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I am pretty sure I was told some time ago at our school that it is 1 in 1000 get to black belt.

Thank you everyone for your input. She and I have decided to give it another year and see. However, I will be giving her a lot more off days but trying to reinforce the basic skills in 10 minute quick reviews at home on some of the off days. Hopefully this will give her pride in her skills and help her regain her pride and enjoyment. Really as far as the peer pressure goes, I think it is a brown belt kid in her class that is making fun of her at school. Putting her down etc. The fact of the matter is, he isn't that good for being a brown belt and this is just him dealing with his insecurity. However the comments have lasting effects with others hearing them. Thanks again for the suggestions.

Some of the members here will recall that I started Karate with my daughter about 2 years ago. I had always been interested in it and used the excuse of my daughter wanting to join as an excuse to actually do it for myself. As it turns out I am kind of obsessed with it and enjoy my training very much, however my daughter is starting to loose her interest. She actually asked about quitting this year saying that she does not get to hang out with her friends because it seems karate is always what she is doing. She also mentioned that some kids at school have made fun of her for being into Karate. She is in Grade 6 and is just about to turn 11 years old. She started off doing very well at it. Was considered top in her class and won several tournaments at the gold-orange belt level, but as it got more demanding she seemed to want to give up. I have talked this issue over with some of the other parents and have gotten a few pieces of advice. - maybe look over the schedule and have more off days from karate (currently we wind up going on tues and thurs for regular classes and wed for tournament ones and the odd fri night for sparring). I am thinking my personal push to be better is putting too much of this on her. - maybe since she is finding it harder to be top in her class she is having lower self esteem issues as far as her karate skill and spending 15 minutes at home just going over the basics to bring her skill up outside of class will snowball into her being prouder of her skills and add to the enjoyment - don’t give her the option to quit, the general feeling is that she will regret it. I don’t know what to say to this idea. I don’t know of anyone that has quit MA and has said “quitting was the best thing I ever did”. Has anyone faced this with their children? Any words of advice? I really enjoy our Karate together.

I find that as I learn more Katas it harder to recall all the fine details in all of them. If I take a week or so off of practicing a kata I can wind up stumbling through them in class and wind up feeling silly. Really the key for me is regular review of the old ones while you are learning new ones. Otherwise lots of brain farts will happen. IMO I am finding this especially confusing now that we are learning some new Katas that have simular sequences in them.

The head of our dojo trained under Richard Kim at one time. From all I have heard mention of him in our dojo it has been good. I think knowing the qualifications of your Sensais is important for traditional MA, but a big factor should be if the dojo feels right to you.

Snapped some muscle fibers in near the top of my trapezious at back/base of skull. The pain hit like I was smacked with a baseball bat and brought me to the floor of the dojo immediately. It was so intense, I honestly thought I was about to die. Three months of physio and making some changes to my sleep position have fixed it but I am still very frightened that it might happen again.

My main reason for starting MA was because I was bored of going to a gym and my daughter was joining due to an interest in it. I have always been interested but this was a good excuse to start. I do like the fact I learn some practical fighting skills as well.

I have never seen colour transferred from a belt to a white gi. IMO the belt did not get the dye set properly when it was made.

We do not break any real wood in our dojo (that I have seen). We use the reusable plastic boards that simulate different thicknesses of wood. At first I thougth this whole board breaking thing was useless but now I think it does serve a few purposes. It shows you are committed to your strike and gives you feedback of just how powerful the hit is. Bags etc don't give you as much feedback except for the sound. It also helps you with knowing what part of your hand/foot you are actually making contact with. It helps build confidence in the effectiveness of your strikes.

The dojo I train at uses these drills at brown belt level. From what I see they are usefull drills for the reasons people have mentioned above.

I am trying to be less robotic when doing Kata as I try to learn my next tournament form (Psai Show). For Kumite speed and cobos. Need a lot of work here.

I do not know the origins of this Kata, but in our school we step back at the end, so you end where you start. I searched high (no pun intended) and low for this kata online and could not find anything. I found several others though.

People in general take exception to being told their MA sucks. Stating very bluntly to the forum that point sparring is useless is going to get a reaction just like saying style XYZ sucks. Then there is the fact that this debate has been discussed over and over. I myself don’t mind seeing this debate reopened only if more pros and cons can be discussed. The dojo I train at teaches both point sparring and a more aggressive system. Until you reach black belt harder hits to the head are not allowed just for safety reasons. The matches do not break if you might have scored a point but on the other hand trying to break someone’s nose, ribs, arm would be frowned upon. I think each system of sparring has it’s pluses and minuses. Sure point sparring is not real street fighting, but I do think it helps with reflexes, countering and pointing out your weaknesses when they do “score a point”. Just my 2 cents.

Thanks for the suggestion Red J.

I fight both left foot forward and right, but favour left forward (I am right handed) currently because I can unload a more powerful reverse punch, but this makes my more powerful right leg slow to deliver. I change a bit just to throw my opponent off but have found in tournies I do better in general left foot forward.

I think my bad posture is one of my biggest obstacles in my Katas. I tend to slouch in my desk at work and this has led me to hunch forward a bit too much even when I consciously fix it. What this seems to do is put my weight a bit off balance when I do a turn on my heels etc and this causes me to wobble needlessly. I have been working on fixing this but gee it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks.

Ok so what would you all recommend as a drink to help maintain energy before a belt test? They physically drive us into the ground and don't let us break for water usually so it needs to be something I can drink before the test and give me some energy.

My wife (gold belt) and eldest (10 yrs 0ld, purple belt) daugher are in MA as well Our youngest (3 yrs) sometimes comes to the dojo with us as well, but it is very hard to keep her from getting out on the training floor so we are currently avoiding this. When she was just learning her first words it was funny she knew how to count to 10 in Japanese from being at the dojo so much.

Good luck.

In our dojo for the summer months we are permitted to wear Tshirts of the colour of belt we are currently at. It is a lot more comfortable.

Welcome to the forums fellow Canadian!

In our dojo the things they first teach you seem useless but are key to understanding for later Katas and partially apply to sparring. If you dojo is anything like ours after a short while you should be getting into much better shape as well. In fact that is one of the main reasons I got into Karate. Welcome to the forums, BritNoob

Well had a tourney before the July one. Did ok. Dang the guy I beat pretty easily last time seems to have gotten wise to my combos and beat me this time. Gotta hit the heavy bag and work out some new moves.

I agree with Legion. Every week I spar, some nights I do better than others. Many always beat me, but I always think about the lessons learned and slowly get better. Generally, the higher belts do not try to slaughter the lower belts, but spar at a level that challenges the beginner yet does not leave him/her frustrated. I just keep thinking about: - what did I do better this week - what could I do better next week

I forgot to add that when I get the question of my belt level, people don't know if my level is high or low. I say I am about 1/3 of the way to Black and then they understand.