Montana

I country Western dance, own/ride horses, shoot guns, work with developementally/physically disabled adults, open doors for ladies and the elderly, I am polite to everybody regardless of age, sex, religion, or anything else, and most people call me a pretty nice guy (kills it with the ladies though )

To student 'A': Shut up and train!! To student 'B': Shut up and train!! Student 'A'...just who promoted that student to a position that he/she doesn't possess?? Student 'B'...I will not force a student to test! Test...don't test...it's all good to me!! And when student 'B' is ready, I'll be here...whether it's sooner or later!! For student A, my answer is similar. They don't dictate when they test. For student B, it depends on their "why" & their rank. If they are holding back to have a chance to win tournaments, we'd be having a chat about ethics. If they just don't want to, it depends on their present rank & for how long they are there. If someone is 4th Dan. Runs their own school under me. But hasn't tested for 20 years, we'd be having a chat because at that point, that student is affecting his/her student's ability to promote, as well. Just an example. If using your example of a 4th Dan haven't graded for 20 years, why would they have not gone and attempted a grading in that time? I know many 4th and 5th Dans that haven't graded for that length of time because they are content at that rank and have no desire to be promoted to a much higher grade. What if that 4th Dan who hasn't graded has continually trained under their instructor and other instructors during that time, has the knowledge and expertise of say an 8th Dan but just hasn't been given that rank and the ranks in between? and he has graded students to 4th dan. Because IMHO rank is just a piece of clothing that keeps your pants up. And at the end of the day students acknowledge that knowledge is the main thing. I know about a Nidan that hasn't tested in close to 30 years...and this Nidan is quite content with that; I can admire and respect that. This Nidan has the knowledge and experience of a Dan rank way much higher than current rank. This Nidan has no desire to ever test! Why? A sign of respect to his Sensei who passed away shortly after this Nidan received his Nidan!! Very admirable indeed. I'm sorry you were forced against your will due to politics. To the bold type above... Is this question directed to me? Yes, didn't you say you were forced to get Kudan in due part to being Kaicho Thanks, The Pred!! Forced...that's a strong word, but, I suppose that that's an accurate statement!! I hate the things that lead up to it, and that's one of the reasons as to why I hate my Kudan with a passion!! Apparently quoting the ENTIRE thread with each post seems to be "the thing" for this thread, guess I will too! I hate being left out! Anywy, I test a student when they are ready and I know they will pass..PERIOD! If they have questions as to why they aren't being tested, I will tell them. If they tell me they are ready, I will tell them why, or why not they will be tested. End of discussion.

Uhhh..you're asking this on a martial arts forum? Try Googling it...

Similar situation, different outcome. In 1985 my father passed away and I had to take care of his affairs. I took a break from sorting through his house and deciding what to do with 70 years of "stuff", and went downtown to a favorite bar of minbe to have a beer and relax a bit. About an hour later as I was walking thru the parking lot towards my car I pass by the dtrivers side of a parked car facing the same way I was going. The window rolled quickly down and the driver spit out of it, nearly hitting my leg. I said "Nice try, better luck next time." and continued walking. The doors of the car opened and 3 college age men got out of it and lined up in front of me (Moe, Larry and Curly) Words were exchanged whem Moe decided to cock his arm back and lunge at me. I hit him once hard in the nose and he went down. Larry came at me next and a front snap kick to his stomach doubled him over. I looked at Curly like.."Well, whatcha gonna do?"..and he put up his hands in a obvious "Not me!" gesture. Fight over. I fully realize that running away is a common practice taught by many sensei, and I do also, but for me anyway, I don't like to run. I did enough of that as a kid and unless s the odds are overwhelming, or the outcome of the fight is in doubt, I will stand and fight.

