spinninggumby

Well I guess I am not real religous either (at least for now in my younger ignorant exploration years who knows what might come about later) despite my mom's side being strictly Catholic but - A lot of the so-called 'virtues' and 'qualities' that have been taught to us in many martial arts dojos/dojangs/kwoons/'wherever you may kick other people' often carry over into your daily and outside life, which it definitely has with mine. I think that this is a good thing. When you devote yourself to something like karate, you live it not only when you train but also when you play baseball, take a walk in the park, go to a party, talk with your significant other, whatever. And you live it thru all that stuff about how you are supposed to be honorable and kind and respectful and all that. Kind of an unconventional way to post this opinion but I think as long as they don't force a strict religion on you, it can't hurt to supplement deadly techniques with a 'virtuous' mentality so that it will filter into every other thing that you do. Aint nuthin wrong with that!

BTW I guess it's not too uncommon I have read in more than a few places that many masters recommend training at both the hottest part of the day (middle of the day and early in the morning, I suppose) and the coldest part of the day to increase tolerance for the harshest of conditions.

Middle of winter?! Yikes. Wouldn't freezing muscles make them less flexible. Oh well, technically you would not be able to do any resistance kicks above chest level anyways since your head is probably above the water. Anyways I admit that if I were to do water training I would try it in a nice heated pool simply just to get the resistance effect. Ice cold frigidity is just too much for me LOL. *whimper whimper*

Um I was just curious for a moment but I was wondering if anybody had ever tried or considered training in a swimming pool. I would guess that the water would add much overall resistance to all of your techniques and although yes you can attach bungee cords to your legs and arms that maybe this was a more creative and fun way to practice once in a while. What are everyone's thoughts as to how effective this may be. Humor me, LOL

Revenge is usually not healthy BUT I would somewhat support u if it were say, because they slaughtered some of your family members. However, a bruised ego and shattered pride is not a valid reason in my humble opinion. Then again, it is only your own opinion that matters in your own life.

Im built like a rubber band and my favorite and most comfortable shirt is green (but green is not my favorite color) =P

Although this is not really an answer, i guess all I have to say is that there are plenty of people here who would probably be qualified to answer that question (i.e. karatekas). There are styles from Okinawa and styles from the Japanese islands and although they may share similar principles in some ways my guess is that there are differences in ideologies and forms and technique but to what extent I do not know. I know that a lot of purists and traditional guys will disagree with me but to me even though I train at a school with a specific style, I really do believe that there are only so many ways to move your body and direct your strikes with your hands and legs so I just feel that the more you train the more you realize that in general almost all the styles strive for the same ultimate goal and everything seems to come together and become fused more and more. I dunno, that's just me. I guess I'm just too new age b/c although I respect the upkeep of tradition and the history that has gone behind the many refinements and testing for each and every art that has been developed and stabilized, I am a content advocate of cross-training and the acceptance of all ideas (you can filter out the bad ones later).

'Area Codes' and 'Roll Out' by Ludacris Works every time before every sparring session! hehehehe

Yes they are. I completely agree with you. Osama is great in some eyes and not in other eyes. That was all I wanted to say. Nobody is 'great' to everybody. My father is a 'great' man to me. Is he a 'great' man to you? Probably not.

What if I were to slaughter every biology class in America and Canada? Surely my 'contribution to society and my greatness' would have definitely increased. I guess we are just arguing semantics here so it won't really go anywhere. It's just that I feel that greatness does not equal magnitude.

P.S. Osama Bin Laden a 'great' man?? Try to find someone in the United States who would be able to agree with the sentence, "Bin Laden was a 'great' man" and at the same time, does not support him. Good luck. The only ones who will say he was 'great' were the ones who were all for his cause. Therefore, it is dependent on one's opinion and views. The simple fact is that as long as long as he is a monster to me, or Jack, or Jane, or whoever, Jack Jane and I will never say that he is 'great'. Because we did not see what he did as 'positive'. There is a correlation. We can see that he was a significant f*ck and he will go down in history, but he won't be 'great' unless we felt that what he did was good and right. Obviously, all this is assuming that you don't just define 'great' as 'big or significant'.

