On my own part:

Do you practice a martial art? What is it?

Bare-knuckled boxing is very big in my family, so I've practiced at that since I was a kid. I've practiced shillelagh-fighting for a long time, since teens, and I've tried my hand with knives - the latter I'm not sure you would call a formal art, though, given that it's mostly tricks I've picked up all over the place, for once and I while a "formal" competition.

I tried my hand at tae kwon do and hap ki do for awhile, mainly because I fell in love with "martial arts movies" and that was just what was available in the area. I stopped because of financial problems, though one of my brothers continued and is actually a black belt now in the World Taekwondo Federation. So I've practiced/learned some with him since, and I guess now you can say I just do kickboxing/some light grappling from what I've learned from that.

In the past year, I actually started going to a HEMA group (Historical European martial arts). Because it is so broad and in a lot of ways "reconstructed," it is relatively unstructured and very competition oriented - so that if you don't like "facing" other people and mind getting hit alot, it's might not be a thing for you. 
 

Why do you practice?

I practice just because it seems something I ought to do, probably since you are at least expected to know how to box in my family. It also helps take out aggression/frustration, and it can make you feel more confident about yourself, knowing that if you are ever in a situation where you are physically attacked, or someone else is physically attacked, you have a good chance of getting out alright or you could save someone else.

Some more questions;

What do you or would you hope to get out of a martial art?

What relevance, in your opinion, do they have today?
 

Dar'Jen, I think the first thing to do would be reading up on different traditions. A lot of people have one in mind already - such as because of films, or their own culture, or they know friends who practice one, and so they may just start with that as something they are familiar with and/or can practice with friends.

If you are looking for something that would "fit" you best, physically and mentally, other than background research you will want to assess what you can do and what you want out of an art. If you aren't in very good health right now, you can try finding a family-friendly instructor or programme that won't really expect exceptional physical health. If it is something you just want to do casually and to get/stay in decent shape with, lots of the more "popular" martial arts (many of them East Asian) have, again, casual dojos/dojangs that won't pressure you or expect you to be competitive. Tae kwon do and karate have some of the most laidback studios you can find, though that's not always the case. If you really like competition, that could push you towards other things, like judo or MMA, which are pretty competition-oriented.

You would also want to keep in mind that even though a style may sound right for you, the local studio or group that practices it might not always be the best people to train with - in other words, like anywhere else, if you are somewhere with annoying people, it can ruin the experience. So that is something to consider as well. 

I would say fencing counts - it has it's own particular movements besides that, outside of formal competition, it was used for actual duels at one point. 

I do archery, but it is for hunting - that is something I wonder about, whether if it can be considered a "martial art" if it has a practical function.

Depending on the dojo, they may not mind if you miss a lot of classes, in terms of tae kwon do - some can be very informal, or they don't care so long as you are paying. 

Maybe you can give Oscar some pointers/debunking any misconceptions about Krav maga, Chae!

In this discussion, you can share what sort of experiences you have or are interested in with martial arts.

When most people think of martial arts, the first thing that may come to mind is an East Asian art, such as "kung fu," karate, or tae kwon do. This is in part due to its popularisation in media for the past several decades, as well as the availability of teachers.

There are many other kinds of martial arts, however - many cultures had multiple styles of how to fight with a given weapon or hand-to-hand. Because of centuries of disuse in favour of gun use and "conventional" warfare, much of European martial arts have been largely forgotten; in recent times, though, organisations like HEMA and SCA have made attempts to reconstruct and revive such martial arts. Other organisations or groups focus more specifically on restoring or continuing regional arts, like bataireacht, the art of stick/shillelagh fighting in Ireland. Tribal peoples all over the world may have their own martial traditions, some of which are slowly being shared with outsiders.

Some question the use of martial arts in an age of high tech weaponry, but there are many arguments in support of martial arts, the most familiar and powerful of which is personal health benefits. 

Feel free to add whatever you wish to the discussion, but here are some questions to help guide potential conversations:

Do you practice a martial art? What is it?

Why do you practice?

In honour of Canadian Remembrance Day, the Green Ajah will be commemorating warriors, both our resident DM warriors and those abroad in the world.

But of course, a warrior is not merely a soldier. A warrior fights for his people, but he also fights for himself. Wars are fought on the battlefield as well as in the mind and for justice. So we will be discussing topics not only dealing with martial experiences but also those who fight or have fought for others, or who are fighting their own internal troubles.

We hope you will join us and share your experiences, whether of what you have fought for or the warriors who fought and changed your life. Activities will run between November 5 to November 11.

Events List

Recognizing DM's Own Warriors

Remembering

Personal Heroes

Martial Arts Discussion

Everyday Heroes

Personal Battles

Also redwood.

