Patrick

This quiz was our 2026 April Fool's Day prank. Please see more here: https://karateforums.com/topic/52511-april-fools-the-is-your-martial-arts-school-a-mcdojo-quiz/ Hope everyone had a great day. Patrick

Hey all, Our April Fool's Day prank this year was to launch a quiz where you could find out if your school is a "McDojo" or not, just to poke fun at the idea and understandable sensitivities around it. It was actually possible to be told that your school was not a McDojo, and that happened in 2 of 13 results. The quiz remains online at the moment, and will be for the foreseeable future, so please feel free to play with it. But for the sake of posterity, please find the questions and answers from the quiz, and how they informed whether or not you were told that you were in a McDojo. The answers generally led you to the opposite of what you would have assumed. Thank you to @bushido_man96 for question ideas. Thanks for all of your good natured replies, as always. The quiz was not anyone saying that any of the traits mentioned is definitively a "McDojo" or not because while some traits may be more common in schools where training quality may not be good compared to the cost, there are plenty of exceptions where the opposite can be true. Hope you had a great day! Patrick Introduction: Do You Train at a McDojo? Answer these questions to see whether your school leans more toward quality training or has questionable “belt factory” vibes. 1. How many colored belt ranks does your school have? Less than 5 (this answer indicates your school is a McDojo) 5-10 (McDojo) More than 10 (neutral; I did this so that ties would always go to your school being a McDojo) 2. Does your school train only on hardwood floors? Yes (McDojo) No (Not a McDojo) 3. Does your instructor display his certifications in the dojo? Yes (Not a McDojo) No (McDojo) 4. Does your instructor use a curriculum that starts simple and gets more complex as ranks increase? Yes (McDojo) No (Not a McDojo) 5. What happens when a student makes mistakes or struggles? They get coached with specifics, patience, and realistic feedback (McDojo) Students are praised no matter what, and standard feel unclear or lowered to avoid discomfort (Not a McDojo) 6. How does the school handle cross-training or visiting other gyms/schools? They're supportive or neutral (McDojo) Cross-training is treated like betrayal (Not a McDojo) Outcome #1: Not a McDojo (Solid School). Your school shows strong signs of legit instruction. No school is perfect, but yours looks focused on growth over gimmicks. Outcome #2: Full McDojo (Belt Factory Alert). Sorry to say that it appears you are training at a McDojo.

Hey all, We're adding a new feature to the site: Quizzes. Our first one is now available, drawing on nearly 25 years of conversations here in the community to help you determine whether or not the school you are currently training at is a McDojo. Take the quiz and find out! Quiz: Is Your Martial Arts School a McDojo? We'll be adding a new quiz every week through the summer, so stay tuned. Thanks for reading. Patrick

Thanks for weighing in, Bob and Brian. I appreciate it. Sounds good, @Zaine. I'll follow up in the next couple weeks if I don't hear from you. I have served as the editor of these efforts for years, so don't worry too much about rambling. haha. Thanks. Also, anyone else, if you haven't replied but want to: Please feel free. Thanks for reading.

KarateKen's post above was the first post in the community about the passing of Chuck Norris. With that said, to keep things simple, due to the title of the thread, I think it would be a good idea to keep posts regarding the passing of Chuck Norris to a single thread, which can be found here: https://karateforums.com/topic/52504-chuck-norris-passed-away/ Thank you for your understanding.

Thanks for giving it some thought, @Zaine and @KarateKen. No Karate tournaments just yet. John, I appreciate the kind words and the specific ideas you shared. We should definitely incorporate interviews and/or essays in some form - short or long; text, audio, or video. Even if it is just a few text prompts to encourage members to reflect or 60 second video where a member talks about what the community means to them. As you noted, there are differing levels of time commitment there, but they'd all be fun. At minimum, I'd love for you to write that longer post, and I'd be happy to sit for an interview with you via any means you'd like. It's hard to say this without sounding a bit rehearsed, but in hosting celebrations like this over the years for various milestones (which are all archived here in the KarateForums.com Announcements forum), I think it's important to place the emphasis on our members. But if you (and possibly others) would find it interesting to hear from me and have me reflect, then I'm happy to do it. So, please feel free to start to piece that together or think about it. We can also brainstorm privately, as well. I look forward to it. Thanks again, Patrick

Sorry to hear that, Ken. I think they did such a good job on the second season. I came into it with no knowledge of the manga or anime. Another family we know has been going through the anime like you, @DarthPenguin. Maybe we'll give it a look at some point.

