glingglo

if it's any consolation, i doubt this girl will last another 3 months into her training. you could try to talk to your instructor about the problem. don't badmouth the girl, but just say that you have a hard time learning when you're paired with her. that way, your instructor could partner her off with someone else before she runs over to you next time. after all, you're paying good money for your training and you need to be assertive if you think you're not getting as much out of class as you should be. congratulations on the promotion!

"good samaritan" laws generally refer to the laws that protect you from being sued if you try to help someone and they are harmed by your assistance. like if you try to help a car accident victim and don't stabilize their neck correctly and they have neck problems later - they can't sue you because you were trying to help. these laws don't mean that you're legally required to help people or report crimes. though i think you must be a real jerk if you don't.

i think you're wrong about the hygiene thing - most warts are caused by a virus, or hormonal changes (pregnant women get them a lot). anyhow, i wouldn't worry about them so much - and go see your doc, because they're easy to get rid of.

pain is just the feeling of weakness leaving the body.

if the kempo school is your only option, see if you can join the adult class to get away from kids with bad attitudes. you're 16 and most schools will let mature teens work out with the adults. if you're still stuck with the kids, know that they probably won't get far with that mindset and that as you progress in rank, you'll be with more serious students like yourself. as far as weight goes, you'll eventually lose a lot of it if you're training hard. in the meantime, just make sure you don't overdo it in sparring and stuff. you might get tired easily at first. there's no reason at all why your weight should affect how you do your forms and basic techniques, unless your flexibility is also an issue. good luck!

i'm not sure i even understand why your friend is already planning to change styles someday when he hasn't even tried tkd yet. tkd is a great style, assuming that he doesn't have the misfortune to find himself training in a mcdojang. why does he feel like he wants to switch as soon as he can? is he more interested in groundfighting or something?

try having a "buddy day" where all of your students are encouraged to bring a friend in for training, or offer incentives to your students for bringing in new people. your current students are a wonderful recruiting resource- don't be afraid to use them. give them flyers to pass out at their workplaces. there's lots of stuff you can do without spending tons of money. if you work with kids, try to make contacts at the schools in your area. there's a dojo in my neighborhood that's been very successful at building relationships with local elementary schools. they go in and do demos and talk to teachers and often get students referred to them that way.

i've found schools in my area charge anywhere from $75-$300 a month. it depends on what your looking for. some places are seriously overcharging and you can tell from visiting that the quality of the instruction is NOT worth the money. and you'll have to look at how many classes you're allowed to take per month - i pay about $105 a month for unlimited martial arts and cardio classes. some schools might only offer 2-3 classes a week or even fewer, and then you certainly don't want to pay as much. when i did the math and divided the amount i pay by the number of classes i take per month, it comes down to only about $5.50 per class. also, if you're shopping for schools, don't forget about the other "hidden" costs - sparring gear, uniforms, testing fees, etc....

i think most guys feel like they shouldn't hit a woman out of respect. and that's lovely. but if a woman attacks you, then clearly she does not deserve such a nicety and you should treat her like any other attacker. personally, i think it's terribly unfair for society to make guys feel like they should stand there and get whaled on by some chick because it's not polite to hit her back. and hey - women are all about equality these days anyhow. so.... wouldn't it be downright insulting to refuse to hit a female attacker back?

well, on one hand, no that's not so bad. it's nice to show some humility and start a new style as a white belt. i like the idea of it, really. but put yourself in the shoes of another yellow belt who was competing at the tournament. it's unfair for other students to have to compete against someone with more martial arts experience than a normal yellow belt could be expected to have. and imagine if that had been a sparring event - a yellow belt with a normal yellow belt level of experience would probably get his @%!$ kicked by someone who's wearing a yellow belt but has a higher rank in another style.

i'm kind of wondering why he knows enough to test for his yellow belt in the first place. if the instructor felt that he had already learned his white belt w/ stripe stuff well enough to begin teaching him his yellow belt techniques, why did the instructor not test him at that point? if he meets the requirements for testing and has attended enough classes, i kind of think he should be allowed to test for his yellow. it sounds to me like the instructor just might not want to lose out on any testing fees, or that the school doesn't offer gradings frequently enough to keep up with how its students are advancing.

