atalaya

you should take pictures of yourself doing kata and different techniques so that you can document your improvement and find what areas you are doing well at and which you can improve on. this is the same general idea as practicing in front of a mirror, but has the added benefit of extended analysis. good luck!

my two cents worth: I have practiced two different styles of aikido and have learned a lot from practicing both. Aikido has a huge emphasis on balance and off-balance (I think of judo as more of a "throwing" style. Aikido is more about balance, distance and timing as a method of removing standing options from your opponent). It does take an intense quality of effort and will require long hours of practice, but I think in the end you will be very satisfied with the result-- all depending on a good school, of course.

my first sensei was a genius with this stuff! try kicking an ordinary plastic bag and keep it in the air with just kicks (obviously just for speed and endurance drills) try the ol' punch out a candle trick. (use a candle in a safe place! with fire alarms and nothing around except a fireextinguisher!) use kicks and punches at further and further distances to improve "snap" to techniques. try wrapping crushed styrofoam cups with duct tape (cubes, balls, et cetera) to throw at them have them practice dodging, punchin/kicking/blocking them as they come in

for myself, i can say that i had practiced first a style that made strong emphasis on the go(hard) aspect of karate and then i practiced goju ryu which is hard/soft. aikido was even more soft. much more friendly and leaving me with new options so that i didn't have to break an opponent's body apart to defeat him. unfortunately my first aikido school was run by a tight-knit group of friends, the youngest of which was into her mid fifties and the oldest was eighty something. they were all nice people, but very exclusive and classes were always slow and turned into the others all talking about their lives. when i changed schools i was immediately impressed. competent teachers, a very hard routine and a new wealth of techniques. aikido focuses heavily on distance and timing (as was mentioned before). also, aikido provides strong tools for defeating a larger or more powerful opponent. although you'll probably never see kicking in class, if you take your previous experience and apply what you know about aikido, you'll find that it has answers for everything. the rest is up to you if you like those answers.

okay, now here is what i know "manga" to be: manga is the japanese word used for comic books. japanese comics are usually thicker and shorter than american comics (we tend to prefer the 11 1/2 x 18" or whatever they are) and usually japanese comics are black in white except the cover. i have the full run of "dragonball" and only the covers ever got any color. now what commonly happens is that a manga (or a comic) will become so popular that it becomes an anime (which is the word used for japanese animated features, although many people confuse these terms). sometimes there will be some changes made to it but in a lot of cases it's even got the same sound effects! japanese comic books, manga, are generally printed from right to left and not left to right. they are read from right to left and from the top of the page to the bottom. this is because when they were translated into english, they just used the same print tablets. at first they tried to just print everything left to right to make it easier, but it offended the japanese authors because the characters that were left in original format were all backward! hope this helps. i did some research for this before for my school paper back in highschool, not to mention i love manga!

my favorite tool in sparring someone much larger than myself is to maintain distance. stay just outside their striking range and when they strike at you slip in quick and deliver a fast strike to a target below their center (knees are a big one, instep hurts a lot, toes will usually annoy-but should be avoided unless you are using them to "stick" your opponent in one place and deliver other strikes) then move out! stay just outside so that he believes he can hit you. if you are too far, he'll just walk forward. also, no matter how big a train is, it cannot hit you if you don't stand on the tracks. if you stay at that distance i mention, he will be forced to try a linear attack. when this happens, move off his line of attack and respond!

you might talk to the city about just an open area. like a park or something and get a small following. then, try having activities on like a saturday or something in a very public area (farmer's market?) to put out the word. in addition to getting the word out to non-practitioners, it will usually draw a crowd of people who are already in martial arts and if they like what you do, may be willing to extend the offer of some rented space. it's a long shot, but there are less likely things.

does your company have anything like an s.o.p. to be followed? (standard operating procedure) -procedures for things like job titles, hiring, firing, emergencies (including choking, bomb threats, fire alarms, heart attacks, et cetera) or missed work? if not, YOU may want to write it! This will be a wonderful opportunity to further understand the workings of your core group and give you an edge instead of being MR. 404. at my last job i had a hand in solidifying the proposed s.o.p. and it definitely gave me an advantage at company meetings and briefings.

hm. while not a very fun answer, i think this may explain somewhat: our vision of james bond is one of the youthful, womanizing, independent rogue who can single-handedly dispatch dozens of opponents and hold his liquor to a stupifying amount. james bond must remain young, otherwise he no longer fits into the caricature that the myth is built around. q on the other hand is not a character to be admired for any of those qualities. in fact, the only two qualities that we can hold him up for are his intelligence (gadgets, advice, wisdom, et cetera) and his dark humor (ghetto blaster, for the americans!) those two qualities do not require him to be young or even youthful. but in the myth, old age and treachery seem no match for youth and skill.

it may also depend on what kind of style they practice. my first sensei in goju was a very (and i mean severely) tough woman who would flatten you with a glance, but she looked overweight, until you hit her that is. after hitting sensei in the gut (and seeing that your strongest blows had no effect whatever on her) you would learn that she trained her abs more than any other muscle in her body. in goju it is kind of a body type that they aspire to: extremely developed ab muscles that will absorb the energy of a strike without damage. the quality is called "rubbery" but it does not mean "flabby." more...solid. sensei was powerful and her power came from her center.

yes! i love the suggestion to read! also, remember the points that inspire you the most about your subject and try to outline them clearly. then re-write and flesh those topics out. find a writer who you admire and read everything you can that they have written. never copy (copying is something a machine does) but instead, try to catch a sense of their clarity in your writing. you are writing, so keep in mind the audience. if you lose your audience, you have only succeeded in filling up space. speaking of the martial arts as a topic, i wrote something along those lines that you might want to take a look at. it was for an english class, it's on the karateranch.com website.

i love books! when i'm not tackling a book on the martial arts or language i usually grab some comic books! i loved v for vendetta, watchmen, sandman(!) et cetera, but also enjoy reading batman and the occasional manga or american manga title (usagi yojimbo for example). i must say that i read whenever i get the chance. my wife tries to take books from me, but i have some mild success with heavier books!

yes, 97% is what i got, too. just before someone poked themselves in the eyeball. yes. my wife and i were both "prepared" for this one because we knew it was ... like this. i've seen one that was a little more startling as it required you to look directly at a small box in the middle of a family room setting picture. on a related note, some avatars cause siezures.

i had the opportunity to see it in chinese and i have to say, it was certainly a good movie. i had only been in class for a few months (learning chinese) but i was able to understand about thirty percent. (for anyone out there worrying that 30% isn't enough, also consider the genre). still a good movie!

i see that this small point was the "death" of this discussion, but feel that some things are left unsaid. a good instructor, in my uneducated view, can take the most unlikely students and teach them the value of their lives. this is especially true of the martial arts. thus, a good martial arts instructor must have a clear view of self worth and the worth of souls. This appreciation for life will also make the finished instructor a man of all times; war and peace.