Thanks @KarateKen! It was the hottest St. Patrick's Day ever throughout much of Southern California. DTLA hit 98 degrees, breaking the previous record of 94 in 1914. My son (also Patrick) and I got out for part of it to have some fun, but have been inside a bunch this week.

That's very touching, John. Thank you for putting that into words and for being a part of what makes this place so special. Patrick

Hey all, May 21 will mark 25 years since KarateForums.com launched. I know. That's pretty wild. Thank you for being a part of it. Obviously, I want to mark the occasion. Amongst the staff, we're kicking around some ideas. For example: We'll dig into the stats a bit and come up with some interesting lists and data. Maybe we could open up a submission form for members to talk about what the community means to them and publish those stories. And the ideas build from there! But I wanted to put out a public call, too, because I'd love to hear from you and any ideas that you might have. If you'd prefer it be private, please send me a private message. Obviously, I can't make any guarantees on any particular idea, just because it's based on the time I have available, but it would still be wonderful to hear more about anything that comes to mind for you. Thank you for reading this. Patrick

Anyone else watch the One Piece live action series on Netflix? It's such a fun show.

Had to take a break from Iron Flame as it was due back at the library. In that time, I read the X-Men Noir: Mark of Cain paperback, and now I am working on wrapping up Ultimate Iron Man: Volume 1 before I go back to finish the last 30% or so of Iron Flame.

Hey all, Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com. We recognize one member every month as the KarateForums.com Member of the Month for their positive contributions to this community. Our honoree this time is... @Zaine for the fourth time! Last August, Zaine marked 20 years of being a member here at KarateForums.com! That's an incredible period of time, but it is easily exceeded by the quality of your contributions over the years, John. Thank you for being such a big part of our community! Patrick

The ups and down of being the parent of an athlete. Enjoyed reading these. Sounds like Kenneth gave it his very best.

I think I'm in the same neighborhood as you - mid hundreds. This was probably helped by COVID and having a kid. If not, living in Los Angeles and having some venues walkable, I'd have gone to a bunch more shows by now. We have tickets for My Chemical Romance in October as my wife is a fan. That might be the most expensive, at least in present day dollars vs. inflation adjusted. Those are a bit under $500. We just saw the New York Rangers (vs. the Kings) earlier this year, and I bought the tickets a few hours before the game - they were under $99 (including taxes and feessuite tickets, where we had a suite and seats at the front of the suite. I think we'll try to do that more often to see the Rangers and Lakers and maybe the Yankees when they are in Anaheim. We went to a Yankees/Dodgers game, and it wasn't as fun as it could have been. But we went to a 3 game set in San Diego two years ago, and that was really fun. Going to see them in San Francisco this month for the opening series (not Opening Day, though). I'm also going to try to go to some of the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, but am curious to see how much that ends up being.

