Patrick

Thanks for the fun replies, MasterPain, GeoGiant and unknownstyle. I hope that you had a great April Fools' Day! http://www.karateforums.com/april-fools-day-update-member-of-the-month-isn-t-ending-vt42759.html Patrick

Hello, Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com. Earlier today, I announced that we were putting an end to the Member of the Month program because we had already honored everyone who deserved it! This was an April Fools' Day joke. Such a thing will never happen because we have deserving members in the community now and even more members will continue to join over time! We are fortunate to have a great community of people here at KarateForums.com. Thank you to Bob (sensei8) for suggesting this idea! Thank you to everyone in advance for being a good sport and I hope that you had a fun day. Sincerely, Patrick

Sorry to hear that.

Update: This was an April Fools' Day joke. Hello, Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com. Our community is full of great members, who contribute their knowledge and experience to discussions or otherwise help their fellow members out with information or advise. It is awesome and something I am very proud of. In line with that, I am pleased to announce that with the honoring of yamesu in March, we have now presented every deserving member with the Member of the Month award. There is no one left. As such, we will no longer be awarding the honor moving forward. Congratulations to everyone who has been honored over the last 9 years. Thank you for your great contributions to KarateForums.com. Sincerely, Patrick

Thanks for the replies. Patrick

Welcome to KF, Vertical_Fist!

Welcome aboard, Ken. Generally speaking, people use Facebook and similar platforms as a means to engage with individuals, friends, family, etc. When people want to talk about a specific topic with others passionate and experienced about that topic, they look to focused communities like this one. In this way, the different platforms can be very complementary. Patrick

Good research, Wastelander. Welcome aboard, egold56. Shorin Ryuu last visited KF in January of 2011. As a new member, egold56 wouldn't be able to initiate a new private message conversation, but I have gone ahead and sent a private message to Shorin Ryuu, including a link to this thread. It's probably unlikely, but can't hurt. Best of luck. Patrick

Thanks yamesu. That's very kind of you. Patrick

Hello and welcome. Glad to have you. Patrick

Hello, KarateForums.com recognizes one member every month as the Member of the Month for their positive contributions to this community. The March 2012 selection is... yamesu. Congratulations! Thanks, Patrick

Welcome aboard. Patrick

Thanks. Patrick

Hello chrisw08, As you already have a thread for these videos, I am going to go ahead and close this one and direct you over there. http://www.karateforums.com/kickboxing-karate-after-a-month-of-practice-vt42633.html Thanks, Patrick

Hello chrisw08, As you already have a thread for these videos, I am going to go ahead and close this one and direct you over there. http://www.karateforums.com/kickboxing-karate-after-a-month-of-practice-vt42633.html Thanks, Patrick

Thanks for the replies, all. Patrick

Welcome aboard, SavageGeek. Nice intro. Patrick

Hey hertsmas. Welcome. Thanks for the detailed intro. Patrick

Welcome to KF, KarateCroft. Glad to have you. Patrick

Hello, We removed a post from this thread in error. The post is below. I apologize for the trouble. Sincerely, Patrick I highly suggest reading the law on self defense in your state. Killing someone you could have spanked is murder. Killing someone you could have escaped is murder. Martial implies military, but most of us train for civilian defense. It is a very rare case where killing is necessary to be safe. Even when escalating to lethal force, the idea is not to kill, but to stop an attack. When someone resists arrest, a cop doesn't just put 2 in his chest and 1 in his head. I was once threatened by a guy for talking to his girlfriend. I did not prison-style shank him. Either of those would have had lifelong repercussions. Self-defense and martial arts are not synonymous. That is another thing I could add to this thread actually. If it escalates to the point where you actually need to use your martial arts to defend yourself, it is in a situation where killing them would apply. One of the most commonly held self-defense ideas is to simply not be there when trouble happens. Someone pulls a gun on you and is threatening to take your money, you give him your god damn money. You don't pull a Chuck Norris and try to kick the gun out of his hand unless you're some kind of macho tough guy or just plain nuts. If he threatens you, chances are he doesn't want to kill you. Why provoke him? But if it does get to the point where you truly do need to defend yourself or others (let's say some crazy guy barges into your office and just starts shooting everyone he sees), only then would you apply that martial art. In your example, the guy merely threatens you. That means he does not really want to harm you else he would have just up and smacked you in the face. Simply complying and backing off diffuses the situation very easily and trouble is almost always averted. But that's self-defense, not a martial art.@wagnerk: I don't really see how that applies to the thread since it's not really something that's used often in our society (much less out of context). And yes martial artists shoud consider non-violent solutions to situations. Does that mean they always do? Of course not. So why teach a little kid who isn't even old enough to know where babies come from a martial art meant to kill someone when you could just be simply lecturing them on how not to get into conflicts to begin with?

Congrats on the win and the experience, Alex. Patrick

Hello, KarateForums.com recognizes one member every month as the Member of the Month for their positive contributions to this community. The February 2012 selection is... WolverineGuy. Congratulations! Thanks, Patrick

Thank you for posting this, MasterPain. Patrick

I apologize for the delay in responding, Liver Punch. Really? Thank you for mentioning that. Yes, I did write the foreword. I also was a technical editor on the book. Thanks, Patrick