Patrick

Sounds good, Bob!

Thanks for the update, Bob. That's annoying about the missed appointment. About the rest... yeah, that's definitely draining. But I'm guessing it's mainly a big exaggeration of the emotions you already feel. I mean, I teared up a few times watching "Soul" on Disney+ the other day, and I always do the same when I say goodbye to my parents, especially these days because we live across the country (haven't seen them in-person since before COVID and won't until we're all vaccinated). For the depression, have you heard of Talkspace? https://www.talkspace.com/ If you find yourself feeling depressed, I'd encourage you to talk to someone. Talkspace might be worth checking out. It's fairly affordable, and it might even be covered by your insurance. Continue to keep us in the loop, Bob! Patrick

Thanks for sharing that with us!

Merry Christmas. Patrick

It was just moved up to a January 1 release. Still working my way through Season 2, but feel free to use this thread for spoilers as you watch!

Welcome to KF, BeefcaketheBarber. Please tell us a bit about yourself and your martial arts history!

Thanks for the update, Moegster! Glad you are sticking with it!

Hey all, I just wanted to update the community on this process, since December 19 has come and gone. In short: We got a lot done! We had 5,886 threads to review, and we reviewed 5,150. Thanks to everyone on staff who contributed! Without your efforts, I'm not sure when this would have been finished! For the remaining 736 threads, the Senseis and me will be reviewing them as we can, and I'll post an update here when we are 100% finished. Thank you for being a part of KarateForums.com. Patrick

Hello, 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 for December is... SLK59! SLK59 joined our community last month and has already made an impact through very solid contributions. We're glad to have you. Thanks, Patrick

Thanks! My parents sent that to us.

Thanks for asking. Latkes are basically small potato pancakes, often served with sour cream or apple sauce. They are traditionally prepared as part of celebrating Hanukkah. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/behind-the-hanukkah-tradition-of-latkes/ Here's a recipe: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015533-classic-potato-latkes And here are some pictures of the ones I made last night! http://www.karateforums.com/img/photos/latkes.jpg http://www.karateforums.com/img/photos/latkes2.jpg

Awesome to see the progress and the masks! Congrats. Patrick

Going to try to make some latkes during these last two nights of Hannukah. Patrick

Hey all, I just wanted to take a moment to wish you a happy holiday season. It's been a challenging for a number of reasons, but I hope that our community has been able to give you a greater sense of connection, around the martial arts, during this time. I'm glad you're here, and hope that 2021 is an amazing year for you and your loved ones. Thank you for being a part of what makes KF special. Patrick

Welcome BalkanDragon! So glad to have you. Thanks for the kind words and congrats on the promotion. Patrick

That is so nice to hear! Thanks for saying so, skullsplitter.

Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com. As the title of the forum suggests, our Choosing a Martial Art, Comparing Styles, and Cross-Training forum is typically used for three things: Helping You Choose a Martial Art If you need help choosing a martial art (or martial arts school), this is a great place to ask. When you do, please be sure to include what your goals are and what arts are available to you in your area. This will allow our members to provide a useful recommendation to you. Comparing Different Martial Arts to One Another We encourage members to compare the differences between different arts in this forum. However, these discussions should not resemble, "Karate vs. TKD - which would win?" or "What's the best martial art for X?" These discussions as are not allowed in our community, as per our guidelines. Cross-Training Different Martial Arts Finally, this forum also serves as a place to discuss how various arts would work together as part of a cross training regiment. If there is ever a post in this section that you feel breaks these guidelines, please click the report post icon (http://www.karateforums.com/templates/subSilver/images/report.gif) in the upper right part of the post where the violation is located. In the report, give a brief explanation of what you think is wrong. We will take it from there. If you have any questions about this forum, please don't hesitate to contact us. Thank you for reading this guide.

Hey all, After just over 12 years(!) as a member of our team, Alex (tallgeese) is leaving our staff here at KarateForums.com. Alex has been a member for over 12 and a half years and, during that time, we've had the privilege to watch his growth as a martial artist, an instructor, and eventually, a school owner. And you can look back at his posts and see the shift in topics over time. There are 6,856 of them, the fourth most all-time. Meanwhile, Alex has been nominated 24 times in the KarateForums.com Awards (4th all-time) and won 15 of them (3rd). As a member of the team, Alex has been a steady contributor, a solid moderator, and a positive force behind the scenes, helping to maintain this community. His contributions here have been immense, and I consider us fortunate to have had him for so long. Thank you, Alex, for all of your contributions and support over the years. You've left a mark here. Alex is leaving because of growing personal commitments, and plans to continue to be a member and an active member as time allows, and I look forward to continuing to see that positive force in our community. Thanks, Patrick

Welcome RobBraniff! Glad you could discover our community through this thread.

