ORIGINAL: emofag

Stop fighting people, violence doesn' t solve anything, murder does.

You live in New York right? What' s it like living there?

just watch out for all the crackheads.

I don' t know why you would want to live in New York. The weather isn' t that great and the cost of living is super high. Texas would be appealing to me, maybe Arizona, or Florida if you are looking for warm weather. Minnesota would be good if you want to get closer to Canada. There are some very nice suburban areas here.

I moved to AZ a while ago...

New York is cool to live in, it' s always " on" , there' s nothing you cant do at night that you couldn' t during the day. When you get used to that and then you move to AZ it' s weird cause you cant do anything at night, it' s like if I wanna go buy clothes guess what the fucking mall closes at 8pm, and its already 1am so im fucked. In NY there would be like 20 places I could go buy clothes at 1 in the morning.

ORIGINAL: locopuyo

I don' t know why you would want to live in New York. The weather isn' t that great and the cost of living is super high. Texas would be appealing to me, maybe Arizona, or Florida if you are looking for warm weather. Minnesota would be good if you want to get closer to Canada. There are some very nice suburban areas here.

I live in a large city. Not in the suburbs, ...actually in the city, ...and while it' s nice to get away every couple of months, i couldn' t live somewhere quiet or slow moving.

An inner subburb then.

This may be of interest to you

The only reason you should move out of a city is to buy a home or if you have kids. You can buy a brand new mansion-esque home in AZ with what a small 20 year old house costs in NY. And when you are raising kids you get more peace of mind living in a town where there hasn' t been a murder in the past 20 years as opposed to living in a city where people are killed every minute.

Labour here is also cheap, mexican nannys are very affordable.

The most intelligent thing to do is to work where there is high inflation and retire where there is low inflation. That way, you' ll likely have more money when you retire and it will be worth more at the same time. This is even more true if you' re in real estate or have your own business.

This would work well for me as i prefer a busy city while I' m young and probably the peace and quiet of the country once I' m an old fuck.

You don' t have to live in the " country" to have peace and quiet.

I like live 20 minutes away from Phoenix if I ever feel like going to the ghetto. You know when you are there when the perfectly paved road turns into a fucking mess and you start seeing mexicans walking around.

I wouldn' t consider a ghetto peaceful.

Well if you' re going to live somewhere peaceful it' s should be in the outskirts of a city. Not in the middle of ***ing nowhere, that' s just stupid.

When you' re an old fuck and have a stroke, you' re not going to survive the 2 hour drive to the nearest city to get you in a hospital.

Two hours is too far from a hospital, I wouldn' t want to be two hours away from anything, except maybe my family. I' m thinking more along the lines of 30 minutes away from a city.

Maybe in the US that would be a suberb, but where I live no where is far from the country. Canada has a population density of something like three people for every square kilometer of land, the US has ten times that. lol

ORIGINAL: emofag

Stop fighting people, violence doesn' t solve anything, murder does.

:P

By the way, isn' t the US even stricter than Canada when it comes to these things?

I remember that the drummer of a band I like wasn' t even allowed to tour there because he had been in one fist fight before. And he didn' t even provoke it really. Another guy, a vocalist/guitarist, couldn' t get in for a couple of gigs but that was because he had been sentenced as an accomplice to murder before (the killing happened with his gun while he was present). I could understand that a bit better but still, what do they think, that these people will go berserk and kill everything they meet? They did tour Europe after all and no one got hurt (including me ;) ).

And fights...yeah, I' ve been in a few and always " fun" . Usually it was with some tough guys at school who liked to annoy the calmer guy that I was. Untill I had saved up a few months of anger and exploded. One of them needed to go to the hospital to treat both wrists (both muscles got torn) but our principal thought that he deserved it so no consequences for me, heh. Afterwards the guy treated me like a good friend of course.