just start calling schools one by one. you'll be able to tell pretty quickly which ones are worth checking out further. when i started looking for schools, i found that half the numbers in the phone book were disconnected, half of the remaining schools turned me off immediately with how they answered the phone (some were very unprofessional, some didn't know how to answer the most basic questions, some just gave me a bad vibe...), and then there were a few left that I actually decided I needed to go visit. the visits narrowed things down even more. once you walk into a place, you'll know if it's going to be a good fit for you. after you narrow it down like that, let us know if you're still having trouble deciding and maybe we can help you more with specifics.

just a thought... has anyone considered the possibility of it being unfair, or even unsafe, to have a black belt (or any high ranking student) from another style don a white belt? especially at tournaments? for example, could you imagine the matchup between a regular low ranking karate student and a low ranking karate student who also holds a blackbelt in another style? the blackbelt would have a CLEAR advantage. i think it's also kind of discouraging for students to see someone at their rank who's got gobs of martial arts experience in another style. of course, i see the other side of the argument too, but i wanted to toss those ideas out there...

i don't know how normal it is, but my shoulders pop a lot more now that i've started doing martial arts. when i raise my hands up over my head to pull my hair into a ponytail, it sounds like rice krispies.

you know it's this, "we shouldn't take any crap from other countries" that kills me. our military cannot be defeated by conventional means. it's a fact. we spend more on arms than the next 20 largest countries COMBINED. this encourages smaller countries who fear the US to pursue nuclear weapons. WE are the biggest threat to world peace. this country is an empire. we have military presence in nearly every country in the world. we support regimes that do horrible things to their people. and we have a president who lies to his own people about his reasons for going to war. all you conservatives wanted to fry clinton for lying about getting a blowjob. why aren't you more outrgaged about how you've been lied to by THIS president?! after all, people have died. close to 200 americans and many thousands of iraqis. and boy is the economy in the toilet - do you know how much this war COST?! oh - and what kind of crap did iraq give us, exactly? i'm dying to know. they had nothing to do with 9/11. NOTHING. but now, thanks to this stupid war, al-quaeda IS actively recruiting in iraq. isn't that great? we have just given a whole country full of people a reason to hate the US and join religious extremist groups. nice going... "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel..." Samuel Johnson

i'm with you on this one battousai16...

i'm really surprised that so many of the students at your school can get away with not sparring. for us, it's a testing requirement - you have to demonstrate an appropriate level of sparring skill to receive your next belt. after all, what's the point of learning techniques if you don't learn how to use them? it sounds like your sensai is letting the students direct the curriculum because he's afraid of losing them. while i think it's important to understand what students want, it is the responsibility of the instructor to teach them what they need to know even if they don't "like" it. could you imagine what our schools would be like if teachers decided that "hey! students don't seem to like math. let's stop teaching it!"? also, you're probably running into a vicious circle type of situation, because you have to practice sparring to be comfortable with it. if your sensai isn't making students spar, they're not getting the practice that would make them comfortable. if the students at your school had more practice, they might find that they LOVE to spar. but if no one makes them get in and do it, they'll never leave their comfort zones willingly. do you see what i mean?

a bow is simply a gesture of respect. there is NO worship implied. NONE. it's sad that respect is such a foreign concept to some people that they can't comprehend the difference. and it's funny how it seems that the people who are most self-righteous and "offended" by being asked to use a bow to show respect are the "Christians" who's religion preaches the importance of humility and consideration for others. the irony just kills me.

thanks everybody... i think i seriously might look into protein shakes and whatnot. i guess i just don't like food. it's so weird... at least if i could eat a power bar or something for breakfast and lunch, i would only have dinner to worry about. if i had my own place and had time to cook, i'd try to get more creative and make stuff, but it's kinda hard to work around my parents in the kitchen when they're making food for the rest of the family, and i'm barely home anyway. (i get off work at 5, home at 5:30, grab something to eat and get to the dojo by 6:15, and don't get home again till 9:30 most nights) thanks again!