I'm glad! Good point! Totally agreed. Patrick

Thanks ashworth. I should say that hopefully my post didn't come off as negative at all. I think these are all totally reasonable things and just because this community isn't active/as active/active enough, it's not anyone's fault, e.g. you don't need to feel any pressure to post more, haha. But, of course, would love to see you more regularly again. Discord is another platform, like Slack. I feel similarly in that there are good use cases for it, but it's very much a chat room sort of thing for me, like you do need to be there in the moment. I use Slack for a couple of work projects, and I use Discord to talk with my brothers while we play video games together. All good platforms, just different experiences. Patrick

No worries, ashworth! Welcome back. I'm glad you saw it. Patrick

Hey ashworth, I don't think you are imagining anything. I see it really as platform diversification. As time has gone by, there have been more choices available, for how you might spend your time online, and people have gone to those choices as their patterns of use fit well with in them. There are so many more things to do online that take up time than there were when, for example, this community launched back in 2001. A platform like Facebook or Twitter is more centered around the individual. You follow this person, you friend this person. They have their profile that they control (relatively speaking). So, patterns of use centered around the individual make more sense there. Forums and hosted communities are more shared spaces, and there are a lot of communities that are still very active and growing. In some ways, I have seen a pendulum swing back to these types of environments as some have grown tired of how the big social media platforms work and of how often they are very directly tied to identity, instead preferring a more focused experience around specific topics, commonly under a username. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of Facebook Groups because I find that it leads to people behaving like they would on their personal Facebook profile, as if they own the space. Facebook Groups are also largely hidden, so we've lost a generation of community knowledge to that walled garden, which I think is a net negative. Our own activity here ebbs and flows, and we're not as active as we once were. But I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing. I think it's okay for communities to be less active while still being valuable and available for those who enjoy the type of environment that we have. Overall, the diversity of choice is a good thing and people will find what works best for them. Those are my thoughts, anyway. Patrick

Thanks Bob. A note here to say that we have now begun this process. Please excuse our dust as we work through 4,808 threads over the next few weeks. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Patrick

Hello, Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com. After more than a month of nominations and votes, the 2020 edition of the KarateForums.com Awards have come to an end. It is now time for us to announce the winners! Before I do so, I wanted to once again congratulate everyone who was nominated. Regardless of whether or not you won the award, the fact that you were nominated means that, when asked to identify a member who really stood out in the past year, your fellow community members thought of you. Out of the 18,396 registered members in the history of this community, only 160 have ever been nominated for an award. To be nominated is pretty cool, and you should be proud. If you did not win or were not nominated, please don't take it badly. These awards do have meaning, but they are also for fun and not everyone can win or be nominated. Please join me in congratulating our winners. I would like to specifically thank everyone who participated in the process by nominating and voting. It is the community that selected the nominees and decided the winners. There are no KarateForums.com Awards without you. Several nominees took the time to vote in categories where they were nominated. Since you can't vote for yourself, your choice is to vote for someone else or not vote at all. Though I can't reveal who voted for whom, please know that I appreciate everyone who thoughtfully voted in the categories where they were nominated. It says a lot about you, and I love to see it. Before I share the winners, I wanted to prepare you: This was a different year for our awards! The most ties we've ever had in a single awards year, before this one, was 3. In 2020, we have 5 ties! But that just means that more members are honored. Without further ado, here are our winners: 1. Member of the Year: (tie) Fat Cobra and RW 2. New Member of the Year: (tie) Capella and MAD Mike 3. Community Spirit Award: sensei8 (for the 8th consecutive year!) 4. Staff Member of the Year: bushido_man96 (for the 4th time!) 5. Funniest Member of the Year: (tie) Bulltahr and JR 137 (for the 2nd time!) 6. Karate Contributor of the Year: (tie) Wado Heretic and Wastelander (for the 3rd time and 2nd consecutive year!) 7. Health, Training and Fitness Contributor of the Year: bushido_man96 (for the 4th time and 2nd consecutive year!) 8. Instructor Central Contributor of the Year: (tie) DWx (for the 2nd consecutive year!) and Spartacus Maximus Congratulations to bushido_man96 (2 wins!), Fat Cobra, RW, Capella, MAD Mike, sensei8, Bulltahr, JR 137, Wado Heretic, Wastelander, DWx, and Spartacus Maximus! We had 5 first time winners this year, including Fat Cobra, RW, Capella, MAD Mike, and Wado Heretic! Congratulations as well to DWx on reaching 10 wins in the history of the awards, 4th all-time, and to Spartacus Maximus and Wastelander for picking up their 5th wins, tying for the 6th most ever. For past winners and all of the awards historical data, please check out: http://www.karateforums.com/awards.php Thank you for reading and for supporting the KarateForums.com Awards. Sincerely, Patrick