Eric_

Well, since the rest of the kids are about 9, you should be able to let them know that you expect them to focus and that there will be consequences for becoming distracted while talking with the 4-year-old. Or, give the kids something fun to do that they won't be distracted from while you talk with the little guy, like follow the leader, "karte tag", run around the room/workout area while screaming and clapping their hands (might get a bit harder to talk to the younger one with this, though). Or, maybe participation in these activities would be enough to hold his attention, and you can, over time, help him build his focus from there. He is only four, so if you can only get a very small improvement from him at first, that's fine, just keep aiming for those tiny improvements. Give him LOTS of praise every time he pays attention for longer than he normally does. On the other hand, maybe he's just had an off two days, or is still adjusting to seeing you as an authority figure.

BAM!

When i create my own style and declare myself grandmaster (probably like next thursday or something, since it's my day off), the belt order will go as follows: brown orange second degree orange blue camouflage white pink (hey, they have no pink font!) light-ish red (OR light-ish red!!!! ) second degree pink third degree pink second degree light-ish red fourth degree pink fourth degree pink with camouflage stripe gray (no gray either?!?!) umber (i guess this'll have to pass for umber . . . but boy will my brown belts be confused!) puce (that is, once i find out just what the heck puce is . . . and, seriously, they need to do something about this color selection!) *doesn't matter what color this belt is, as long as it's made of duct tape* duct tape with pink stripe second degree blue fifth degree pink fifht degree pink with puce stripe plaid *this belt is picked randomly from a drawer, with a teal stripe* black (quality black belts . . . with the cool buckles guys in rodeos get!) NOTE: stripes running the length of the belt will denote degree as follows: purple - second degree red - third degree puce - fourth degree red-colored duct tape - fifth degree plaid - sixth degree

IKCA Kenpo: white (white, the first belt, wow, that's wierd . . . ), yellow, orange, purple, blue, green, brown, black. In my school (not my entire organization) there are six stripes to each belt, but the stripes aren't really part of the belt testing, just more of a goal-setting aid (and it makes us look pretty).

Oh, paintball! How I miss it so! Used to play all the time, but haven't in a couple of years, because i just haven't been able to with my work/MA schedule. My favorite was any speedball game, elimination in particular. I remember my last game . . . I came up a hill and totally cought this guy by surprise. I fired, but my gun chopped (It's a piece of crap . . . man, I wish I was rich!) every one of my balls came out in a gooey mess. The dude made a portrait out of me! I called out, and turned around with my gun up, but before he stoped shooting, one snuck into the back of my mask and got me right in the ear!! what brand and model, and - if you know - what type of action (open bolt blow-back, closed bolt blow-back, etc.)? If nothing else, a cheaper method than getting it repaired professionally would be to get a replacement kit including all of the seals (o-rings, cup seals, the works), and replace them, one-by-one (putting the old one back if the leak persists), until you've found the culprit. Plus, you'll then have extra seals ready for when the next one goes bad ! Also, check your hoses and any other connections from the tank to the body of the gun, if that's the problem, a little Teflon tape around the male end of the connection just might do the trick.

Yes, it will. If you intend to, or suspect that you may, bulk up in the area of the artwork, do so before you get it done.

Eric: My best friend (who tested with me) & have discussed this over the years. As black belts of that school, we didn't pay for tuition because we taught classes. We were charged $100 for our test. Many of our students began training at a legit ITF school quite far away after our school disbanded. The instuctor there was well aware of the situation & was able to help them obtain ITF rank. Suing wasn't really something we considered seriously. And after 16 years, I doubt its possible anymore. His wife was really the driving force behind them having a school. When they divorced, his career was pretty much over. (He was not exactly Mr. Personality & she could teach a dead dog to roll over). I don't know if the ITF guy the others went to helped them pursue a suit or not. He was a high ranking guy in the ITF, aware of the situation, & an attorney. If anybody would have been serious, he'd have helped them. My buddy who tested with me is now training in a Chung Moo Kwon TKD school in another part of the country with his kids. They accepted him as a black belt without reservation after they heard his story. When it comes to it, he & I will retest for our 2nd Dans, somewhere. Oh, I had assumed that it was more recent than that. Good luck with your test (I'm guessing you won't need it ).

