SaiFightsMS

Hello circleplus welcome to the forum. You might try looking for programs at local Y's and rec centers. Sometimes they have excellant programs.

Welcome to the forum Knuth. Come in whenever you get a chance. By the way I had a brother inlaw who was a marine. You have my respect.

Whiskers is 19 in human years. She and my oldest nephew were kittens together. They even played with the same toys. Josh is now working and living on his own.

We have a very treasured cat in our family. Her name is Whiskers; and she is 19 years old. Yes she is 19 - 4 months shy of 20 years. She came to us one Christmas season after a two day trip during a snow/ice storm between South Carolina and Ohio. Can you imagine being in the cab of a pickup truck for that long with My sister, her husband, and year old son? Whiskers managed to survive it all. And walked into the house like she allready owned the place. It was just supposed to be a holiday visit somehow though Whiskers never left. At first she was a companion to two older cats. She became a great hunter and brought my mother all sorts of "gifts" over the years. Later she wound up a younger companion cat then a dog. She was not always everbodies favorite. She had this bad habit of visiting the neighbors and doing things like walking around on their roofs. She had a thing for getting on top of the highest place available. One older neighbor was a favorite of Whiskers to visit. The lady had nice bird feeders. Whiskers would go visit to chase the birds. And worse yet she would tend to hide in the flowers next to the house and run out in front of the lady as she came walking by. So for those who wanted more things to talk about is our cat satisfactory? After all she is older than some of you are. By the way there are some pictures of her at Http://photos.yahoo.com/saifightsms

You might also find it helpful to add hand exercises to your routine. Most can be done just sitting while watching tv. Open the hands and spread the fingers - then make a fist. Get a hand squeezer. Or try the bao ding iron balls I think they are really great.

Walking can also cause shinsplints. I had a real major problem in that area when I started walking again. Try the exercise bike for calorie burning in the meantime. Or better yet an elliptical trainer if you have access to one. Best thing I found for shinsplints was ice massage in the shower. Any type of ice massage in the tub or shower works much less messily (is that a word) than any where else.

When you look at the linear steps and techniques in shotokan as compared to the circular steps and thechniques in other styles you see the intent of economy of motion. Some books on shotokan mention this. There are also other karate styles such as matsubayashi shorin ryu that use this principle. I wish I could come up with the name of a style that uses circular steps and blocks but it is lost in the space between my ears right now floating beyond easy retrieval. Maybe someone else will pop up with an example.

Or lean in (after grabbing their head) and smack with the head. That opening move can generate a lot of uses.

Bottem line best thing is good instruction and careful instruction during warm ups in class.

Also RedLynx the techniques some martial artists use to control pain are not really any different than those that others have learned to use. Many althletes subconsiously "just deal with it"; or learn to ignore it. Mental imagary is good and used by many. It is amazing to find how many different places and situations imagry can be used in.

Hi Rosco21 welcome from another Shotokaner.

Hi Sentry welcome to the forum.

Those of you in places where football is soccer will find this strange. But 25-30 years ago in the area where I live in it was possible to go all the way through public high schools and never be introduced to soccer. For real. I was introduced to soccer later as were many in this area. And find it to be a great sport to watch. We were really missing a lot.

After a beautiful day Sunday it rained on us today too. And we had some heavy rain and hail. Xenia had a particularly nasty storm. After that tornado that occured almost two years ago during class I am happy not to be in Xenia every time a heavy storm happens.

So what'cha want to talk about?

As my family was celebrating June birthdays this year I realized that next year my younger sister turns 40. So when she got done saying that she was too old for birthdays I told Mom that next year Sandy gets a nice flag in her front yard proclaiming "Happy 40th". What a face my sister made at that. Has anyone ever gotten one of those banners or sent one to anyone?

Anyone remember the opening moves in the shi-to ryu version of rohai?

That has to have a lingering effect.

Well I have never used a stretching machine, or had access to one. I achieved full splits gradually over time using traditional stretching methods on the floor and against the wall. I can really see Spinniggumbys point about beginners getting over enthusiastic about going to far too fast with one. For some reason many seem to think that doing splits is a necessity in karate.

Welcome to the forum. Always nice to meet a fellow age grouper.

Well there is this phenomonen that happens when the weather is nice. People go outside and stay out as much as possible. And this being the time of year most of us long for all winter long ..... I spent a nice day out with my family today. My mom has done wonders with her garden.

I was thinking about this and there is something else you need to take into account that really for an athlete matters more than how much they weigh. It is body fat percentage. Remember that muscle weighs more than fat so that an athletic five foot two inch girl will weigh more than a couch potato of the same height and waist measurement. Don't be a slave to the scale.

So just out of curiosity do your techniques have sufficient power to do your breaking requrememts? That is what usually prevents most of our younger ones from black belt status.

I have watched others learn Kobu Ichii Gama no kama. I was busy with sai at the time and let them go their way while I was doing my thing. At some point I do plan to learn the kama kata however, I need to get kama first.

Gloi good to see you. Have you been having lots of good weather for the horse? Just to keep part of this post in the thread have one of the Kanazawa books that is fairly interesting.