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Well kids in our dojo do not get as much focus on the Bunkai of Kata and a lot of the secrets of MA. Of course even for adults a lot of this is left until you are a full black belt. Kids are not able to get a full black belt in our dojo until I think the age of 16. Now I believe Karate is great for kids, at least the way it is taught at our dojo. I think it helps with focus, self confidence, fitness to name a few areas. Not to mention that kids seem to learn this stuff super quickly. As you get older it gets slower (from what I have seen and been told). It takes me a long time to learn a new kata, while my daughter (11 going on 16 lol) learns the basics of it after seeing it about twice.

Has anyone been watching Fight School? Here in Canada it is on at 9:00pm on Sat nights on Men TV. It is interesting. Students from many different MA diciplines compete doing different seemingly traditional training exercises and then two students must spar and the looser is eliminated each week. I find it interesting.

Well I personally don't think you can effectively learn MA from a book or series of books. Learning MA is an interactive thing. You can go through the motions of techniques and Kata but until a Master has looked at the way you are doing it and works with you to fix any problems, it is only half of the MA. Just my 2 cents.

I have been told that in the school I train at you have to spar 1 then 2 then 3 then 4 opponents at the same time. I do not know how long the rounds are but I do know it is for real and no one is taking it easy on you.

I have an Arawaza Sapphire and love it. Lots of snap fits nice.

I take a high potency multi-vitamin (Quest Premium or Maximum), a vitamin E and C every morning with breakfast.

Well I have had my share of injuries and yes likely due to my age. So far two broken toes, a snapped tendon in my neck and a broken rib. I did not really take any time off training for any of these injuries. Ok the neck one I took a week off and as I said I took it down a notch and the rib I am off sparring for a while. However, that being said, you need to look at the type of injury and decide if you are going to make it worse by training. Broken toes are very common and in many cases you can figures ways to work around them. (as I see you have posted about) My ribs were a bit difficult. I have a hard time slowing down the moves in class and did hurt it again when twisting etc, but nothing very serious. I discussed the risks of each injury with my doctor and senseis and worked out a way to not take time off.

Well my daughter does not complain about this kind of protector other than it is a bit of work to pull on. One of the main reasons this type of protector was suggested by Sensei was that her breasts are just starting to develop and are apt to be sensitive. A regular chest protector does not offer the same protection in this way and he said she would become overly protective of her chest if she used the traditional one. However a draw back was that the cup size of the protector would be some where around a B and suddenly she has hard fake breasts when wearing it. No one has made fun of this that I know of, but then again they are very common in our dojo.

I started at 40. A good number seem to start at around 40 in our dojo. Sure not as many as the teens, but I think it is for simular reasons as I did. It is something I always wanted to do, but finally did something about it. It takes me longer to learn new Kata and I am not as fast as the young'ens but I make up for this by working at it hard.

In the dojo I train at the standard kiai sounds like "us". We are allowed to change it if we want to and I would like to change it to something like "hai" but I find it very hard to teach myself to change.

The dojo I train at promotes competing. Saying it helps students focus on the fine details of kata, kumite etc and I would tend to agree. It was not so long ago that Kyoshi made it a requirement of all our brown belts to win 3rd or better in kata, kumite and weapons before they would be allowed to advance. This was to force them to bring the standards to a higher level. I would have to say it seemed to work. However one student quit over this.

The one my daughter uses uses a kind of sports bra to hold it in place. This is the only type our dojo uses.

We never wear chest protectors in tournaments, but these are point sparring events. 2 weeks ago or so I did not wear my chest protector for sparring in class. Most of the senior students did not seem to wear it and it is definately restrictive. I felt my skill had gotten to the level where I could block or deflect most shots to my body good enough so, why bother? Well I now have a broken rib. The person I was sparring kneed me to the same rib twice (a move I was not expecting since it is forbidden in our sparring classes). I got in trouble for not wearing saying at my age bones break and don't heal. I too would like a less bulky chest protector. I feel like the michlen man wearing it. Mine is a Budo World one.

Last year at about this time I broke two toes. One on each foot. Kind of painful but not so bad. About 6 months ago I snapped a tendon in my neck at the base of my skull. That was the worst pain I have felt in my life. However it healed and now it only bugs me a bit from time to time. I am not convinced this is a MA injury but a flaw that just snapped when we were in class. Two nights ago I think I got a rib broken. In sparring I took two hard knee shots to the ribs (forbidden in our style of sparring btw). I did not go to the doc about it yet because on line it says there is nothing that the hospital will do about it. They will just say take it easy and let it heal either way. It hurts to breath deeply, and really hurts when I cough or sneeze. Certain movements also hurt very bad. I will not be taking time off for this last injury. I need some hours and practice time before my belt test in about 3 weeks (green belt). I however will not be going back to spar until after the new year to give my rib a chance to heal. Al

I broke two toes last year and continued to train. I taped the broken ones to the toe beside it and admit I took it down a notch to make sure I did not injure it again.

I have been going for Karate training now for 2+ years and I still feel faint when we do a heavy workout. This can include 3 sets of: 25 (or more) squats with 10 lb weight swung up and down 25 (or more) lunges with 10 lb weight behind head 25 (or more) situps with 10 lb weight on chest All this after doing the usual pushups, leg raises etc. It does get easier with time, but I still feel light headed and sometimes my vision fades a bit.

We do both, very traditional and tournament. Our tournaments only have traditional katas, so it is only an extension of what we learn in class.

We just had a talk about this in our dojo. Not your style but we do call it a Uchi Deshi.

I started because I was interested in it generally, but it was to give me physical exercise with a purpose. Pushing weights etc in a gym is all fine, but if I am going to do exercise I figure why not get some practical benefits from it. IE self defense, better focus, self dicipline etc.

I don't think you need a special diet unless you are trying to loose weight. Of course for optimum health it is best to have a healthy diet but I don't think this is MA specific.

I recently got a Kamikaze Arawaza Sapphire gi and so far I really like it. It is 12 oz and goes for about 106 US (160 cdn) online. They call this a middle weight gi. I wanted a better one due to wanting it to be 100% cotton to breath better and to have a better tournament Gi. I cannot say how well it will last because I have only had it for 1 week. It certainly adds a snap sound when I do kata now.

I missed that this injury did not have to happen in MA. Then this by far was the most painful. In my mid teens I was horsing around with some friends and in trying to get out of the reach of a guy that was trying to grab me I turned and ran just as I noticed a fire hydrant, so I tried to leap frog over it and did not make it. The point on the top connected with my private area dead on with my full weight coming down. It was 20 minutes before I could get off the ground. I honestly felt like I would rather have been shot and put out of my misery. Yes I was still able to have kids when I grew up.

My favorite currently is Passai Show.

I train 3 to 5 times a week, depending on schedule and how much my wife gets upset about me spending too much time in the dojo.

In our dojo males and females are expected to do full proper pushups. When we first start doing them, they don't expect you to be able to do 40 or 50, but want you to do as many proper ones as you can and always challenge yourself to do more. "girl pushups" just don't give you enough resistance to gain the expected strength IMO. When I started I could only do about 5 or so pushups. Now even when pretty tired I can do lots of them in a row.