battousai16

aha, another point was raised that i'd forgotten about. mr. lee (i wasn't aware y'all were on a first name basis with him) was not at all a fair fighter. i don't think he would've thought twice about kicking them in the groin, gouging their eyes out, or biting them.

personally, i would side step. there's a way to step out of anything. go diagnolly and strike, step outside the kick, inside, whatever, just move out of the way. quite frankly, there's a hundred different counters for any given movement in the martial arts, the best one is the one where you don't get hit.

well, you asked about KA's reputation, so here goes. i don't know where you live, but 'round here in WI, Karate America is the martial arts equivilant to McDonalds. In fact, when i heard the definition of McDojo, i immediatly thought "Karate America". They ask for rediculous amounts of money, give you a uniform (which is usually fairly hideous, but that's just my opinion. metallic american flag print!?! ), teach you a bunch of flashy stuff and organize skits for demonstraitions, and that's about it. it's less a martial arts school and more a demo team for those who don't know martial arts. to add to the mcdonalds status, 'round here they're all over. there's one in about every city in my county, two in some. at one point there was a strip mall with to KA dojos in it. and, to add insult to injury, i believe it's the founder but i'm not sure, it may only be the head guy in WI, but his children goto my dojang. not many places around here respect Karate America, and there practitioners usually come out arrogant and impolite. however, there is one thing to there credit, and it's a particular large thing, especially for your daughter: the people involved with KA absolutely love it. they have a lot of fun, and truely enjoy going. however, there are plenty of other schools that do this, and i'm not sure that i would go to KA just for that reason.

good point, young grasshopper ( ). at 128 pounds, he wouldn't have anyone to fight against!

"The objuect of war is not to die for you country but to make some other poor dumb SOB die for his" i like that. clear, concise, to the point. i don't know that i would call that a creed, though...

i'm sure he forgives you. and thanks, granmasterchen, that makes me feel very special

whoop, probably shouldn't have posted in my name on the forum for the entire world to see... go ahead punks, track me down... i dare ya

yeah, i feel really really bad for mr. abdul jabar right now. he's a talented basketball player, and an apparently excellent martial artist, and helped to create one of the greatest fight scenes in movie history, especially THEN, for the time, when martial arts hadn't really been around in the US that long, and he's remembered as"that, um... basketball guy". i hope if i ever get my 15 minutes of fame, people will at least refer to me as "ben" or "that wineke guy" or something like that. i dunno, just a thought.

GAH! no need to yell buddy! i'm glad to hear that though, you must be excited! i don't know squat about the nationals tournament... is that on tv? perhaps i'll watch it... i get some paul mitchell tournament, but it's only a rerun of the same tournament over and over... and it's not even all of the people, only 3 or 4, maybe 5 tops... anyway, back to the topic at hand, best of luck to you!

alrighty, well thanks for clearing that up always good to get those misconseptions outta the way hey, am i the only one who loves these little emoticon things

geez, the first one was alright, except for the bubbling vampire thing, that was kinda dorky, and the fact that the immortal vampire god was killed effortlessly with no time at all (what the $%@!?), but the second one was terrible! the only good part were the powerpuff girl clips that were scattered through out the movie. and the worst was probably that guy who kept calling blade "b". is blade really that difficult to say!?! it's a monosyllibac word! alright, i'm all good now

from here on out, whenever i see a broken cd, i'm gonna think "monkeygirl!" and dodge both ways to make sure your not sneaking up on me with a kama or something... i don't know how good they are as a weapon, but i can tell you that once the cross country season starts and the coach has outlawed frisbees, the free discs with the aol minutes work as a nice supplement

i don't think you were ever called wrong, you were just told to shut up and actually, i read somewhere, and was thus under the impression, that tai chi was in fact the first martial art, older than 800 years, but, in your defense, i'm far from a subject on any of this, and i already took the book back to the library

hmmm... perhaps fight wasn't the right word... ? ach, i can't think of a better one, i just woke up

well, our government is pretty dysfunctional, but i wouldn't say our taxes aren't getting us anything. the problem is the government has poured probably over a third of our budget into military, most of which kept secret, so we never even get to hear about what our tax dollars are going towards, much less see it, much less care. but i was reading some of the writings of john locke and thomas hobbes, and it's kind of funny that america hasn't turned out at all like the framers have planned... to much corruption and scandal and all around waisted money.

there's really not much skill involved; cheese is pretty soft an can be pretty easy to break, unless of course you freeze it, where then it only holds the same resistance as about a board. it's still fun though, because everyone is impressed anyway, and you're just like "dude, it's cheese, it's ok. that guy over there is trying to break not only a stack of bricks, but only the bottom brick of that stack". speaking of which, i didn't even know one could do that, that's really cool. hmmm... maybe next time i'll set the cheese on fire? that would be pretty cool...smelly, but very cool...

uh... wow. i've broken some boards a couple of times. chops, punches, stomps... yeah, what you've done is impressive, you don't get to see much of that in WI actually, in all honesty, i broke a brick of cheese with a palm strike. there was a Wisconsin pride thing going on and and some grocery store donated bricks of cheese and my school sent students up and we broke them with various techniques. it was a lot of fun, but a little to gimmick-y for me

