blue26

I was 15.

Morpheus

I agree.

What is weird about shaving your legs and body? Most women I know these days would rather a man be smooth than super hairy. I think I’d rather have hair than stubble.

The school I was at before started them at 4 and 5.

If you quit because of that then you shouldn’t be doing it to begin with IMO.

Thanks guys

It’s not a dumb question, as you continue to work out your sides will even out, so don’t worry about it, and do the same exercise on both sides, don’t try to overcompensate for one side or they will end up uneven again.

Mine too!

I've gotten out of hand grabs with it and controlled people by applying hand grabs with it, the first to get away from someone, the second to keep a fight from happening.

Depends, do I have hands or fingers free? Are my legs and arms restricted? But in general I was taught to grab and pull anything I could, even pulling a pinkie hurts and they will generally let go, but I would just do whatever the situation determined. It’s kind of hard to say exactly what I would do without being given a more specific situation. And head butting is pretty high up on the list, you just do what you have too to get away.

I love Karate because it has always helped me find myself.

The Art of Peace is medicine for a sick world. There is evil and disorder in the world, because people have forgotten that all things emanate from one source. Return to that source and leave behind all self-centered thoughts, petty desires, and anger. Those who are possessed by nothing possess everything. -- Morihei Ueshiba (O'Sensei)

Our system has 3 degrees of brown belt before black.

I personally would go to another school, it seems like they are more about telling you that you are doing things wrong then helping you to correct them, and I wouldn’t worry about the belts, to me they are just a color, I care more at being good at what I do and learning.

I thought it was an amazing movie.

Yeah, I've eaten a lot of squid, but I don’t consider it disgusting, however I am highly against horseradish, lol

You started last night and you are complaining, I’m sure the first time you learned to grapple, or anything else you learned, it felt awkward at first, you just need to practice like everyone else said, and if you think that all your punches will be blocked, then they will.

bump

If they are doing sloppy kicks and not using crane stances then I would never consider them a martial artist, but I have learned that the more I train, the easier it is to control a situation and the less I end up having to fight on the street, which I like just fine

I would do a lot of shadowboxing in front of a mirror and try to find your own patterns and try to break them, if you have a pattern you might not notice it but I guarantee your opponent will.

Well my exams were a good five hours and six months isn’t a whole lot, but I thought she was including practice time as well, not just class time, so I was thinking that was maybe 3 months.

I believe many of the older Okinawan systems (we do) use the toes for kicking soft targets like the stomach and inside of the thigh. It allows much more penetration than the standard "ball of the foot" method. It can be used like a regular front snap kick or a roundhouse, but in the case of the roundhouse, the foot is positioned differently. We use the toe too, for a simple example I’ll use the front kick-we have a front instep kick and a front ball kick. The instep kick using the toe and it is most often used in a kick to the groin.

I’ve always been flexible, but I heard my sensei one time tell another student that if he wasn’t flexible not warmed up then he wasn’t truly flexible.

We’ve never done that; in fact we have to do push-ups if we forget our belt or any part of our uniform or sparring gear. But before advanced group classes we used to have to run a mile around the studio (in our gi’s of course) and then go back and do intense training, that way we would know what it felt like to have to work out fatigued, like if we got attacked while on a run or not totally up to par.