I was just going to come back to say something like this. As you said, KarateKen, there is *always* a problem. So that means a problem isn't necessarily a reason not to do the deal. It just comes down to sorting minor and major problems, things that are cheap to fix vs. expensive, what you can live with, and what you can negotiate with. Getting the most out of this type of process is just a game of you not wearing down. Folks who process home after home after home are used to people wearing down. It sounds like you don't have the problem of falling in love, so that's good. Back when we were buying, it was closer to worst of COVID, and we'd hear about people forgoing inspection as a way to be competitive which, unless you are incredibly wealthy and the home price is a minor inconvenience for you, just boggles my mind. The agent we had at the time pitched it in a "this is just what others are doing" way. But on the house we actually agreed to buy, she was trying to talk me into doing away with the mortgage contingency to make our offer stronger, since we'd already qualified. But why? I'll never beat a cash offer, so if that's what the seller was getting, that's cool. Otherwise, if we're pushing forward the biggest bag of money, they'll take it. And they did. Any pressure that anyone tries to put on you, you just have to kind of laugh it off. It sounds like you're already doing this. The only deadlines that exist are the ones in contracts. The rest are made up. The pressure might be real, but it could also be made up. And if it's real and you lose out, oh well, you still have your money! When the house fell through, we stayed in the apartment, and our financial situation has improved dramatically just based on how financial markets have performed (example: the Dow is up 40% since we would have closed, while the NASDAQ is up more). Meanwhile, the buyers of the home we were going to buy tried to sell it recently for around a 10% profit (3.5 years later), and couldn't. It appears they may have rented it for far below what the mortgage payment would have been. We have been talking about buying a home again, because I'd love to have more outdoor space for my toddler and for us. But we also love living in our neighborhood and my wife being able to walk to work. It's very much a city and an apartment area, which we enjoy, so I'm torn. Pros and cons for everything.

Wow, what an update. Thanks for sharing. I hope it is, as you say, a technical glitch. Did your doctor say what would cause a hole like that?

Hey DarthPenguin, thanks for asking. I'll play. I usually do head-to-head, but I'm up for trying roto. I've either never done that or it's been a longtime. I do like a live draft if possible, just because people can show up if they want, and you can pre-rank either way, but you can count me in regardless, if you get enough to make it worthwhile. I appreciate it.

My experience is mostly watching my parents buy a few homes over the years. We actually bought a house a few years ago, but the inspection came back so bad that we went ahead and backed out. It sounds like you've probably already found the one thing that I recommend to folks: An inspector who will give you reasons not to move forward. I feel like the whole system is generally adversarial to buyers. Even people operating on your behalf are often trying to simply complete a sale. For me, having a good inspector alleviates a lot of the stress I would feel because at the point of buying, I have come to terms with the financial investment and the fun side of it - the life it creates - but the inspector helps deal with the unfun side. We paid for a normal inspection, plus a termite and sewer inspection, and I'd do it again. I'll never forget the moment the inspector crawled out from under the building and said, "it looks like mold," and the real estate agent basically cut him off to say, "it could be [whatever he said]," like she wasn't let him talking. Sure enough, it was mold. Several types, including two black mold, and all sorts of other issues. If we buy again, I'll go back to that inspector if he's still around.

Hey all, I just wanted to call out an upcoming change to our login system here at KarateForums.com. I am not setting a date for the change yet. It will occur during normal updates of our community software, and I will follow up on this thread with a date when I know it. Previously, you have been able to login to your account using your username and password. But as best practices have changed over the years, many sites have shifted to login using your email address and password. The simple reason is that your username is clearly visible on the site - so everyone has it. For example, you know that my username is Patrick. If someone was trying to access my account, they would just need to guess my password. Hopefully, you have a complex one. But even if you do, the email address you use on KarateForums.com is not publicly visible on the site. If someone was trying to access your account, they would need to guess what email address you have on file. I should add that we haven't had any issues with accounts being breached or anything like that, this isn't in response to any particular concern. It's happening now because the new version of the community software that we use has it as a standard feature. So, when we update to the next version, the feature will be automatically applied, and I just wanted to give you a heads up. You should always keep a current email address on file with us, just in case you ever lose access to your account, but if you are worried about this change, now would be a good time to verify the email address you have on your account, which you can do at karateforums.com/settings/email/. If you have any questions, please feel free. Thanks for reading. Patrick

Sorry for your loss, Ken.

No, I've never got into that particular hobby. We bought some stuff from a prop house once and it has a bunch of stamps in it but I haven't had time to look into them yet. I can see how it can be a fun treasure hunt.

Hey all, Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com. We recognize one member every month as the KarateForums.com Member of the Month for their positive contributions to this community. Our honoree this time is... @KarateKen for the second time! Thank you for all of your continued contributions over the years, KarateKen! You have made an impact, and I'm grateful to have you as a member of our community. Patrick

I love this show. Anyone else watching?

Sorry for your loss, JazzKicker, and of course, the loss to everyone who was impacted by him.