h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi, Irv, Lil and anyone who's here. Cappucino and a donut please (note that I am typing in american out of deference to you guys).
Good point about the forum display, Lil, but what I'm waiting for is the promised ability to cut displays of forums you have abandoned but are still running e.g. I once replied to Steps and it keeps popping to the top of my list. Aiieeeeee!
Going for a wander BBS

C(~) There you go, Dr. J.

Lil, it's all in the plans, and they're going to make major changes to how people view their user pages... namely they're going to add a bunch of stuff that lets YOU choose how many forums you see, which forums you don't want to see any longer, and so on. But when... that's the question! I was going to type that in french, but I just discovered that I don't know how to make the necissary special characters on a windows machine (I'm in the Student Union, not my room with my mac).

Oh well

~Irving

Well, I could tell you how, but is it worthwhile knowledge for a Mac user?

They've done handsomely enough with the speed upgrade; I shall wait serenely for the page upgrade. Time for green tea, teaspoon of honey, earthenware cup. Thank you.

Gotta ask: Does the earthenware cup add a flavor I'm not aware of?

c(~) Here it is

~Irving

It's a Japanese aesthetic, from the tea ceremony. They are, as you know, a culture where people spend 25 years learning how to make tea ceremoniously. Or slicing fish, or head-butting a piece of steel plate. Don't get me wrong, I love their culture, did karate for 11 years and got very steeped in all things Japanese.

Of course, if they saw me drinking my tea with honey, they'd know me for the stupid gaijin I surely am...

Japanese culture sounds ~so~ Klingon. Not really a coincidence, I think. Has anyone seen 'Shall We Dance?' One of my all time favorite movies.

Can't say I have. Is it available on video?
Ah, Japanese culture - Perfection in Imperfection.

I don't know whether I'd go so far to compare Klingon culture with the Japanese. Although the samurai had a fierceness thing, there is something really ... Tuetonic about the Klingons. I bet the Klingons don't wash nearly as often as the Japanese. And, while the Kl. like to bang heads (literally) when they go down to the pub, the Japanese have instead created karaoke. Far more subtle.

Far more deadlier than a Klingon bird of prey too

I have no doubt that the Klingons were based on one, if not many, Oriental cultures. Thier martial arts and even some of their outfits say as much. Not that I can see Worf doing Kareoke (or can I?).

I'm interested, Lil, what style did you study? I had a few years of Shorin Ryu from a well trained teacher, as well as some very Americanized Uechi Ryu from a less skilled instructor. I'm a blackbelt, but I haven't studied in years because my Shorin Ryu teacher came down with bone cancer and stopped teaching. People literally came from all over the world to study in his back yard... specifically one man from Okinawa and another from Puerto Rico. My father (who studied with me) invited all three of them over to our house for dinner one night. Afterwards he commented to my mother "Do you realize you've just had dinner with the three most dangerous men you'll probably ever meet?"

~Irving, who's since become a pacifist

*Fiend wakes into the cafe*
*Deadly silence*
*Fiend waks to the IIEM and gets himself a anticoffee*
Quiet in here isn't it?
*Glug Glug Glug*
*Notices Lil, irving and a strange mam in black talking about klingons and samurai?*
Ive got a red belt in karate?

I would very much like a mocha.....stayed up all last night chatting......and burning a CD...takes too long to burn......no one left to chat with...tired

Hallo Fiend, nice to see you back at h2g2BTS.
*Lil gets herself an AL special and a Sunday Observer*

Irv, I never made it past ni-kyu due to injury. My style was Wado-Ryu and we were taught in a very traditional manner. The head of our style, Tatsuo Suzuki (8th Dan Hanshi) lives in Japan and he would come over at least once a year for a week and make sure we were sticking to the script, so to speak. My biggest problem was, as sensei Balingit (my day-to-day sensei) said, was that I just don't like to hit people. So although I shone at kata and waza and those short "choreographed sequences," I never could fight. Since that is, as you know, not the point of classical karate (sport karate is another story), sensei Balingit and sensei Suzuki were content to leave me alone when I didn't want to fight. But another Dan karateka joined our style out of Redneck-Ryu, where he had done nothing but fight. Sensei Bevins couldn't stand what he perceived as a waste of fighting talent in me, that I could do all the moves but wouldn't close with an opponent.

So he made me fight with him, which is how I got my ankle strained all to sh*t and a broken wrist. Goodbye, kime.

There were other matters that came about, and my sensei split with Suzuki and is now quite isolated from the international movement ... and I no longer go on the dojo floor in this school, because it would involve bowing to people for whom I no longer have any respect.

You know as well as I do that the chiefest problem with the importation of Japanese martial arts into the US have to do with sport karate, and the failure to perceive reciprocal respect in the tradition of rank.

*sips coffee*

I've always wanted to learn a martial art. So far, the closest I have gotten is Tai Chi, which I am now taking. It was a replacement for yoga, which I can't do anymore, since it seems to agravate/cause a hamstring injury. I am really enjoying the Tai Chi, though.

I recommend all you karate fans go and check out http://www.h2g2.com/A293258 and tell me what you think.

DOH! That's fencing. Karate will be coming soon. Sorry, I got my batches mixed up.

LOL!

I really would like to do T'ai Chi, but there are no instructors within a 100 mile radius of here.

So, Cheese, what's your connection with the martial arts?

I sub-edit Entries about them.

lol

Yes, Lil, I know exactly what you mean. The Karate Kid, while an excellent movie in some respects, did a lot for sport Karate and little for the "real thing". I'm not familiar with your style, though I'm guessing that it is, in fact, Japaneese? Mine's from Okinawa. I'm afraid I probably couldn't remember a kata today if I tried -- though I used to particularly like Nahanchi.

One thing that your Redneck-Ryu (LOL) instructor probably didn't get was forms and kata in general. Sport Karate, in my experience, will teach you the form, but not what it means, and will teach you the moves, but not in relation to the form.

Why is it Coffee house types get into Martial Arts conversations so easily?

~Irving