Lupin1

Just make sure you dunk the fries in the Frosty. If you just throw them all in they get all mushy. You still get that salty/sweet combo, just mushier.

I just tried the PB and mayo sandwich (just got home from work and I was hungry). I could only eat one half. Not absolutely horrible, but ah... well I only ate half. How about french fries in chocolate ice cream? That's delicious (you can thank Wendy's Frosties for inspiring that combo).

We're not a member of any organizations because my instructor likes to do his own thing. I can see why there are so many of them though. I mean, the original Isshinryu practitioners in the US came over here after usually no more than a year of training on Okinawa and then they came over and started teaching people. There's a lot of disagreement. Not to mention Shimabuku was known to teach the same kata slightly differently to different people.

When I was a kid I used to eat peanut butter and pickle sandwiches mostly because it grossed everyone out. They were actually pretty good, but it's not something I choose much anymore. Ever since I stayed with a host family in Germany for 3 weeks the summer after high school I've joined their tradition of mixing beverages. I still love their combo of coca cola and orange fanta which they actually sell bottled as it's own seperate beverage down there and I make it anytime I can get my hands on Fanta. I also like their mixture of apple juice and mineral water, but they don't sell mineral water much over here. Oh, and I have to admit I love mixing ketchup and mayo to dip my fries in.

I do Isshinryu. I train in a teeny tiny little program run out of a Boys and Girls Club in southern New Hampshire (I've only got another 2 1/2 weeks there, though, until I'll be training on my own). I've studied there about 5 years now (non-consecutively) and I'm a 5th kyu. My instructor is Victor Smith (if any of you have been to FightingArts Forums you probably know him) and he trained in Isshinryu at Tom Lewis' dojo and in a few other styles with various other people.

I have a feeling they're going to make a movie out of this study. And I would totally see it.

We practice at the local boys and girl's club in their wrestling room (we're in the gym for the summer, though-- way too hot up in that wrestling room). Sometimes we have to go to our instructor's backyard, though. And if we practice outside we wear shoes. Those sticks and rocks can be dangerous.

Wow. Our adult class seems extremely informal compared to pretty much all of you: -We never bow and the only time we line up is for drills and promotions, but we never line up in order of rank. -The only one who calls anyone sir is the head instructor, who calls the other instructors sir (not for any reason-- that's just what he does). -We don't call anyone sensei, but I call all the instructors Mr. ____ mostly because I grew up knowing them and was taught to do that as a kid and never broke the habit. The other adults just call everyone by their first name, though. -We don't wear jewlery mostly for safety issues and if you accidentally wear it, the head instructor uses it to remind everyone what a "force multiplier" is by doing something with it that causes you pain. -Uniforms are optional on the one day a week we wear them and can be any color and a patch is optional. And if we want we don't have to wear the jacket or we can roll the sleeves up or one guy even cut his sleeves off. It's pretty much anything goes in the adult class. -We're allowed to swear and say pretty much whatever we want as long as there are no kids around. The kids class has a few more rules than us. They line up by rank and bow at the beginning and end of every class, they're required to wear gis to every class which need to be white, and they're required to call all the instructors Mr. _____ (which is how I developed the habit).

When I try to stay relaxed for physical things (usually singing) I've found that the key to my entire body's relaxation is in my shoulders. If I force myself to release the tension in shoulders and keep them nice and low, the rest of my body just follows. May not work for everyone, but it helped me.

Tackle the guy pro-football style?

I feel silly yelling anything... If I'm going to do a tension release thing, I'm going to do a grunt like in tennis. I don't like yelling.

I think my instructor would be extremely mad at me if I joined in. He'd want me to run away and get help.

Well said, and simple to remember. I wish that kind of teaching flexibility came easily. It's very hard to teach some people even when they sincerely want to learn. ADD/ADHD, Autism, Asperger's, and ODD (Oppositional Defiance Disorder I think? Fairly new, but WHOAH... They will argue with you, insult you, walk away from you and all sorts of other stuff.) can be very challenging, in addition to finding ways to teach the average student in class. Teaching the children with disabilities sure can be a challenge (I have to admit I'm not a big fan of inclusion in classrooms for the exact reasons you mentioned, but I tend to keep my beliefs on that to myself-- it's not PC for an elementary school teacher to be against inclusion, although I've found many are). As for the conduct disorders, being an optional program, I probably just wouldn't accept them into my class. If a kid was going to insult me and argue with me, I'd say he wouldn't be welcomed (in fact, in our school district those are the kids who are in a seperate classroom. The kids with every other disorder under the sun are placed in mainstream classes, but the kids with severe emotional/conduct disorders are seperated into their own classroom). I wonder if they offer classes on that stuff for leaders of after school programs. That'd be an awesome community adult education class-- differentiation in youth programs.

