What is the standard punishment at your Dojo?

Press ups, sit-ups.

It depends on the situation, the severity of the infraction and the age/rank of the student. It could be 10-20 pushups, a verbal talking to or the student may me told to sit down and miss out on training or if it is really serious the student may be asked to leave the class or be suspended from training for a time or permanently. Giving out too many pushups would just waste valuable class time. It must always be kept in mind that pushups and being told to sit down are not punishments per se but are just a method of helping the student focus. You can always tell which students muck around the most because they are the ones with the biggest arms.

It would depend on the infraction and the age of the student. Sometimes for younger students it might be a time out sitting in the corner facing the wall for five minutes. Singling out a student and embarrassing them a little by giving them a time-out can be a pretty powerful motivator for some-even more powerful than push-ups. Repeated offenses by the same child might then be 10 or 25 push-ups or even more in the most severe cases. When things get to that point though then it was time for me to sit down and talk to them and their parent's and discuss the problem as well as the question of if martial arts training was right for that child.

At other times it could be the threat of holding up testing and promotion. When you tell a young student that and hold it over their head if they don't modify their behavior it can be a pretty powerful motivator. It also usually only took a minute or two for that conversation to take place after class and would usually have good results.

With older students I did not have much, if any problem. I found that if you set the bar high and explain to all the students before starting what the rules were and your expectations then that would nip a lot of this in the bud. All students would get a copy of the rules before starting with their uniform and that was part of their first lesson or class was me covering those things. Things would also be explained for those younger students using age appropriate examples and such so that they could understand what was expected of them. I found this last part really helpful in setting the tone of things and they understanding what was expected of them so that I generally did not have many problems.

I think this is where sometimes instructors really drop the ball is not covering and explaining things to students early on and those students not knowing then what is expected of them. This then leaves the door open for problems to follow especially with younger students.

It always depends on the error, but the usual one in the karate dojo I attend is either 50 knuckle press ups (or as much as a student can possibly do) up to standing in Shiko Dachi for five minutes. If you're not used to the stance, standing there for just thirty seconds doing nothing can be very painful. Five minutes of doing nothing is brutal.

I've also seen the instructor hold out a small piece of bamboo so that if a student wasn't punching correctly, he would hit them on the back of the hand just below the knuckles. It certainly makes you punch faster.

In my current schools of Aikido and Taekwondo, I honestly don't know: no one's ever really broken a rule - kids included. When infractions are made, such as etiquette faux pas, a senior student will quietly and privately explain the rule and that's that.

Even with kids, the worst punishments seem to be in the area of laziness, and the correction is to repeat the action or ask the student to move faster or whatever. Each of the infractions you mention, we don't punish anyone beyond asking them to go back and return faster, or arrive on time next time.

Between these schools, you'd think there'd be more people violating these rules, when discipline seems lax, yet, very few people break the rules the attitude seems to be "ok, you made a mistake, move on".

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One of my instructors teaches taekwondo at a local high school. The neighborhood is poor, drug use is high, and there is some gang activity outside the school. These "kids" are young adults, anywhere from 15 on up. Yes, attitude and talk-back happens a lot between the students. Issues of respect and how one looks at others often come up.

The instructor is a gentile giant who stands 5'6 and will think of nothing of using his bamboo stick to whack your rear end into next week. He was a drill sergeant in the South Korean military, and an Olympic team coach in Korea. He doesn't take crap from anyone, and no gang banger wannabe is going to show him anything he has not seen.

I've assisted at his classes, I don't know who is harder to work with: the students or him. It's a tough class.

You look at him in the eyes, you get smacked in the side of the head, "poked" in the belly (with his fist), and thrown to the ground: 30 push-ups.

You slack off with lazy kicks or punches, your lazy punch (or whatever) gets smacked down, your head gets smacked, you get poked, and thrown to the ground. More pushups.

You stand with your hands on your hips, cross your arms, stand with your shoulders angled to the person you're talking to, chew gum, use the word "yeah" "yup", "word", or any ghetto talk, then your rear end and his bamboo stick are going to have a hard conversation. And more pushups.

In fact, since these kids only come from the ghetto, they know little else except ghetto talk. So they've found it easier to get through class by not talking at all. Responses like "Yes Sir!" are not encouraged, since that has reverberations outside of class. So other than the newcomers, they are generally quiet. Not even "kihaps" (yelling) during forms.

If one person is not doing his best, the whole class will make up for it by moving harder. And always, someone's always gonna get the smack-poke-toss to pushups.

And the kids... they love him. He has lost several to drugs and gangs. But watching his tests is a testament to his work and their perseverance, and it pays off.

Push ups were the most common, usually handed out 20 at a time. We also had something called the electric chair which was standing in a half-squat with your feet together and back against the wall, thighs parallel to the floor. Generally punishments were just handed out for rude behavior or not taking training seriously.

For me 60 oushup minimum and up 130 max. It depends on the infraction such as coming to class late is 20 and direspecting sensei is 120. It also depends o your rank. You may be kicked out, duckwalk, etc.

In my dojo, not putting in enough effort, not paying attention and talking while the sensei is talking is usually followed by getting thrown out. Likewise, if we're late the sensei won't let us in and we have to sit just outside the tatami for the entire length of the class and watch others train. Pretty humiliating, lol, but we all love and respect our sensei too much to be offended.

The usual is, now that I think about it, I don't remember many times where people broke rules. It depends entirely on what happens. If it's something like performing a move without even caring, 15 pushups. If it were something like peeing on the sensei (yes I know it sounds weird), God knows.

In my dojo , Knuckle pushups.Minimum is 50. Upto 200 we will get. Impossible.?Is nt it.? But its a challange.

Pushups, bloody pushups.

Or, even worse, sent away. "To the showeeer!"