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

Good to hear that and also that he's healed up. Patrick

Hey Katie. Welcome aboard. Happy to have you. Patrick

Hey IntelligentSEO. Welcome to KF!

Belated welcome Addykip. Thank you for the kind words. Patrick

Belated congrats to the Giants and their fans!

This probably doesn't help, but I love the sound of rain. I have rain sounds on my MP3 player. Also, I downloaded an Android app called Sleepy Time (full version) for my Kindle Fire. It has all of these sounds AND it allows you to mix sounds together. So, you could mix rain with thunder and frogs and at varying levels of volume, etc. They have tons of sounds, white noise, air conditioners, fans, etc. for people who like other types of sounds. Patrick

Sorry to hear this, Liver Punch! I hope you are feeling better by now! At any rate, you always have KarateForums.com. Heh. Patrick

We removed this thread by accident. I apologize for the trouble. I wanted to bring it up so that the discussion could continue. Thanks. Patrick

Hello shinobitribe, Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com. As you already have a thread for this issue, I am going to go ahead and close this one and send you over there: http://www.karateforums.com/karate-specific-gym-workouts-vt42299.html Thanks, Patrick

Hello Liver Punch, Thank you for sharing this. I know you have a good sense of humor and I appreciate your honesty in that way. As you review books online and post reviews on Amazon.com, etc., definitely keep in mind that your words have a great deal of power. Definitely consider the book as a whole, good and bad and it's value relative to price. I can't speak for this book, but having authored a book that was picked up by a fairly major publisher, etc., I can tell you that it is a challenging process and that it takes a certain measure of courage to write one, to put yourself out there like that. There is a certain vulnerability to it. Just some thoughts that you may want to consider: http://www.patrickokeefe.com/2009/12/09/when-reviewing-a-book-please-know-that-your-words-are-very-powerful/ Bottom line, as long as you are honest and fair - awesome. It is also important to recognize that everyone will value things differently. There is nothing to save anyone from. Some people will like the book (judging from reviews posted elsewhere) and some people won't. It doesn't necessarily make it good or bad, it just means that you didn't personally enjoy it. I think it's important to keep that context. I have emailed Mr. Jamilla to point him to this thread and invite him to join our community. I hope he does as it'd be interesting to hear his thoughts. Sincerely, Patrick

That's a pretty good answer, John. I think I might be scared that if I did something bad or out of character, that would be the switch that would cause the repeating days to end, and it would stick. Patrick

Hey Dave. Glad you found us! Welcome aboard. Patrick

Welcome aboard, Wuwei. Thank you for the kind words. Patrick

My pleasure. Patrick

Happy Birthday Brian! Thank you for all that you do around here. I hope that you have a great day. Patrick

Happy Birthday Heidi! Thank you for all of the great contributions that you have made to this community. I hope that you have a great day! Patrick

Wow, that's unfortunate.

Welcome aboard, ZenGuitar. Glad to have you. Patrick