Exactly. To give some perspective, when an education student is student teaching, the teacher he or she is paired with is called their master teacher. Of course, you don't call them "master" but it shows that the use is very common in the English language. I think where it gets lost in the translation isn't in using it to describe someone-- that's very common (master craftsman, master teacher, master chef, etc). I think where we get weirded out in English is in actually calling someone "Master". I don't know if it has to do with the heavy influence of Christianity ("Call no man Master") or the fact that we usually see someone who's actually called master as part of a master/slave relationship, or maybe we see it as an antiquicated term (it used be a substitute for "mister" for boys/young men in pre-civil war era-- like "young Master James" and was seen as belittling if you called a man that [like you were calling him a boy]). There are a lot of reasons why English speakers don't necessarily like the term. Although we don't use it at my school (like I said earlier, my instructor is against applying the term to anyone living), I personally think it's cool. Makes me feel like a Jedi padawan.

I've seen a lot of schools that do seperate tape stripes for different achievements within each belt rank. For instance, once you have your kata for that belt down you get a red stripe, once you show you've improved in kumite to the point expected for your belt you get a green stripe, once you've learned your kihon you get a black stripe, once you've met the time requirement (if there is one) you get a brown stripe, etc. It breaks each belt down into smaller goals, allows the instructors to instantly see what each student still needs work on just by looking at their belt, and it gets rid of the old "am I ready to test yet" question because the student knows they wont be ready to test until they have all their stripes for that belt.

A good teacher teaches the way his students learn-- simple as that. That means adapting, differentiating and knowing when you need to change your approach and being able to do that.

I read somewhere that they're basing the people off a variety of cultures. For instance, the Southern Water Tribe is Innuit, and from the looks of shots from the movie online, most of the actors look Innuit. The Northern Water Tribe is based off of caucasion, European culture, which from the arcitecture and the way the northern water tribe people from the cartoon were drawn, seems very plausible. And since Kataara and Sokka's grandmother was from the Northern Water Tribe, it makes sense for them to be more caucasion. They're basing the Air Nomads off Tibetan monks, so Aang probably should look more Tibetan. The Fire Nation will be Indian and the Earth Kingdom will be Chinese. This is an interesting read here: http://www.lastairbenderfans.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2631&f=10

I don't think Martial Arts teaches those things any more than being involved in any other after school program. You could gain self-confidence, self-awareness, self-discipline respect and responsibility just as well by being in Boy Scouts or playing on a basketball team. That said, I do think that well-run youth activities do instill those things, so the poster is most likely telling the truth, but I find they're usually stressed a lot more in advertisement for the martial arts when I think you could learn them just as well in the other activities.

*Starts singing the Imperial March* Bum bum buh-bum bum buh-bum bum buh-bum. BAH BUM BUH-BUM BUM BUH-BUM BAM BUH-BUM.

Just google "racebending". I'm not too concerned about it, personally, but some people are really upset about it.

I've been obsessed with Avatar since it came out 5 years ago. It was an awesome show, so I'm looking forward to seeing the movie. In fact, Avatar is what got me interested in starting karate again.

Remember that in Okinawa when karate there was getting started, the masters taught out of a teeny tiny spare room in their teeny tiny house usually only big enough for one student to be inside at a time while the other students practiced at the makiwara outside. I don't think location has much to do with it. People who own a full time school usually have more time to dedicate towards karate and students usually have more opportunities to train, but people who operate non-profit programs out of church basements don't have to worry about the money aspects and all that, so often times they teach more for the art and less to make money or keep students. But then every school's different. I guess what I'm trying to say is it doesn't usually matter. There are good and bad schools in both situations.

Haha. Our instructor pretty much tells us the opposite. He goes on and on about how great some people are and then he tells us we'll never be that great because we're part time martial artists and there's only so much we can do in the two hours a week we train and since most of us started when we were older. He wants us to be great at what we do, but assures us that we shouldn't expect to be able to do what people who train full time all their lives can.

I am all for people following their dreams. If it's looking like it's financially feasible for you to support yourself fully by doing something you love, I wouldn't hesitate. Do you have a waiting list for your current class? Would there be enough potential students to fill the extra classes? Of course you'll probably have to start advertising a little more, but if you think the market is there in your area, go for it!

You know, there's nothing wrong with saying no to one or two classes. If teaching karate isn't your primary job, then it always comes second. And you're not going to be helping your club, your school or yourself if you burn out and wind up having to take time off all the time because you make yourself sick.