battousai16

well, for what it's worth, i read somewhere that kazuya's move set is based off of kyokushin. not that that has any bearing on heihachi, but if they have the same style and all. and a lot of the SC2 forms i've recognized from else where. kilik's in particular i have videos of other people doing.

i gave blood... a gift straight from the heart ...sorry... i'm a sucker for lousy puns... at anyrate, i love valentines day simply because all of the food places in town have half off specials. now that's what i'm talking about!

i don't know much about the sai; not gonna' lie. i was always under the impression that the sai was designed to block, hence the prongy things, and the rounded edges, as adversed to the sword, which was designed to cut and stab. i'm sure it's difficult to not kill with the things, they always seemed more defensive in principle than, say, the sword or the nunchaku.

i couldn't help but chuckle at that... says something to the end of "don't learn the sai, it's a purely offensive weapon" or something like that...

actually, i quoted your movie comment. to which i was pointing out that a lot of them, as in more than 1% are great if you use them in addition to your training.

"99.9% of martial art videos are useless" actually, i think they can be excellent... when accompanied by an instructor. i have the figure 4 joint lock down because it was taught to me, and i happened to have a video and could remember it that much better and practice it that much more.

and for what it's worth, my older sister spent 6 weeks in chiang mai, and didn't get anything. you're not that far from civilization and if you do come down with something, you can be rushed to a hospital. she loved it there, but says you'll be bloody sick of rice. she says if anything'll get to you, it's the bugs. roaches, scorpions, spiders the size of your hand... just hanging around your room. she says she got used to them eventually, but it really creeped her out in the beginning. still, a great experience. don't discount chiang mai just because it's in the jungle.

"So do most other MA schools." yeah, that's what i was getting at. y'know, just as the XMA has conditioned people they have some slackers, too. um, probably not training with mike chat, but... still, i hear ya, right on.

"However, I'd take an XMA guy to have my back in a fight over many other guys here." ouch, that hurts! that said, we have an XMA place 'round here, and they have as many slackers as they do talented, contidioned people. you wont hear any XMA bashing from me, i'm starting to get into the gymnastics my self. but just cuz they have a hideous mesh uniform dosen't mean they're conditioned and skilled. just the ones in the national and world tournaments... which can be said for any MA division.

hm... i could have sworn i read somewhere that jackie chan made that up for the first movie... can't quite remember, though. i've mostly heard the banquet story and the on where the monk gets drunk and kicks the crap out of the other monks.

i have a friend who's been doing gymnastics her whole life, and whenever i have to learn something tricky in my dojang's curriculum, or feel like being a raging bad * and learning something cool, i give her a call to spot me and give me a few pointers. most gyms have at least one open night a week and it's a safe place to try out new stuff like this. personally, i'm always a little hesitant to try stuff on a trampoline too; i have this nagging fear of launching off the blasted thing and... on my neck. still, it's the best way to start learning, i think.

and, having seen ong bak as well as most of what jackie chan has put out, i'm still more impressed with jackie chan. even more so considering that, as you said, jaa is in his 20s, and chan is 50. we'll see how he fairs.

i dunno, the usefulness in a fan is that it's pretty easy to conceal... i mean, it's a fan. but you'd have to get something better made than what's mostly on the market, i'd imagine.

actually, i'd imagine that an abstract weapon like the fans would fare better in a tournament than the sai, if for no other reason that it's a good change of pace for the judges, and i assume less of them would be familiar with the techniques, thus giving you some room for error. at any rate, i personally would take the fans, merely because if, later on in life, for whatever reason you decide that you want nothing more than to learn the fans, you're gonna' have a hell of a harder time finding someone to teach you fans than you will sai.

well, my friend and i went to see it hoping it would be a good bad movie, and we're good friends with half the cinema staff, so we don't generally pay for movies. it ended up just being a bad movie... IMO.

sounds more or less like my room. i wouldn't do it, it's cold, damp, and miserable down there. i have a window, since you have to have a window in a bedroom in the state of WI, but it goes under a stair case. not worth it.

hey, me too! what's up with that!?!

it's a necklace. that's it. you'll note she didn't actually do anything with it; she just made figure eights. again and again. i don't even think she did it, it looked computer animated. i don't think it's a real weapon. "It may still be an entertaining movie" it wasn't, actually

more often than not, it's best to stick to the basics.

4 was the one with the girl. and she goes to a temple, and a guy catches an arrow, and she beats up some guys, and... that's about the movie.

thanks, here's hopin'. i'll let you know in march

well, good to know, then.

new shoes are a big thing that a lot of people over look. you can actually only get about 400 miles out of a pair of good shoes (tops), and that's not as much as you think it is. in my -CC> days, that was a summer for me. what's helped shin splints for me lately is to write things with my toes. i put my bare feet flat on the ground and just... write with my big toes or draw designs, or something. builds up the little muscles or something, i dunno. i read it on this forum i think at some time or other and although dubious at the time, it really has helped. i've never gone to the dr. for shin splints, btw, and my shins are fine.

i think it'd be cool if the surprise was that the test was actually pizza and a nap... that's what i'm gunning for for my next black belt test...

"I know of two very popular sets, Drunken Straightsword and Drunken Staff. I'm sure there is one for the Dao as well." actually, and i could be wrong, i'm just guessing, but i thought the dao was used because it was easier to mass produce and to master? i mean, if half the idea behind the dao was that it didn't take the skill and thought to use as the (jian? is that "straight sword"? i guess it dosen't much matter, what with that etymology topic that's about somewhere...), would someone really take the effort, time, and thought to creat a drunken form? i mean, i really have no idea, but if someone walked up to me and asked if there was a drunken dao form, i'd say i didn't think so. y'all can feel free to correct me.