Zaine

Oof, that's intense. Stay safe, and bring some pepper spray or a TASER or something similar if you begin to get bad vibes.

Right now I am reading The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

Which is why it is important to train failure of technique in drills. I know that this is something that Noah (Wastelander) preaches, and it is something that I have incorporated into my training. What happens when X technique does not work as intended? You move on to Y. What happens with Y fails? You move to Z and so forth. Karate, and martial arts in general, is not static. It is important to understand the dynamic nature of a confrontation and train for that.

I've been listening to a lot of Hozier recently.

Happy birthday!

Okay but I'm wearing jeans and a t-shirt while browsing on Fridays, instead of my normal suit and tie.

Congrats, Noah!

I just picked up a copy of Secret of Mana for my collection. I was pretty happy with the find.

I collect a number of things. Lately, I've been focusing on increasing my manga and ttrpg collections.

Congrats! Well deserved!

I've trained with many new tattoos in my time. As long as you are following the after-care instructions and taking care not to excessively impact the area, then you should be fine. If you are worried, do as Bob did and gauze the area during training.

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

I have mine hung up in my home office, where my college degrees are (at least, on the same wall if not close). For me, these certificates are something for me to enjoy. I like the way it looks, but also I like the representation of my hard work. As a general rule, I don't value the papers of my achievements very highly. I value the experience that led me to those peaks. Therefore, it does not bother me if a dan certificate is next to my diplomas. They're both fun things to hang, but I wouldn't assign them any axiomatic value.

Congrats, Noah! It is well deserved!

None in particular. I view this as a general nidan with a focus on the Matsumura-Seito parts of my training. All of the stuff that I was tested upon was from my Matsumura-Seito training.

Over the weekend, I attended a seminar hosted by the INKKS (an organization that our own Noah Legel helped found). It was a great seminar and I learned a lot. After the seminar, however, the board tested me for my nidan and I passed! We had been discussing a test for some time but I was surprised by them testing me after the seminar as we had not discussed that. I had been a Shodan for 16 years and this was a long time coming. I plan to focus on kobudo for my nidan curriculum as well as becoming more educated in history and theory.

I would love for KI International to offer hemming services. They tend to be my go-to brand for lower end gis, and as previously mentioned I love their Mugen series and often wear it to competitions. Having an in-house service would be great.

Congrats! Well deserved!

No relation, as far as I know. We do, however, throw many jokes his way about the coincidence!

Congrats and welcome back again!

Yep. Thanks. Great to hear, KarateKen!! I mean, it could be worse. My name could be Michael Bolton. I actually know a guy who does karate whose name is Michael Bolton.

Welcome back!

Congrats!

Awesome! Hapkido has always fascinated me. Maybe I should look in my area and get into it as well.

This is what is so scary about real fights, and a big reason why I hope to never be in another as long as I live. You just don't know the intent of the assailant. Because of this, you have to assume the worst. My original sensei would always tell us that in this situations, be ready to kill someone because they could be ready to kill you. Now, he also taught constraint, and how to incapacitate rather than kill, but the message was always there. If it's them or me, I'm going to choose me.