Cows, Constitution, and Commandments

I don't usually care for forwards, but this one was sent by one of my students who doesn't really have a political bone to pick.  Yet he shows promise by agreeing with this message and also by saying things that reflect a more conservative bent:
Think about this:
1. Cows
2. The Constitution
3. The Ten Commandments

COWS
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our government could track a single cow, born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she slept in the state of Washington? And, they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should give each of them a cow.

THE CONSTITUTION
They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq ... Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it has worked for over 200 years, and we're not using it anymore.

THE 10 COMMANDMENTS
The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments posted in a government building is this --you cannot post 'Thou Shalt Not Steal' 'Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery' and 'Thou Shall Not Lie' in a building full of politicians .... it creates a hostile work environment.

Categorizing Martial Arts

from snorgtees.com

The martial arts have been categorized every which way. Any new way is merely a variation of another way. The following won't be any different, but it provides a quick explanation to understand different martial arts styles and what they generally offer.

There are two major categories, each broken down into two subcategories:
Classical, or Technique-based, includes Traditional and Hybrid:
Traditional - These are martial art styles that have been passed down through the centuries or maybe even in the past century.  They have not changed much since their creation.  Many Asian martial arts are like this - some styles have manuals with pictures from the past century where the moves and techniques are almost exactly the same as their modern versions.  Traditional styles were created by people who systematized the kind of fighting from that particular culture and time period or from an individual's way of fighting.  

Hybrid - These include most martial art styles like modern karate. Gichin Funakoshi, founder of Shotokan Karate, said  times change the world changes, martial arts must change as well. Many of the modern branches of karate and kung-fu are merely combinations, variations, and improvements of older styles.  They generally retain many of the same movements.  This also includes the XMA phenomenon, where quite a lot of the moves resemble the classical arts.  Hybrid includes most MMA practitioners' approach to training, where they take the strengths of any system to incorporate it into the sport, and yet the different systems are still distinct.  For instance, in the stand-up portion of the fight, the competitors look like Muay Thai fighters, then on the ground they look like collegiate wrestlers or BJJ students.

Progressive, or Principle-based, includes Eclectic Blend and Universal Movement
Eclectic Blend
This includes the more elite mixed martial arts training, most of JKD, Krav Maga, etc.,.  Even though Bruce Lee's approach leaned toward the next category, Universal Movement, the present state of cutting edge martial arts is more concerned with gathering the practical and effective techniques and ideas from various martial art styles and adding them into the student's repertoire, which is one way of describing Lee's approach.  From there it is the student's responsibility to blend it into his own style.  Or in the self-defense category, students practice the most effective techniques generally culled from many different approaches and instead of just focusing on the technique, they practice the principle of the technique to make it work for their unique body type.

Universal Movement
This is where Bruce Lee intended to be, to see the totality of combat by practicing the art of expressing the human body. While the Eclectic Blend approach takes from the outside and brings it in to create style, the Universal Movement approach goes from the individual and brings it out by utilizing the best movement for combat.  There are no set techniques or formulas because true combat is unpredictable.  How you train will differ from person to person, moment by moment.  At the same time, there are the universal principles of human physiology and principles of mechanical physics that will not change.  These principles are at the root of all martial arts, but is normally overlooked in favor of tradition and technique, and most of the time, only used to explain a technique.  Rather the technique should be the expression of the root, so that the technique can be abandoned or changed while the idea or root remains absolute.  Simply put, movement-based martial arts emphasizes the principles of efficient body movement for effective combat.

Turtle speed

Slowly but surely, I'm completing all my unfinished blog articles.  I have about a dozen articles left.  For the most part, I'm keeping them short and sweet.  Most people don't like reading really long articles anyway, at least I don't.  I try to make my articles short, like the way good speeches are compared to mini-skirts: long enough to cover the essentials, short enough to get your attention.  So once I'm done with those articles, which I hope to do in the next two weeks, I'll begin my long journey of retro-fitting most of my lessons from youth group and Next Level.   

Next Level lesson 8/3/10

I told them to keep up with three activities for the coming month: pray for me, go to church, and read Galatians to Colossians.

The lesson for the day was a quick overview of what I wanted to teach over the course of two weeks: previously, I taught about the importance of love as the greatest aspect of Christian living.  Today I went over the idea that they need to have a learning attitude and to live out what they've learned.  School may have disillusioned them about the importance of learning, but it is vitally important to keep studying and growing.  Then I told them to live out and apply what they've learned, from me and from their personal study of God's word.  The only way for them to grow and change is to intentionally apply what they learned to their circumstances and experiences.