Patrick

Thanks Titanium.

Hey all, I haven't played fantasy football since 2009, but I was thinking of playing again this year. Would anyone be up for a KarateForums.com league? Ideally, I would have asked earlier, but I just thought of it now. It would be good to have at least 10 people involved. I went ahead and created a simple league on Yahoo! so anyone who is interested could join: http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/f1/1028374 When you join, please use your KarateForums.com username as your team name so we can tell who is who. I have set the draft time as Sunday, September 6 at 9 PM ET. The first day of games in the NFL in September 10. I could change/push back the draft, but even if you can't make it, your team can be autopicked for you. If we don't get 10 people, I can always cancel the league, but judging from the popularity of the annual football thread, maybe we can put together a good group. Thanks, Patrick

Thanks man.

Thank you for sharing this, Hawkmoon. I did notice that you had been away. What a challenging year you have had. Glad your Dad is doing better! Congratulations on the new rank. Patrick

These messages are very kind. Thank you. Patrick

Welcome back, Nijil Jacob. Patrick

Thanks for the backstory. And for starting this thread. I'm sure you aren't alone in your feelings. Patrick

Hey all, This post is number 25,000 for me here at KarateForums.com. This community has been online for 5,206 days, which means I have made 4.80 posts per day. What I really like about this number is that, in the context of these forums, it's not a huge one. There have been 527,448 posts made by 9,334 different members. Despite the fact that I have been here from day one, my 25,000 posts account for only 4.73% of the posts within our forums. Many other members have made many posts. There are 95 other members who have 1,000 posts or more and 201 other members that have made 500 posts or more. I'd like to take this opportunity to specifically recognize the members, from that group, who have been a part of our community this year. Thank you to Brian (bushido_man96), Bob (sensei8), Pat (SaiFightsMS), Alex (tallgeese), Heidi (ninjanurse), Danielle (DWx), Bill (ps1), Shawn (cathal), Bill (MasterPain), Gareth (Harkon72), Noah (Wastelander), yamesu, John (Zaine, whose birthday its today), Nidan Melbourne, Devin (Lupin1), P.A.L, Rusty (pittbullJudoka), Mykel (ShoriKid), Jennifer (Rateh), IcemanSK, CredoTe, Hawkmoon, Montana, stonecrusher69, Safroot, Spartacus Maximus, mal103, Archimoto and Ken (wagnerk). I am grateful for the outstanding contributions that you have made to our community during your many years here. When I launched this community, I definitely didn't have this sort of longevity in mind. But of everything I have been involved with, this community is one of the things that I am most proud of. Thank you to all of the members who help make it great. Patrick

Me and my brothers just saw Weird Al for the second time. Such a great show. Been listening to his stuff non-stop recently, following the concert.

I get a kick out of your username whenever I see it, bigpopparob2000. Glad that you're still with us after all of these years. I don't think you are "out of line" at all. Perhaps just a little oversensitive about something that really doesn't affect you. I golf and have been around the game my entire life. I know it to be a game of integrity and honor. When you make an error resulting in a penalty, you are often the only one who knows it. As such, you self-report it. Otherwise, you are cheating. For all the people who take mulligans, there are plenty who play the game by the rules and try to card a good score. There is also a lot of etiquette that comes into play. Where to walk, how to fix your ball mark, rake the bunker when you exit it, etc. You leave the course as it was when you came. I also follow a general standard of dress. But at the same time, if I see a bunch of 4-8 year olds with untucked shirts running around the range beating balls in all directions, I don't get offended or scowl at them. I smile. Most of them won't play golf when they get older, maybe some will. But it doesn't matter to me. Looking at martial art schools, I think you have an activity that is very attractive to little kids. Who hasn't pretended to be a ninja? If that's all it is, a birthday party where you pretend to be a ninja, I don't see the harm. The martial arts is a serious thing, but it does not need to always take itself seriously. I certainly wouldn't use it to judge the quality of the school. A martial arts school is, for a majority of its hours, an unused space that someone is paying rent for. If they want to use that space to host a birthday party and help the bottom line a little, that seems like a reasonable use of the space. I'm sure some kids do become students after they (or, perhaps more accurately, their parents) discover a school due to a party, but I think for most schools that do it, it's probably just a common sense, safe way to generate a few dollars, more than a marketing idea. Just my thoughts. Patrick

Glad that you found some memories in there, Pat. Thanks Titanium. Patrick

Congrats neoravencroft!