"Relax, smile a bit, then start playing the game. " i've never heard better sparring advice! unless you're from a pretty twisted school (no offense), your opponent isn't actually trying to kill you. just have fun! when you're not thinking so much about winning and scoring, things will just start to flow naturally. right now i go to a school with my best friend. he and i spar and take each other seriously, but through out the whole match we're usually laughing and joking around, and we do just fine. don't do it to much, though. at my last test my instructor yelled at me when we were doing self defense. i couldn't stop smiling and he said i wasn't taking it seriously enough... anyway, the point is to just have some fun . let things flow naturally and you'll do fine.

tell me about it. i had to run out and buy a pair of chopsticks because i can't eat with those stupid plastic forks; they keep breaking ! and you just watch, my principal will watch "kiss of the dragon" and will confiscate those too!

alright y'all, in my 10 years in the martial arts, i've never had this problem until the past month or so, and it's beginning to become quite the problem. when i start to do a form or sometimes just a basic technique or kicking drill, i forget to breathe. it was actually kind of funny, as today i was doing a belt test and i had to do my form and i started and i was thinking to myself "ok buddy, you gotta' breathe. this is a long form, and if you don't breathe you're gonna' pass right out. just breathe" and i ended up thinking about it so much, when i stopped i realized that i was bowing out of my form and that i'd forgotten to breathe (i didn't pass out, though, for those of you who were wondering i got very winded though). anyway, i guess what i'm asking is if anyone has any suggestions? i asked my instructor, and he said that i should keep practicing until i'm comfortable; however, i'm very comfortable with everything and i don't think this is the issue, or at least not all of it. i rarely ever get nervous and i'd like to think i know my stuff well . does anyone else have this problem? i'm very sorry if this has already been posted. i looked for it but i didn't see it anywhere. anywho, yeah... any suggestions?

ach; thank you, i'll keep that in mind i'll respond to that then with a silent dignified "hwarang", which is how we show respect in my school

well, remember that laws differ depending on where you are, but in WI, you can't carry a bo, a katana, nunchaku, etc. unless you're going to/from a dojo/dojang/kwoon/home/whatever. guns are absolutely forbiden down here in southern WI, but they get more leniant on that the farther north you get, until you get into the peninsula, where then same laws apply as below. and, for the record, at my school, ever since the whole columbine incident, we replaced all of our metal silverware with plastic eating utinsels (they keep breaking on the food ), and we actually aren't allowed to carry umbrellas in the school! when you arrive, you have to put them in your locker or in the office. this is cumbersom as my school is made up of two buildings. we have bins filled with umbrellas at the main doors of each buildings, but it dosen't much help as they're usually gone by the time most people get there. they also have a ban on all sorts of other stuff, and all sorts of things keep getting confiscated; from paper swords to necklaces with bullets on them from the civil war. 3 boys were suspended last year for 2 weeks for running around in the forest (on school property) with toy guns (they were shooting a movie for film class). it's really gotten out of hand.

well said, kchenault! i myself have several friends who are conservatives. and thank you. i don't know what pilsung means, but same to you, buddy!

well, glingglo, although i appreciate the support, clinton has yet to be attacked here for the monica scandal, but for improving foreign relations with china. the real trouble here is that kchenault and i will never see eye to eye his views are right wing, mine are left. he likes reagan, i don't. i like FDR, he... may or may not. he calls clinton a coward for sucking up to china, i think it was just a wonderful idea and helping to keep the peace. i don't believe that the U.N. is a terrible idea, but i do believe that it's a terrible organization. it picks and chooses the countries it wants, and the US is really in constant control anyways. i think if it was done right it would be much better, but it's not, and it never will be. also, no country has ever done anything out of the goodness of there hearts. oh, sure, the US got into WWII to free the jewish from the holocaust. that's why we entered it from the beginning and sto--- oh wait, that's right... we only got into it after pearl harbor was attacked in retalliation... not to say that our involvement in WWII was a bad idea, but history classes look at the US as a god send for entering it, noble hero's trying to save minorities, when in actuality it was just people pissed about getting bombed. not exactly a bad reason in its self, but ... yeah, i forgot where i was going with that. also, this is all opinion from what i've read, because i wasn't alive during WWII in fact, this "war" was the first war i've lived through that i'm old enough to remember entirely. but remember all, bush got this done in under 60 days; there really wasn't a war declaration. oh, and also glingglo, we didn't exactly attack iraq for it's involvement in 9/11. we've been after iraq since the first bush, perhaps before, but i don't remember (wow i wish i was older, this is getting tough ) we've known about there tyranny and such for quite some time, they've been our enemies since the day i was born (FYI- April 16, 1986, the day i was born, we bombed the heck outta' Libya). we've tried to level with them like, what, 21 times? something like that. i still don't agree in going to "war" with them, but i can see where one might have called for it. and i got side tracked talking to one of my friends, and now i've completely lost my train of though, so i'll just stop now you're very welcome, and thank you as well.