1st KYU

i dont drink coffe and dont plan to. ( i think the most ive had is a very small sip) i remember going into a coffe shop once...the smell of the beans made me want to throw up.

thats what i do. i also have to take my glasses off in sparring, i cant really tell who im sparring most times. so i guess the eye thing is not really a problem for me. anyways kind of keeping you eyes on the chest or mid section is good because everything is attached to it. If they are going to hit you, thier middle (chest, or whatever you want to call it) is going to move.

im 17 in the same position as you...i have also never drank. when i here people at my school say "im gonna get wasted tonight" and go out for a smoke between each class it leaves me in disgust. if only they could see thier ignorance. anyways, quiting smoking is obviously not an easy thing to do, it takes will, determination, and will probably be more challenging than anything youve ever done. if you get a craving, satisy it will something else...drink water, its good for you. try not to be around other smokers it will only intensify your craving. Motivation is also key, if you serious about doing it post here every once in a while, im sure many will be able to motivate you and help you. Make goals for yourself, if you dont have a reasonable goal you wont get anywhere, insted of quitng cold turkey, minimize your daily intake and keep raising the bar. you can overcome it.

oops i see youve already posted larry hartsell

i attented a seminar with sifu larry hartsell....12 hours of JFJKD, he also trained with bruce...hes pretty old but very skilled. im not sure if hes in your area as im in canada but you can try and search it up.

i hate the word quit.

personally i find the shiko dachi as a more stable stance. i also find it to have more mobillity. is this because its the stance ive done for eight years...probably. The shiko dachi just feels more comfortable/natural in my opinion.

ive heard of it b4, i believe on Jubei's MA forum.

overweight and healthy are two different things. it is also extremely difficult to label exactly what "overwieght" is because everyone is different. i recall watching a documentary in health class discussing the so called overwieght apidemic we have here in North America. It went on to discuss that labelling someone overweight based on height is inferior. Their example was a clinicly dubbed "overweight" man who ran 10+ miles a day and traing for marathons. AnonymousOne i generally agree with everything you say but this i do not, one of the best and most skilled sensei's i know could be considered overweight (quite tall too) although, he is very light on his feet. very fast, and powerful. and has one more tounaments then i can count.

most deffinatley it is one of the aspects we are marked on at gradings...japanese comprehension.

well in goju ryu we do both aswell...so i would have to say i prefer that. IMO you cant have a complete system without both aspects.

skeet, is actually spelled Tsuke. yes it does mean attention

yeah i was watching that recently, im in canada too. you have i to have digital cable or satellite too watch i think though.

"Bruce Lee didnt know what he was talking about!" -> i dont know what Bruce Lee was talking about lol that was good

hmm i really cant remember any times ive done that...but im sure i have. more commonly (thats may way of saying all the time) im looking at my teacher in school and thinking totally about somthing else......when i snap out of it i realize that not only did i not remeber what they said....i wasnt even seeing what was going on.

I think i bowed into a couple classes before.....caught myself half way through though. more commonly i say hai.....i think someone was explaining somonething to me and i responded with osu once too.

Yes, the web link isnt very good kata at all......the technique is there but they have no spirit to thier kata and looks very week. The katas also look quite different from my club. Thier sanchin stances are too wide also. hey, im from kitchener

im not sure what mebukan is......but as i said it is a foriegn kata ( not part of my style)

Just looking through my student manual today and noticed Aragaki Unsu as one of our required foriegn katas. heard alot of people talking about Unsu lately and said it was a tuff kata. so what is Aragaki Unsu?

nor have I

honestly your not missing much in competitions. there are very few ive been to that were run smoothly...and in sparring it is very tuough to determine a real winner - the jugdes cant see everything. although it is nice to go to a tournement to face new people you have never fought before. I have had some very horrible tournement expiriences....especially the karate moms yelling at thier kids to kill the other kid......i walked out of that one.

why? i have horrible vision and i spar without glass, like if i were to stand 5 feet from you it would be hard to tell what you look like without my glasses on. yeah, i were a Mikado Gi its the best in my opinion.

hey, thats what my sensei's kiai is "hey eat" always wonderd why he did it like that.

seiunchin, sanseiryu, basadai. basically all my more recent katas are my favourite. i like seiunchin because its is rather long, intense, it has slow movement then bursts...its also one of the few katas with the goju exchange. sanseiryu, short and quick, lots of kicks and fluent movement. basadai, wich i am still learning..about have way through, i am starting to like. its a foriegn kata to my style (shotokan i belive?).

"belt-factory"/"McDojo" lol. anyways, im soon to be grading for my black in Goju-Ryu and i love it. Ive sampled many martial arts and Goju-Ryu in my opinion is the most well rounded. Be conscious that you may start out slowly, atleast in my dojo we stick pretty much to the basics around orange belt..but you will later realize the importance of this. from orange on is when i starts to get interesting...soft techniques, hard techniques, circular movements and linear attacks. it is quite the martial art mosaic.