Been doing this for two months and love it! I've never been so humbled...

Did the techniques today for my 2nd degree Brown belt in Ed Parkers American Kenpo. Always fun to work on self defense techniques.

Hey Rick, what are your school's colors. Hope you enjoy it. I love Kenpo, Mr. Parker is the man.

John

What do you mean by colors?

Caught up today. Did the HSPU/pullups and run/squat combo outside at the local high school football field. It worked me over something fierce- only got 5 rounds on the HSPU/PU but it was my first time trying it with no assist. Feels like a serious achievement, laying off the gravitron. Just under 18 minutes for the run/squat workout.

Looks like Pat Robertson doesn't believe in functional strength:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/ROBERTSON_2000?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-05-26-21-29-01

John

If you mean am I under another Grand Master the answer is no. Like many Kenpoists I have had all my lessons in a garage. My instrutor is 3rd Black. His instructor is Sasha Williams. We are all associated with the IKKA, Ed Parkers system. Nothing added, nothing taken away. It is a system that appears to be losing steam because of its demanding and long process. I began Jan 02. Inspired by 9-11. Hoped to be Black b this Oct.but I think I'll miss it by 1 yr.

Watch a video of Pat leg-pressing 1,000 pounds.

http://www.cbn.com/communitypublic/shake.asp

120/120 @bwt 165lb
19:30 mins

Very refreshing discussion with Bernard Lewis. It is nice to read the thoughts of someone who understands history, as opposed to the "No blood for Oil" crowd. I found his observation that we have all but abandoned study of history in the West to be a difficult pill to swallow in contemplation of my own role in teaching my children of the link between history and current events.

The contrast between the learned opinion of Bernard Lewis and SecDef Rumsfeld, famous for such sledge-hammer-comments like "old Europe," and "dead enders" is striking. But, SecDef Rumsfeld serves at the pleasure of a president who is a C student in History (right up there with rocket science in difficulty) and an alcoholic.

If the President would invite Prof Lewis to attend and contribute to the daily security briefings at the White House, we might get some coherent direction out of the morass in Irag.

Somebody post a spoiler about who won, Matt or Royce. I love both those guys and didn't want either to lose, hence why I couldn't watch. A guy crying at the UFC results gets mixed results at your buddies house!

I believe Churchill was an alcoholic...

I believe Sen. Kerry had a lower GPA than Pres. Bush at the same institution.

I believe Rumsfield is right to call the countries of "Old Europe" that comment...they are only interested in keeping the status quo. Thier officials make negative comments about us all the time...where is your criticism of them? Perhaps they are so enlightened, you find them to be correct? Personally, I find them corrupt, but smart enough to make us the target.

As for the insurgents or foreigners trying to influence Iraqi internal affairs through terror and intimidation...they are "dead enders", they have nothing to go back to, but they have something to die for...I see know reason to give them any other consideration or quarter.

What exactly are those two young men in the pictute doing?

#7
God love Pat Robertson, but to quote Mark Rippetoe in Starting Strength...

"The leg press is particularly heinous in that it allows the use of huge weights, and therefore facilitates unwarranted bragging. Please slap the next person that tells you he leg-pressed a thousand pounds. A 1000 lb. leg press is as irrelevant as a 500 lb. quarter squat."

Mencius, I am glad no one had posted a spoiler because I had to miss the event, but a buddy recorded it so I can watch it tomorrow.. This is one of the few sites I figured it would not be posted on. TY to everyone for ignoring or not knowing..

*** FIGHT SPOILER ***

Watching Royce lose on the ground was like finding out there's really no Santa Claus. I was so stunned I couldn't move. I'm seriously so disillusioned right now... :(

Bernard Lewis is the one who started the term "clash of civilizations" Bernard Lewis believes that muslims are the enemy.

“Edward Said gets to the nub of Lewis’s Orientalist project when he writes that his ‘work purports to be liberal objective scholarship but is in reality very close to being propaganda against his subject material.’ Lewis’s work is ‘aggressively ideological.’ He has dedicated his entire career, spanning more than five decades, to a ‘project to debunk, to whittle down, and to discredit the Arabs and Islam.’”

