively, and I'll be they last the rest of my martial arts life! Sure, they're stiff (they'll stand on their own when they're new) at first, but wash them with fabric softner and toss a tennis shoe in the dryer with them, and they're not bad. They wear like iron and for me, are perfect!

I attended a local tournament last weekend as a spectator, my first in about 6 years since my back problems forced my retirement from the arts, or teaching anyway. The tournament was hosted by a local "for profit" school, and basically I can sum up the entire days as...I wasn't impressed! The tournament itself was run efficiently and well I thought, but I was shocked, appaled and dismayed by the level of competency I was seeing from the competitors. Probably around 2/3 of the competuitors were from the school that hosted the event and darn near 3/4 of them were black belts. They must have had at least a dozen kids ages 8-12 running around with black belts, which is one of my pet peeves about some arts. Regardless, I have never seen, in my nearly 30 years of judging tournaments, such pathetic examples of "black belts", or martial arts in general, in my life! Oh sure, there were a few that were pretty good, but the vast majority of them were weak, slow and just plain sloppy in both empty hand and weapons kata. Sparring was...well, sparring. The first thing I noticed when I got to the tournament was all of these people running around with light weight, aluminum bo's (staffs) that screwed together at the middle like a pool cue stick. I asked one of the competitors if I could see their weapon, and it was so light it felt like nothing in my hand. I'm used to a 6' hardwood (usually oak) bo. There were also a lot of people with aluminum kama, which again I asked someone if I could look at. Talk about flimsy, lightweight JUNK! One adult black belt competed with plastic..yes, I said plastic, sai's! ACK!!! So, on to the actual competition. About 95% ofthe competitors at this tournament, both in empty hand and weapons kata, weren't worth watching in my opinion. Flash, back flips, twirls, cartwheels and basically, terrible techniqes designed for flash, not effectiveness. It's probably a good thing I didn't attend as a judge because I would have left within the first hour out of disgust. Is this what tournaments are evolving into now? Flash over substance? I sure hope not!

One thing I did was make a phone call to 752-7283 to see if anybody had that phone number already. Why you ask? Well, in Montana, where I was at the time, and in Flathead county (yes, that's really the name of the county), the vehicle license plates started with a 7 (ex: 7-12345), so if you spell out that phone number using letters from your phone, it spelled... drum roll please.... 7-KARATE! An easy way for people to remember your number I thought. I lucked out and the number was available. Don't try calling it now as I haven't had that number in almost 20 years.