omnifinite

You probably wouldn't get tested unless you deserved the belt already. The thought that keeps me from being nervous during belt tests is the realization that if I deserve the belt I'll have it and if I don't deserve the belt yet I wouldn't want to wear it anyway. Takes all the pressure and uncertainty away. Maybe it will help someone else too.

I suppose if his perception is so skewed that he doesn't respond to being bested fair and square, a method that might work would be barely acknowledging his existence. The fact that he bothers you enough to start a discussion about him means that he has significance to you... it gives his behavior a strange sort of purpose. If you treat him based on what he means to you (nothing), he may lose whatever bizarre reward he feels he gains in doing this. I imagine when he manages to anger or upset you he feels energized... it may be the only emotions he knows how to inspire in another person. Maybe to him that's still better than nothing. So give him nothing. He's a gnat. Don't let him be more.

When you're godly at something I guess it's easy to see it as superior. I wonder if his life had been different and he had reached that amount of skill with a different art if he would have been touting it as superior instead.

Wow... nothing more dangerous than a fool with a cause.

I think I agree with Martial_Artist, except I would say people's negative actions come from some form of fear. Necessity (often the perception of personal lacking in a given situation) usually fuels fear rather nicely. Without fear I don't think it would occur to people to do harm to each other. That's my short response. I'm too tired to give the long response .

The problem with teaching yourself anything is all the things you don't know you don't know. In this situation those are some dangerous unknowns, and you might not even realize anything is missing without someone else's perspective. Finding good martial arts information in today's society is hard enough WITH a teacher. Why cheat yourself further?

That's probably part of it. A hundred things are probably part of it. I don't think we're quite using the martial arts they practiced then. So many teachers in the past learned the art, changed it around to serve their own purposes (be it innovation, money, ego, manipulation, whatever), taught this "better" version to a student who did the same thing later on, who taught it to someone else, etc. Not to mention hiding things from the students so they'd always have some advantage over them. Do that for a couple hundred generations and you have an art that barely resembles itself anymore in the ways that truly matter. The newer arts don't have that problem as severely as the older arts do. But they will... and a century from now people doing future arts will argue about how "useless" today's newer arts are.

Hapkido might be good. You could apply your TKD knowledge to it more easily than you might be able to with another style because of their similar origins.

Sounds like one horrendous dojo. Of course that means every dojo everywhere is evil.

Update: The other day I found what looks like a great Goju Ryu school in Woodbridge. I'm going to watch some classes in a few days. It looks like the type of place I would have ended up if I hadn't found my current instructor. If you're looking for Karate I'm sure that's a great place to start.

My instructor has an incredible pair of zai. Made overseas by people who actually use them and know how they should be made. The balance is right, the widths are right, they're great. Make my cheap ones feel awkward and clunky. I might be able to get the information for you if those are weapons you want. I'm sure they'd be at least $150... maybe even $200... I don't know what they're going for now.

I think I'd be all for letting natural selection weed out the frauds, except for one thing. Someone who knows nothing about martial arts is going to go to them to learn self-defense, get crappy information and a false sense of confidence, and possibly get really hurt when they use what they've learned instead of maybe just running like they would have without it. Again, I guess that would be another sort of natural selection, but it could be someone without the life experience to know anything about real combat beyond kung fu movies. And I guess it mainly bothers me because it brings down the credibility of the martial arts world as a whole... if there weren't so many frauds out there selling (and competing using) fake Karate or whatever some of the MMA people might not disregard the older styles so readily.

I'd definitely pick the seminar. I go to them whenever I find out about them happening nearby. I've never actually been to a tournament within the last 10 years at least. I should probably check one out. If I had the option I guess I'd go to both... might as well take advantage of every opportunity to learn something new (taken with grains of salt of course). However, if watching the tournament costs more than $10 I doubt I'd bother.

Hmm. To have a new style be truly legit doesn't it have to be reviewed by a soke/headfounder council or something? Or is that just naive wishful thinking? That's the only calibre I'd personally accept when considering studying a recently developed style.

I don't know anyone who's given themselves a rank. I wouldn't even know how it would be done beyond forging documents or just plain lying. I think I'd personally be a little afraid to suddenly start calling myself a 5th dan. If a real high-ranker decided to try me out (probably to expose me) and came at me like they'd come at a 5th dan, well, nice little hospital stay for me.

Ask her what she's really there to learn I guess. Maybe something will sink in when she thinks about it.

Hmm... UFC XXXVII... space combat... don your scuba gear and start training folks . That might be Aikido's chance to shine... finger/wrist locks work no matter what you weigh .

Gotta love an art that realizes the ground is a weapon too. A good throw from a Judo person on concrete could easily cripple me if I fell wrong (even if I fell right). I wouldn't mess with them.

There's really a style called that? Man... some people are just hell bent on embarassing the martial arts world as a whole, aren't they...

Whichever is most effective in the long run. Sometimes it's one... sometimes it's the other.

That's tough. I've worked with zai but haven't used a tonfa before. So as things are now I'd have to pick the zai. But if I were equally proficient with both I have a feeling I might choose the tonfa... I think against a staff I would appreciate the thickness of the tonfa and the added protection my fingers would have when blocking. Plus I think I'd appreciate the little extra leverage the side handles (whatever they're called) might give me. But I could be wrong... I'll get back to you when I pick one of them up .

I don't know. I mean, they're being rewarded for using Karate to win in "combat". I can think of a lot of ways money and Karate could mix that I'd consider more corrupt than winning a competition for it. Depending on the rules and how it's judged I suppose it's teetering on that line.

Since the nunchaku is notorious for doing more damage to the person learning it than anyone else I would probably personally pick the bo . I'm not sure which I'd prefer if I were proficient with both. They both have tons of pros and cons I think.

I've seen a beautiful Aikido calendar that I swore could be found at https://www.bujindesign.com but I don't see it there now.

About a 5 minute drive.