Happy New Years!
Arianera
Posts: 128 Member
Happy New Years! May you all reach both your Martial Arts and overall fitness goals in 2015.
Ari
Ari
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Thanks Ari! Happy new year to you too! My goals are ambitious and long-term, as always. I hope you get everything from yours as well!0
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Happy New year to you all, my goal this year is to take my 1st kyu grading in shotokan karate and pass!!
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Awesome! When do you go up for your grade?0
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Probably July /Aug, it's a difficult kata to learn!0
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Awesome. For me, I love the challenge of a really hard form - probably more than anything gets me excited to rank up is the opportunity to learn a new one.0
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I'm testing for my purple belt/purple stripe (7th kyu) this Friday. I've been ready for a month, but waited so that I wasn't the only adult testing. I'm really excited as this will be my first formal test at the new school.
My school lets transfers keep wearing their old belts as an honorary rank to recognize past experience, and I have chosen to keep wearing the green belt I earned as a teen. My martial arts goal for the year is for the color to no longer be honorary at the end of the year. This is a bit of a stretch, but achievable if I can stay injury free.0 -
Awesome, Arianera! I love testing.. Pushing myself to be ready is always one of my favorite parts of training -gives such a sharp goal to focus on. Even more than the belt, I think I love the testing itself more (and learning new material after!)0
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@Arianera- how did your 7th kyu test go? Did you make your belt?0
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Yes I did. I am now officially a purple belt.
I also finally got to meet the head Sensei for my local Kempo school. It is run by a husband and wife team, who also manage several other businesses. In the 9 months that my son and I have been with this school she has been holding down the fort at the dojo while he has been occupied with other things. But he was there tonight.
It ended up being a bit odd. There were supposed to be 4 adults testing tonight, including one higher ranked than I am, but 2 didn't show. I hope they don't have the flu - which there is a lot of in this area. So it was just me and a new beginner going for her first (yellow) belt. Her son is in 1st grade and has been studying for 4 years now. She decided to get into better shape and the adult class is at the same time as her daughter's dance class at the same shopping center, so she started Karate just a few months ago. She was also successful.0 -
A very well done to you! I feel brilliant when I've graded and passed, it's such an achievement
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I shared my goal for the year with Mrs. Sensei and was told that the amount and complexity of material they expect adults to master increases quite a bit, so that my goal of green belt in a year is quite ambitious. I'm both keen to get back to the rank I earned in my teens and not really hung up on rushing through testing as long as I get to keep learning new things and improving what I already know.
Testing is just the formal recognition of what you have already demonstrated in your practice, which is good because it gives you leeway for stage fright and not showing your best on testing night (which happened because I was asked for certain things that I hadn't prepared and muffed my footwork on a couple of things because I was thinking so hard about not bowling over the beginner who hasn't yet learned to fall properly).0 -
@Arianera how do you like Kempo? The reason why i'm asking, is because when i do decide to choose something later this year, i was contemplating taking Kempo. A guy in my company is a BB, and said that it's a great art to learn, and that it covers alot of areas. I mentioned that i took TKD, but i didn't like how it was limited to just kicking.........i want to incorporate punches as well, and i believe in Kempo there is training in weapons (?)0
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@Tat2dDude_0105 Just to weigh in on the subject and give you some other options - traditional Taekwondo (non WTF schools) are usually much better balanced between kicks and hands - typically 60/40 or even 50/50 for some schools.
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Our TKD school is at least 50% punching. but we are a little out of the norm in that we train all sorts of things including grappling and submissions. Not your normal TKD class.0
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@trackercasey76
I think that many TKD schools are going that direction, actually. We also practice Krav and grappling as part of self defense training... and even before Krav got popular, we had many of the same concepts of defense that was taught, with roots in military hand-to-hand systems.
Now granted, what a lot of people get exposed to that is TKD has nothing to do outside of sparring with only kicks (Olympic sparring and the WTF, as example), or jump 720 hook kicks breaking demonstration boards... and that's really too bad, because it is a much more well-rounded art than that, and taught correctly, is as tough as nails.
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@Tat2dDude_0105 Just as different TKD lineages have a different balance of punching, kicking, and other, what "Kempo" is depends on the teacher and the school.
Both the Okinawa Kempo of my previous school and the Chinese Kempo of my current school are self-defense oriented, balanced, martial arts that use kicking and punching along with sweeps, locks and other techniques. (Though neither has the no-holds-barred mind-set of, say, Krav Maga).
The Okinawa Kempo school had a formal Kobudo (weapons) track and starting with Green belt, you were expected to learn weapons forms at each rank. The Chinese Kempo school where I currently train also teaches Kung Fu. Their weapons forms come through Kung Fu and are only learned by the few students who elect to learn both styles (though are picked up by a number of the teens between their Jr. Black Belt and 1st Dan).
My sons and I have been through 6 schools over our martial arts life (though 2 of these were for 6-months or less). At this point, I think the fit of teacher and students, the dojo culture built between the students (cooperative or competitive), and whether the intensity of training matches what you are looking for are more important than the specific style being taught. I encourage you to think about whether you want to train with your colleague and have that outside work connection, look into the Kempo school (keeping in mind the hallmarks of a good school vs a "black belt factory"), look into your other potential options, and then decide where you want to try.
Ari0 -
@Tat2dDude_0105 Just as different TKD lineages have a different balance of punching, kicking, and other, what "Kempo" is depends on the teacher and the school.
Both the Okinawa Kempo of my previous school and the Chinese Kempo of my current school are self-defense oriented, balanced, martial arts that use kicking and punching along with sweeps, locks and other techniques. (Though neither has the no-holds-barred mind-set of, say, Krav Maga).
The Okinawa Kempo school had a formal Kobudo (weapons) track and starting with Green belt, you were expected to learn weapons forms at each rank. The Chinese Kempo school where I currently train also teaches Kung Fu. Their weapons forms come through Kung Fu and are only learned by the few students who elect to learn both styles (though are picked up by a number of the teens between their Jr. Black Belt and 1st Dan).
My sons and I have been through 6 schools over our martial arts life (though 2 of these were for 6-months or less). At this point, I think the fit of teacher and students, the dojo culture built between the students (cooperative or competitive), and whether the intensity of training matches what you are looking for are more important than the specific style being taught. I encourage you to think about whether you want to train with your colleague and have that outside work connection, look into the Kempo school (keeping in mind the hallmarks of a good school vs a "black belt factory"), look into your other potential options, and then decide where you want to try.
Ari
Thank you for your input on this. Believer me, with all of the schools i've seen, i know which are just in it for the money as opposed to the instruction. My last school (TKD) was the complete opposite. Once i saw how the instructor dealt with kids, i immeadiately enrolled my son.........and after a few months of seeing how my son was progressing and how the school actually taught solid instruction, i myself enrolled as well. Again, i just wish they had incorporated more punching, but WTF TKD schools don't practice that. I really like the school and i still pop in from time to time to say hello to my ex-head instructor and my chief instructor.
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Thank you Ari. I'm working on it. I wish you the best as well.
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