omnifinite

1. I think stances are more about footwork, teaching you how to move and transition rather than how to stand still. If an instructor tells you to fight while rigidly standing in stances find a new instructor . 2. I'm not really sure what you mean, but if you mean chambering that's to train you to use your entire body simultaneously, to remind you that what the hand that isn't punching is doing is often just as important as the hand that is, to train you to habitually grab and claw and twist and pull, and various other things. Plus a lot of instructors call things that aren't blocks blocks because they look like blocks and don't know better. Find a new instructor . 3. Find a new instructor . 4. Not sure how to give a suggestion without seeing it (and I don't know many headlock defenses yet if we're picturing the same lock).

That's the part that's always concerned me far more than technique (what you know doesn't matter if you don't use it). I wish more schools focused on it. I know I could use more insight into it. I believe my training will focus on it more in the future, but right now I'm still working on the reflexes.

And kudos, Martial_Artist. That's basically how I feel about it. It's good to hear it out of someone else's mouth.

Kudos, BKJ.

Especially mechanical pencils .

Wow, more money went into the creation of that product than I'll ever see in my life. And of all the things in the world a person could possibly spend their money on, some sponser somewhere apparently had that at the top of their list .

(By the way, I was saying a lot of arts follow that pattern... I don't specifically know how Shudokan does things.)

Kempo certainly encourages you to be fast. Someone here said something once that stuck with me... if Shotokan is a cannon, Kempo is a machine gun.

How are you going to know what the katas are for? Even people with instructors are very lucky to learn that these days.

I'd suggest Kempo, but it may be so similar to Karate that it could feel redundant.

As far as I know usually people know all of the actual techniques when they hit 5th degree, and the degrees after that are given for dedication and improved proficiency. I guess you could call them "honorary". So I don't see why you couldn't learn it all.

Supposedly I'm going to Alaska this summer. But I don't know yet what part or what there is to see there. Any suggestions?

I tend to think aide should be given to people who need it simply because they need it. Saying, "Like us or we'll stop helping you"... I dunno... it makes me think of the kid on the school playground with the rich parents who can only get the other kids to like him by giving them stuff. I don't think true compassion is about what you get back. The times I wouldn't give aide would be when the aide would somehow be used negatively towards another country or even towards themselves (kind of like not giving a homeless person money if you know they're just going to use it to get hammered).

I didn't want to be one of them, but my family moved a couple months after receiving it and I couldn't really afford to continue after that (special circumstances made it a lot cheaper than usual). I started again with new arts that were a little more attractive to me when I had the money coming in. I wouldn't set 6 month training rules for people though. You've had a couple years on their way to black belt to explain to them that it's only the beginning. If they still don't get it by the time they reach that level, well, it's their loss. Why complicate life even further? MA isn't about paperwork .

There was a story in the paper the other day of a local driver. Someone needed to merge into this person's lane because their own lane was about to end, but the driver just refused to let them in. Eventually the person trying to merge had to hit the gas and speed in front of them or they would have been run off the road. This somehow caused the person who wouldn't let them over to lose control of the car when they had to slam on the brakes and they were killed when their car ran off the road. It isn't a funny story, but, I guess it's a good reminder that it really doesn't matter if you're one car length further from your destination than you were before. I don't have road rage thankfully. There are so many thousands of variables going into how traffic progresses that I just view it like the currents in a river... unexplainable and uncontrollable. If there's just one person causing all the trouble, usually you can get around them or they'll go their separate way soon enough. I was in a car once when I was a kid, and the driver of the car I was in (a friend's parent) cut someone off, and I looked back and I think I saw the other driver pull a gun out, but the girl with him made him put it back down. It happened so fast I'm still not sure if it was my imagination or not.

You see ads for those jeans in martial arts magazines. Pick one up and you'll probably find one.

I went to a seminar taught by someone who studied with Rick Moneymaker... good stuff. Gave me a better grasp of how the elements interrelate. Also went over Yin attacks and Yang attacks and people's responses to them.

Good thing I'm in the only country in the world with toilet paper . My comments were contradictions, not complaints. I'm just rather creeped out by people who think America is the prodigal child, god's gift to the world, best thing since sliced bread. Too elitist and self-important for me to stomach. Like the black belt who comes into the dojo with his chest all puffed up thinking he's the big bad. No wonder people are sick of us. I was watching the news today and they mentioned the first casualties of the war. The first 4 anyway. They glossed over the other 12 (non-Americans) on the helicopter. When did people become Americans first and humans second? How sick is that? Anyway, I pointed out something contrary to your sparkling view of our past and you responded with, "Hey, who cares, everyone else was doing it." I think America is great, but I don't think its history is spotless, I don't think it's anywhere near "enlightened" and I certainly don't think it can do no wrong. In fact, it seems like the various leaders in the world's history who have seen their nations that way are the ones who have done the most damage. If you want to fight delusion that's a good place to start, if you subscribe to any of those ideas. I hope you don't. Besides, the people who think everything is just peachy don't tend to be the ones who make the improvements in the future. *shrug* It seems you've already decided to file me away in the "whiny liberal" box with all the others (when I'm really neither and actually agreed with a lot of what you've said before you said it), so I'm probably just encouraging the lock of yet another thread.

Yeah, better that a few cultures be wiped out than letting the colonists get in trouble with the monarchs . The aborigines aren't doing much with all that land in Australia... someone should go after them next. Shame on them for wasting all that space. And after that all those people running around naked in the rainforests. What's that all about? Anyway... sarcasm aside... I don't quite understand how you can gauge America's moral superiority in part by the ratio of people we've killed in relation to other countries... and then in the same message practically write off an entire race of people as expendable. It's all humanity... either you value human life or you don't. Your stance as I interpret it so far puzzles me.

My instructor teaches some Iaido sometimes and he says people tend to get bored of it quickly. People come in with this romanticized vision of it, thinking "I'm going to be a swordfighter, this is so cool," and then they start doing the Iaido forms, which are these very basic, very simple, yet very precise sets of movements where everything has to be perfect. Of course the people who are great at it are scary... you'll be in two pieces before you even see them move... but it's not what most people expect going into it I guess. I'd do it more often but I can't think of a time when I'd ever have a katana when being attacked in an alley . Plus learning it isn't important enough to me to slip up one day and lose a thumb. I like my thumbs.

Until they deserve the next one.

Man... I guess she's kicking butt for two now.

Kudos ninjanurse. Since I weigh 135 myself it's good to hear that correct technique can overcome those "disadvantages". I haven't had many problems so far with my 200 lb. kempo/jujitsu partner that technique couldn't fix, but then I don't quite know how much he's holding back sometimes either. I'm glad he's bigger and stronger than I am, it forces me to learn things properly.

I guess the Native Americans weren't technically "neighbors" .

You should find an Iaido instructor somewhere if you can.