Something else interesting - some species of blind ants, like army ants, will form large spirals/circles, and walk around and around until they die in exhaustion. It's called an "ant mill," and it happens if the ants somehow loose the trail of pheromones that guide them to wherever they are going, like back to the nest. Since they can't see, they will just smell the ant closest to them and start following it, and that ant follows the one in front of it, and so on, until they are just following each other in circles, and they do that until they starve to death or die of thirst. I had a friend who said, morbidly, that statement pretty much describes the state of modern society perfectly lol.

I guess one interesting thing is a theory of how insects evolved wings. There were two main competing ones, though it seems for the most part nowadays, most are in one camp. The one that is favoured nowadays is that they just evolved out of small protrusions on the thorax that, because they were useful with gliding, they just kept getting selected for, larger and larger, more complex, until you eventually get full-fledged wings. The other theory is that they were modified out of gills, since, insects sharing a common ancestor with crustaceans, they were originally aquatic, and supposedly the wing veins correspond to veins you can find in crustacean gills. 

Something else interesting is that sometimes, ants or bee species can revert to being asocial (i.e. go from living in a colony to living on their own). Not too hard for them to do, when you think about there is only one reproducing female out of thousands in a colony - the rest just exist to protect and feed that one queen and more sterile "clones" - while the males are usually solitary anyways, so the queen just basically would need to abandon the colony and go off on their own, for whatever reason, for that to happen. Velvet ants are an example of a species of solitary ants (though I am not sure if they are one of those that ever had colonies) - some people will say they aren't actually ants, they're wasps, but that's kind of stupid because of all ants and bees are technically "wasps."

I had bed bugs not that long ago - I was probably lucky insofar as my place is small and I don't have much possessions so could have been easy to get rid of compared to others. I also did "overkill" - as soon as I was sure it was bed bugs, first thing I did was buy diatomaceous earth and throw that in all the crevices and around my bed. When that wasn't working instantaneously, I bought something with the name "Phantom" in it and sprayed that in the crevices too, and in order to stop them biting me in the meantime, I bought a mosquito tent (Sansbug) and slept in that, and that seemed to mostly work, they couldn't get in. Taped up the zipper and any seams when I got inside each time though to be safe. It was unnerving waking up and finding them all over the outside of the tent though, so after first couple weeks, I bought a hammock and stand, and I placed all the points it touched the ground with in paper bowls of a thick layer of diatomaceous earth. I did the same to the legs of all my chairs, and far as I can tell, they couldn't or didn't want to cross and climb up, so I was safe in that. I also bought a handheld steamer and I started steamed every crevice, and I had washed all my clothes and placed them in a couple layers of plastic waste bags. I was bite free within a couple weeks of starting all of that, and I stopped seeing much of any of them within a few months. Last one I saw was sixth months later, and after that nothing since, so seems they are gone.

I am studying insects as part of a postgraduate ("graduate" in American), so I pretty much like or appreciate them all and arthropods in general. Only exception are the ones that bite me for food like mosquitoes and midges (I don't mind the ones that bite or sting in self-defense). My faculty mentor likes to say that if you classified the periods on earth in terms of the dominant lifeform in terms of biomass and species (excluding single cell organisms), you would have the age of the trilobites, the age of the dinosaurs, then the age of the insects. I used to not really concern myself too much about insects until I started studying entomology - now I find them some of the most fascinating and beautiful things in the world. They aren't quite insects, but I am particularly fond of harvestmen (opilionids). 

I got as much as lamb - I was actually going to say couscous but then I thought that isn't rice!

Never eaten artichokes before, so no idea what they taste like.

Never been to a fancy eating party of any kind, dinner or otherwise. Most elaborate or ritualised it ever gets for me is at holidays with family, in which case you sit on the ground and you pass food around or drink from the same "cup" at times. Not what most other's think of as "posh" by any means lol.

Could have just as easily been me, I said pudding lol. Savoury wasn't the first thing that comes to mind for pumpkin soup, least not the few times I have had it.

This is looking far and beyond my palate lol.

Fashionably late.
 

Some of us have dogs, some, cats, some birds, etc.

 

Why do you feel particularly drawn to the animals that live with you?

Cats don't want to hump my leg like dogs and they don't need me to watch out for them, they can go where they like generally without ending up in a shelter or scaring people, like a dog would. Dogs get stolen a lot too, while you generally will never have that problem with cats (or at least if someone is stealing any cats I know of, I wouldn't know, I just assume one moves on or died if I never see it again). So basically I can treat them as equals, which I like - don't have to lock them up to have them nearby and they are usually pretty "honest" about what they think of you. If I was going to get a dog, it would be for guarding or hunting, neither of which I really know how to train for and which I don't exactly need.

Is your father's day on the 18th? If so, it's the same here. I don't have a father, far as I am concerned, so just any other day.