i'm going nuts. i'm finding that i can't stand all the food that my family eats because it's so high in fat and carbs. i live at home and the stuff my parents keep in the house is not very healthy. (it's not that bad either, but i'm not a meatloaf and mashed potatos kind of girl) my parents are great and have offered to add things i like to the grocery list, but i never have time to cook and i don't know what to tell him to get. sometimes they'll bring home carrots or something and i'll much on those for like 12 straight days, and suddenly i can't stand the taste of them anymore and don't know what to replace them with. my favorite things to eat are sushi and thai food. i could also eat fruits and nuts till they came out of my ears. but i can't have that stuff all the time (i'd probably get bored with it anyhow), and it's expensive. i don't know what to do... i just don't LIKE anything anymore. i'm sick of salad, i'm sick of eating fresh veggies as a snack, i'm sick of eating CEREAL for dinner all the time because i can't think of anything else i'd have time for. and eating lunch at work is a nightmare. i can never think of anything to pack but then i get here and realize there's nothing around me but mcdonalds and wendys (and if i eat one more salad from wendy's i'll lose it!) any suggestions? i'd greatly appreciate them. i'm eating a lot less than i should be because nothing ever sounds appetizing anymore, and it's getting harder for me to train. i never have any energy anymore because i don't have enough fuel in my body. and i don't want to eat a bunch of fat and carbs to feel full - i want to put GOOD things in my stomach. i just don't know what! thank you for putting up with my ranting. i probably not as calm as i normally would be because i just ate taco bell for lunch and feel thoroughly disgusted with myself.

short term goals are a good idea. you won't see dramatic change overnight, so don't set yourself up to get discouraged. set goals that are challenging, but not overwhelming. i quit smoking a while ago and it was a similar thing. i couldn't fathom going the rest of my life without another cigarette. so i made myself focus on getting through the day without one. and then the next day, and the next. soon a week had passed, and then a month. next thing i knew, i couldn't even stand the thought of smoking again. next time you want to dive into a bag of potato chips, see if you can stop yourself for just that one day. you don't have to think about never eating junk food again. but see if you can resist just one craving. and then the next time it happens, see if you can do it again. and don't let yourself make excuses not to exercise. you don't wake up every morning and "decide" whether or not you're going to work/school. you just DO. make exercise the same kind of thing - leave choice out of it and make it mandatory for yourself. if you can keep this kind of discipline up for about 6 weeks, you'll notice that it won't take nearly as much effort as it did at first. my yoga instructor also told us never to try giving up more than one thing at a time. maybe changing your diet and excrcise routine all at once is too much right now. so change one or the other first, and then add the next component in a month or three. you'll find that as you start to feel healthier, you'll WANT to do things that are good for your body. good luck!

i think the temple scene was set up to visually reinforce the difference between humans and machines. machines don't have hot muddy dance parties. i loved the philosophical aspects of this movie, but i didn't start to contemplate them till the day after i saw it. i was too busy wondering how they put together that whole freeway chase scene. there are some cool interviews on the matrix website actually. they talk to the stunt coordinators and such. worth a read if you're interested in that sort of thing.

i sit in front of a computer all day too. while this never seems to affect my flexibility in class, i DO find that by the end of the day, i'm often so sluggish that it's hard to convince myself to go to class. anybody else know what i mean? of course, once i get to the dojang i'm immediately perked up and usually feel like i have 3 times as much energy by the end of class. but that time between lunch and 5:00 just KILLS me! all i want to do is go back home and get in bed!

yeah, pretty much. i remember there was a segment about a year ago on Good Morning America where one of their reporters went to have it done. she was happy with the results, but she admitted it really really really hurt. they showed this woman "massaging" her legs - she was applying loads of pressure and squishing around the fat. i imagine it WAS effective - but i don't think my butt is worth the effort! they showed the bruising too - NOT pretty.

i know what you mean... i used to work with kids that were serious discipline problems. like, kids that would have to sometimes miss my class because they had to meet their parole officers. if you let kids like that get control of your classroom, no one can learn anything. it's hard though, cuz you don't want to feel like you're abusing your authority. and i always was hoping that if i just showed these kids respect, they'd respect me back. but there were always one or two that needed to learn the hard way.