LuizH Member

Thank you :). I am incredibly proud of my boys and I know our sensei is too. We have trained together for 4 years and over the last year they have both increased in confidence and skill far more than I thought possible. It was fantastic this evening to see how much more confident my youngest looked sparring in his brown…

B) B) B) Passed my 1st kyu grading today with a grade 1 (highest possible grade). I'm very pleased with myself. And my youngest son passed his 3rd kyu so now all three of us are brown belts <3 My eldest son took part in a kobudo demonstration in a Japanese festival at the local University, I'm super proud of him for doing…

I've not checked in this week yet! Monday I did some teaching at our club's newest group, we had 5 new members at once (this never happens) and only 3 regular members (me and my 2 boys) so we split the group between the three of us and taught some basics, with Sensei supervising. Wednesday was Bo staff. I love Bo but I'm…

Last month my goal was to lose 7lbs, which I just about managed :sweat_smile: This month my goal is to pass my 1st kyu (final brown belt grade) and I'd like to drop another 7lbs before the madness of Christmas parties starts in December. More fun goals - I've got my roundhouse to head height (I accidentally kicked my son…

In kobudo we have a 10 minute sit-down at the end of the lesson where we discuss different weapons, their origins or how to take care of them (things like stripping down and cleaning a katana), or we might discuss the origin of a specific kata, or sometimes people bring in unusual weapons they have acquired. We've also…

No sparring last night, we had an awesome warm-up taken by one of our low grades who has previously trained in MMA - I was happy that I got to the end of it without dying, and double happy because some people I think of as fitter than me couldn't complete it. But then I spent the next hour teaching kata to lower grades so…

Awesome! I would love to be this flexible!

Manchester UK, Shukokai Karate, nearly 4 years, mid-long term goal to lose ~30 lbs, 38 years old

My boys and I got a private lesson tonight thanks to no one else turning up to class. I got to spar with sensei, which is a really rare thing!

My training's been a bit hit and miss for the last week because of being off work/my kids being of school for holidays. I've managed a few conditioning sessions in the gym, and a couple of training sessions but all of my additional cardio (usually done in my commute or during my work day) was dropped in favour of sitting…

I'm trying to lose weight at the moment, my chosen diet is ketogenic, I love meat so it is easy to stick to when I really want to. I have been half-hearted with it for the last year or so and you can't really do keto in a half hearted way so I am 30lbs up on where I feel most comfortable. I am trying to be more serious…

March 2019! It should be enough time but I need to drop a few pounds before I have a chance. I got to 50kg on the lat pull down yesterday, I still have a long way to go before I can lift my body

Ooh, thanks. I will look at resistance bands. One of my gyms has an assisted pull up machine but I can only get there if I can get out of the office at lunchtime. I could use resistance bands at the smaller gym near home.

I have one to add, I really want to be able to do a pull up. Just a single one will do. That's another goal that would be more achievable if I lost weight first. That's going on the 'before I'm 40' list!

3-4 times per week for classes but I try to do some kind of workout every day, not all martial arts, sometimes just a strength training session or a commute on my bike.

I just really hate when we're made to jog around the room for warm up. I love to jog, but outside in the fresh air and wearing shoes, not around a warm room, barefoot on a hard floor, and certainly not before I'm about to spend an hour doing kicks and holding long stances - my hips and knees are always screaming at the end…

More kata last night (my club is big on kata if that's not obvious!). Swimming is cancelled tonight so I can get to the gym and work on some strength and core later, it's been over a week since I last went and I've really missed it!

I will go first - my goals for the next year are all aiming towards me getting my black belt before I turn 40 (I'm counting down - 17 months to go!). I really don't want to be a fat black belt, so I'm trying to lose weight to get myself to a more normal size. I enjoy weight training so I'm going to aim to keep 2-3 sessions…

Kata almost all lesson last night, sharpening up some of the lower grades for grading next month. I may try to fit in an extra class tonight because I'm not getting much time to work on my own kata and I'm grading too! I didn't get any strength training last week because of a busy work/social calendar. I need to get back…

A bit of everything in karate last night, loads of kata, a bit of bunkai, some drills on kicks and a bit of sparring to finish. I was complimented on my kicks (people are always shocked when a short fat girl can kick to head height, even the people who see me do it every week), I was asked to help a higher grade with a…

I got back from a horrendous 2 day work conference with a head full of stuff unexpectedly early yesterday so I made it to my weapons lesson. What I needed was something to clear my head completely and help me relax, what I got was kali-style stick drills - something like this (but we're not this fast)…

We had 2 90 minute karate lessons yesterday. We had a club photo session in the afternoon with Sensei being awarded his 6th Dan - he'd planned the photo session but he had no idea about the grading, it was really nice to get the whole club together to see him getting his award. Lots of guest Senseis turned up for the award…

I pay for karate by the lesson, sensei tries to encourage families to train together so if I pay £6 for my lesson my kids can train for free. Association membership is £30 per year each to cover insurance costs. I try to get the kids sparring kit and new gis as part of birthday or Christmas presents but costs are pretty…

I used to love my Sunday classes for this reason, quite often it would be me, my two boys and maybe one other person, sometimes with 3 instructors between 4 of us. Now other members have realised we get more chance of one-to-one training on a Sunday, and it's become almost as busy as a midweek lesson Kobudo training last…

Good night last night - basics training (stances, strikes + kicks), basic and advanced fighting combinations (beginner to 1st dan level) and finally got on to learning a new kata :smile: Saturday was a double gym session (arms and legs), because we had the time, with an extra half hour tagged on the end teaching my 14 year…

Good sweat stories, I'm glad it's not just me, although I am sure I produce more than is normal, I generally leave classes looking like I have just showered in my clothes. Tonight was no exception, 30 minutes sparring, 30 minutes one-step and then 30 minutes pad work and kata to finish, I was dripping after the warm up!!!!…

I'd love to find a way not to soak my clothes every training session. Weapons night is ok but the 3 nights per week we do karate I can ring my gi out at the end. Most people at my club claim to wash their gi's once per week or less if they can get away with rinsing, mine needs a full wash after every session! Sword and sai…

Another basics session last night, with half an hour just on stances, my thighs are killing me from holding long stances for so long. The good thing about Sunday class is that we have up to 3 teachers so there's more chance of some personal help, myself and another brown belt got a good half hour with our 9th dan coach…

In my karate club we have the same system for adults and kids Beginner White 8th kyu Yellow 7th kyu Orange 6th kyu Green 5th kyu Blue 4th kyu Purple 3rd Kyu Brown 2nd Kyu brown 1st kyu brown 1st dan upwards Black We do 3 months minimum between grades from white to blue, then 6 months minimum between grades after that. 1st…

Kata, sparring and padwork last night - a good mix of everything. Probably spent half the lesson teaching kata to junior grades again - it's nice to be included in the group of people Sensei trusts to do some teaching, but sometimes I just want a really hard workout and someone to tell me what *I'm* doing wrong! I have a…