Mumsnet Martial Artists

Nice to see this thread revived. Congratulations Meglet. Pad work is great for stress!

I am grading for 2nd kyu (brown belt with one white stripe) in shotokan karate a few weeks.

bumping.

I'm back at kickboxing after 5 years of slog with babies & toddlers. Managed to spar last night, I was pretty girly (never been a good fighter just for the sake of it) but didn't get pummelled.

I was told to stop hitting the focus pads too hard .

Slight movement problems today, can't laugh and stairs are tricky.

You can do chin ups?

I may have abs of steel, but I have arms of cooked spaghetti!

Yes yes, I have the abs of steel. I have the strong thigh muscles too. And indeed, left to my own devices I can stand up perfectly well all by myself.

Which is why I can't understand why these things beat me!

Well I think I've done enough sit ups by now to be able to stand up on my own!

Abs of steel!

And it was such a descriptive description too, Butterbur! .

Erm let's see :- stomach and thighs mostly, I guess. Good for balance, too, I suppose. If you imagine a full sit-up, then extend it by standing up at the end of each sit-up, that's more or less it.

Mostly it seems to provide sensei with some amusement. (sighs)

Can't quite visualise those, Shodan. What muscles do they work?

Mind you, my all-time most hated exercise is what I call 'standy-upp sitty-downy thingies'. I'm sure there's a better/more technical name but I can't remember it. You do the exercise with a partner. They sit on the floor with their legs out, you wedge your feet under their thighs. They grip the backs of your calves. Then you have to lie down, back on the floor, before swooping up to standing, then back down to sitting and then lying again. For some reason these flippin' things defeat me every time- unless I'm partnered with one particular man, who pulls me effortlessly up by my calves, making me look good with virtually no effort on my part.

We have a sensei like that. His current thing is sit-ups - sit-ups in the warmup, sit-ups for every mistake we make (eg not enough effort, thumping our feet down etc) and situps at the end of class. At least he does them too, and doesn't just watch us and laugh.

Chin-ups??? Those horrible things where you dangle by your hands from a bar and try to pull yourself up? Now those are evil and fortunately not something I have to contend with, there being no suitable bars at any of our dojos. Mind you, if I was silly enough to mention them to sensei he'd probably go all out to sort a bar out.

Black belt is shodanho, Butterbur, 1st dan is shodan.

The nickname was aspirational! Hopefully though after October it will be a reality.

Also PM'd Rubberduck back.

Hmm, Shodan. I think I was out of control, although I wasn't told so. I will have to spar at the black belt grading - still some years away, and apparently one of the things assessed is whether you still have control after doing a whole high intensity grading. So might as well start learning now.

Also, Shodan, I am puzzled by you being a black belt, but not yet Shodan. I thought Shodan was the first level black belt.

Rubberduck -PM'd you back.

Butterbur- it's not actually bad manners for a black belt to hit a junior grade- or any belt to hit a junior grade, for that matter. A black belt - or a good one, rather - will tailor his or her sparring strength and style to suit whatever grade he or she is sparring at the time. It is , however, extremely bad etiquette to use more force than your sparring partner can cope with, although there is a caveat on that: a good karateka of whatever grade will push the lower grade a little bit to enable that junior to improve their sparring. So don't feel bad about hitting a black belt (unless you are sparring without control, in which case you should work on that) because how else will you improve? Also it's always usefful for black belts to learn new sparring styles so they can improve their own blocking, punching and kicking.

Rubberduck- these are special karate push-ups Nowhere near nose to the floor, rather a moderate dip of the elbows (not much good at angles but probably around 45 degrees) done at speed. Not much else you can do when a sensei bellows "1000 push-up for everybody for not kiai-ing loudly enough/ not being quick enough to respond/ not bending your knees enough/ for doing rubbish sumo" etc etc. We'd be there all day and anyway, they start tsking quietly if you're not quick enough!

Isn't it strange, though, how being told you're aggressive (as I had) or violent is a compliment? It does make me smile. How many other situations would you be pleased to be called that?

I feel bad if I actually hit a black belt during sparring. They are being so restrained because it is such bad manners to hit a junior belt.

I feel bad if I accidently hit a black belt during sparring. They are being so restrained, because it is such bad manners to hit a junior belt, that it seems unfair.

I don't know anything about Krav Maga- something else to look up later!

I went training at the weekend- it was a junior grading so obviously grading atmosphere. Two hundred press-ups (albeit special karate press-up ) and my upper back is griping. Still, I've got my 1st dan grading on 24th October so these things have to be done.

serotonin- I know what you mean about getting a strike in on a black belt. Even as a black belt myself I was ridiculously pleased to hear my instructor (3rd dan, 6'2" meanie) grunt with discomfort during a bout of sparring recently.

So Rubberduck, what happened with the Wing Chun?

Why have you changed from Wing Chun?