Thank you for your stories everyone. I truly appreciated reading them.
I remember how I had already been training in Shotokan karate. My Shotokan Sensei had closed down one of his dojo ( he was teaching at two of them). I had been attending both dojos in the same night.. just like my Sensei. I would train at the first dojo, and help with the new students, and then I would travel with my husband to the second dojo and train in the classes there. When my Shotokan Sensei closed one of the dojo down, I asked his permission to look into training at a nearby Kyokushin dojo to keep up my physical improvement. I was afraid that dropping the training hours to half the amount of time would affect my weight loss negatively.
My Shotokan Sensei asked me "Do you know what Kyokushin Karate means, and what these people do?"
I shook my head as I didn't have a clue. To me karate was karate. I assured my Shotokan Sensei that the Kyokushin Sensei was a wonderful man in whom I trusted very much. On that basis alone, I received permission to train in two dojo, and two styles of Karate at the same time on the condition that I managed to keep the two styles separate in my head.
The funniest thing for me was how confused I was to see yellow belts sitting up near the higher part of the line. In Shotokan, yellow belts are only 8th kyu not 6th kyu as in Kyokushin. I had NO idea what level the blue belts were because blue isn't a belt color in the style of Shotokan that I trained. OH.. and the bowing is SO different. Shotokan is in Musubi Dachi. I must have caught myself going into Musubi Dachi a hundred times a class at first. I know that it must have looked pretty strange to see me constantly adjusting my hands, and feet.
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