Bernard Lewis hasn't set foot in middle east for at least half a century, US soldiers probably know more about muslims than he does.It's people like him that led the US to make many mistakes when planning for the war.
He asserts that muslims hate the United States, while we work hard in the government and the military to fight terrorism.
Bernard Lewis called Ahmad Chalabi " a potential ataturk!" who will transform Iraq into a modern state overnight. All his academic research about the middle east and islam is wrong and misleading.
Iraq is not about islam, it's about tribes! You respect the elders and their powers, and you will get their respect. When you cross them, you lose.
Iraq has been a theocracy since Hammurabi, do you really think you can change that overnight?

i have to admit i was kinda happy for matt. i am also glad that royce's arm wasn't broken.

Rest day is not going to be a rest day for me,I missed fridays workout so I will do some "catching up".

gale #19 i dont know if thats such a good idea, my ass is feeling it after doing that WOD today

go matt...
got my first 3 muscle ups on the rings today!!! good times.

#12: Sen. Kerry's GPA is a disgrace and his machinations to keep it hidden during the campaign was also a disgrace.

Ultimately criticism is directed at those who fail to produce. (Pres. U.S. Grant was also known to be an alcoholic) I personally believe the parlamentary form of government is more responsive to the population than the American, as witnessed by the planned early departure of Tony Blair, who is very unpopular in Britain. And David Gergen, the advisor to 3 former presidents has stated Pres Bush would be out of office in a parlamentary form a government.

The significance as I see it in the lack of academic achievement by Pres Bush is at a time when he should of been staying up late talking about governments, religions, etc, he was, self-admittedly, a party boy very much involved in alcohol. His lack of understanding of world affairs is starkly appparent when contrasted to the presentation by Prof Lewis. I don't expect Pres Bush to be an authority in all the myriads of issues a president has to deal with, but I do expect him to recognize when he doesn't know enough and find people who do. SecDef Rumsfeld, by needlessly offending the Europeans with his "old Europe" comment demonstrated to me, a lack of diplomatic skill and an American swagger that had the rest of the world rolling their eyes and we have lived to regret.

I'm a physician, and if I operated on the wrong part of a patient or gave the wrong medicine I could be sued out of existence. I can't use th excuse, "Well, I didn't find any cancer in the breast I just removed, but it was an ugly breast anyway" And I don't know many people who would want a physician who was able to only achieve a C average as a history major either because he lacked the acumen or didn't study.

I am disappointed the American People expect and accept so little from their presidents. The president should be brilliant, and in those areas where he's uncertain he should demand and have available people who are brilliant in those area. Prof Lewis is one such person. I wish the other members of the President's cabinet had similar credentials.

Really intersesting article. Or transcript, I guess. One excellent point was how we think of a nation divided into religions and they think of a religion divided into nations. Also, he reiterates that Islam and Christianity are the only two world religions which believe "that their truths are not only universal but exclusive." A lot of far-reaching implications come from just those two points.

It gave me some things to think about while my elbows recuperate--thanks for a good read, Coach!

Comment #13 -Walt,

looks like the guy in the blue shirt is showing how to defend a single leg take down.

The guy in the blue, Tony Blauer, is using a 1/2 SPEAR to hold of the guy on the left. I could get VERY long winded right now and go into A LOT of detail (about the hows and whys), but you would have a MUCH better time clicking on the link under the picture (where it says Blauer Tactical), and researching the website. It is VERY cool, VERY high speed! Hope you enjoy!

JT Goodman (NC)

I can not open the example of the handstand push-up and had a question on proper form:

Should I lower my head to the floor? or... lower my nose to the floor? or..
neither?

A brief description would be helpful.

Thanks.

Charlie #24 & JT #25
Thanks for the response. Shouldn't the guy on the bottom now reverse roll to his left, pushing off his left foot, to do the take down? I am reading Blauer's site, but I am having a little trouble navigation through the internal links.

Ken, fortunately there is a difference between a leader and a physician. You are right we should demand our President to be brilliant, however that seems to be a problem world wide for as long as their have been leaders. As long as we have elected leaders I am sure the brilliant part will be rare at best...but I would have it no other way. I would rather ELECT an average man than be RULED by a brilliant one.

