Bitseach

Current advice for ankle recovery is usually to use it as much as you can without pain (after the initial injury period, when it should be Rested, Iced, Compressed and Elevated (RICE). If you try to swim you will probably lose some weight - and at the GENTLE rate that doesn't adversely affect your health! - but you might over-extend a sensitive joint. One possibility is to swim just using your arms, if you are able. Either let your legs trail behind you in the water, or keep a "float" clamped between your thighs - much easier for front crawl than breast stroke, during which you tend to bob up and down a bit. Another possible exercise that you could do is cycling, pref on a static bike in the gym in case you end up in pain and have to stop - you don't want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere! I'd avoid rowing until your ankle mobility is improved. To aid in this, as I'm sure your doctor has suggested, sit on your bed with both feet extended over the edge and make both feet draw big circles in the air - as big as possible without moving the legs. You can then compare the good and bad sides and ensure that the ankle heals without losing too much movement. Do not do this to the point of pain or you will set back your progress. Eat sensibly - don't snack on cola and chocolate but have a little if you fancy it. At your age you should be eating sensible quantities of sensible foods. Don't cut out fat completely from your diet - some fats are essential to your health and recovery. Do as your granny probably would advise and have some cod liver oil every day to help recovery and ease inflammation in the joint. Don't have too much or you will be rushing to the loo the whole time! Lots of fruit and vegetables too. If you do this you will NOT lose the weight that you suggest in the time that you suggest, but you should lose some weight and maintain fitness at a sensible level instead. As others have pointed out, your current goals are both unrealistic and unhealthy! Good luck and I hope you ankle is better soon.

Yes, it should be shown to teenagers to illustrate how moronic they will look if they drink too much! Jade is such a silly little girl! Almost got the samurai-sword fight that someone suggested - if Adele had had one to hand I reckon she would have used it. Heh heh heh. I don't like anyone in this year's house. I liked some of the people in the previous two series.

The BBC did something like that about 6 months ago - it wasn't anything like an ultimate fighting contest or survivor, but pitched teams of martial artists of various disciplines against each other in different tasks, including a winner-stays-on sparring challenge and lots of physical feats, target nunchucks, balancing, strength, combat skills etc etc. It was quite good fun - not too gory or anything as it was before the watershed. Can't remember what they called it now, but it was good fun.

My ideal weapon would be one that phasered away the opponent's weapon without damaging anyone and at the same time gave them a smack on the backside. Then I would lean over them smugly and say, "Now! Play nice!"

Cheers for the advice. I use padded chucks at the moment but still gave myself an almightily painful egg on the head with those when I did a bad swing! It's true though, it always happens just when you are getting a bit more confident and letting the chucks get faster but concomitantly getting more fatigued!

Wow, fascinating. I hadn't heard this before.

I'm with SaiFight and others who suggest that beginners should perhaps use closed hands to protect the fingers and learn the open-handed blocks a bit later on. Speaking as someone who fractured, dislocated and maimed a finger trying to block with fist not properly closed when I was a beginner I'd definitely not recommend the experience!

LOL - well ya never know! Wouldn't necessarily suggest that if I ever met him though! )

Quite often on the boards people ask, "What's a ?????" and then many people helpfully answer them. I thought it might be useful to collate everyone's definitions into a dynamic glossary which could perhaps become a separate page (with alphabetical hyperlinks?) eventually and a reference source, esp as so many of us visit and represent so many MAs. It would be helpful if, when people are replying, they give their country and style of MA so that we can gauge whether something is local to an area or an art/style. Howabout we start with the basics: gi ki/chi kiai kimono obi zazen "oss" shotokan wado ryu hajime dojo kata migi ippon wazari maigeri keage kekomi age uke etc, etc. Only potential difficulty is that a definition collection such as this will inevitably involve many terms that will have been covered already in other threads, so I hope the moderators don't mind, as this could be a valuable summary. Please keep this thread for definitions and don't let it get off-topic too much! Cheers, Bitseach

Greed, mainly! As a genetic scientist by training I can say that there are VERY few people genuinely genetically obese; the greatest contribution is from life-style. The leptin protein is thought to have a role in satiation - the feeling that one is satisfied after a certain amount of food - in studies involving obese mice (bred to be that way) but there are elements of social and self-control too that one cannot ignore, and there is not yet clear-cut evidence of the effect of the gene that controls leptin in humans. The rise of obesity in the West has closely adhered to the number of fast food "restaurants" - take from that what you will! If people think of food as something with no nutritional content other than lipids, that has been deep-fried and chock-full of unpleasant chemical flavour enhancers, eat always the largest portions that they can then take no exercise, is there any wonder that they're fat? The UK is a bit behid the USA in its percentage obesity in the population but we're catching up quickly! Every day I see children on their way home from school snacking on "Abysmally Fried Chicken" or fish and chips. At their school canteen they are offered (and invariably choose) chips, and at poorer-quality restaurants the children's menu is almost always deep-fried scraps - fish fingers, burgers, etc. It's quite disgusting. In very few people obesity can be considered a disease of lack-of-control such as alcoholism, but often it is just poor habits, laziness, greed! Ever noticed how many fat people talk about their metabolism and then every time you look at them they are eating chocolate, potato crisps, drinking cola? [These same people often say they are scared to give up smoking in case it makes them put on weight (Ah! the irony!)] I have sympathy for the person with the genuine metabolic disorder or compulsion disease, but too many gluttonous lazy-arses jump on this band-wagon!

