KU

I think it should be up to the instructor if he/she pays or not, if the dojo is in financial trouble then everyone needs to help out but if it’s making a healthy profit then a person that spends more time teaching then learning probably shouldn’t pay fees especially if that money is going straight in someone else’s pocket.

"There are many roads up the mountain but the veiw at the top is always the same"

If your looking for fast effective self defense knockouts simple is always best, a palm heal strike to the forehead along with all the strength, adrenaline and vocal spirit you can muster is a sure fire way to knockout ever the biggest aggressor.

Yes, monkeygirl I think the exercise you are trying to describe sounds something like one that I have encountered known as double push hands it’s kinda half way between push hands and sticking hands. All of these are simply exercises that help a person feel what there opponent it up to, if practiced regularly they can become a very effective tool.

Thanks everyone for the welcome!! Yes Jhon G, Aussie Aussie Aussie oy oy oy!!

Don't worry if you lost in a competition i't's not the end of the wourld. Just take it as a bit of experiance if you were to continue your training you may win next time and if you don't then winning isn't everything. You can't expect to win with a limited experiance, seven times down eight time up!!

Everyone has to start somewhere mate!!

My favorite would have to be shuto suekatsu uchi kome (I hope I spelt that right), which in English is the reverse driving knife hand thrust. I know it has a long name and everyone will probably think I’m a toss for picking such an exotic technique but I just love this technique it is fantastic to practice it has such an awesome snap on the end. I wouldn’t however, use this technique in kumite very often as it is difficult to execute. My favorite kumite techniques are nice and simple kisami tsuki (jab) and gyaku tsuki (reverse punch), simple but very effective.

I can fully understand what you mean I was the same myself however, in recent years my skepticism has given way to (I my opinion) some overwhelming experiences, things that I cannot dispute. So I have now stopped analyzing everything I can’t explain using science, this leaves me a lot more open minded. Needless to say I believe chi to be very real but I can see how people could think it’s not, it’s something you have to experience for yourself.

Good luck mate!! "Dan grade is just the beginning"

If you mean to get really serious than this decision needs to be made by you, it needs to be an informed choice yes but not too influenced from the outside. Any of the three you named can be very rewarding, try a few lessons in each you will know the one that’s right for you. Don’t pick the one that you have been told is good pick the one you feel is good, you’re the one who will be doing the training not anyone else

How true, the Kancho in a dojo is one of the most important things, someone who can teach his students to be better at the art than he is. My kancho loves it if I or one of the other students manage to get one in on him in sparring. The students in a dojo are also very important, I think a group of likeminded people is needed to make a dojo a fantastic place to train.

I think the destination can be equally important but it doesn't necessarily need to be predetermined. My short and long term goal is the same, simply to enjoy my training and to put everything I have into it. “There are many roads up the mountain but the view at the top is always the same”

Your height shouldn’t matter it just means your adaptation to each technique will be different, it will also determine how you fight as some techniques will work better for you than others. As for having short legs I can’t see how it would be a disadvantage having short legs should make you a faster kicker and if you have strong legs it would make for quite an advantage to have fast strong kicks. Also if the shortness of your legs means that you can kick as high that’s not a disadvantage either, a solid kick to the knee is just as effective as one to the head.

I know exactly what you are talking about, the feeling is impossible to discribe but you know it when it happens. It can sometimes make you feel insignificant as you can feel that there is something much grater than you (no I'm not talking about god!!).

I don't think the time between kyu grades is so important it is more dependant on individual ability. Differnt MA's have a different number of kyu grades for example we have 6, so the time between each grade will be longer than a style with 10. I thing the more important time frame is how long between starting the MA and sitting for a shodan. For most karate styles this should be at least 5 years (depending on how offten you train). So for my style the kyu grade are spread evenly over about 4 years leaving 1 year between ikkyu and shodan.

One would hope that by the time a person has reached black belt they should know there stuff, if not the dan grade test in the dojo at which they got there grade isn't hard enough and doesn't fully test there ability. Our dojo consists of 12 dan grades that still consistantly train however, life is what gets in the way when you are trying to train consistantly so this number isn't always this high. Our dan grade loyalty to training is if you can make it you will.

Thanks for the warning!!

How true a dojo isn’t any different to any other group of people striving for a common goal. And as for being crazy well we are no crazier than a base jumper or a sky diver. We are different, well of course we are unlike everyone else in the world we all love our martial arts, this doesn’t make us better or worse just different in our interests and dedications. We see MA’s to be a way of life but that can be said about a lot of things (try telling an Olympic swimmer that swimming isn’t a way of life for them). After reading over all of the above posts I feel very happy , hearing that so many dojos have such a sense of mateship and a willingness to help each other learn, I have seen many a dojo where ego gets involved and so many so called secrets get withheld. Fantastic good to see the standard is staying high.

I love tattoos, they can say so much, I plan to get my whole back done when I get the cash$$$ I only have one so far but once I got it I couldn’t wait to get another.

Thanks for this link, the katas on this site are quite good in comparison to some of the stuff that gets put on the net, it has almost all the major katas. Arigato!! I must say however, that I don't think it is a good idea to learn a kata entierly from the net you should also use the guidance of your sensai so you can learn the subtleties of the kata. Videos and books should only be use as a guide, also ask your sensai if he thinks your ready to learn these katas there is a reason they are high grade major katas.

Some people have said that you souldn't do karate just to learn how to fight, well that depends on what you mean by fight. If by fight you mean that you want to defend your pride when someone gives you a bit of lip in a pub than the fighting side of karate is quite useful for that. If by fighting however, you mean to defend your self or loved one's when there is no other option than do a self defence course. If my life is being threatened I don't want to use some flash karate move that only works 9 out of 10 times because that one time that it doesn't work might be this time and I could end up dead. I would rather use pure self defence in which case I know in practice I have never not had it work. So then you might ask why do karate at all, well I think that it should be learnt so that you know how not to fight, how not to put your self in a situation where you need to use it. Once you have done karate for an extended period you will find you don't need to fight to maintain your pride, if someone gives you some lip in a bar offer to buy them a drink as they are probably drunk anyway and they'll feel pretty stupid wanting to fight someone who just bought em a drink. People need to learn how to defuse a situation without there fists, there is no need to spray around your testosterone and show how big you are. Simply swallow your pride and forget it.

My gi is made by a company called 5B the gi is called a 5B max however as I said before it isn't of the highest quality as it made from seconds canvas. I also don't know if they still make them.

What kind of gi you ware is a very personal thing and you shuold really look into what your buying if your going to buy a really expencive gi. It is hard to see the quality of a gi in a cataloge so I like the see what I'm buying in real life before I get it. I have owned many gi's from very light to very heavy cotton and I say the heavyer the better my current gi could be compared to a truck tarp, its 20 oz cotton and I love it, it just maks you work harder for every technique. The only problem is that it's not a very high quality gi (well I didn't pay much for it) so I'm currently looking for another but I'm finding it hard to find places whithin Australia that sell very heavy high quality gi's.

Hey everyone, while wasting away my day off I came across this interesting site and after spending quite some time reading some of the posts I decided to get in on the fun. I practice many martial arts but for the most part Karate is where my loyalties lie. Hope to have some interesting chats with all the members, I will apolagise in advance if I take a while to reply to any given message as I don't spend a lot of time on the net. Gubutte ne!!!!!