I've had cats come and go in my life - right now I only have one. I usually have at least one cow, and we had a number of different animals growing up, but that was livestock, not exactly pets or companions. I sometimes get a hold of odds and ends, like a pig or a chicken, but I generally slaughter them relatively fast, don't keep them around or breed them as of yet. I consider cats my friends, since they come and go as they please, do whatever they like, like a friend; I'm very sad when one of them dies but I don't depend on them for emotional support. Most livestock I've owned, I can't quite see them as friends, since I am obviously using them, but I care about them still if they are around long enough, i.e. I just don't kill them within a few weeks or months. I feel something for my cows, and, though I haven't had any since I was a kid, I feel something for horses/ponies - any time I have helped take care of them, there is an instant connection there, they get to trusting me pretty fast, though that's a thing with most animals. 

Whatever the case, I don't keep "pets," as pets to me imply something there meant purely for a person's emotional needs or wants - i.e. petting - which I personally don't approve of. They are either friends, like the cats, who can come see me if they want to, or they are there for a practical purpose for my survival, be it food, work, and/or manure.

I'd be green, given that the one thing I know for certain never gets old for me is fighting and picking fights.

I didn't like his portrayal of women in general either. Seemed to get off to a decent start, which is where most of the comments of RJ building a world dominated by "strong females" or whatnot seem to comes from (the beginning of the series) - there were not yet too many characters and of the women that were there, most seemed either fair (like Moiraine) or at least excusable for some reason (like some of the leads, who could be credited as either young or just individual quirks [like Nynaeve is just the pissy one]). Then as the series went on and more and more female characters were added, I am not sure how to account for most of them being very petty and at times even abusive, other than RJ just didn't know how to write women and it reflects on how he typefies them.

I might go see "Get Out" this weekend - it has very good reviews and I like good horror/suspense.

Anyone else geeked for Ghost in the Shell?

Based on the two trailers I saw, looks like trash - the original film was smart, artistic, and questioned what it meant to be human or conscience in a world that increasingly doesn't know, but based on one of the trailers, looks like they turned it into a generic "I need to go find out who I am because I have amnesia" B.S. Those were just from the trailers though - I will wait until it comes out and read someone's plot summary to find out if that what it actually is. 

I had trouble reading the chapters with the women and Perrin later on, but because it became obvious by then that RJ was never going to develop most of their personalities, he really didn't seem to know how to write women in most instances, and alot of the later Perrin chapters became him scratching his beard and either being abused by his wife or taking forever to rescue her. I also stopped enjoying Mat after a while because it became clear RJ was never going to develop him further either, unless Tuon counts as development, which is awful. I didn't skip them, though, as you would think you would miss important parts of the story if you did that, but maybe unfortunately, because those chapters were usually so bad, those are the first things that come to mind when I remember the series, and its one of the reasons I haven't touched most of the books in years. 

I am afraid of my family coming to harm, especially my siblings or son, and I am afraid of losing what freedom I have. Sort of afraid of my father but it is a gut reaction that I can't always control - even though I am afraid of him, I am terrified of him dying, since he has been what has driven me to try to be more than myself all my life. I am somewhat afraid of also automatically becoming head of the dearbhfhine - guess can call that "household" though it includes my siblings, my father and his siblings, and his father's generation - as my grandfather on his side is already dead, he doesn't have brothers, and so as the oldest son it would be all my responsibility. Otherwise all my other fears would qualify as cultural or superstition; I am not afraid of dying because I know there are worse things than that (like losing freedom), not afraid of violence because my past is full of it and I have high pain tolerance, not afraid of rape because I've survived it and I know I can survive it, not afraid of homelessness because I've been homeless before and it wasn't too bad. 

I guess in that way I am the opposite of most people - most people today are afraid of "practical" or evident fears, like being hurt or homeless or raped or dying, while not having much superstitions, while I am afraid of what others would call superstitions but not much practical. Guess that is probably what classical authors meant when they mentioned the Celtic maxim of "We fear nothing, except that the sky should fall on us" lol. I fear going over bridges because I am afraid they are going to fall, for not much reason besides heights and a bad conscience. I fear breaking my geasa, I fear being cursed or bringing down the wrath of something far beyond my power on my head, and I somewhat fear getting possessed and not coming back to myself again. Say somewhat because sometimes I wish it would happen, because it might be like dying except without hurting my family because they will have something there still that looks like me at least.

i personally don't really care for television programmes especially fantasy/sci-fi ones - today they often resort to CGI if there is magic or shots of non-existent scenery involved and because its telly and not a full-blown cinematic film, the effects are and often look cheap. I am not sure how they are going to do channeling and shadowspawn without it looking really bad besides like others are mentioning, they will have to cut a lot to make it a viable script. 

I think it would work better as a video game - they often have the production value of smaller films today and you can fit a lot more content that the audience can actually interact with without it looking tacky/cheap as it would with actors. It is also a way to get younger people interested in the books - for example, quite a lot of people had not heard of the Witcher book series until the first video game adaptation was made, and the praise the game received seems to be what prompted making an English translation for the series to reach the broadened audience which might not have otherwise happened.