DLopez

I'm testing for Dahn Bo Nim tomorrow morning at 11:30 AM... finally, I hope to become Black Belt Candidate! I'm so nervous and excited at the same time! I've been informed by other recent Dahn Bo Nims already that this test will be much tougher than any of the other tests I've taken for colored belts and stripes up to this point. Mentally, I'm ready, but we'll see how achy this old body is after tonight's pair of classes - regular training @ 7 PM, then weapons training @ 8 PM.

It feels weird trying to describe myself... I'm muscular, but not muscle-bound. Before I started Kuk Sool Won two years ago, I used to weight train quite a bit, and it's just stuck with me. I still bench press 3 sets of 10 reps with 325 lbs. 4 days a week on top of my martial arts training. I'm 6'0", and weigh 220 lbs., but am going to try dropping ~10 lbs. to make it a little easier on my knees when I have to do jump kicks. Sometimes after class I'd have to rub them down with Tiger Balm to keep them from aching. I've been trying to concentrate more on my thighs and hamstrings lately to get them stronger, and to see if that helps with the achy knees. The past two weeks, they've felt pretty good, so I think I'm on the right track.

Excellent! Doesn't sound like you're too worried about how your finals went, so I take it you did well. Good for you!

Can't say I've seen that before, but I have seen people react strangely when stressed and pushed to their limit. Sounds like she just had a bunch of pent up emotions from the testing, like anxiety, exhaustion, maybe some frustration, and she just couldn't hold it all in any more. It doesn't sound like she gave up throughout the testing, and I think it's questionable whether her "attack" on Pu Sa Bum Nim was out of disrepect, or if she just lost it and couldn't control her emotions anymore.

I am really glad our dobahks in Kuk Sool Won are black. I just toss 'em in the washer in cold water (fabric softener in the rinse), and hang 'em up to dry. Hassle-free laundry. Gotta love it!

Well, anyway, I forgot to wish you good luck on your finals... and anyone else that is taking them this or next week. It's worth all the effort though!

Too late, already graduated!! Actually, no cubicles for me!! We each get our own office in the company I work for. That's REALLY nice! I get out of the office for on-site engineering support, working with our customers to help resolve issues with installation and setup of our product about every 3 months or so. It's great for dealing with office burnout. There's times I miss being back in school, but finals week is not one of them.

My sophomore year in college, I actually lived out everyone's nightmare scenario... you know, where you get the date of a final exam mixed up, thinking it's tomorrow when it's going on RIGHT NOW!! I was busy studying away in my dorm room, when the guy across the hall that was also in my class comes in and smugly says, "I didn't see you in the test, did you finish early or something?" I realized right then that I was missing the final exam, so I hauled butt over to the test and there's about 10 minutes left... no way I'd do any good, so I ask if I could take a make up. The professor looks at me as if to say "You must be freakin' joking!". After much pleading and begging, he agreed to let me take another section's final if that professor agreed, and luckily it worked out. Made an A- in the class! The class was Networks II (electrical engineering) - a prerequisite for my entire next semester!! Finals are intense, to say the least! I don't miss them at all!

I find it's a two-step process. Stretching excercises for the hammy and groin area are helping me get more flexible there, but I also do excercises to strengthen the specific muscles in my legs that I use to kick. Being flexible is great, but if your leg muscles are too weak to lift your leg, you haven't gained that much. Also, it doesn't change overnight. I have noticed definite improvement since I've begun, but it is slow progress as my body is still fighting me. Some days I'm nice and loose, but other days I'm so tight it feels like I'm starting back at square one.

A few years back, I saw Soul Coughing at The Fabulous Satellite Lounge, here in Houston. That was one of my most favorite shows I've ever seen! Linkin Park at Buzzfest 3 years ago was also a kick-... butt show!

Well, the Beastie Boys do have one song that I really love... Ricky's Theme I probably like it so much because it's actually instrumental jazz!! That's kinda funny!! Their best song (IMO) isn't even a rap song!

Word to your mother. Yo-yo. Hizzle.

NOTE: this is not an advertisement, just a commentary on a purchasing experience! I'd been searching for some nice martial arts shoes for a couple weeks, and it was hard finding something I really liked. I took a chance and purchased some shoes online, having only seen photos of them online, but I was pleasantly surprised to see they are of excellent quality for the price I paid! They are Mooto Wings (in black), and were only $50 + $7.50 shipping. They are very lightweight, and the soles are made of a very tough, durable rubber. I'm very happy with them, and just wanted to share/recommend them. One caveat though,... apparently they are like Nike shoes in that you should order a full size over what you normally wear or they might fit too small. Here's a link so you can see them for yourself: Mooto Wings I bought the black ones because my dobak is black, but they also come in white, and black on white. They even have some pretty snazzy yellow ones (IMHO), but I decided on the less expensive black ones.

I used to like to listen to rap sometimes, but I've "outgrown" it. Most of those that are really into it still are just... well, still young. When was the last time you saw a thirty-something YO person digging rap the same way the kids in high school do? Everyone gets older every day, but I think that says a lot about a particular music genre when just about everyone outgrows it.

I didn't know folks up in Wisonsin said "y'all". Don't be stealin' our Texas sayin's now!

Oh ya... they've got some really deep, "socially conscious" lyrics! For example: "Girls - all I really want is girls ... Girls - to do the dishes Girls - to clean up my room Girls - to do the laundry Girls - and in the bathroom Girls - that's all I really want is girls Two at a time - I want girls With new wave hairdos - I want girls I ought to whip out my - girls, girls, girls, girls, girls!"

