G'day all,

Have been reading this forum for quite a while and have decided to post. Great to see a forum where balanced views are expressed from a number of styles without the need for ego's.

A little about me. I am 34 and have been training for 2 years. I am 5th kyu. I started because my son, who is eight, wanted to try a sport we could do together.

I have wanted to try karate for as long as I can remember and never had the gumption to walk into a dojo. So I decided that I now had a good enough reason.

We now train twice a week and I don't how I survived without it. I absolutely love it.

Anyway, have to get to a class. YEEEHAAA!!!!!!

Bye for now.

Hi Darkwing,
Glad to have you onboard!
Whereabout in W.A are you? Quite alot of our members are from there, you may even have trained with a few.
Cheers

Tom.

Hi Darkwing

Welcome to the world of martial arts and it is great to see you achieving a goal

Just one word of warning, training can become just as addictive as drugs (as you would have found out by now). Have you tried to also get your wife involved? there is no better feeling than the entire family heading out to train together and having such a positive common interest.

Darkwing Duck (great name )

Agree with Dale, welcome to your new life

Hi all,

Thanks for the welcome.

In answer to your questions I have been training in Northam and Maddington (region 12) since March. Prior to that I was training in Rockingham and Coodanup (region 28). Its been quite interesting seeing the little differences in instruction technique that pop up between regions.

As for my wife.I have tried extremely hard to get her and our daughter involved but they are just not interested. My daughter has expressed an interest in kickboxing though. I think being 15 she's just going through the rebellion period and avoiding doing as much as possible with her uncool parents.

Ahh let me tell you a quick story.

About 10 years ago my wife was the same. No interest, no way she was going to train. However as with all women she idolised her husband (hah).

Anyway Lyn used to come to training, not to train but to socialise and simply watch the class, so she could understand what I kept talking about. About 12 months after she started coming she was sitting at the back of the class as usual with the "coffee club" as I call them and things got a bit bitchy as sometimes occur.

Anyway to get away from the constant talking and comparison of children, Lyn decided to get on the floor "just for exercise", she was never going to grade, never going to break a nail, etc.

To cut a long story short, here we are just over 10 years later and my wife is a 3rd Dan Black Belt and teaching her own class.

Moral of the story - get her to come and watch a few classes.

Hi Darkwing,

Welcome from another newby to the forum!

I also train with my 8 year old son (both 6th kyu) and my wife and 11 y/o daughter. My eldest daughter (13) dropped out a while back - I suspect for similar reasons, but at least she got to 7th kyu so hopefully she has some idea of looking after herself should the need arise.

As Dale says, there is no better feeling than the family training together - so good luck on that front! One caveat might be that sparring can be interesting at times - I hate my wife beating on me in class (that sort of thing should definitely stay in the home..)

We only started training 2-3 times a week a few months back and I agree - it's so much better.
You eventually realise that going once a week, it will take about 18.36 years (or thereabouts) to get to BB.

All the best for your journey as a martial artist.

Cheers,

Bondy