dishonoring sensei

[Iamn]

Hi

Here is my thoughts on the subject.

I hate karate clubs, well some of them, why?

The group mentality - ur a low life if ur not my belt kinda of attidue

The hardman mentality

The unfriendlyness

and the lies

The year assocaiation feees

the sucking up to the tudor

competitions

false confidence - i am hard now I am brue - yeah baby call me bruce.

You have to train according to the rytheme of the class not ablity or age.

favouratisim - u know the instructor has a tinkle for a student and in no time there are a black belt while you remain yellow .

What I like about karate clubs

a place to train

meet new people

learn all sort of karate applications

Learn the katas so I can do them at home.

Gets me out of the house.

Makes me fit

I get rid of all the tension

get rid of the aggression

I sleep like a baby and my wife loves me more so.

So when some guy or girl basically says hey u have not trained hard enough. Well brother erm sister, shut it. Oops aggression there. I have just come from work, looked after the kids and I am a bit tired and I cannot be like bruce.

Its like this - I just get tired. when I go to karate i go to get fit, to enjoy it, not to be humilated, not be talked to like a dog, not to be insulted, or beaten up and not to be disollutioned.

Now I do not go to an offical karate club for the above reasons. - I do not care about the black belt - I wear one every time I go to the shop or work, and it feels good.

When I am not lazy or looking after the kids I pratice the katas I know in my back garden. I do not wear the karate gi, it too restrictive and it make me look like a prat outside of the dojo.

I just got fed up of the club mentality and it started to drain on me - I lost sight of why I was training - I train for me, I train to keep fit, I train because I love karate, I could not careless about the club or the belt.

Sometimes people who look down on people are doing that becaues they themselves feel inferior.

Most of us have a life outside the karate club, - I just wish I could find a club I can settle down with - alas it will never happen I fear.

Question if you know u would never send ur kids to the club to train its time to find another club to train.

I think people who go to a club and do not put 100% into it is their business - they probably had a hard day at the office - just tired, can not be bother or lazy, it s up to them either way they are there to train some they must be doing something and to be screamed at for not doing it a particalar way defeats the object.

best wishes

[Iamn]

24chicken

I cannot put 100% into my training becaue my wife and boys would fall about laughing as I stagger into the house.

I am nearly 40 and I love it - I could not careless about the age. I am doing more now than when I was 20 - yep 4 kids and a job.

my attitude is this - I do it to enjoy it to keep fit.

Why give my self a heart attack in the process.

best wishes

[shotochem]

I used to be a 20-something hot shot. I'm now approaching 40 with a family. The contrast in my approach to karate is staggering. Had I had any idea of what adult life would be like later on, I never would have been so lecturing of my older students. Luckily, with age sometimes comes wisdom and patience, and many of them tolerated my extremist approach and insistence that everyone's goal was to be the next Bruce Lee.

When I train today, I rarely give 100%. It isn't there to give. I give what little I feel like I can and still remain functional enough to go home, mow the grass, the change the oil in the jeep, switch the laundry over, help with the dishes, bathe my kid, read him a story, and then pay the bills.

I wish I had the wisdom befor I got the age. I'm in a similar situation as you Rob only I haven't been training nearly as long. I should have listened to your old 24FC rantings a little sooner. Welcome back and the best to you. (BTW what a cute kid!!!)

Marc

[PBI]

PBI,

It sounds like you are a full time instructor. Many of us have gone beyond the 'training is my life' stage.

I'm 45. I have a job, a family, other interest. There are times I show up and train like my life depended on it. There are times where I give only 50%.

As much as I try to leave the rest of my life behind, it may not always be possible. The instructor may not know about my day at the office, that I'm leaving on a business trip tomorrow, that a number of my servers just went down, that one of my many chronic injuries is flaring up.

I pay good money to train, I train as a hobby. The fastest way for me to take my business elsewhere is for some instructor, or worse yet, some 20 something hot--shot who's never faced real professional pressure at work to tell me that I'm not training hard enough.

Haven't been here in a while as I've been relocating and changing jobs, so although this input is probably moot by now, I'll still throw it in:

Nope, I am not a full-time instructor. I'm 38, and I'm a professional who puts in very hard 50-60 work weeks. Understood on your level of participation - I have bad days, too - but again, what's outside of the dojo is supposed to be outside the dojo.

Neither I, nor anyone else, can be expected to temper our expectations because a student's had a bad day. If things are really that bad, I would expect the student to maybe take the night off and avoid degrading the quality of overall effort in the dojo.

Also, with regard to money and business, I think I see where we may be diverging in expectation. I train and teach for very little remuneration; I do it because I love to do it, and it's very freeing in many ways. One of those ways is that it allows me to demand high standards from my classes and myself and not really care if people want to leave because my expectations are high. In for-profit dojos, that is without question a valid consideration.

And in all the time I've been teaching, I have never lost a student who has progressed beyond white belt because of my expectations. (The only ones I've lost have moved.)

[PBI]

Perhaps I'm not explaining myself well enough in regards to what I mean by training hard, my expectations and the way I handle myself as an instructor.

First, I fully understand that no one, not even professional karateka, can give 100% all the time, and no reasonable instructor would expect them to do so. What I believe every instructor should expect however, is that every student put forth a solid effort and not be "zoned out" or just passing the time. I don't know how to quantify that in terms of "percentage of effort," but I know it when I see it.

Second, I am almost never in anybody's face, but I will call a student out if he is setting a bad example as a senior belt. Like it or not, junior belts look to seniors as examples. On an individual level, I'm not going to chase students into getting better. Repeated lack of effort will simply get that person ignored; I've got other students who want to learn and I won't waste my time on someone who can't put forth a decent effort.

Third, with regard to senior students assisting, I should have clarified that there is a time and a place for their direct interaction with junior students. I agree fully that they should not be taking it upon themselves to horn in, but by the same token, if I'm engaged elsewhere, I expect them to lead by example.

Finally, with regard to teaching as part of learning, within traditional karate, it is absolutely considered to be an essential element of the art, and it is not some personal choice of mine. Teaching occurs at many different levels, however, and is not limited to leading the whole class, so I should have been more clear. (It includes working one-on-one with a junior belt, and extends to - once again - teaching by example in the group setting.) If you choose to believe that teaching in any of these forms is "not for you," that's fine, but you are without question not fulfilling the traditional expectations of karateka.

None of this has anything to do with being macho. (Take a look at my original post.) What it does concern, however, is staying true to tradition and expecting students to contribute to the group. I realize that not everyone has that luxury, but it is also one of the reasons that I favor the not-for-profit model...

_________________

[angus88]

PBI, I think you're explaining youself just fine and I agree with you on all of your points. But I think this is an un-arguable discussion. It all depends on how your dojo is set up.

Our dojo is simply not set up for people to "zone-out" and give less than 100%. I don't mean that people are screaming at others that don't go all out - as you said, everybody has a bad day once in a while. The structure of our school just doesn't allow for a casual approach. We don't have a set-up where people train at their leisure. Eventually the people that don't care leave one way or another.

If you are part of a similar dojo, when people make claims like that, you probably just scratch your head and wonder whey they don't just join a gym. But the thing is, I would argue that most dojos nowadays allow for the casual student. Thus the watering down of the karate school and black belts in general. Most couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag because they couldn't care less to try!

[PBI]

If you are part of a similar dojo, when people make claims like that, you probably just scratch your head and wonder whey they don't just join a gym. But the thing is, I would argue that most dojos nowadays allow for the casual student. Thus the watering down of the karate school and black belts in general. Most couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag because they couldn't care less to try!

Amen to that!

[Takeda Shingen]

....There is also the old way of hitting them with a shinai if they dont work hard enough

...she will stick with it

Sorry, I have received some shinai in my days and thought this was funny...

Osu

TS

[Takeda Shingen]

I re-read the many good comments.

Nothing wrong with giving less than 100% as long as you are not cheating other karate ka. One of my colleagues told of his Sensei who talked about his young hey-days…..we did this, we did that, in the waterfalls, in the ocean, no heat, no a/c, our knuckles were bloody, we trained all day, took a break at noon to eat, we sweat so much we tried to dry the gi, put on the cold wet gi, sparred 10 people in a row…etc…etc…etc.

So, why do we kohai look at such Sensei or Sempai who are swagering, talking memories, and maybe “zoning out”. I am here to give my soul in the dojo..and experience these tough trainings to push my limits, just like what they did..just because he is later in life or something and ready to wash dishes and eat chips at home in front of TV…don’t line up in front of me in kumite at half speed and tell me about back in the days…

Yes, karate and every martial art is up to the individual, but after all, let’s not kid yourself, it is a martial art. Why should kohai be denied anything less than a 110% example from Sempai?

Do it, give it all, if you give less, you can always find someone who is coasting like you, go off to the side of the dojo and make some new memories of that level of training.

Osu.

TS

[JWLuiza]

ok guys i have a question for you. do you think it is a slap in the face when a student in the adult class hardly tries anything over 60 %. the only girl in our class well is this and she doesnt even respect her self half the time. i was wandering how as a fellow student i could help her stop the intructors and the desk lady try to get her to try harder and we the guys who try are hardest every night try to lead by example so can someone please give some advice.

Rather than give you advice I will try to write from my own experience.

I used to go up to the older guys and other not-so-hard-core "part timers", as I called them, and correct every little thing they did and try to lecture them about how much better they would be if they trained more often and put in more effort. I saw everything from my own perspective. I thought that I knew better than they did about everything, even though they were 20 years older than me. After all, I was the little hot-shot black belt sent by God to show them all how it is done.

So, today, if I walk into a karate class, and there is some young punk in there who thinks that I am not giving enough effort, and that he should try and help me, I'm probably going to politely, as nicely as possible, make it clear to him that I did not hire him as my instructor, and that when I want his help, I will let him know.

Oh no. Rob, I'm that obnoxioius guy in class. One of my New Years Resolutions is to quell this urge.