Another, less successful fight was with some guys on the bus. We were on our way home after a concert. Two of them were harrassing a friend of mine, myself, other people and it bothered me so I walked to the back and asked them what their problem was. Unfortunately, all of them sitting at the back were friends. So there were about 10 people against me, damn :P After some threats from them I gave two of them at the back a punch in the face. But quickly 2 guys grabbed my arms from behind and the rest started hitting. Though I must say, I just lowered my head and waited untill they were done. It wasn' t much more than bruises so I told them that it was pretty weak that they couldn' t get someone like me down with so many (since I' m not exactly an Arnold Schwarzenegger type, all I know is a little martial arts). My friends (and girlfriend) wanted to help though but other people wouldn' t let them through so it wouldn' t get worse...
I managed to get my hands in front of me eventually and the remaining one who was holding my wrists was busy with some tough talk which I just laughed at it. I noticed that I could get a grip of his necklace and twist it with my fingers round his neck and throw him in the middle of the bus. But I decided to just let things cool down :P

The bus driver kicked me out then so I said thanks to him for his help. And for not kicking them out instead when they annoyed the whole bus. I had waited untill I was near the stop at my house though so I needed to walk 100 m only or something. And I saw a few of those who punched later in town, they walked or ran away every fucking time I noticed them since they had no backup of course...

ORIGINAL: ys

(since I' m not exactly an Arnold Schwarzenegger type, all I know is a little martial arts).

There are so few effective (practical for realworld usage) martial arts. Judo and Aikido are probably the most useful due the the heavy emphasis on grappling, holds and throws, but in a bar (or wherever), when you' re fighting guys that aren' t adhering to any kind of rules, ...all that shit goes out of the window.

If you want to train in martial arts don' t expect it to make you a better fighter. Like Majik said the techniques are useless in a fight, however the conditioning and weight training is useful if that' s what you do. Nine times out of ten an experienced boxer would decimate a black belt.

The vast majority of real world fights end up as a wrestling match.

ORIGINAL: Nitro
There are so few effective (practical for realworld usage) martial arts. Judo and Aikido are probably the most useful due the the heavy emphasis on grappling, holds and throws, but in a bar (or wherever), when you' re fighting guys that aren' t adhering to any kind of rules, ...all that shit goes out of the window.

Yeah I know. That' s the downfall of many. They practice that stuff a bit and believe that they' re invincible all of a sudden. I practice Hung Gar but my " sifu" also teaches some other " modern" martial arts and Tai Chi. That' s why he usually shows the real world use of some of those traditional stances and moves and emphasizes not to get too cocky. Not that I need such a warning but some others seem to do ;) Plus that he sometimes taught extra applications for those who were interested in self defense. Unlike some kung fu teachers he isn' t afraid to teach traditional " brutal" techniques from the particular style either that really can help one to at least get away from a fight. So I don' t consider it totally useless though. The little you know can help a bit like it did in my case. Even if it is just some heightened awareness during trouble or what to avoid. If there' s one punch less because of it, it has helped ;)

My trainer himself was able to floor 4-5 (not trained in martial arts or some kind of fighting sport) guys once who just attacked him just because they had heard that he was a kung fu master. He worked as a bouncer for a while at some place and they wanted to test him... :-/ You know, a bunch of macho guys who wanted to prove that he wasn' t all that (even though the guy is very humble). He admitted though that much of it is mental. When the first two went down quite quickly the rest wasn' t as focused and eager to attack.

But true, most fights aren' t as glorious as they look in the movies. Most end up on the ground with some pulling, wrestling and attempts at hitting a few particular spots, hehe.

Do any of you guys practice some kind of traditional martial arts, boxing,...? Or used to maybe?

I am almost a black belt in HapKiDo, which is a Korean martial arts focusing on kids and throws. I am very rusty on the throws, specially since I prefer distance, as I am not very strong if grabbed. I have to say the most useful moves in real life from this particular style are the low kicks that go for the shin, ankles and knees, specially the back of the knee. They' re quick and efficient, specially on the bigger guys. On the couple of fights I' ve had, from school and until now (not very many thank goodness) a well placed kick downs in those parts have saved me from major problems.

I practice some Aikido as well, but like I said, I' ll rather keep my distance, though its pacifist mentality is more of my preference now at days.

I practiced Jiu-Jitsu and Aikido until i went to university, then realised they were pretty useless and took up Muay Thai and boxing. Muay Thai is brutal, but i ended up focusing on boxing. The last thing i would ever do in a street fight is kick somebody and i already hit pretty hard, so it was more about learning to avoiding being hit than anything else.

I haven' t got time for stuff like that anymore though and i' m doing my best to avoid confrontations these days