I've posted thsi story before on this forum (can't remembert where though lol) about a 18 year old TKD black belt by the name of Brandon Bennet.. Brandon was the #1 ranked BB sparring champion in the Northwestern US at the time (WA, MT, OR, ID..maybe more) He was tall, fast, accurate and had really good sparring skills....and still in high school!!! On the last day of school his senior year, he accepted a challenge from another 18 year old kid that had been bugging him for YEARS to fight him. The other kid had 1 YEAR of boxing, Brandon had been training for at least 8 years in TKD! They met in an alley off the school grounds and had their fight. From what Brandon told me, he never laid a hand on the other kid, and ended up with 2 black eyes, bloody nose and split lip before he conceeded the fight. The next day he went to his dojo, dropped his black belt on the dojo floor in front of his instructor and said "I quit", and has, as far as I know, never touched the arts again. Moral of the story is this..just because you can win trophies in a tournament doesn't man you can protect yourself in a real fight.

You need to talk to physician IMMEDITELY! It sounds like a heart issue to me..not pumping fast enough for your activity. My wife has similar issues and it's a valve in her heart.

What I ALWAYS stressed in my classes when dealing with gun/knife defense is this..If the guy just wants your wallet, car, cell or whatever..just GIVE IT TO HIM! Your life is worth MORE than whatever amout of money (or whatever) than what you have! However, if the guy is intent on killing you, then you'd better do something!

It works great I think. The real pistol has weight, feel and is just plain REAL that a water, wood or plastic pistol doesn't have, plus dropping the hammer adds a sense of realism to the practice. You can pretty well tell if you were going to get hit or not.

A water pistol is to slow, I used a real .22 cal revolver I had. You can pretty much tell if you were going to get shot or not when the hammer falls.

I've had many AHA monents in my MA life, but I think the first, and biggest one was when body shifting/change of body finally started clicking for me in the middle of a class I was teaching at the local high school. I don't know why, but suddenly it all made sense and started working. My mind opened up to it and I saw all sorts of possabilities and uses for it. I was a Shodan/1st dan at the time with about 9 years in the arts. I had been on my own without a sensei for around 6 years at the time, and had some videos that were given to me by Sensei Ron Lindsey from Texas that helped me TREMENDOUSLY to advance my training.

I consider myself a traditional "purist", inb the sense that I think my chosen art works just fine the way it is and really doesn't need to be messed with and changed....much. With that in mind, I hve incorporated a little Aikido into my Okinawan Tuite, such as the front roll Aikido uses is IMO better and safer than the front roll that I learned from my sensei. Otherwise, I don't think it's a good idea to train in 2 or more different systems and use techniques from both, because you lose the essense of each system as you pass it down to others eventually. I do however, think there are quite a few systems out there that NEED to cross train in other systems, as they have many weaknesses which will get people hurt because they have no training in specific defenses. I won't name systems, but I've seen many dojos that don't teach effective defenses against grabs for example, or how to move their bodies out of the way of an attack. Not to mention the absolutely rediculous, and horrible weapons techniques that are so prevalent now days. My opinion of course.

My origional sensei trained on Okinawa in the 1970's, he told me that challenges did happen now and then, but rarely.

I had 2 guys come to my dojo, which was in the basement of my HOME, to "watch" my class back in the 1980's. About halfway thru the class one of them asks if he can fight me. I told him if he wanted to signup/join the class, then yes, we would be sparring often. He stated he wanted to fight NOW, not later, and had no interest in joining my class. I politely told him no, I didn't spar with people off the street just because they wanted me to. He said..."Chicken?" I replied no, that I didn't spar for fun and the entertainment of others, but with my students and other martial artists when the situation warrented it. He became more verbally aggressive so I went over to the door, closed it and locked it. I told one of my students to standby the phone on the wall and be ready to call an ambulance. The other guy said "An ambulance? Why?" I advised him that he walked into my dojo/home and is physically threatening me in front of witnesses, and he either needed to leave immediately, or yes, we would be fighting NO RULES, and one of us was going to need an ambulance. He started sputtering and backpeddling verbally about how he just wanted to spar with me and see if he could beat me. I told him leave now, or start fighting, and I assumed a fighting stance. He and his friend went out the door and haven't seen them since.,

Exactly! The key thing here is not to over react. If somebody throws a drink in your face, don't beat them into a bloody pile! Sure, you feel like it, but a normal backhand across his face would be sufficient. If it escalates to his attacking you beyond that, use no more than appropriate force to stop his aggression! That's what the law will look at. Using EXCESSIVE force, more than needed, is what you need to be careful of.