I think the paralementary is just as much an elitest system as any other...politians selecting politians... it also blurrs the lines for seperation of powers. We have it right atleast compared to everyone else.

Old Europe needs to be called out...that bunch of self serving countries was/is holding EU membership over the heads of newer governments that recently threw off the mantle of communism...They constantly try to bully "Young Europe" with sanctions anfd demands they themselves are not subject too. The French are the prime example ... demanding French become the "Official" language of the EU though no one else speaks it. Old Europe holds membership in the EU as a doggie treat making the New Europe dance like circus dogs to get a bite. They are passe elitests. Corrupt and increasingly irrelevant.

Old Europe has sold their countries futures by allowing mass imigration without assimulation. Look at France, Germany, Spain, etc...they are becoming over run with Muslims who do not want to assimulate, and worse yet they want to bully there host governments. The streets burn in Europe because they turned a blind eye to the Rottwieller in the yard 20 years ago. I do not trust their decisions as they relate to the GWOT, they are based solely on keeping internal peice and political power. They are corrupted by their panic to hold onto any last thread of their national identity. Their time of influence is past...they sold western civilization up the river for cheap labor and socialist values.

Europe's hope lies with "New Europe"...countries who are still excited about elections, capitalism, and national sovereignty.

Walt #27 Sorry you are having trouble with the site. I have been navigating it for a while, so am used to it, my fault for not explaining more. If you go to the Library & FAQ section up top of Home page, then under FAQ go to the SPEAR link for some good info. Also, under the ARTICLE section, under "martial arts" read an article on "The Grappling Paradox".....and under the LEO/Military section read "Physiology of Survival" and "Blauer Tactical Combat Philosophy."

Just for info, Walt, the SPEAR System is NOT a martial art. It is a System that takes advantage of what your body WILL do prior to any training, and uses those physiological responses to weather the ambush/attack, creating a bridge to your "style", whether it be a martial art, wrestling or a large stick you pick up from the ground.

There are a lot of things the guy 'on the bottom' of the picture could do, but what they are demo-ing is a simple response to a tackle. I say simple, but mean a trained simple response. If you are suprised by a tackle, but have trained to pick up pre-contact cues of this primary initiation attack, your body will flinch to protect itself. Being trained through the SPEAR System, you can use that flinch as a cognitive cue to move toward the threat, utilizing the kinetic build up of energy and your bodies weapons (in the picture, a forearm used to create a tactical 1/2 SPEAR).

S.P.E.A.R. is an acronym for Spontaneous Protection (flinch) Enabling Accelerated Response, which is what the picture shows. Coach Blauer has a very good saying for pictures like the one shown. "Don't mistake the picture of the waterfall for the actual waterfall." Meaning, the motion you see in the snapshot may look like there are things the guy on the bottom can do, but the movement captured is very dynamic....and doesn't stop there.

Hope this helps,

JT Goodman

Bernard Lewis? Yah there's a guy with some insight.

Going to Lewis for advice on Mid-East politics would be like going to Richard Simmons for functional strength advice.

'spic and span Fran'

21-15-9 reps of;

full clean to o/h press
pull ups

time - 12.32

time in 'owned' position - still there.

Chuck P., #16,
Don't be disillusioned. Royce said before the fight that if he was submitted, it would be a compliment (testament?) to Gracie Jiujitsu. I agree. Even though it wasn't a submission, there is no way Matt could have done what he did last night without the knowledge he and everyone else gleaned from the Gracies. Without Gracie, Matt would be half the fighter he is now.

Muslim Woman (#17):

You wrote, "Bernard Lewis hasn't set foot in middle east for at least half a century...". In the transcript Lewis states, "I have been following the Middle East now for more than half a century and traveling practically every year to one or another Middle East country...".

Who should I believe, you or Lewis?

Did fridays workout today,Wow my legs realy needed that today!!Time 24:05

PR running my "long" track.
~8,8km (googleearth)
in 49:14min (former 54min) woohoo
THX CFlive!

