training?

This Rick Hall??

http://www.bushidoacademy.com/

frizbee

Sit down with your teacher before you go---if you have not already done so and work out your plans.

Let them know you will be back and when they can expect you.

Ask them what they feel you need to focus on.

Stay in shape---you'd be surprised just how fast the conditioning goes

Yeah, that Rick Hall. Thogh I've never actually had a class with him, he's a nice guy. And I will continue to work on what I know and keep in shape. But should I worry about learning bad habits? I don't want to practice it wrong, and then go back and have to relearn it all, if you know what I mean. But I guess it's better than nothing?

When I was with a JKA club at Keele Uni (UK) they reckoned three years twice weekly training (2hrs) to make 1st Dan black belt. Does this seem reasonable for Shotokan ?

(Haven't trained for some years, I am thinking of getting back into it and starting over from white belt.)

It depends on how many belts are in JKA. Most styles it takes about 3 months between the first 8 belts (if there is 10 in your style) than the last 2 belts can take from 6 mos to 1 year alone. So do the math. It all depends on progress and time in grade.

Brandon

Hmm, ten kyu in the JKA version of Shotokan. So, thinks hard, that would be 24 months plus another year to two years. Yup that fits.

Do you have your techniques in writing somewhere, or are they available to you? Or videos with your katas on them? It would be good to obtain a reference to make sure you arent doing anything wrong and like you said learning bad habits. If for the next few months while you are in school you are even able to fit one class into your schedule it would be worth whatever monthly fees they charge to stay enrolled because once a week at least youd have someone watching you making sure you are on the same page. Either way for your home practice just keep doing the basics, kicks and hand techniques that you have learned, and any other pre arranged techniques you have been taught. Even if they are partner type drills, you can still do them without a partner and visualize them. You might as well learn to do this now, in my 9 years of karate id say ive had to practice without a partner 20 percent of the time because sometimes it is just impossible to make it to class, or the thing i want to practice hasnt been gone over in class in a few weeks and i want to keep it fresh in my mind. I would look at this break from regular classes as an oppurtunity to improve the things you know and concentrate on them without having to worry about memorizing all new stuff. You will be very comfortable with all your required material and when you go back and start learning new stuff again you can just focus on that and not have to even think about the old stuff anymore because it will be part of you. So you are lucky kind of because of circumstances you can now take advantage and get really good at what you already know.

Thanks! Yeah, I've been working hard these last few weeks without class - I'm sore. I haven't been sore in a while, and it's nice. But I signed up to take a karate class at my university, too. I didn't think there'd be that much difference between styles of karate, but I feel like I'm learning some things all over again. I want to still learn karate until i can go back to my dojo. But this karate is shotokan - and all I can say is the stances feel different. I keep trying to do what my body tells me to, not my instructor. Why are the stances so deep in shotokan, as opposed to shorin-ryu? Or is it just the difference of the teachers?

Hi Shoshinkan, the guy is under Phil Keopple and they regularly promote like this, it is the norm for his organization from what I have seen.

He does put out some decent students in the Yudansha level however, so maybe more ranks with quicker test times?