I like to use the ellipticals in the gym too, but I also find that I get pins and needles in my feet, but after about 15min! This isn't so bad as I normally use it as a warm-up and then do 20min Fartlek training on the treadmill, a bit of a lighter 15min on the upright or recumbent bikes and occasionally some rowing (yuck!) or cross-training on a weird machine! I love the feeling of the eliptical though - I imagine I am running on clouds or just shut my eyes and pretend I am running along a beach, track, race, whatever, for variety. (This also is quite good for maintaining balance - just so long as you have enough balance to do it!)

Gosh, I would think that's an easy way to break a finger-nail! (just for some girly balance from the girlies!!) (actually I'd love to be able to do press-ups but find it quite hard - I say it's because I'm very tall!) When I saw Demi Moore doing those one-handed jobs in GI Jane....wow.

Anyone else think that this year's Big Brother housemates are a load of plonkers this year? There's nary a single one I want to see win, whereas the last two years' shows were quite entertaining and seemed to have nicer people in them. It's Spencer up against Alex this week and I'll bet that Alex goes out. Pity! At least he knows how to take a shower - Spence is disgusting and yet all the women seem to find him dishy (except me, as I don't like stinky-boys!). Ho hum...

Gosh, interesting. I've never been to a club that has used anything other than first names, or "Sensei/Sampei" at a push. "Ma'am" is not really used here in the UK, except to military Commissioned Officers or Warrent Officers (Sgt Major etc) or police above the rank of Inspector (by junior ranks) or to the Royal Family! Or sarcastically!! In day-to-day life there is sometimes a "Sir" or "Madam" but more often than not it is "Love", "Mate" or in some regions, "Ducks"!

LOL - DEFINITELY! And as Homer Simpson is wont to say, "It's funny because it's true"

"I challenged Matsui and his sister-boys to a good team fight to be held in Japan in 1994." "Don’t forget the almost homo games from the Wado..." blah blah. can't really be fagged reading it again but it continues in a similar vein! I'm not saying he's not a great fighter, just that he seems to be a bit of an ar5e as well!

Knuth - that's okay old boy - no offence taken then! We do have strict laws here regarding offensive weapons but apart from quite hard-core criminals the UK is a fairly no-weapons society. Yes, it's true that the UK police are not armed (with the exception of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, but they are even talking about disarming that police service) but there is also great opposition to increasing the availability of arms in society or by law enforcement officials. Perhaps it's because we don't have so many dangerous animals that we'd need to kill, that weapons are not as widely tolerated here. To someone in the US this might be seen as a bad thing, but here we simply don't need to defend ourselves as violently as you might have to. Likewise here "liberal" is not an insult, it's usually seen as someone who is educated, decent and compassionate. Social care and healthcare are highly regarded here and liberalism is seen as contributing to a more tolerant society. The UK is by no means utopian but many people recognise that racism is a lot less here than other countries in Europe, Africa and the USA. Terrorist attacks in the UK (which there have been for decades) did not result in many flags being displayed here, or a great ground-swell of patriotism, but the football World Cup HAS. It's just our psyche! All in all, I'd not choose to live anywhere else! Bits' (ex-British Army and quite patriotic myself!)

