Kamidake

You have a "friend" who SLAPS you? In public? With "friends" like that you sure don't need any enemies! I'd wallop the guy, if it won't get you in more legal trouble than it's worth, tell him the association is over and you don't want to hear from him again, and go make some real friends. Good luck!

It improved, and lately it's been going downhill again; Jack keeps getting beaten senseless. (He should come to Jinenkan class. ) However, he still has that sexy voice! The guy who does his voice (Phil Lamarr; I don't know him from anything else) has the sexiest voice in show business!

Anybody else get a kick out of "Samurai Jack"?

Thanks! If anybody else who is about to have their first class is reading this, DON'T FORGET TO TAKE YOUR WATCH OFF. I forgot, and scratched my teacher's arm while batting his punches aside. He was too polite to say anything, but I felt bad.

I suppose it depends on the law in your area, but I can't see how you can reasonably be expected to stand there and let people slap you. I'd wallop the guy.

Although in the U.S. I suppose it would vary from state to state, does anyone know the general legal status of martial artists? Does the law come down harder on them if they bust up an attacker, than it would on someone who fought but didn't know what they were doing and therefore did the miscreant little damage? (The U. S. legal system tends to assume you should take no responsibility for your own safety, but rather wait for the police to arrive and process your corpse.)

Good question. The school's called Jinenkan, and that may be what the technique is called too; there was a veritable blizzard of Japanese words and, since I was busy crouching and punching and blocking and dodging, I didn't get to write them all down. I'll ask him Monday.

I learned a basic stance in which your feet are spread wide apart, with your foot nearest your opponent pointing directly at him, and you sink into a partial crouch, ideally with your thighs parallel to the ground or nearly so. In fact, the major thing I learned in that class is that if you spend much time in this position, your butt and the backs of your thighs will ache something fierce the next day. Then I learned some punching, and, more importantly, some dodging, and then my teacher and I punched and dodged across the floor, alternating between puncher and punchee. All in all, it was fun, sore butt notwithstanding, and I'm looking forward to class 2 on Monday.

I happened to catch "Rurouni Kenshin" the other night; he and the bad guy were discussing his "reverse blade" sword, schools of swordsmanship, blah blah blah. I checked several historical references and found no such weapon, so I think it's something they just dreamed up for the show. I have only seen a few episodes, so I don't know if they ever provided an explanation for it or not. (I can hear it now: KENSHIN: "Well, it all started with Katsunori, the dyslexic swordmaker...") I am by no means an expert on kenjutsu, but I do know samurai were constantly looking for that edge (sorry) that would make it more likely they'd survive combat, so I suspect that if a "reverse blade" sword had been practical somebody would have founded a school of swordsmanship around it. In short, the idea probably really is as silly as it sounds. As I say, I've only caught a few episodes of "Rurouni Kenshin," but I didn't find it as offputting as I do most anime. Most anime either irritates, baffles, or bores me. If anybody wants to check out the show, Cartoon Network is airing it at 1830 (EST) weeknights.

ZR440 is right and I'm glad he pointed that out. However, if the actual attack comes, I'm still going to fire.

Yes! If you have never been hit before, the first time you will be shocked, and pause, giving the bad guy an opportunity to hit you again. So I think everyone should learn how to be hit (preferably not the way I learned, the hard way, but in a safe dojo setting). Here is an additional boxing question. Every time a boxer dies in the ring there are calls to ban the sport. Has a martial artist ever been killed in organized competition? Have there ever been efforts to ban competitive martial arts? If so, where, when, and what happened?

You can definitely mistake thirst for hunger. I used to get the munchies late at night and didn't think anything of it until one night nothing on hand looked good so I thought "Well, I'll just have a nice cold glass of water." Poof. Munchies gone. I haven't had the p.m. munchies in ages (although I do get up in the middle of the night to go to the potty a lot more than I did when I was munching).

When my (former) husband attacked me I escaped by jabbing him in the eye, so I know that works. (I didn't know anything about martial arts, but I DID know he was going to kill me if I didn't do something, so I improvised. )

Gunfu! If I were attacked I would defend myself in the most efficiently lethal manner possible. In most instances, this means shoot the (bleep). However, there are times and places when it's not always possible to have a gun with you to shoot the (bleep). So I think it is prudent to know other means of self-defense other than shooting. I guess the issue of whether or not shooting the (bleep) is sufficiently artistic is a separate discussion. If I feel threatened enough that I intend to kill somebody, art will probably be the last thing on my mind at that moment.

Thanks, Wado Guy!

I think "anime" is Japanese for "sex and violence." I saw "Ninja Scroll" and I enjoyed it, I thought the hero was pretty sexy, but I'll be darned if I understood the plot. Anybody who did understand it, please explain it. I borrowed my Internet name from a (male) anime character. I'm not too familiar with anime, but a lady let me watch that particular one and I thought the name Kamidake was pretty.

I bet that one guy who refused to bow to women would change his tune rather quickly if a few of the ladies knocked him on his butt. IF he was informed of the practices of the school before he started, then if he won't agree to them, they should keep his money and kick him out. If they forgot to tell him about that, they should give him his money back and then kick him out. Either way, the rules should apply to everybody or nobody.

I think we need more politicians who adhere to SOME ethical system, be it Bushido, Christianity, Buddhism, what-have-you; anything that'll keep them honest. However, a crook who practices a martial art is still a crook.

I wouldn't have a home WITHOUT guns, see my above message as to why. (Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!) All you have to do is learn to store and handle them safely. I now view weapons in the same category as insurance policies. Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Is anybody else annoyed by celebrities who peer out from behind their gun-packing bodyguards to issue pronouncements to the effect that the rest of us ought to be disarmed? Jerks.

43. World's oldest belly dancer!

I've never seen "Faces of Death," and wouldn't care to--sounds awfully depressing--but as long as we're complaining, I'll complain about a disgusting TV commercial: the one where the lady is shaking up water in the empty Chi-Chi salsa jar to rinse out the traces, then drinks it. Gag. (I don't think that's a barfie, but it's the closest I could find.) I refuse to buy their products till they take that sickening commercial off.

.380 pistol, 12-gauge shotgun. Don't have any of the nifty MA toys because I haven't learned how to use them yet, but I'll be picking them up as I go along. Wouldn't it be fun to see the expression on Mr. Stranger Danger's face as you bring a katana down on his head? ("Of all the houses to break into, I had to pick HERS--OUCH!")

Start with the principal and the parents. No results there, go to the school board. No results there, it's time to escalate. Since the various incidents where a kid who was bullied finally fought back with a gun, most schools are very sensitive to their public image. They do NOT want to be seen as ignoring bullying. So you launch a stealth attack. You call up a reporter, describe the situation and your attempts to help, explain you've gotten nowhere, and say you're "worried about what might happen...", trailing off ominously. I can almost guarantee that the reporter, wanting to get in on the ground floor of a possible Pulitzer if the situation explodes, will be on that story like ugly on an ape, and he will guard his source, too, so no one need know you tipped him. Let us know what happens!

Do the practitioners rearrange all the furnishings in the dojo to face in more auspicious directions?

Thanks! Right now I don't even know enough about it to ask complex questions. I watch the class practice, and ask some questions then, and I read this, and it's very helpful.