LogFAQs > #933379761

Bah, at Tkane's martial arts school in the bay area, we competed and classes were held every day (including the weekends). If you paid the monthly fee you could (and many did) attend classes every day.

The school actually taught, and competed in 4 different styles (karate/kung fu/taekwando/judo), and you could take classes from multi styles with one monthly subscription. Many kids would go there after school every day and do multiple classes.

The tests for a higher belt were pretty hard, and many failed multiple times, even so there were certainly quite a few black belts by their mid teens. The school did quite well in the competitions.

It looks like the schools are still there but don't offer as many options anymore (do offer kickboxing now, which I had to do at the YMCA back when I was a kid...they didn't have it at Tkane's.

Anyway, average time to a black belt if you go to 3 classes a week is about 5 years. If you go 5 days a week, and you are above average (most students at the school were), it's more like 3 years. I believe if I remember right there were a few 10 year olds with brown or black belts in fact (don't believe they could compete at that age, but they still had to fight another student, do the katas etc to advance a belt).

Many students at the school started quite young, and it was considered a competition much like studying for the olympics etc. There were 5 and 6 year old starting students (Believe even a class for very young ones). It was a very good school.

Here is the link to the current school but it's in castro valley now....probably all new teachers since I went like 35+ years ago lol.

http://www.t-kanes.com/

Oh!! I looked on their site and they still teach 4 styles, they just replaced judo with Kick Boxing. Actually Judo was my favorite lol....but I also really liked kick boxing, so over all I guess it's a better choice for competitions, if they still compete (not sure if they even can in Castro valley).

Only school I ever went to that taught 4 styles, and i'm glad they still do. Was a great school....sad it's no longer in the same area I was (hayward CA I think it was).

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Agatha "Your naked and they are nuns, it's not your eyes they're not looking at."
Glowing Elephant "Stonehedge was a sex thing."