The Alley McBeal Bruce Lee Baby
and other Martial Art funnies ...

No doubt you have all seen the dancing baby on Alley McBeal. Well, they got around to producing a "Bruce Lee" version ... and you can get it here on the eMSSA Forum home page. Download!

You can get a little man kicking at three heights as an animated cursor by clicking on the FreeThemes site. (To use it, just unzip the file into your windows\cursors directory, and then go into settings|control panel|mouse to choose the one you want.)

You know you love Martial Arts when ...

1. You know you love Martial arts when you're at your local McDonalds restaurant ordering your meal and the waitress asks fries with that sir and you reply OSU.

2. You know you love Martial arts when you have more bruises than a Rugby League Player and you still go back for more.

3. You know you love Martial arts when you start opening and closing doors with kicks and punches.

4. You know you love Martial arts when you start buying clothes that have enough groin room for that Jodan mawashi geri.

5. You know you love Martial arts when you start looking forward to Waterfall training in the dead of winter at minus 5°.

6. You know you love Martial arts when, looking for a new flat to rent you start taking into consideration the amount of training room it has

7. You know you love Martial arts when writing an assignment for your phd. in accounting, you send in the History and Theories of ? Karate

8. You know you love Martial arts when a quiet night at home relaxing with loved ones consists of re-runs of the Karate World championships and flexibility training.

The Natural Life Cycle Of Mailing Lists

Every list seems to go through the same cycle:

1. Initial enthusiasm (people introduce themselves, and gush a lot about how wonderful it is to find kindred souls).
2. Evangelism (people moan about how few folks are posting to the list, and brainstorm recruitment strategies).
3. Growth (more and more people join, more and more lengthy threads develop, occasional off-topic threads pop up).
4. Community (lots of threads, some more relevant than others; lots of information and advice is exchanged; experts help other experts as well as less experienced colleagues; friendships develop; people tease each other; newcomers are welcomed with generosity and patience; everyone -- newbie and expert alike -- feels comfortable asking questions, suggesting answers, and sharing opinions).
5. Discomfort with diversity (the number of messages increases dramatically; not every thread is fascinating to every reader; people start complaining about the signal-to-noise ratio; person 1 threatens to quit if *other* people don't limit discussion to person 1's pet topic; person 2 agrees with person 1; person 3 tells 1 & 2 to lighten up; more bandwidth is wasted complaining about off-topic threads than is used for the threads themselves; everyone gets annoyed).

   Finally:

6. Smug complacency and stagnation (the purists flame everyone who asks an 'old' question or responds with humor to a serious post; newbies are rebuffed; traffic drops to a doze-producing level of a few minor issues; all interesting discussions happen by private email and are limited to a few participants; the purists spend lots of time self-righteously congratulating each other on keeping off-topic threads off the list).
   OR
   
7. Maturity (a few people quit in a huff; the rest of the participants stay near stage 4, with stage 5 popping up briefly every few weeks; many people wear out their second or third 'delete' key, but the list lives contentedly ever after).

The Newbie Guide to Martial Arts "Doublespeak"
When people say ...
(What they really mean is ...)

Japanese martial arts are the best.
(I practice a Japanese martial art.)

This art is thousands of years old.
(This style is decades old.)

The martial arts are about building better people.
(The martial arts are about sweat, bruises and money.)

Chinese martial arts are the best.
(I practice a Chinese martial art.)

High kicks are stupid.
(I can't do high kicks.)

Sparring is extremely important.
(I'm good at fighting and I like it - but I can't do much of anything else.)

The martial arts are about building better people.
(The martial arts are about beating people up if they lay a finger on you.)

Korean martial arts are the best.
(I practice a Korean martial art.)

Breaking techniques are very important.
(We do a lot of breaking techniques.)

I don't believe in grades.
(Nobody ever gave me a high grade.)

The martial arts are about building better evolved characters.
(Like me.)

Sophisticated arts like T'ai Chi and Aikido are far superior.
(Sparring frightens me.)

He's a good martial arts teacher.
(He's in my organization.)

He's a lousy martial arts teacher.
(He used to be in my organization but he broke away and I don't get any money out of him anymore.)

My style is the best.
(I don't know anything about any other styles.)

Grades are not important.
(There's a grading coming up and it's important.)

Breaking techniques are useless.
(I can't do breaking techniques.)

I'm an innovative, free-thinking, modern Western martial arts teacher, doing my own non-classical thing.
(I'm more interested in teaching than learning; and the Orientals ignore me because they know how ignorant I am.)

Martial arts politics are the necessary result of official recognition by respectable associations to protect the public.
I belong to a large, well-established organization.

I hate martial arts politics.
(None of the large, well-established organizations recognize me or have the slightest interest in my existence.)

In this system, we make the art fit the person.
(In this system, we make the person fit the art.)

Competitions are a waste of time.
(I never won any competitions.)

Forms or kata are the highest expression of the inner essence of the martial arts.
(I read that somewhere - and I've had enough of tournaments.)

Forms or kata are useless.
(Bruce Lee said forms are useless and this relieves me of a lot of effort, so go argue with him.)

One style is not better than another - it's the individual that counts.
(Don't go to another school - it's the style we teach here that counts.)

The techniques aren't important.
(Although I can't do the technique well, I have a rough idea of how to teach it.)

The principles are important.
(I have a superficial understanding of principles, so it still comes down to technique.)

Bruce Lee didn't know what he was talking about.
(I don't know what Bruce Lee was talking about.)

Pressure points are not important.
(I don't know pressure points, and besides ... I prefer just using brute strength.)

Size and strength are not important.
(Size and strength are important, especially if you're fighting somebody who's bigger and stronger than you are.)

Science and leverage will always win out over brute force.
(Except when he's bigger and stronger than you are.)

The purpose of the martial arts is spiritual development and liberation from the ego.
(I'm so humble and wise, it's terrific.)

We recognise that female students need to be taught in a way which reflects their own unique characteristics.
(We teach everyone the same material, in the same way.)

The most basic of all self-defence techniques ... see if you can watch this short video sequence without flinching! Download!

The Lord and the Devil

One Day the Devil challenged the Lord to a Karate tournament. Smiling the Lord proclaimed, "You don't have a chance, I have Oyama, Nakayama, Yamaguchi, Ohtsuka and all the greatest players up here".

"Yes", snickered the Devil, "but I have all the referees."

Early acupuncture ...

The class abruptly stopped practising. Here was an opportunity to not only practise their skills, but also to save the entire town. (Gary Larson)

Modern arts versus Martial arts.

Karate is a form of martial arts in which people who have had years and years of training can, using only their hands and feet, make some of the worst movies in the history of the world.

Murphy's Laws of Martial Arts

• The wimp who made it through the eliminations on luck alone will suddenly turn into Bruce Lee when you're up against him.
• The referee will always be looking the other way when you score.
• You will have trouble with the ties on your gi when members of the opposite sex are in class.
• The day you leave work early to make it to class in time, the sensei will be sick
• The sensei will only use you to demonstrate joint-locking techniques.
• If you have to use your training in self defence, your attacker's father will be a lawyer.
• After a flawless demonstration, you will trip on your way back to your seat.
• After years of training without a single injury, you will pull a muscle the night before your black belt exam.
• In an otherwise vacant locker room, the only other person will have the locker right next to yours.
• No matter how many times you take care of it beforehand, you will always have to go to the toilet when it's your turn during belt promotion exams.