Happy birthday to John (Zaine)! Thank you for all of the contributions that you have made to our community. Patrick

Thanks. I thought you made the point really well. Bob, no one is saying that your objections don't have validity. In fact, I think most people on this thread agree completely with you. I only disagree with the notion that this should never, ever be possible. Why would that be appropriate? If it is a meeting of CIs and CIs are welcome, who are you to decide who is and is not qualified to attend? I mean, if you want to hold your own meeting and decide who is in the club and who isn't, that's OK. But if you are just an attendee of the meeting as a CI, why would it be appropriate for you to say who and who should not attend in the position they hold within their own school? What would you think if a fellow attendee did that to you? There are football coaches in the NFL, at big colleges, at tiny colleges, in high school, in Pop Warner and in various volunteer roles. Most coaches aren't Don Shula. But the coach who guides a pack of 10 year olds is still a coach. It doesn't mean he's a world class coach, but he's helping some people, and I don't mind that he calls himself a coach. I don't see anything that would suggest that this kid is doing this for money as the primary motivator. There are plenty of other ways to make money. Thanks, Patrick

Point of clarification: from reading the articles, it seems like he became head instructor at 17. Certified at 16, teaching full time at 17. Maybe I read it wrong, though. I was going to raise the point that Danielle did, which I think is a great one: once in a while, you hear of a teenager running a wildly successful business. Of course, they are the rare exception. But that's the point: there are exceptions. Bob, your list of what CI does actually reads fairly closely to what a business owner does. Change a few words and it's pretty much dead on. I didn't find your yellow belt example to be a good one. That speaks more to me about the marketing aspects of the arts. In your story, the prospective student doesn't respect the school because of the color of the instructors belt. But in reality, the color of the instructors belt is, at best, only a partial indicator of their ability as an instructor. Wearing a black belt is kind of like having a row of trophies in your lobby. It's a marketing thing more so than an actual indication of instruction quality. I don't think that it's completely inconceivable that there can be a teenager who is a decent (I didn't say great, which he could be, but decent) head instructor. I don't think you can say that. Would you even consider most adult head instructors "decent"? A teenage business owner will deal with the exact same criticisms. How can you trust the business? The kid will probably just blow your money! How can you trust the instruction at the school? It's the same sort of thing. It's a criticism of mental maturity, experience and responsibility. And yet, kids who check those boxes do exist. What do we do with them? What I do professionally today, I did when I was 15, and I faced some of these thoughts. What to do with me? Should I be held to your idea of what I should be, rather than the idea of what I want to be? I realize that everyone here is just offering their opinions as an onlooker, not thinking of themselves as the parents of this kid, but it might be something to consider. So you won't be the teenage business owner's customer. That's your choice. You'd happily have him as your paper boy (kind of a dated reference, heh), but you couldn't trust his business, right? Because he's probably not responsible. He's probably like the teenagers you've known in your life. For the same reason, you couldn't trust him to run a small martial arts school in Mississippi. He can't help anyone. You can't trust his instruction. These criticisms, between business owner and martial arts instructor, aren't dissimilar. You have an idea of what a head instructor should be. And because it doesn't come close to meeting that idea, it's problematic. But don't many adults fail to meet that same idea? Many adults are awful martial arts instructors and terrible, irresponsible business owners. All of this doesn't mean he won't be the ideal for someone else. It doesn't mean he can't command respect from adults. It doesn't mean he can't reach kids and teenagers in a way many adults can't. And it doesn't mean he can't be a better teacher or business owner. I believe that a 16 year old can run a business "alone and independently," (quoting Spartacus Maximus here), but that's not what he's doing and that's not what most business owners do, is it? Most people have someone they rely on, whether it be an employee, an accountant, a temp agency, whatever. While emancipated minors do exist, it's pretty clear he's not alone (his parents are even mentioned in the article). As an aside, the website mainly looks impressive in the context of the martial arts, where many schools have poor websites. I could set something up like this in a few hours with maybe $50. There are some assumptions in this thread and the idea that this was a costly website is one of them. This is just a template site that the Gracies offer to schools. For example: http://www.graciejiujitsudestin.com/ http://graciectc.com/ashburn/ What everyone is saying is generally true, for almost everyone. But I do think it's problematic when you never allow for the exception, because exceptions do exist. That's really all I'm saying. If you are that exception - or your kid is that exception - you reach high and you go for it. Patrick

Welcome, Titanium. Glad to have you. Patrick

That's a nice Miami Dolphins color scheme, Danielle.

Thanks for sharing that. Happy to hear it. Patrick

http://variety.com/2015/film/news/ronda-rousey-biopic-autobiography-my-fight-your-fight-1201553460/ Thought this was pretty interesting. It's rare for the subject of a biopic to play them self, but not unheard of.

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. The August selection is... JR 137. Congratulations! Thank you for all of the great contributions that you have made to our community. Sincerely, Patrick

Happy birthday, Danielle! Hope you are having a great birthday. Thank you for all that you do around here. Patrick

You are absolutely right. I used to host a YouTube show where it was basically just my face, and it can be a pretty daunting thing. You did good.

Great to have you here, Charlotte. Patrick

I went ahead and gave this its own thread, so other members who play on Steam might see it more easily. Thanks, Patrick

Good to see you, Luther unleashed. Thanks for sharing.