Zaine

Congrats! Well deserved!

I have signed up!

Congrats! I'm so happy that you feel pleased with the test and the result!

Good luck today! You're going to rock it!

Either is fine with me, though the use of an app would mean that I am more likely to keep up with the season. If both have an app, then dealer's choice.

Welcome to KF! It's great to have you!

Rotisserie sounds great to me if that's what you think is the best.

Welcome to KF! It's great to have you!

I have also been focusing on zen recently. Hyams' book Zen and Martial Arts is a great read, if you haven't already. I agree that happiness lies within us. However, given what you described I don't know that I would be happy. I already practice karate every day for at least an hour. I take great joy in it. Outside of this, I read a lot of literature based on martial arts. If karate was all I had to occupy my time with, however, I think that I would grow quite bored of it, regardless of my deep passion. I would need books, personally, as well as other means of exercise and occupying my time. I already don't really watch TV, but I do structure my life around my phone. It has my calendars, notes, and daily reminders that help me be more in the moment. That is the crux, I think. For me, my phone helps me exist more in the moment. It helps me be better at practicing zen because it allows me to put the task of remembering the daily minutiae to something else. The thing about things, in general, is that they don't create happiness. I cannot be happy with everything in the world if I am not fulfilled. However, if I am fulfilled and content with my life, these things do enhance that happiness. They create moments between the vast nothingness that would otherwise be there. Do I need to have book to survive? No. But books help make surviving worth the struggle. Having been in a mode in which I was only surviving with no leisure time, I can say quite confidently that our activities in our leisure time is what makes the 9-5 (or whatever the schedule) worth suffering. All of this to say, I think that the desire for no desire, or the idea that zen is achieved with minimalist behaviors, is something of a misnomer. I certainly think that cutting things from your life that you no longer need is a step along the path of self-actualization, but to say that it is the end-all is a step too far. Your hobbies and the things that you do in between work and sleep can relate heavily to this journey of zen. It can teach you to be in the moment. To enjoy things as they are, and not as you wish them to be. I practice zen when I run, but it also exists in the back of my mind when I am doing something like playing a video game. Allowing myself to abandon outer thoughts for an hour is great and that is assisted by my electronics and phones keeping track of my time for me. It allows me to be more focused, and to give into the moment at hand. This, in turn, allows me to feel fulfilled with what I have done, and grant more attention to the next task.

I am awful at keeping up with Fantasy sports, but if you need a player, then I am in!

Welcome to KF! It's great to have you! I look forward to your contributions.

Congrats!

Very much so. It's also worth noting that you can do the plays in reverse. Performing a stretto play into a largho one is a great way of covering yourself while gaining distance. I am 6' 1, and so I'm more comfortable with a larger range due to my long limbs. Using plays to create distance so that I may attack is a great tool in my box that I used frequently.

When I am learning new things, I often try to relate them to other things that I have learned. In the case of HEMA, that relation is to my extensive background in Eastern Martial Arts. This has advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, there are a lot of similarities of movements between Fiore's plays and the drills and kata that I have learned. The body can only move in so many different ways. On the other, sometimes I miss the little idiosyncrasies of a specific style due to my familiarity with the bio-mechanics of the movement. However, in this case, it was exactly my past experiences that made Fiore's swordplay click for me. The name of the game is flexibility. Fiore gives 3 ways of slicing in Il Flor di Battaglia. The Colpi Fendenti, Colpi Sottani, and Colpi Mezani. However, the ways of getting to these blows is varied. He gives you 20 guards from which you may begin and separates those in 2 categories, stable and instable. The stable ones are ones in which your arms are close to your body, or that could take a blow and you could parry with a strong rebuke. The instable ones are ones in which you are extended and, in my experience, tend to be positions that come at the end of a clash. For example, posta longa is a guard in which you would naturally end a thrust of the sword in. Fiore then further separates the guards into those that are powerful, i.e. you can make a powerful strike from them; fluid, i.e. mobile and dexterous; and fixed, i.e. somewhere in between, where you can't as easily move it around, and it isn't as powerful. After this breakdown, we have the zogho largo and stretto plays, long and short range respectfully. These are numerous, taking up the largest section of the manuscript. Why does it take up the largest? Well, aside from it being largely what Fiore was concerned with in the first place, and the most common knightly weapon at the time, there is just so much that you can do with a sword. Hence, my earlier observation about flexibility. Fiore gives such a large number of plays because the idea here is flexibility of movement and options. A big toolbox is a boon to any martial artist. I may, in my sparring, default to only a number of moves as a baseline, but having a large toolbox is beneficial because it gives me options over the choices of my opponents. Pulling some obscure move out of the toolbox in an important moment is the difference between victory and defeat, and when the stakes are life and death, as was the case in some duels with the sword, then one must be ready for anything. In this, it struck me as important to practice ad nauseam every play, so that during sparring practice (if I ever become so lucky again) I may have the advantage over my opponent.

