@lordlosh ok dude, no bad feelings, sorry. This is how it goes sometimes with online discussions, but you're still a clueless when it comes to some aspects of the martial arts. This i how it goes when one practices something, but it takes him longer to achieve at least an official recognition, I am not complaining about, I do know I train passionately and will get the promotion sooner or later, wish you get yours, but well deserved - this is said with all the good intentions, as I've seen plenty of gifts because behind our Kyokushin organization lies another one (the "TIM" mafia one with the head I mention on those videos) that defines things, so people get undeserved rankings. Until then will always be nice when you're clearly on a higher level than people with a way higher degree, those things happen quite often, so as we speak - the belt grade lost its meaning. For some dojos, the belt promotion is a business, so it happens to be forced to promote people who don't have the necessary skills just to hold them in the dojo, so we get to the topic - martial arts classes are becoming a joke. Still, not all of them and let hope so. I agree with you: whatever the dojo or the style is, regardless of the value of the belts, it's good to aim at and set a goal. I do it as well, 37 years old, I did few years of boxing and intend to start something different when I get my black belt. I also do a lot of powerlifting even though I don't compete, I invest a lot of effort (no PEDs, to be honest) in and I have avid results. Could be because my father was a national team weightlifter, so I got something from him. What I ment for Kudo is that it is indeed great, this is Kyokushin with head punching, but still suffers the same problem as Kyokushin: many of the senseis have no idea of proper punching because of having practiced Kyokushin only. But that's not that critical as I consider that whatever style you take, boxing will always improve you and is mandatory to go through. That's what I ment in my first comment: after spending some years in boxing training, I can see the problems with Kyokushin, I improved myself, improved compared to other karatekas, no point of limiting yourself to something, as no martial art is perfect or complete. But I will always consider myself a Kyokushin guy and will be happy I am practicing it right because of the conditioning it gives you.
Karate and Taekwondo, hell most martial arts are considered a joke on the streets, sure. Until some dude gets ****ed up by one of them. But Boxing, Wrestling, are widely known, and they are also known not to be a joke.
