I didn't know you could read

I don't know what it is about this year but I'm just not that interested in setting any New Year goals. It's probably all a corporate conspiracy to increase gym memberships anyway. But I ran across a blog post today that peaked my interest. You can read the full post here. In it the Author details his goal to read more in 2014.

The original post has 10 rules, I'm just going to focus on the rules that stuck out to me the most

Rule 3) Forget paying for shit, download book samples instead

Simply the best way to get the underpinning and most crucial thoughts in a book fast.

I'm not sure why I don't do this more often. If a book is good, I have no problem paying for it, but there's a lot of crap to weed through. Also I don't end up with the guilt of abandoning a book if I only read the sample and ditch the rest.

Rule 6) Save more money and do none of this (actually go to a library)

You can even meet actual real-life people here too.

But you’ll probably regret it.

I just can't read a book from the library (#firstworldproblems), my OCD wont allow me to read dirty old books that have been shoved in the back pocked of a greasy haired book worm. No offence to greasy haired book worms.

Rule 8) Set yourself time markers (25 minute chunks on different subjects)

Because you don’t want to get stuck in that obsessive loophole of thinking you have to finish a shitty book. Nor do you want the guilt of leaving something unfinished.

Rule 9) Construct reading parameters (like skimming and giving up on crappy narrative)

Imperative to your process. Consistency leads to conquer.

I think these rules stuck out to me the most. I hate feeling the need to finish a book – setting time limits and skimming seems like a reasonable approach.

Reading more has been on my mind quite a bit lately (Speed Reading). I love to learn and reading is an unavoidable necessity to educating yourself. I may consider setting a reading goal for myself this year, but no promises.

Personal Budget Planning

With the year coming to a rapid end I find myself reflecting on the events that unfolded, but more importantly I'm thinking about the future. New years resolutions are not something I'm a big fan of. However I do find myself wanting to set better goals for myself, specifically in regards to my money spending habits. Over the past year and a half or so I've developed a system that seems to be working quite well for me. So I thought I would share my secrets and hopefully get some feedback on what works for you.

Keep it simple

I've tried close to half a dozen budget programs over the years from Microsoft Money to Mint.com to YNAB and take my word for it, it's better to keep it simple! All of the various programs and methods I've tried over the years were simply too complex for me – They tried to do too much in my opinion. The end result was that I dreaded updating the budget, so I would procrastinate and it wouldn't get done. I don't need my personal budgeting program to tell me the futures price of corn in the Philippines. Maybe you do, that's cool, but I don't.

I do all of my banking online, and so for me a simple online spreadsheet (with the right setup) is all I need. I currently use Google Docs. I spend maybe 5 minutes once or twice a week and I'm good to go. Keeping it online means that I can update it at work (during breaks), and I can share it with my wife so she can see and update it whenever she wants to as well.

I was planning on explaining all the formulas and settings I created to make the spreadsheet do what it does, but I think that might be a little TL;DR for some people. So instead I created a template you can use if you want to check it out.

Click on the image below

You'll notice that the ledger has a drop down list of all the categories. As you fill out the ledger, the Actual column in the budget will automatically update and as a result so will the Balance column. To me this is the simplest way to keep track of my money. Every couple of days I log into my bank and update my budget from transactions that have cleared (I don't fill in pending transactions because the amounts and dates can change after they're posted).

This spreadsheet gives me a ton of flexibility and accountability. I can quickly see if I'm overspending in one category and make minor adjustments to the budget as I go. Categories like Groceries for example are variable and will almost always end up over budget (at least the way I set things up). When that happens I just subtract what I need from another category and add it to the over budget one until everything zeroes out again.

You may notice that I don't have any due dates on my categories. To me due dates are an unneeded complexity. I pretty much know when things are due, but more importantly I maintain a half months worth of income as a buffer in my account. That way I don't have to worry about not buy groceries the week I pay rent and stuff like that.

At the end of each month I make sure everything zeros out, which sometimes means borrowing from savings, but the goal is to have a positive balance that I transfer to savings (you can do more complex things like buy stocks if you want but I'm not that fancy yet). After it all checks out I copy the tab, rename the new tab to the current month, delete the ledger, and adjust the budget if I need to. And at the end of the year I copy the entire spreadsheet, save one copy to an archive folder, and clear out the other copy for the new year.

That's pretty much it. It's simple, fast, and easy (TWSS). What kind of personal budgeting system do you use? How has it helped you? Is it to complicated? Not enough features? Let me know, or blog about it yourself. I'm curious what others do with their finances.

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How it Works – TL;DR

If you do actually plan on using this there's a couple things you'll need to be aware of. When you add or remove categories from the budget or when you add new rows to the ledger, in order to get the drop down to work, you'll need to do the following:

1. Select the first (top) B cell in the ledger section
2. Right click on the selected cell and choose Data validation...
3. In the Cell range field put <cell_number>:B (where <cell_number> is the top B cell in the ledger) for example B22:B Adding the :B to the selection will make sure that all the B cells in the ledger will have the drop down, especially if you just added new rows.
4. In the Criteria field make sure all the categories in the budget are selected
5. Click Save and you should be good to go

If you want to add new categories than just right click on one of the row numbers on the left and add a row, then copy one of the existing category rows into the new row and update the category name. The formulas are all relative so you shouldn't need to mess with them. Enjoy!

