marmaduke

I just found this thread. I'd like to offer my 2 Cents. And a few questions. The black belt is irrelevant? I don't think so. Would he have attacked the robber if he was NOT a black belt? Would he have had the same confidence? The fact that he was a black belt was probably a contributing factor to the robbers death.

Between my son and myself... Colecovision with an Atari 2600 adapter Gameboy Color Gameboy Advance Gamecube with the gameboy adapters PS2 PSP and....

Lets see. The girl did her Kata and it was approx. 3 minutes long. very complicated, very involved. My son did his for about 45 seconds. Didn't even move from his spot. Lets just say it was very boring. Basai Dia or Giam would have been more appropriate for him. Plus he knows one that is approx 5 minute long that I can't begin to pronounce. (I always call it Chunking KungFu) This one would have put her to shame. Does he do it? N-o-o-o. Besides, Judges like long complicated Kata's from Black belts. p.s. He did TekkiShodan. As far as I'm concerned, that was beneath him.

Lets see. The girl did her Kata and it was approx. 3 minutes long. very complicated, very involved. My son did his for about 45 seconds. Didn't even move from his spot. Lets just say it was very boring. Basai Dia or Giam would have been more appropriate for him. Plus he knows one that is approx 5 minute long that I can't begin to pronounce. (I always call it Chunking KungFu) This one would have put her to shame. Does he do it? N-o-o-o. Besides, Judges like long complicated Kata's from Black belts.

My son is 17, the girl is 19. They were the only two that signed up for Kata. Even though they were together, according to the judge, they were supposed to be judged according to their rank. How well they do their Kata according to their rank.

I could not believe it! My sons Dojo had a tournament Saturday. My son (Black Belt) was matched up with a Purple belt. He won the coin toss, let the girl go first. She did this long Tia Chi Kata that took several minutes. then my son comes up and does this tiny Yellow belt Kata that must have taken 45 seconds! One of the judges couldn't believe it either. He sat there watching a fly on the wall. didn't know what to say. I left and sat in the car for the rest of the tournament. When It finally ended, I asked him why he threw the match. All I got was a lot of yelling that he didn't. Other than the fact that he likes this girl, I can't believe he would throw a match for that.

I had it happen to my son several times. First school he was at, he got as far as Blue Belt before we started having problems with the instructor. As soon as the contract expired, we left and went to another Dojo (Luckly it was the same style). Everytime he goes to one state tournament, the instructor from the first school is always there judging the events. Whenever my son gets her for a judge, you can be guaranteed he gets the lowest score. Even though the other judges give him higher scores. And the reverse can be said about her students. No matter how badly they do a Kata, she always ranks them high. With the amount of judges just walking around, they should be able to find judges who are not related to the students for fair judging.

If you're on prescriptions, and you take the medicine once a day, ask your doctor if he'll give you a prescription for twice a day. Then your medicine will last for 2 months and you'll only pay half the amount for the year. I also told my doctor about my financial problems and he gave me 6 months of prescription samples for free. One good thing, my son got his Black Belt December 16. since then, I haven't had to pay for his Karate lessons. as long as he puts in 11 hrs a month teaching time, he's free. My wife also got a job at Wal-Mart. Now we have a 10% discount card on all our shopping there. Might sound good, but its not. We still had to sign up for a debt consolidation agency. hopefully we can survive the next 5 years. And gasoline is killing us. We budgeted gasoline at $100 a month 2 month ago. that went out the window now with gas at $3.50/gal.

As a parent, I'd like to offer my 2 cents. If you are planning on mentioning gear, are you selling it from the Dojo or allowing the students/parents to buy it where they want? My sons Dojo recommends you by the gear from them as its approved by the instructor. (for insurance reasons) My opinion, its safer buying from the Dojo, even if it costs a little more, and know you have equipment that is "Sensei approved" rather than finding something cheap on the internet, and having it fall apart after 3 or 4 uses or actually hurting someone else. If you allow the students/parents to buy off the internet, at least have them show you what they want to buy before they buy it for your approval.

I think that this book looks interesting as well. I am considering picking it up here in a month or two. When you get into it, let us know what its like. Dissappointed. I ended up buying the book. Library screwed me up and I got tired of waiting. Got it for $5.00 used. Excellent condition. Appears to be autographed by author. Can't tell if its real or just printed that way. But anyway. book started off interesting, but then fell apart at the end like the author was running out of ideas and just patching stories together. My son is trying to read it now. If you're interested in reading it, I won't go into details. Had I gotten this from the Library on time, and after reading it, I would not go out and buy it for my own library. I'd rate this a 6 out of 10.

This is a little off the topic but cute. I noticed a lot of new Black Belts are called Shodan. The Black Belts in my sons Dojo are salled Sibak. I just checked Wiki. Shodan is Japanese and Sibak is Chinese. And you'll never guess what Sibak means...teachers assistant. Go figure.

I read thru the last post and need some more help. My son has a tournament this weekend. My wife has spent the past 2 days trying to get my sons Gi clean. (14 oz. ProForce) Sweat stains, dirt from wrestling, laying on the floor, etc. Does anyone have any tips on getting a Gi absolutely white? Right now, my wife has one stain that refuses to clean. Borax, Zout, Prell, Oxyclean, scrub brush... nothing seems to work. Any help?? p.s. My son picked "this" uniform to wear. Otherwise we would have given him a newer, clean one to take. So we're stuck.

"I agree! There are few things as rewarding as teaching" I saw your comment and I just had to butt in. Teaching is not everything. My son got his Black Belt December 16. I'm very proud of his achievement. He's 16, has been training for 9 yrs and is the youngest Black Belt at the Dojo. Currently, there are 2 other "resident" Black Belts. And 4 others that come and go. When my son got his Black Belt, I was expecting a whole new world of studying and training. That has yet to happen. My son was presented with a set of Kama's as a Christmas present from the Sensei. With an understanding that he would be training with them. Going on 4 months and still waiting. Right now, the only thing my son and the other 2 Black Belts are doing are taking turns teaching all the classes. My son is at the Dojo 9AM Saturday morning and doesn't leave until 3PM if not later. Teaching. I do enjoy watching him teach and he does get a kick out of training the little ones.( I made a joke once of teaching the white belts Bassai dai to make it interesting and he actually started it without the Sensei noticing.) But you got to admit, 4 months of teaching without learning anything yourself is kind of a letdown. The only thing that makes it work is that I don't have to pay for him anymore. As long as he puts in 11hrs a month teaching, he's free. Otherwise I pay by the month. Boring, but makes it worthwhile. He's reached a "plateau" and it looks like he's camping there.

In my sons Dojo, as a student progress's thru the ranks, they are expected to purchase weapons/training gear/protective gear. As they progress thru the ranks, they are given a one page sheet with all the requirements on it. How many times they loose it or if they don't have sparring gear, they they complain "no one told me". Or at worst, the parents refuse to buy it. Having it in a permanent manual should correct the problem and make it the parents/students responsibility.

What are you refering to as embroidered? I went thru this in December. My son got his Black Belt then and I wanted to get him a belt with his name on it. Looking around, I found places that embroidered the name all the way thru the belt. You had a reverse image on the back side. I was told this was a "poor job" of embroidery. I found Shureido that actually splits the belt and does the embroidery on one side of the belt, then sews the belt back together. Only problem is that they only do their own Shureido belts. Cost around $60 for the belt and embroidery. But it looks great. Another thing. Shureido only embroidered in Japanese. I would have preferred Chinese, but I never found anyone that could embroider Chinese. I did ask a local sewing place about embroidery and showed her the belt I had. They couldn't do anything like that.