DWx

We actucally have a similar set up at our school. You pay for a set number of lessons each month but if you miss one, the lesson you missed kinda gets banked for whenever you want to use it or if you wanna extra lesson you just pay a top up fee for that lesson. I hope I explained that ok. Never had any problems with this system before. On the plus side you don't have to deal with all the admin every session, you can just get in there and train and my instructor ensures that he has income for that month. The dowside though is that youu have to put out at the begining of the month rather than spreading the cost.

Perhaps the reason why you haven't seen anyone who you thought could fight using it is because the reason most folks do TaiChi isn't for the martial aspect but the health benefits. I'd imagine that most teachers wouldn't teach the martial applications to a group of elderly men and women either as they wouldn't be interested. As for TaiChi in combat I think it could work quite well. You'd have to train it fast though as most of the times the movements are not at "combat speed" or intensity.

My sister goes in for the kill when she gets angry, which is pretty much all the time when she spars me. I recommend don't even try to block (unless you have to save your ribs from being cracked) and to just keep moving outta the way. Eventually they just run outta steam and/or ideas and it should be easy to pick them off with counters. I don't know if you get the opportunity or not, but its worthwhile watching them spar someone else and studying which side, what techniques etc. that they favour. When someone loses it they probably wont be trying out anything new, just trying to pummel you with what they already have. Good Luck though!

I think I posted the wrong video earlier, the one above is the demo fight, this is the one that reminded me of capoeira: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8qDz05tE1Y There's the music element, cartwheels, an the general footwork seems to be very similar to capoeria. A lot of the kicks also reminded me of TKD, (particularly WTF).

Found this & thought it would be relevant to this topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EqGeaD2z3A Looking at it, it does seem to be similar to capoeira and TKD, TSD etc.

Awesome film! And it has Heath Ledger Perfectly fine for a 13 yr old IMO, my lil' sis watches it and she's 12. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Knight%27s_Tale I think that your Sensei is right in that your daughter needed to know what it felt like to be DQed and that the boy needed to know that he couldn't hit without getting hit back. Maybe talk to her though like Bushidoman said and make sure that getting DQed doesn't become a habit. Hopefully she can see that it wasn't nescessarily right for her to do what she did but one can only learn from their mistakes.

Yea, what he said. Keep in mind parkour guys do more than one take, and scope out the places they do their crazy stuff. The videos are cut to make it look like they're little spidermans running around doing what they do, but there's a lot of behind the scenes stuff you don't see. Running away is often an option, but "self defense" sometimes means destroying an opponent's ability to hurt you with violence. Sure they cut their videos but don't a lot of MA demo and sampler videos do that too? They put those videos on the net to show off the best of what they can do so they wouldn't be showing you the times when they couldn't perform a move, similarly a MA video won't show you the times when someone couldn't break or couldn't jump or couldn't execute a technique. If running away is an option then run. Don't give your opponent the chance to use his ability to hurt you. It's less messy than dealing with a post-fight senario. As for how practical parkour is, there is a group of tracuers that I go to college with. They got in trouble once for training on the local uni campus and had to actually use their skills to run away. Very funny at the time because the security guards couldn't catch them.

Just outta interest what was the other guitar? Personally I think I would go for the thr $170 one. If the amp is better and the actual guitar is better then that should be the main reason for buying it. Don't worry about the whammy bar and plectrums as you can get them fairly cheaply off the internet, there's loads on ebay. $70 more isn't that much if you are going to have the guitar for years anyway.

Good Luck! Hope you do well.

Welcome!

From the video in the news article lordtariel posted, the teenager looks in his late teens. IMO someone that age ought to know better than to risk his life over a games console, he can always get another (maybe his parents' home-insurance covers it) but he can't ever have another life. From the reports I am I right in assuming the burglar was leaving when the boy attacked him? In that case I would have avoided the conflict. I thought that was one of the 1st aspects of self defense people learn, to avoid a conflict.

Is PS3 really worth that? Attacking anyone with a sword sounds pretty drastic to me, especially when they can turn around and point a gun at your head.