Sorry. I will never ever see Hitler as a 'great' person no matter how much logic you beat into my brain. The fact is that it is all a matter of opinion. I guess you are going with the definition of 'great' as someone of ample significance in history, someone who made a difference. In that case Ted Bundy would be quite a guy. He sure made a difference in the lives of all those who mourned the loss of their loved ones. It takes a lot more than 'doing something of importance or significance' to be great. Otherwise why don't I just go down to the local high school and shoot up an entire biology class. Then I could be 'great' too. Wouldn't that be dandy. My name would no doubt be of utmost significance and importance to the parents of those whose bullets I put into the heads of their children.

Well, I would guess in the loosest and most broad sense of 'greatness', I would say that somebody is great if they are able to achieve, attain, accomplish, or take on an attitude which is somewhat uncommon and out of the ordinary, in which others would look upon in a positive light or see them as having made a positive contribution to a section of society. For example, in our eyes Osama Bin Laden will never be great and he'll simply be a demonic b@stard (of which I am surprised that they haven't made an Osama dummy version yet to be put in dojos so that we can kick the crap out of him with our turning kick drills or whatever) b/c although he achieved something extraordinary we will never see it in a positive light, whereas in the eyes of his supporters he will be 'great'. And of course, those classical music fans will always see Mozart as a 'great' man. So in a way it's in the eye of the beholder but I think there is a universal concept of 'positive contribution to a certain genre or area of life'.

Also, the ability to adapt. And the ability to see certain perspectives on a variety of different issues, to understand others and their positions without having to agree with them.

Wellll, I have read that it is impossible to isolate the hamstrings from a standing position (probably and partly because the tendons tighten and are activated when you reach down), and putting your leg up on a bar while leaning forward is also detrimental since it places stress on your hips and pelvis BUT so far it hasn't hurt me yet and even though I usually try to get my info from reputable sources, (I don't follow everything I read to the letter, I prefer to listen to my body and see what works from first hand experience) in all honesty I still do the leg-on-bar stretching but to find middle ground I usually do my hamstring stretch in a seated position. Although the front splits are 'impressive' to some people, they are actually not a good stretch for isolating the hamstrings either (although the hamstrings definitely are stretched) since a lot of muscles are stretched at the same time (same with the side splits. but both types serve as a benchmark to display how flexible you are and don't really isolate one group effectively). I guess to sum it all up I would sit down with one leg straight out in front and the other leg, um, just somewhere else I guess, and just lean forward and aim to touch your chin to your foot or your chest/stomach to the ground and don't arch your back. That has always worked for me from the beginning but it might be different for some people. When reading stuff from experts I usually gravitiate towards their advice but I only keep it if I find that the results are satisfactory or higher for my particular body. Once again nobody is built the same so there shouldn't be universal advice for every situation.

Like Yoda said above, those tendons behind your knee are not meant to be stretched (well you can, but I have read in many places that it is not good to). It is your muscles (in this case, your hamstrings) which need to be stretched. When you are younger (like say, from 5-10 years old), those tendons and ligaments are more elastic and more responsive to stretching. However, once you get past that age, stretching ligaments and tendons does very little and results in miniscule progress and does more potential harm than good. But that is okay though because if your muscles are flexible you will be able to perform any gymnastic or martial arts technique without trouble (I guess my point is that if you run into flexibility problems, it won't be because of an understretched tendon or ligament). I think that many people, when they try to stretch their hamstrings, make the mistake of tensing the foot so that the toes point toward them while they lean forward. This puts the tendons behind the knee and the calf muscle into part of the stretch and does not isolate the hamstring, which is why it is important to keep the foot relaxed and to keep a straight back when you lean forward and try to touch your chest and stomach (not your head) to the floor. The relaxation of the foot does not seem to be a very common way of doing it but I have found that it works a lot better for me after reading it somewhere and hey if it works then who am I to argue. :smile:

I would smack Judge Judy. Don't need to justify myself or say anything else.

Well I've given up on getting my picture to work on a reliable basis, my friend tried it out and it worked for him like the first time and then after that he couldn't get permission or something, and then I tried and had trouble and had to try a few times before it worked. For anybody who is knowledgeable enuff to know out there, I am curious, how do you reformat or change an image that is originally in a Word document to a jpg file? [ This Message was edited by: spinninggumby on 2002-02-07 01:47 ]

Bin Laden was, unfortunately, also rich.

