KarateKen

Do you believe that there should be an age requirement for a student to reach black belt, and if so, what age would it be?

RIP to the Hulk

I have one and that is I wish I had finished my TKD training and gotten to black belt. I was less than a year away and I left to go take up another style.

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

I've done thins several times over the years. I met a few people off Myspace back in the day, and some other places. Two of my longest running friendships started by meeting on a discussion board over 20 years ago. However, it has been a very long time since I have done anything like that.

I enjoy a variety of teachers and styles I am not experienced with. One seminar I attended was when I studied Hapkido and we had a day of training with three other schools, one was a TKD school, another a TSD school, and a Judo school. All four schools had their students at the seminar. It was a fun day of learning and working on stuff with people who we were not used to and techniques from styles we had not seen before. This was a free seminar. I also attended a seminar when I was in TKD that was strictly a point sparring seminar, though I found this less beneficial because we only had one instructor, and it was my TKD instructor, so it wasn't much different than our weekly sparring class other than working with students from other schools. Now if I was new to the instructor and/or teachings I would have been more interested even though it was focused on a singular martial art instead of spreading out among four. When I was in TKD we attended a Hapkido seminar which was new to me, I had never heard of it at the time, but after two hours of studying the wrist locks and what not, I was fascinated and wanted to learn more. I ended up joining a Hapkido school a few months later and cross trained both styles. A two-hour seminar, I did not know what I was doing at all, but I understood the value of what was being taught and wanted more. To answer your question, I think it would be A: learning something new and doing things that are outside of usual training and B: the experience of the instructor and C: how useful it would be for what I want to get out of my training. Of course, cost and location are factors. I am much less likely to attend if it is expensive or requires going out of town. Thanks for asking.

Disappointing. The movie felt rushed and unoriginal. Other than the final fight scene I was bored.

I always find it funny in the baseball brawls that the pitchers come running in from the bullpen and by the time they get to the mound the fight is over. I'm not aware of what athletes in other sports have studied martial arts, but being able to communicate with people who are angry would be a great tool for refs and players, and managers. I feel there is something wrong with the sports culture that allows so much verbal abuse, there seems to be almost an expectation of being allowed to scream, name call, and swear at each other without punishment. When the players and umpires get up into each other's faces it is good for TV and the fans love it, but it sometimes goes too far, like when Roberto Alomar spit in the face of an umpire. Conflict resolution is a useful skill, sadly sometimes people are so angry they can't be reasoned with, both in sports and in life. Police deal with it all the time. Being an umpire/referee sound like a thankless job, if you do everything right nobody notices but if you get it wrong the scream at you. Or you get it right, but they still scream at you because it went against them. If you are a referee, a cop, or work in customer service you basically get verbally abused for a living.

Whoever claimed that might have been doing a bit of drinking, sucking back on grandpa's old cough medicine. The movie is available to stream now, and has been since July 8, though I just learned of this. Thankfully the other info I had was wrong, and I will be watching it in the next few days. TTYS!!!

I have not attended an abundance of seminars, maybe three or four in my life, and never been an instructor at one, so I guess I am not much help to you here.

Toronto makes another trade, sending veteran forward Ryan Reaves to San Jose for defenseman Henry Thrun. Reaves is 38, has racked up 137 career points (63 goals) and over 1,000 career penalty minutes. The Sharks will be the seventh team he has played for. Thrun played 119 games with the Sharks since they traded for him in February 2023.

I saw the cops break up some fireworks being shot off just down the block from where I live, I agree, it is rare because the police can't stop everyone and may police stations are facing a shortage already.

Sounds like a typical Saturday night during my drinking years. Kidding aside though, I might have gotten a concussion during my first TKD tournament after a kick to the face left me seeing stars for a few days. Did not get KOed or go out, but enough to where I likely suffered some damage. From what I understand about concussions, and I am no expert or close to it, once you have the first one, you are at higher risk for more of them later on, and one plus one does not equal two, it is more like three or four, the damage sort of compounds the more of them you have. People do not usually see the results of that damage until later in life, meaning that the behaviors you listed do not show up as much when you are young, it shows up big time when you are older. Good on you for donating your body to science, it could help a lot of people who come after you.

Mike Webster (50) Junior Seau (43) and Aaron Hernandez (27) all were found to have brain injuries when they died, with the Webster case being what lead to the CTE search of the NFL, and eventually a lawsuit and a change in the rules for player safety. Both Seau and Hernandez committed suicide, questions remain about how the brain injuries impacted their decision making, especially Seau's decision to take his own life and Hernandez's decision to take others. I did not think about the other aspects, such as damage to facial nerves, those are fair to bring up.

Diddy found guilty on two of the five counts, found not guilty on count 1, which was the most serious. Sentencing is scheduled for early October. He might get some prison time, but he won't be given a life sentence, max would be 20 years. He was denied bail and will have to sit in jail until the sentencing which will likely count as time served. He is also facing dozens of civil lawsuits.