He's not really gone though, he lives inside the painting now in the Hogwart's Head's office. Whenever Harry or the other teachers feel down they can go and talk to him...

I would have to agree that it will be almost impossible to create your own style without at least being fairly profficient in another. No matter how much you read about a style you are going to be limited in creating your own. Imagine trying to learn how to swim by only reading books and watching videos. You can read as much as you want but as soon as you hit the water its like jumping in at the deep end (pun intended ). Without any background in any Kung fu style, snake style or otherwise, your body will have a hard time adjusting to the mechanics and the "Kung fu" like motions. If you aren't learning from a Sifu you wont get any feedback or how well you are perform a technique. You also wont have anyone to practice your techniques against either in a sparring situation or a "real" combat situation. To me it sounds like you're in for a tough journey if you want to learn without a teacher but the best of luck to you.

I wouldn't think so on the principle that you are just shifting your natural habits. The reason why a late meal is fattening is because you body doesn't burn the energy its gained before you go to sleep.

Welcome!

My younger sister started MA when she was 8 and was a lil put off by her first couple of weeks too. I made her stick at it and helped her outside of class, she has now been training for 4 years. I would recommend talking to your daughter and encouraging her to be excited again. She may have felt daunted by the other kids, especially if she doesn't know anyone there and she's the only beginner.

Harry Potter is ok as a kids book, but to be honest I can't see everybody's fascination in them. I've read all 6 so far but they don't really interest me that much. I mean, so far in every book the underlying plot is the same: someone wants to kill Harry, he has some sort of teenage problem, everyone suddenly decides to hate him, and then, against all odds he saves the day but still doesn't manage to get the girl.

Congrats! Must of been tough if the syllabus changed.

Can anyone solve the damn things? I found mine in the drawer the other day and have been sitting here trying to solve it... no luck yet.... Loads of vids on youtube about how to solve em but it is soooo confusing. I just spent 3 mins listening to a guy saying "clockwise, counter-clockwise, clockwise, counter-clockwise" and another guy going on about algorithms Sad thing is a 3 year old can do it in just over a minute: Anyone got any tips, or do I have to use the "peel off the stickers" method?

Parkour is all about overcoming your environment and training one of nature's natural instincts, to flee. When an animal is faced with an opponent they wil do one of several things: * fight * flock (to where other people are) * freeze * or flee As MAists we train the first one but parkour tries to develop the fleeing instinct. I think maybe in a self defense situation it would be useful to have a basic grounding in both. No-one's unbeatable and in some situations fleeing is going to be the best option. Say for example you were attacked by a gang of 6, 7 or 8 teenagers who were all fit, healthy and half decent fighters. I wouldn't want to try to fight them and if I couldn't avoid a conflict I would run. Being able to use my environment to my advantage would help me to escape. David Belle, founder of Parkour:

Try looking here: http://www.karateforums.com/martial-arts-research-library-vt8082.html The very first post lists some Japanese history books.

Congrats! Its great that you have loads of enthusiasm.

Woah, that would be so scary. I hope everything gets better.

I was searching for something else when I found this: Its Grandmaster Chang Jin Kang (the man who will be running the course) and his students. I'm not overally impressed. I see a lot of child blackbelts in the video and I don't think many of them could do much. I didn't like the form work either, other than the Grandmaster himself and some of the instructors I saw poor technique, no speed and little focus. At about 4:54-ish the 1st gups perform Choong-Moo tul and I didn't see a single technique I thought that might hurt me. IMO I saw white or yellow belts wearing the red belts. I wonder how the college degree compares to this. Here's his personal website: http://www.ildotkd.com/index.html From seeing the video and looking through the website, whole thing seems a little McDojo-esque to me. Here's the students creed taken from the class schedule page: At first I thought the idea of a TKD college degree seemed quite a nice idea. After seeing the standard portrayed in that video, I'm not too sure. Granted there are a lot of kids in it but I was very disappointed with what I saw. What does everyone else think?