Yeah Harpoon you have a point . Although I feel that learning those (for lack of better term) standardized blocks is still somewhat important I think b/c they teach you how to, like you said, instinctively keep your hands up and use them to absorb blows with some decent efficiency in case you are not able to move out of the way in time. Often times at my old sparring class, we always focused on interception when the opponent rushes in with either sharp kicks or moving out of the way or around the attacker so that blocking would not even have to be necessary. Indeed, many beginners and even advanced practitioners may find blocking to be a great necessity or security blanket but really if you think about it, if you are faster and smarter than the guy coming at you, you feel no need to block b/c u are already one step ahead of him at his game and you can kick him at the correct range or move to a more advantageous position for countering. Obviously certain situations will dictate that you have no choice but to keep your hands up, but yea, LOL

Yuppers, you'd be surprised at what physical feats you can accomplish when given the proper carrot on a stick, LOL. Something totally off the subject, but in high school I skipped P.E. class one too many times for other, um, extracurricular activities, and my teacher told me that the only way he would pass me was if I learned to juggle in three days. Since failing P.E. would mean public humiliation as well as, um, the possibility of not graduating, I tried like I had never tried before. Fifty billion tries later, I finally kind of got the hang of it. The problem was that I actually got it at the end of the second day but every single time the teacher watched me, I messed up. Finally, on the last day, he was convinced and gave me a D+. Ah those were the days.

The link on the site doesn't work for some reason

Babay ... That's just the way it is babay, that's just the way it is.... (repeat chorus) Sorry I am bored, gotta do something productive now haha

*Sigh* Not accurate? Not accurate for what?! Not accurate for determining that, given in a life or death situation, who would really be able to maim and kill the other? I guess I could understand where you are coming from since that is pretty much all you value about karate is its ability to kill (which, as far as i know, was not the only purpose that karate was created but hey, maybe originally it was since it was the only way people could survive). True, competition has rules and therefore limits your choices in winning, but your opponent also has those same limitations, does he/she not? When you say 'one cannot perform at their utmost', you are referring to how a competitor would not be able to perform such techniques such as groin kicks or throat rip-outs or eye gouges or wrist snaps or ridgehands to the throat or any type of technique that might put the opponent's life in danger. Oh shucks. Competition karate is a game. A game with rules which has techniques derived from traditional karate, which was originally intended for self defense in life or death situations. They are two different things. Competition karate WAS NOT MEANT TO DECIDE WHO IS A BETTER KILLER. Not accurate in determining the results? Competition karate does just fine in terms of determining who is a better practitioner IN TERMS OF COMPETITION KARATE AND COMPETITION KARATE RULES. Whether or not one likes to practice competition/sport-oriented karate or traditional karate is, pretty much, beside the point and up to the practitioner. Many sports that are played today, including soccer, rugby, or some other typical bleacher-type game, probably had some more brutal ancestor version in which the losers were eaten by tigers or some other huge carnivorous beast way back in Roman times or something like that because i"m not a history major. Gosh, what sissies we are now for only allowing the losing team to walk back to the locker rooms with heads hung in shame. They have no idea what it was really like! On a practical point of view, you could look back and see that originally karate practitioners practiced and refined their craft as a matter of necessity and survival due to their harsh environment which put them in constant danger or alert. However, nowadays in our relatively calm and sedentary environment (because face it, if we have the luxury of reading this forum, we are probably richer than 90% of the world), it is much more practical to learn and refine your craft in karate for the goal of ultimate health and fitness (which I have no doubts that many do) and not for the slaughter of your enemies - unless you live in South Central Beirut. In which case I advise you get your a$$ out of there as fast as you can, either that, or take a nice stroll down to the local black market and purchase you some nice fine durable firearms. Me, personally, I am not a big fan of the tap-the-chestguard-for-three-bonus-points type of contest. Neither am I a big fan of the all-out-brawl last-man-standing type of sparring. In fact, I don't even like competing unless it is against myself. But it is not my place to judge others who find something that they can work towards as long as it makes them feel happy and fulfilled, idealistic ******* that I am Btw in real life I am very softspoken but for some reason whenever I see this page of blankness I just get the urge to type type type :razz: