Green Belt Testing

[PaulS]

I am testing for the first time. I am testing for green belt. Wish me luck!

[bushido_man96]

Good luck to you! What style are you testing in?

[PaulS]

Good luck to you! What style are you testing in?

This may sound stupid but I am not sure. I got started in this school with my grandson. He started and then wanted me to do it with him. I know they say it is a Japanese style. I am not sure if the is correct. I will have to find out.

[pittbullJudoka]

No matter the style. Good luck. Keep us posted on the results.

[JusticeZero]

Understandable. That said, you will want to find that out - being able to learn about the history of what you are doing and the situations that the founders were concerned by can help you to understand the technique you are learning, as you will be able to, even if only a little bit, understand why they might have emphasized the particular things they did.

[Patrick]

Good luck, PaulS.

Patrick

[Dobbersky]

Good luck my friend, did you manage to find out what style as Green as first grade is quite rare.

[PaulS]

I got my certificate and Green Belt last night. I took the test on Saturday. It was pretty cool.

Here is what the school teaches:

Japanese and Korean Karate, Jiu-Jitsu, Judo, Aikido, and Tai Chi, as well as other physical activities such as kick boxing, grappling, boxing, and wrestling.

[JusticeZero]

OK. And you are studying the Japanese Karate? Or are you studying several styles?

In Karate, as well as in most styles, you have the "style", which is the art as a whole, and then you have the lineage - with Japanese martial arts this is the "Ryu" - which is the particular style inside of the style as a whole. Some examples of these would be Shotokan, Goju-ryu, Isshin-ryu, Kyokushin, etc. Now and then you will find people who are dodgy about the ryu, often because their personal training has deviated from the root ryu a ways, but if you ask about who they were trained by you will usually be able to get something like "First I trained in Isshin-ryu, then I trained Goju-ryu, then my teacher died and the only people I could practice with were Shotokan, and then.." This history is still important.

This isn't a particularly exotic idea. If you have two boxers, and one of them studied under a coach who empasised being light on the feet and lots of fast light hits, but the other focuses on a solid guard punctuated with heavy, punishing blows, then you would expect that their students will probably fight a lot like their teacher, too. Mr. Bouncy's students will have learned a lot more about how to float around and snap out fast punches, and Mr Thump's stable is going to have a much more practiced guard and straight. All those tricks of the trade to fit the strategies, and all the traditions and philosophies of teaching that Mr. Bounce does differently than Mr. Thump are in the lineage, and their students' students are going to carry that all over too. When those students meet someone else, if they say "My teacher learned from Mr. Thump", then people know that you most likely learned a lot more about having a very tight guard and a hard punch than they learned from their teacher, a student of Mr. Bounce; Bounce's grandstudents' characteristic light floaty footwork actually takes away from their ability to punch as hard as Mr. Thump, but Mr. Thump's grandstudents can't bob and weave like the Bounce-Ryu guys either. =)

We were actually looking to find out the ryu, but we often forget that for people who aren't used to thinking in terms of lineages, the question isn't always obvious to people who weren't clear on how lineages work.

[bushido_man96]

It sounds like your school has quite a curriculum. Can you tell us what your testing consisted of?

Either way, congrats on your promotion!