John -

Very true. Thanks for putting it that way. The whole Gracie clan is full of class acts, and Royce is no exception. Cograts to Matt Hughes are in order, I guess.

got 1st bar muscle up today
2 easy (slow jog) miles with 20# vest.

It's pretty clear that Lewis emphatically does not believe that "muslims are the enemy". He does advocate taking a strong stance against fanatics, however, and in that he is correct.

The reason Whitehouse policymakers don't listen to men like Lewis is because they suffer from the same fundamentalist shortsightedness as those whom they rail against in the middle east. Fundamentalists, whether of the Islamic or Christian flavor, are arrogantly convinced that their worldview is not only correct but complete. While one could argue that the former is partially true, the latter most definitely is not.

Comment #36, The whole Gracie clan is full of class acts? You mean when they get out a video camera and beat up people to prove that Gracie Zooo Zitsu is the best? How about Ryan, is he a class act even though he admits to being a thug? Gracie's aren't class acts.

How is fighting not classy? ;) Hey, it's classier than politics.

Comment #40, After Sakuraba humiliated the entire Gracie family, Rickson refused to step up to fight him and his excuse was that Sak had "no aura." So Rickson by your definition isn't classy either.

And fighting isn't classy when you're a bully. Where were the Gracies when Tank Abbot showed up in the Octagon? They wanted nothing to do with him.

Brian #33 I meant the Arab world. I believe the last country he visited was Jordan. Turkey is not in the Middle East. Speaking of Turkey, he said that the Turks killing of 1.5 million Armenians was not genocide, he was even fined by a European court for saying that.

Carl #38, Lewis said to Dick Cheney before the war “I believe that one of the things you’ve got to do with Arabs is hit them between the eyes with a big stick. They respect power.” He loves us alright.
Lewis is a fake historian. He's the one who was behind bringing Iran into the dark ages. Lewis was the architect of Zbigniew Brzezinski's "Arc of Crisis" policy of creating and supporting fundamentalist insurrections all along the southern tier of the Soviet Union." He then developed "the Bernard Lewis Plan." This resulted in the toppling of the Shah of Iran and the creation of the Islamic republic of Iran.

Read his Foreign Affairs article where he advocates the "Lebanonization” of the Arab world except for Israel. “Most of the states of the Middle East … are of recent and artificial construction and are vulnerable to such a process. If the central power is sufficiently weakened, there is no real civil society to hold the polity together, no real sense of common national identity or overriding allegiance to the nation-state. The state then disintegrates—as happened in Lebanon—into a chaos of squabbling, feuding, fighting sects, tribes, regions and parties,” It is happening now in Iraq, and it will happen soon in Iran.

He praised Bin Laden in another article calling his declaration of war against the US: "a magnificent piece of eloquent, at times even poetic Arabic prose ... which reveals a version of history that most Westerners will find unfamiliar."
He is the one who sent an open letter to Clinton to push for an invasion for Iraq. He personally lectured Dick Cheney many times before the war. Good job Lewis!

What makes this guy a neutral expert about Islam??? Since when historians are involved in politics, and advocate war against others?
Historians study the past, this guy lies about it but he's good at planning catastrophic futures.
If you want to learn about Islam read books by Jewish scholar Ignaz Goldziher the father of Orientalism, Edward Said, or to understand the past/current state of Islam “No God but God” by Reza Aslan.

I'm sorry but the Gracies have no place commenting on the current situation in the Middle East.

-D.

Unless I missed something, we are at Comment 44, and I don't see any substantive commentary. What I see is ad hominem (factual or not, it is a vacuous form of argument), and response (justified, in my view) to the ad hominem.

Now, I don't want to take anything away from Dan, because he is quite right that the Gracies should not comment on the situation on the ground in Iraq, even thought that would normally be their specialty.

Seriously, though, whether Bush is an imbecile or a genius, the issue is our policy in Iraq, and at this specific moment, in this specific forum, it should be on what Lewis said.

