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We moved to a new dojo a month or so ago, and had a nice raised wood training floor installed. Since the move I've noticed some slight stiffness developing in my hands, and suspect it's from doing knuckle pushups on the bare wood (our old dojo had carpet over concrete). I know from reading comments in other posts that several people here are not fans of knuckle pushups, I was hoping to get some more in depth opinions on this. We also do makiwara training for conditioning. I love my dojo and do want to harden & strengthen my body including hands & wrists, but then again I'm a programmer and do not want arthritis interfering with my early retirement plans. Any thoughts would be appreciated!

That's what coffee & twinkies are for, ZR... KickChick, a fitness trainer once told me that after you burn off the energy supplies you have from carbs and fat, your body resorts to the sugar in your body, and when that happens you can get light-headed and dizzy. Do you know anything about that from your research? Back when I first started karate I had a lot of trouble getting sick quickly, and one theory was since I have very little body fat my body was going right to the sugar and making me feel faint, dizzy, etc. Yet somehow, when I increased my protein intake the problem went away, and I don't understand where protein fits into the whole energy burning process. Any insights you can share?

You already have the space lined up I take it? We just moved to a new dojo, it was fun being semi-involved in planning/building the rooms and training floor and all that stuff. Good luck with your new school!

Herca Pachi Srr Camry of Ben Gay (god I wish I'd picked up some tiger balm before this post. But it did help!)

Geez, it said I was a guy, and when I said I wasn't it called me a mistake of nature who "walks the scary line between man and woman." Well excuse me, I happen to prefer white walls and like my porn stars to be named "Black Jack," that doesn't make me any less female!

I know what a kip up is, but what's a back whip up exactly? (I am not a master of the obvious, you see.)

She's a political humorist from Texas, wrote a great book entitled Shrub during Bush's campaign. I figured that's where you got the Shrub thing from (guess you must be familiar with the story she named the book after). She's been following his political career for a long time, very revealing and darn funny stuff. Sorry, way off topic here...

Hmm...fellow Molly Ivins fan, Bitsearch?

Yes, I didn't mean to imply I think everybody on the diet will get a heart infection (the news release I read said cardiac arrest which was secondary to his pre-existing condition), I think it's silly for anyone to make claims either way. Regardless, he doesn't make a very good poster boy for the diet in general.

Hey Bon, here's a coincidence for ya. Dr. Atkins was just released from the hospital today, recovering from a heart attack last week. His spokespeople indicated that the attack is in no way related to being on the Atkins diet for years and years, but from a holistic perspective that seems like kind of a ridiculous statement to make. Anyway, I was on a high protein/low carb diet for a month or two (not trying to lose weight, just doing the supportive thing for my dieting boyfriend). It wasn't the Atkins diet, I think Protein Power or something to that effect? When we first started I felt weak, sick, had headaches, and felt like I had lard seeping out of my pores from all the meat we were eating, really pretty disgusting overall. I think it took a little less than a week for me to start feeling normal again, after that things were fine. He did lose weight, not significantly more or less than he had on low-fat diets he'd tried, but didn't stick with it (couldn't handle all those eggs every morning!).

I took a short tai chi class, and can tell you that very strong self-defense techniques are hidden in those forms. Of course just like kata, the purpose of learning the form is not to use the movements literally in a fight (which is why the usual argument that you're probably not going to drop into zenkutsu dachi and throw a double punch in a street fight is so pointless), and also like kata every single movement has meaning/purpose, and they all have various bunkai that can be applied. So while you can't literally learn the forms and then do them fast to defend yourself, you can practice the hidden techniques using the principles the forms teach you and find a full fledged and quite formidible martial art. From my tiny experience with it I thought tai chi was really cool, would like to study it for real someday.

I'm Fozzie too. That's good--somebody sent me a different "muppets" quiz a while back and the stupid thing claimed I was Elmo. Can you even call Elmo a muppet without adding qualifications such as "annoying loser" and "poser wannabe"??

I think everyone is being extremely tolerant of your intolerance. You have no idea how many rude retorts I've decided not to type.

Not to nit-pick, but we do know what's in the center of the tootsie pop. How many licks it takes to get there, not so much.