Rediculous IMO. Waste of money.

The only MA "celebrity" I've ever met was Ed Parker, about a year before he died.

I've used it in a SD situation maybe 8-10 times. Some were in defense of myself, but most were in defense of others. Whether skill, or luck, none of the attackers landed a blow on myself, and I either defeated them, or disuaded them into pursuing more aggression towards myself, or others.

Speed and reaction time..both come from practice. pracitice..and then more practice!

My personal opinion is..any dojo that says they are teaching Ninjutsu, RUN, don't walk, the other direction! I'm older than a lot of you on this forum and have been involved in the arts since 1975. I saw the Ninja craze of the late 1970's-1980's, including Stephen Hayes rise to American Ninja prominence. Mr. Hayes claimed back then to have visited Japan solely for the purpose of learning the secret art of Ninjutsu. He supposedly asked around and followed leads here and there until one day running into a Ninjutsu Grand Master that agreed to teach him. Stop and think about it people..Ninjutsu is a system that was so secret, the Japanese government outlawed it with the penalty of DEATH to anyone caught practising it! It remained largely forgotten and reached the status of "mythical", but along comes Mr. Hayes, an American, finds a Grand Master of it by just asking around, and is taught all the secrets??? I'm sorry, but I doubt it. Black Belt Mag had hundreds of articles about Ninjutsu and Stephen Hayes in the 80's. Anybody with half a gram of common sense would have looked at the techdniques that were displayed there and laughed. I had the opportunity to ask the head of my system in 1978, Sensei Kuda Yuichi from Okinawa, what he thought about Ninjutsu and whether it was authentic or not. He rolled his eyes, made a "Harumph" sound and basically flew it off as a joke.

I know of a couple of instructors that quit teaching because they became disillusioned with their system. It failed them when they were faced with a real life self-defense situation, or even after multiple black belts they felt that the system hadn't prepared them for the real life world of survivng a fight.

After 30+ years in the arts, 27 of it teaching, I quit cold turkey. I have arthritis in both knees and a screwed up back that likes to make a loud "popping" sound when I kick hard with my right leg, causing my legs to go weak and falling to the floor in pain. It became a choice between teaching karate, or possibly not walking. Hmmmm..tough choice! lol

I lived in Northwestern Montana for many years, which is in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. It's pretty "isolated"..lol. I loved it and trained ouytside whenever possible. OK...OK...not like YOU mean

Well, this is just my opinion of course, but your sensei should have known what you were made of LONG before you tested for a black belt. I often wonder if there are instructors out there that never see their students...it sounds that way sometimes. Personally, and I told my students this often, "I know what you can do BETTER than you do."

And this is exactly why, or one of the reasons anyway, I love Shorin Ryu so much! It's not on every street corner, and isn't normally as commercialized as a lot of systems are. And it's real!

Why were they so short? I'm curious because every BB Grading I've ever seen or heard of has always lasted in excess of 3/4 hours to multiple days. My first and 3rd BB tests were in front of Sensei Kuda Yuichi, head of the system. Our class had been working with him for several weeks and one day he called each person, including my sensei, to come up and run thru a kata or two, and show a technique or two, then sit down as he called the next in line to do the same. After class was over we were told that we had just tested. We didn't know at the time. My 2nd Dan test was with a 6th Dan in Minnesota, and again he didn't tell me he ws testing me. We were just working out and he was showing me soem things, then afterwards told me he was promoting me to Nidan (2nd Dan). My 4th Dan was via videotape to my 6th Dan sensei that lives on the East coast. He'd asked me to tape my kata, basics and my class and send it to him. A few weeks later he sent me my 4th Dan in the mail. Again, I didn't realize there was a promotion forthcoming. We test differently than most systems, and there's not a lot of emphasis or whoopla on testing. Tests/belts come when they come, especially in the dan levels. Basically, we are tested at each class, and that's what I did with my students. I want your best EVERY class, not just during a test.