When he says that "Wahhabism is as central to Islam as the KKK is to Christianity", in my view he is attempting to present a view of a moderate, historically temperate religion, which is now being increasingly influenced by forces with the financial strength of Scientology. Imagine if Scientologists were the only ones willing to fund after-school religous programs? The point he made about 12 German-born Al Queda members was significant. Atta of course was a German-educated engineer. It also appeared to me they made an effort to duck the question about the integration of Muslims in Europe, until it came up again.

With respect to his views, it seemed to me he is actually a hawk. He wants MORE action, not less. I myself have drawn comparisons with Chamberlain. When you read the history of that period, it is literally (or was, for me), like watching a horror movie, where you can see things the protagonist can't, and KNOW something bad is about to happen.

With respect to Edward Said, I will comment for those unfamiliar with the name, he is typological of the radical faculty members so prevalent now in foreign studies departments (believe me when I say I know in DETAIL what I'm talking about, having several degrees in those fields) that Lewis literally had trouble naming a graduate program, outside of his own, largely unaffected. "Orientalism" was required reading when I was in graduate school. I would be curious how that gets to be unbiased.

Oh, and Bush doesn't drink any more. He gave it up. Churchill drank roughly a fifth of whiskey daily, and Roosevelt drank at least 5-6 martinis. Hitler, of course, was drunk only once in his life, and was a vegetarian. Good for him.

A rest day too late, but here's a little piece on the "Real Iraq"--"Iraq is the Republic of Fear"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052601578.html

Thanks for a great rest day article Lauren. Lewis is really the start and end point for any real understanding of Islam and the West. On another note, tomorrow is Memorial Day and there will be a national moment of rememberance at 3 PM local time in memory of those who have fallen. I know that all those who post here will join me and thousands of others in bowing our heads in reverence for those who have served and those who are presently serving. May God bless you all.

Has anyone purchased or had any experience in the SPEAR videos? If so which ones? This is something that has sparked my interest, but I'd like to see what some who have seen/used them have to say.

"Big Bear" complex: full squat clean/thruster/back squat/thruster: (regular bear is hang power cleans)
65x5, 75x3,3,3
Squat clean/thruster: 75x5,5,5

35# clubbell swipes: 7/7

I read that Washington Post article. I thought it was interesting that he ended it "the worst is yet to come." That, obviously, is opinion, and the entire article consisted of anecdote, and what he personally saw. Iraq is the size of California. If I based my opinion of California on my recent trip to Santa Cruz, I would conclude there were redwood trees (I think they were redwoods) everywhere, and the roads were narrow and winding.

Gloom and pessimism are like a gaseous syrup that attach themselves particularly and preferentially to specific people ready for them. Reading the article, no one can call any of that good. It's bad, obviously. Saddam or unknown, well I can see why that would be a tossup for some, as keeping your mouth shut and head down was presumably safe enough for many. Still, a difficult situation, and an unmanageable situation are two different things. When the s&&& hits the fan, you try harder, you don't cut bait and run. At least, that's my view.

I don't normally post my workouts when they aren't the WOD, but did want to state I finally completed Tony's workout from the Monday after the cert.

35 lb and 25 lb. DB, alt. sides for each round.

10x, then 7x, then 4x, for 6 total pass-throughs of:

Hang Squat Clean
Lunge 40 ft. or so with 25 overhead, walk back (waiter's walk) with 35 overhead.
Thrusters
25 lb. Weighted pullup

Time: 37:06. I made an obvious realization today that even if you didn't eat heavy food at lunch, if your stomach is full with anything, and you are sweating buckets because it's a freaking sauna outside, you drink water, and your stomach gets unpleasantly full. That is not fun.

It was the Saag Paneer that got me. That's my new mashed potatoes. I could eat my bodyweight in that stuff every day.

Rowed 15k, 1:13

To Brendan #47...there are so many to choose from , over 70 dvds, some address mind-set & fear management, others are pure empty hand street defense skills, while others focus on CQB, it all depends where you want to start, what your background is and what the application is.

Again, don't want to get too long winded, so I don't think this isn't the forum to discuss videos etc, please feel free to email me and I'll make some recommendations. Im biased though, :-), as a SWAT cop & DT trainer for my department, the SPEAR System is the program we swear by.

WOD=long walk down the strip. still sick...not fun at all