Aikido, Jiujitsu, Hapkido (though, Hapkido isn't as big on "spirituality of the mind").

If his 2nd Dan material actually met the ITF requirements, and it was just the affiliation that was fake, then, personally, I would retest for the rank, just for the benefit of pride. Of course, I imagine that they would require the retest, if for no other reason than to make sure that what you were taught was actually up to their standards. As for orion82698's guess that it's too late to take legal action, it's probably not. If he had you sign a contract that specifically claimed him to be associated with the ITF, then he could be sued for breech of contract (you'd probably get your tuition back), or, possibly, charged with fraud (depending on state and exact circumstances). If nothing else, he violated trademark and copyright laws (I'm assuming the ITF has their name trademarked and logo copyright protected). I'm not condoning our great American pass time of suing everyone in sight, but this instructor is a crook, has committed at least one crime in his deception, and should not go unpunished (at least, unexposed), for the sake of his potential future students.

Technically, martial arts should be in lower case. While there is no rule defining how you would write the name of a specific style (unless it is trademarked, or is named for a person or place, in which case it would have to be capitalized), it seems to be gernerally accepted that these should be capitalized, mostly for respect of your or other's styles.

I agree. I also dated someone in my school for a while, and It was great for me, as well. Our relationship did go sour (extremely), but we had no problem training together afterwards, and we seem to have gotten past our "differences" (at least, she's speaking to me without a snarl!). My instructor's wife is a student, and I've never heard her refer to him as anything but Mr. and Sir while in the school; no one thinks much of it.

One night in my instructor training class, we were discussing something (can't remember what) in two groups, and mine happened to be seated nearest the instructor. While taking notes, a classmate asked if a word was hyphenated. Well, several minutes after the the brief discussion of spelling had passed, and the rest of us had moved on to a different topic, another student used the phrase " . . . there's a fine line . . . " where he was immediately cut off by the first student with "I knew it was hyphenated." At first, only the instructor had noticed what she had said, and i thought that he was going to have a stroke from laughing!

I disagree. It's great to find someone who's hobbies you share. Go for it. It's great having someone you see often outside of class to practice with (and to keep your butt motivated ). But, as has been said numerous times already, be mature about it (huh, huh, huh, I said "butt"!). How old are you, anyway? It would be a lot harder if both of you are thirteen as opposed to thirty, and i think that the former would be a more apropriate guess. Make it very clear that whatever goes on between the two of you in private stays there, and before you persue a relationship, make sure that you know her to be someone who isn't going to have a problem with you on the floor if/when you break up, or classes are going to be a pain for both of you (seriously, it sucks!). Another problem you'll have to take into consideration is how often you are partnered in class. You don't want to drill with one person almost exclusively, and avoiding practicing with her in class wouldn't be a good idea either.

Well, you've been taking classes 3-4 times a week for five years, so of course you're gonna lose motivation. You're just burned out. Take a break from MA for a while. Don't just stop going and hope to just suddenly have your old passion flare up, though, because it might be too hard to get back into the routine. Pick a date, maybe a few weeks from now, as the date you plan to start training again. Don't practise until then, but DO NOT let yourself skip class that day. You probably need a breather, but don't let yourself just stop training alltogether.

Of course it wouldn't be easy. If it would be easy, someone would have done it already. Just think of pre-1776 U.S.A as pre-1776 U.S.A. It worked out fine for them (well, depending on your definition of "fine,' anyway). And Kovar's ITP is right along the lines of what I would like to see, but implemented as a nationaly recognized standard of instructor certification, working with, not above, existing heads of scools/styles/arts. And as far as corrupt organizations go, it's true, power corrupts (reference pervious parenthases), but it seems to be working for the IKCA very well, so maybe something a bit bigger could manage. I appreciate your confidence in my potential as an instructor, and there is definitely a world-class martial arts school in store for Texas next year.

