Master Raiden

That's a fine philosophy, but don't get so caught up in it that you forget about the student. How much does your neice really need to worry about getting buff anyway? Just make sure that whatever you do that she enjoys herself. It sounds like you care about her a lot to drive her to all these places and it would be a shame if you got so obsessed about finding the dojo that has the best curriculum that you forget the fun aspect she may desire to have. Just something to watch out for.

That's where I disagree, if someone is going to attack you often times they'll brandish their weapon. Though I suppose they might try to use hand-to-hand then if they were loosing take out their knife. But most people who are going to attack a guy would take out their weapon first I think. Nice stratagy btw.

If I absolutely had to fight I'd do what I've seen said on this forum before: look for the biggest guy and take him down as quickly as possible. Punch him in the throat, kick him in the pills, gauge his eyes, whatever I have to do to take him down as fast as humanly possible. This kills the moral of the other two and I would deal them using whatever method I see fit (Remember, crazy beats big every time.) from there I check on the other guy. (I couldn't tell from the description if there were three guys or five guys aka three behind me and two mugging the old dude.) After that, I'd find a cop and tell them whats going on, they'd want to know and I'd probably be bleeding from more than one place. A suggestion for you next fight senario though: state weather they are armed or not and be more clear about how many there are. P.S. kudos to GMchen for his observation on how to observe, so to speak.

I don't agree that schools are safe, but this perhaps is an over-statement. I may not be an expert, but when I went to highschool (just a year ago) the school was not a killing field of any sort. Nobody in my school died, sure maybe a fight here and there but not much.

Thanks for the warm greetings. Don't worry Cathal, I realize the differences between street fighting and competition fighting. I try to train for both, I hope for only the latter.

I checked under the Bruce Lee foundation website, it says that Bruce always spelled it Gung because it's the cantonese dialect and that Kung is the Mandarin dialect. I saw it just a couple minutes ago, it's the "Bruce Lee Bio.pdf" file if anyone is interested, good reading.

If you were to give me a situation, perhaps I could better answer this question. For instance if I were taking down a man on a horse, it doesn't take a lot of sence to know you'd want a spear. If I'm going at it in an apartment building, I might opt for a ninjitsu katana.

Wow, looks like I almost got ripped off. My last place wanted to charge $99 per month. Plus $10 for each additional class I took. Granted I could train 6\7 days a week, compaired to what I'm seeing here it really isn't any competition. I didn't have the money in the first place, so I guess it didn't really matter, but it's nice to know.

While it's true that there is a significantly reduced chance of death in school, that is no guarentee of anything. Besides, if they don't kill you they can still break your legs, which could impede your ability to walk indefinately. If someone hits you, from a legal perspective you're perfectly within your rights to hit them back. That doesn't mean that the school won't take action. But all the school can do legally is with-hold services or order a detention. If you win, you could be held responsible for medical bills. But if they swing first, they would likely not be granted. Bottom line, being sued $2,000 dollars for his medical fines is much better than having $2000 in your own medical bills. I go by the policy "If they swing first, I get the last swing." So far I've never had to enforce "the policy".

I've had this question for a while and thought I'd ask; in certain styles of martial arts, is it kung fu or gung fu? I know that there is Jun Fan Gung fu, but everywhere else I've seen it the termonology always seems to be Kung fu. Are they both real seperate wordings for styles or is it something else?

Hi everyone, I've looked at your forums for a few months now and decided to make an account. I guess someone might want to know something about me, so here it goes. I'm 17, in college and although I'm going for a 4 yr degree (in business), my real passion is martial arts. I train as much as I can by myself and with the help of my cousin, who is a very proficient martial artist. While I'd consider myself still a novice, I hope to get good enough to compete. Which is hard considering the limited time my cousin can spend training me. I look forward to browsing and, if I have anything useful to say, participating in the forums. -Raiden