What is Shabu Shabu? From what Drunken Monkey says, it sounds like what we call "Mongolian BBQ" down here in Houston - you pick the veggies, meats, and sauces, and the chef will stir fry it all up together for you. Close?

What exactly are you trying to accomplish with that? Leg strength? Back strength? Endurance? It seems like there might be safer, more effective ways to target specific muscle groups than just lugging around an extra 100 pounds of weight for a mile.

There's about twice as many male students than female students in our school. The ratio of boys to girls in the kids classes is closer to being even, but the adults classes are where the big discrepancy is.

There's so many rammifications of an incident like this, and most of them are bad... someone could've gotten hurt, the injured party could sue... but another more subtle effect is the confidence factor (or loss of it) from the rest of the students had our instructor tapped out to this guy. Never mind that the instructor "allowed" the student to start off in a superior position, with a choke hold no less! If the students had seen that our instructor had to submit, then what would that say to the rest of the students about the effectiveness of the techniques he's trying to teach, or his teaching ability? I guess in short, a stunt like that could jeopardize an instructor's livelihood by casting doubt in the students' minds whether they are being taught something that "works" in real life.

I am good friends with my instructor (we knew each other before I started taking Kuk Sool, in a car club before I even knew he studied martial arts), and he confided in me after class that he really had to fight the urge to retaliate, and ease up as soon as the other student tapped out - he was that angry about it. I have noticed that this particular student gets overzealous sometimes during sparring... in fact one time he was sparring a 15 YO girl, and (at the time, I thought accidently) hit her kinda hard. Her father, also a student, came to her defense, but this student didn't apologize. In fact, he made it known he felt he did nothing wrong, and a fight between them almost ensued! Looking back and putting all the little 'incidences' together, I think you are right in your assessment of this guy. I simply cannot trust him anymore, and my instructor has told me he doesn't trust him now. I'm not privvy to what will happen to this student beforehand, but most of the other students that saw it feel he's history. I'm inclined to agree. The difficult thing is, I felt like we were all friends, but I guess sometimes you don't really know people or what they're capable of.

We had a 'situation' arise in our advanced class the other day... Our instructor was showing us some basic grappling maneuvers and techniques, and the usual "what if the attacker does this?" questions started coming up. Our instructor was about to show a couple of possible counters to a choke hold and as soon as he said "Now, when the attacker applies a choke..." the student that was posing as the attacker applied a really, really tight choke on him. It was so tight that our instructor's face was turning beet red and he couldn't even speak to say "Loosen up so I can talk!". The only thing our instructor could do then was treat it like a real attack and attempt an escape, which he eventually did, reversing his position and forcing the student to tap out (real quickly too, I might add). The rest of us were stunned that this other student would do that, and our impression was that he was deliberately making it as difficult as possible for our instructor to escape. The appearance was that he was trying to show up the instructor. The student in question had studied TKD before, and perhaps he still has doubts about the effectiveness of Kuk Sool Won, but he's already a Dahn Bo Nym (black belt candidate), so he must believe in it somewhat if he's continued thus far. In the very least, most of us that witnessed it feel it was a disgraceful show of disrespect to our instructor, in that his intention was to prove that our instructor could not escape from his choke hold. Our instructor intended to demonstrate some possible counters slowly, so we could see it step by step. He wasn't intending on testing this student to see how good of a choke hold he could apply and whether he could break it. When our instructor had to resort to his wealth of experience and escape, it happened too fast for the rest of us to see what he actually did, so any 'learning' potential, however slight, from that situation flew out the window. If I were the instructor, I would take that as a serious challenge to both my teaching ability and the effectiveness of the techniques I'm trying to teach, and that I would not tolerate it. I'm thinking I'd have to suspend this student at the very least. Have any other instructors ever had to deal with this situation, and if so, how did you deal with such students? Expulsion? Suspension? Slap on the wrist?

I'm hispanic, but Spanish is really a second language for me, and lately I have been finding it difficult to maintain my vocabulary as I don't practice it nearly as much as when I was younger. I am trying to learn French too, using one of those computer immersion programs, but it's slow going on my own. Not only that, I am talking only to my computer because none of my friends speak French either. But hey, I know four high level (Basic, Fortran 77, Pascal, C/C++) computer languages and a good half dozen microprocessor assembly languages!! Do those count?

I don't agree it's an accurate statement that genetically enhanced = less nutritious. I would have to see some hard data on that. Nonetheless, no one complains about vitamin supplements as being bad, so if there's a concern about vegetables being less nutritious, it's easily remedied in your diet using supplements that folks are already using with no ill effects. Also, it's not like mutations in the plants we eat never happens naturally. In fact, it can be argued that the varieties of squash one eats, for example (zuchinni, yellow, butternut), are due to natural mutations in the species for one reason or another, like surviving in different climes or becoming more hardy against localized diseases. I think it boils down to the notion that 'natural' is better than 'manmade', but I think most of that is prejudice. There's nothing wrong with that - you should eat what you find most appetizing - but I think those prejudices lead to premature claims that the 'manmade' enhancements are bad, without the evidence to support those claims.

No, too much other stuff going on right now... Between work, KSW, and building the new motor for my car, the free time just wasn't there. I wouldn't have been ready to compete. I probably won't go to any other tourneys before the World Championships in October again. I think after that, I will look into travelling to some of the other tournaments around the country.