I agree fully. But the problem isn't whether or not McDojos are in business, it is a matter of using a piece of cloth for certification. What we need is a standardization of certification within the martial arts. We have orginizations that allow consumers to verify the rank and skill of instructors, but only within the organization's own specific style, and not all styles have such organizations, and not all respectable schools belong to their style's respective association. Basically, what we need to combat these McDojos is a martial arts equivalent of the bar associations to which lawyers must adhere. We are an unreggulated industry, and changing that by creating a national (but not style specific) standard is the only sure way to restore integrity to our arts.

Understanding the principle behind specific fighting techniques is fine and critical indeed when learning them because you will be able to generalize them to a greater number of fight situations you may encounter. However, more critical than understanding of principles needed in learning techniques effectively is mastering through repetitive practice a few basic techniques that have wide applicability in combat situations to the point of making them almost instinctive, automatic and second-nature without the need for conscious thought or problem-solving. Deliberate problem-solving or thinking and conscious specification of general principles of fighting while in the heat of a fight can take too much time and will unduly delay your effective attack-defense reaction. Well put.

Hmm, the only thing i can think of is the "waterfall" stretch. you basically turn your palm up, and push down on your fingers, to stretch all of yourforearm. Mostly, though, just pay attention to how your fingers are curled, and make sure your wrist isn't bent back slightly.

Do you mean that your second knuckles stick out past your third knuckles a bit, so that when you punch, your fingers hit an instant before your knuckles? If so, then I used to have thesame problem. Just play around with subtle differences in the way your fingers curl until you find something that works, and just work on it until you make that same fist every time.

Well, go to https://www.tonyblauer.com, and get one or two complete body suits (they are expensive, but well worth it). Then use them (but not too often, of course) for more realistic practical self-defense training. You may be familiar with mass attack drills (if so, you likely call them something else) but if not, basically one person is in the middle, then they are surrounded by other students, who each attack them with random strikes/holds/whatever, against which the person in the middle must defend (my favorite drill! ).

Well, a quick description/summary of what the "thing" is would be very helpful. Also, you may want to include the fact that (I'm assuming) the event is not for martial artist exclusively.

My fault; I should have clarified. "Learning or using a self-defense technique and a lack of understanding of principles are entirely unrelated." I meant that learning or using self-defense techniques is not indicative of poor understanding, I did not mean to sound as though I was saying that you don't need to understand a technique to use it (which would just contradict my earlier arguments). A punch is ineffective ifyou don't understand what a punch is and how it works. The same holds truefor kicks, blocks, and any other movement. It is equally true for techniques.

Don't always look at a profitable school as a dishonest school. Instructors have to make a living, no different than the rest of us. Running a successful martial arts school is running a successful business. The trademark protects their name, no different than the dojos of feudal Japan protected theirs, from use by others. It also makes them look more professional. If an instructor cares nothing for money, chances are his or her school will be open for about a week. Try not to veiw small business owners with such a cynical eye.

Exactly. I don't think we are broadcasting on the same wavelength. I'm trying to make an argument against your earlier implication that techniques are useless in a fight, not suggesting that they be relied upon exclusively. I'm not sure why you are going on about "understanding"; learning or using a self-defense technique and a lack of understanding of principles are entirely unrelated. On another note, I cannot imagine any scenario in which anything involving a kick to the testicles and a rake across the eyes could be conceived as "pretty" (I'm not that much of a sadist. )

Of course. I very much doubt that there is a single person reading this that feels otherwise. I was reffering to the fact that if you must think about a technique, you either need to practice it more, or should not be using it, because, as you pointed out, that would just get you hurt. But it goes right back to what i said about the versatility of a technique. The flexibility of the technique makes no difference if the individual applying it lacks the knowledge of the reasoning behind the movements; they will be unable to reapply the technique to the infinite variations possible for any given attack. It goes without saying that there must be skill to back up the technique. AngelaG, i must agree with yourstatement of "Techniques are fine if you have 1 or 2 to remember" (i'm making the asumption that you exagerate). I've always been fond of Ed Parker's saying: "I'd rather have ten techniques I can fight with, than a hundred that fight me." In my system, we learn fifty-five self-defense techniques, but that is not to say that any of us "masters" fifty-five techniques. It is only the select few that suit us best that are commited to reflex, the rest are simply stored away to draw and learn from, and to teach, but not necessarily to use.