Completely anecdotal but made us all laugh! Depressed man diagnosed as British. George Farthing, an expatriate British man living in America, was recently diagnosed as clinically depressed, tanked up on anti-depressants and scheduled for controversial Shock Therapy when doctors realised he wasn't depressed at all - only British. Not depressed, just British Mr Farthing, a British man whose characteristic pessimism and gloomy perspective were interpreted as serious clinical depression, was led on a nightmare journey through the American psychiatric system. Doctors described Farthing as suffering with Pervasive Negative Anticipation - a belief that everything will turn out for the worst, whether it's trains arriving late, England's chances at winning any international sports event or even his own prospects to get ahead in life and achieve his dreams. "The satisfaction Mr Farthing seemed to get from his pessimism seemed particularly pathological," reported the doctors. "They put me on everything - Lithium, Prozac, St John's Wort," said Mr Farthing. "They even told me to sit in front of a big light for an hour a day or I'd become suicidal. I kept telling them this was all pointless and they said that it was exactly that sort of attitude that got me here in the first place." Running out of ideas, his doctors finally resorted to a course of "weapons grade MDMA", the only noticeable effect of which was six hours of speedy repetitions of the phrases "mustn't grumble" and "not too bad, really". It was then that Mr Farthing was referred to a psychotherapist. Suicidal? Dr Isaac Horney explored Mr Farthing's family history and couldn't believe his ears. "His story of a childhood growing up in a grey little town where it rained every day, treeless streets of identical houses and passionately backing a football team who never won, seemed to be typical depressive ideation or false memory. Mr Farthing had six months of therapy but seemed to mainly want to talk about the weather - how miserable and cold it was in winter and later how difficult and hot it was in summer. I felt he wasn't responding to therapy at all and so I recommended drastic action - namely ECT or shock treatment". Hopeless case "I was all strapped down on the table and they were about to put the rubber bit in my mouth when the psychiatric nurse picked up on my accent," said Mr Farthing. "I remember her saying 'Oh my God, I think we're making a terrible mistake'." Nurse Alice Sheen was a big fan of British comedy giving her an understanding of the British psyche. "Classic comedy characters like Tony Hancock, Albert Steptoe and Frank Spencer are all hopeless cases with no chance of ever doing well or escaping their circumstances," she explained to the baffled US medics. "That's funny in Britain and is not seen as pathological at all." Identifying Mr Farthing as British changed his diagnosis from 'clinical depression' to 'rather quaint and charming' and he was immediately discharged from hospital, with a selection of brightly coloured leaflets and an "I love New York" T-shirt.

Some people suggest doing as many as you physically can, then rest for a short period, then do as many as you can (this will be fewer of course!) then rest again and do a third time. Do this every other day as the muscles will need a day at least to recover and rebuild. Compensate by doing other back exercises - eg seated row, back extensions, "Supermans", sit-ups etc otherwise your posture will be ruined by too much pectoral/deltoid development. How fussy are they about exact positioning during the test? I was just thinking that you could perhaps do one of the sets with wide hands - more on the pecs, another set with the arms a bit closer - less pectoral, more triceps, etc. (or is that kind-of cheating?!?)

Pizzaboy! You scoundrel! The apex of the lower jaw is supposed to be the hardest in the body. However as you get nearer the hinge it loses it considerably and at the hinge itself is relatively weak. This weaker area is usually where jaws are broken!

Good idea from SaiFightsMS - it is often made worse because we dash into the dojo having just taken off our outdoor shoes, and our socks. Even in good quality shoes (not trainers/sneakers/whatever you call them) the feet get moist and slightly soggy underneath. If they can get some air about them before you train they are more likely to withstand the training for longer. They will still blister though - it is inevitable and will go away soon. (we've ALL been there!!) Good luck,

Searcher - good for you. People should support those who are willing to put their lives on the line for others. I have gone the other way now, mind you, and do voluntary ambulance and first aid work in the community. Any sort of voluntary work or public service should be encouraged but since you-know-when, a lot of folks have TALKED a lot about fighting, then doing nothing about it, when they should perhaps first of all think about doing service to the community that is already in need, not ethereal threats against a non-specific external enemy! I presume America has its share of poverty, disease, lack of education and also needs some means of building up and aiding self-discipline in idle youths! I don't wish to sound holier-than-thou here, but I strongly feel that people should put their money - and their time - where their mouths are! However it is perceived that fighting the enemy outwith is a lot more "sexy" than getting one's hands dirty organising a youth club, reading to old people, helping the Red Cross etc, etc to help the people within the country who already need the help! Otherwise what exactly is worth defending??

Well I can't speak for Americans, but I do think that about the Burqa and Chador but have to point out that those very reasons are WHY nuns wear the long habet - because they are anti-feminine. In fact that is also the reason for some Moslem women wearing it, isn't it? So that the loins of the men are not stirred by the body shape. (presumably they aren't then allowed to go out in the wind in their burquas?) Incidently the 2nd Vatican Council discouraged the wearing of the full veil for Roman Catholic nuns precisely because it was so odd and unapproachable to others. Very few monastic orders these days are cloistered and many work in their local communities.

My favourite is Sochin as I like the gradual winding-up before the release of energy. I find it unstresses me when I'm annoyed too! Unfortunately this doesn't mean I'm any good at it at all - that fudo stance is tough! My knees don't like it much either. Quite like Heians Yon- and Go-Dan too but CAN'T ABIDE Tekki Sho-Dan. Hate it hate it hate it.

Is that like Yasser Arahat?