My gut reaction is "actually that seems VERY Christian to me!", but that's a bad prejudice of mine that I'm trying to fight off. My parents are very open-minded, tolerant, sensitive Christians, and they do their best to convince me that's the way many or most Christians are, but of course it's the other type that get all up in your face and feel it their moral duty to shove their beliefs down your throat. I find it very tough not to let that color my view of the religion.

I'm betting you have a specific religion in mind, and it ain't Buddhism or Wicca, right? That's where it all falls apart--to me, teaching Christianity or any one religion would be no better than pushing "socialist propaganda." A public school is not the right place for either.

Atkins is the guy with (I think) the original high protein/low carb diet. You can find any amount of scientific evidence both proving and disproving his theories. I'm suspicious of it based on the health of Mr. Atkins himself, have you ever seen him? Yikes--I don't remember anything specifically from the long list of ailments he's dealing with, but he's in pretty poor shape. He says his health problems have nothing to do with the diet, but of course it's impossible to prove that either way.

Yeah, I got kind of a weird deal, I'm not sure if it's something you can do at most clubs. I can only go on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays (the only days I don't train at the dojo), and there's no contract. I did have to pay a one-time $69 "processing fee," which is silly but pretty average from what I've seen. They also have a $100 "enrollment fee" that they waived for me; I get the feeling that's a fake fee they waive for everybody to make them feel like they're getting a special deal. Regular memberships are more like 60 or 70/month, I think. Actually when you put it like that I kind of agree with the above posts. If they had a pool, a jacuzzi, raquetball & basketball courts, maybe a nice indoor track, I might be interested in paying that much to go there, but for As Seen on TV machines and a tanning bed? Nah, you're right, it's a rip off. And if they did have all that stuff it would probably more like 100+ per month.

Saying a gym membership is completely pointless is quite the sweeping generalization. Sure, some people (maybe even most, I don't know) use a gym in the way you described, but that doesn't mean they should all be bulldozed. I just got a membership to a gym down the street because they offer classes I can take once or twice a week when I feel like it, and to me that's worth 20 bucks a month. I train at the dojo 3 times a week, and like to do a variety of other workouts to supplement that. I do work out at home, but classes appeal to me because I have no trouble getting my butt off the couch and showing up for a class at a set time, but for some reason remembering to step out into the garage for a workout is tough for me. That said, I don't think I'll ever use anything else they offer at this gym, lots of weights/rowing/stair-climbing/etc machines and such. I sure wish they had a lap pool, though.

Hey, a karateka would never expect a jumping jack-jumping jack-jab combo in a fight, you just never know about these things.

I promised myself when I moved to this area that I wouldn't become one of those annoying espresso drink people (I'll have a double tall half-caf extra shot etc etc with an inch of room for skim, please), but am now a hopeless mocha junkie. I've cut way back on them since starting karate, trying to get my body more healthy, but yum!

Hey! My dad was a stay-at-home dad. As a senior systems architect my mom made quite enough to support us. She loved her job (took an early retirement and misses Unix so much I think we need to get her Linux for xmas) and he was never a 9-5 type guy, so what's the problem with that?

I don't think anybody here thinks it counts as martial arts. Sure it's too easy for YOU, but your average person who hasn't dedicated the past several decades of his life to hardcore MA training might find it quite challenging (for example, my mom!). It's like taking an aerobics class, but is attractive to people because it doesn't seem as fru fru. If your goal is simply to get your heart rate up and sweat a little, then I don't see anything wrong with it.

Well, a verbal taunt is one thing, but chasing after her and grabbing her would be crossing a big line. I'd consider that an attack, and would not criticize you (or her) for responding with appropriate force. No way to know if that would have happened here. Gee Angus, we have such limited vocabularies, you can't blame us for using the few multisyllabic words we know whenever possible...

My mom used to do it. Kind of fun, good workout. I'd suggest renting one of the videos first to see if you stand having Billy on your TV that long every day without gouging your eyes out in irritation. I bought my mom the tapes for xmas the other year, they make you buy them in sets of 3 or more which makes them fairly pricey. Could probably get a better price on ebay, of course.