Congrats!

I really like the way you said that, Brian. It's important to season ourselves, but once seasoned, we don't want to burn under unnecessary flame.

Beneficial to whom? I certainly think that a degree in Kinesiology with a focus in Martial Arts would be beneficial as it wouldn't specialize the student so much that their degree is moot in other fields of physical education. I certainly think that it would be cool, and I can imagine "History of Martial Arts" being a course, along with a requirement to take a certain tract such as karate or kung fu with requisite dips into other tracts for wholeness of content.

At the end of the day, this is an important factor. To paraphrase a tenet of managing people, an unhappy person is an unsafe person is an injured person. Mental wellbeing aside, it wasn't worth me risking being careless because I didn't care about the results.

I'm always down for continuous sparring. When I was a kid, the tournaments my school went to did continuous sparring and I loved it. My school often swept our categories handily. Unfortunately (or, perhaps, fortunately given some of the personalities there), those aren't around anymore.

This weekend I attended a tournament. It was the first tournament that 2 of my students attended (they did great), and the 3rd for my daughter (she also did great!). I signed up for kata and points sparring, as well (I didn't place, but the competition was very tight and I had a great time). The whole time I was there, I was dreading the points sparring. I love doing the kata. I feel like performing kata for competition is a totally different beast than doing it for testing or practice, and I love how it challenges me. However, I dislike points fighting. In fact, I dislike it quite a bit. This is not to say that I think that it is somehow lesser. I fully understand its purpose and use. I understand why it's a good choice for competitions. I just don't like doing it. Matsumura Seito taught me to be okay with being hit first and that doesn't mesh well with points fighting. That isn't the fault of the event, nor of my style, it is just a fact of my training and life. I had competed and gotten first in points sparring at the previous 2 competitions with this organization, so I signed up for a 3rd time. However, during the tournament, while I was judging, something in the back of my head was stewing with worry. I felt anxious about fighting. I wondered if I thought that I was going to get hurt, but I knew that I wouldn't, everyone there was very safe. I wondered if I didn't feel well, but aside from some allergy issues, I felt great. Still something ate at me until I realized what it was. I came to this competition to have fun. I don't find points sparring fun and I was dreading it. This was taking away from the usual fun that I have while judging and participating in the competition. Once I realized this, I quickly went to the organizers and asked to be removed from the event, which they did with no questions. Afterwards, the day began to move quickly! I was having fun. I was enjoying judging without anything else going on in my head. I did kata with no worry, and judged the specialty kata event for my fellow adult black belts afterwards. I was letting a sense of obligation to get in the way of how I have fun with karate. I felt that I had to do 2 events, and that one of those events had to be sparring. Once I realized that I was there to have fun, and removed the thing that was causing me discomfit, I became more relaxed and was able to throw myself into the processes of the day with more vigor. Don't forget that what we do should be fun. We continue to do this because we find it fun and if there is something that we do out of a sense of obligation that makes us miserable, then we don't have to do that thing. Sometimes, things can be less fun (I'm not usually the first to jump up in excitement about step drills), but still enjoyable. However, if we get in the habit of doing things that makes us miserable, our love for the martial arts will wane. Remember to have fun.

I did not, but thanks for reminding me! I'll have to revisit this subject.

I've been working on having a healthy diet for a long time, so I have a pretty good routine. I start my day with cheerios or chex and a protein smoothie. I try to limit my added sugars, so I usually only have a cup of the cereal and my main caloric intake is from the smoothie. For lunch, I usually have leftovers. This means chicken or pork with some roasted veggies. For dinner, on days that we don't eat out, I'll make a protein, a veg, and usually a potato. I also snack on nuts, fruits, and carrots throughout the day. I choose those because they don't make me feel full but give me the energy I need between meals. I take a stimulant for my ADHD and am prone to undereating, so eating small snacks like these is essential to staying healthy for me as well as giving me extra fiber and micronutrients.

It depends, obviously, on the circumstances. If they have an hourly rate, I would definitely pay them that. No need to negotiate something that they have already figured out for me. If they do not, and I've never hosted a guest that I had to pay, they all volunteered so take this with a grain of salt, I think I would start around $100, depending on the depth and length of time. If they feel that their time is worth more, then we can negotiate from there.

I would love to watch Goliath and crew again. We recently introduced my daughter to Gargoyles and she loves it! In an age of reboots, that is one property that deserves to get the refresh.

In that case, I wouldn't worry about rank. Just have a class in which you teach whatever you want. Set the expectation that there is no rank at the beginning. The alternative is to continue training in whatever style and join an organization that will test you for higher ranks.