Speed Reading

I've learned that one of my character traits (flaws/weaknesses/quirks), that I attribute to my addictive personality, is that I'll fixate on an interest for a few weeks (or months) and learn all there is to know (or all I'm interested in knowing) on the subject before I lose interest and move on. I don't know, maybe it's just mild ADD, but it's something I'm trying to level out in my life.

Any way, my latest fixation has been speed reading. I feel like I'm an OK reader, but I've always thought of myself as slow when it comes to reading. I also feel overwhelmed by the amount of books on my to-read list. Moreover there's a lot of things I want to learn, but I don't have the time to read all the materials necessary. If I could just double or triple my reading speed the problem would be solved amiright?

I spent quite a lot of time and energy studying and practicing speed reading. I downloaded programs and even wrote one of my own (which I may publish for free some day if I ever find the motivation to polish it up). But through all my efforts I've found more validation than results. It turns out that I was at the top of the average for speed and comprehension already (courtesy of this test). And I've learned, for a few other reasons, that I will rarely use speed reading.

I started out by scouring youtube.com for tutorial videos. After wading through all the I-want-to-sell-you-a-$500-course-even-though-you-can-find-it-for-free-elsewhere videos, I found about a dozen or so actually relevant tutorials. All the videos I watched had the same elements:

There are three main inhibitors to reading speed.

1. Fixation is the processes of focusing your eyes directly on each word. This can strain the eyes and it slows you down because your eyes can only move so fast. Instead you should move your eyes in a smooth linear fashion and take in groups of words using your peripheral vision as opposed to one word at a time.
2. Regression Regression is going back and re-reading a section of text that you feel compelled to for whatever reason.
3. Subvocalization or silent speech, is defined as the internal speech made when reading a word, thus allowing the reader to imagine the sound of the word as it is read (Carver 1990). This was the focus of all the speed reading materiel I've studied. There's varying degrees of this, from physically mouthing (or even whispering) the words, to simply hearing an inner voice narrate the words. The reason this is so important is that by subvocalizing each word you can only read as fast as you can speak. For most of us that's between 150 to 250 words per minute.

The methods used to fix these problems (I'll address why they're not really problems later) were all pretty much the same. For fixation and regression you simply move your finger from left to right under the line of text you're reading and follow it with your eye. This is to help pace your reading and stop you from moving your focus backwards. The drills include reading a passage of text as fast as you can with 100% comprehension while moving your finger under the text, and then re-reading the passage faster and faster and faster until you're comprehending about 30%. The theory is that you're training your eyes to move smoothly without fixating on any one word. It also helps suppress subvocalizing because you're looking at the words faster than you can say them in your head.

Other drills included counting to 10 repeatedly in your head while reading; or humming or biting your finger. All of these types of drills are to silence the internal voice or subvocalization. The best tutorials I've seen also include replacing subvocalization with subimaging which is visualizing scenes or words as images instead of words. The theory being that we process images much faster than the sounds of words. The common example is when you see a stop sign you don't say "stop" in your head, you just process the image for what it is.

So after reading and watching dozens of tutorials, and practicing the drills for a few weeks. I did start to see improvements but very minimal ones -- I went from 250~ words per minute to about 350~ wpm. Honestly that's not a bad improvement but the reading felt different. It felt more like skimming. It wasn't skimming though. I was actually reading and comprehending 100%~ of the materiel, but something felt off. (As a quick side note I did read an article that made the distinction between reading comprehension and recollection i.e. you can have 100% comprehension of what you're reading -- you understand it completely -- but when it comes to recalling that information you may fall short.) In an attempt to find what I was doing wrong I moved on to forums to see what other's experiences were. Which is where my journey has peacefully come to an end.

I was ultimately lead to this article which explains the history behind speed reading, and debunks many of the myths associated with it.

To be blunt, speed reading is probably not going to work for you and the training will be a waste of time.

LOL. When I read things like this, it just comes across as arrogant, and I usually view these negative statements as a challenge. So initially I was reading this article with a huge grain of salt. However the article as a whole articulated many thoughts and feelings that I was already having but hadn't yet formalized. For example, when it came to speed reading a novel (I practiced with a sci-fi book) I felt like I could comprehend all the events but the experience of the book was somehow different. It made the book feel dry, and I was almost convinced that it was just a bad book. Here's what the article says:

"Speed reading" fiction at high speeds does not work very well. This is because fiction focuses upon the emotional experiences. The human brain is simply not fast enough processing emotions to push the envelope. At best, a speed reader of fiction remembers an account of events, but does not have the experience that the author had in mind for the reader. Novels are best read in 'real time' to experience the moment.

For me this is exactly true. Speed reading a novel, at best takes the joy out of it, and at worst removes the emotion from the scenes in the book. If you think about it a book is in fact a narration, it's not a series of images -- that's called a movie! And attempting to speed through the narration really sucks the scenes dry. You simply don't have time to imagine the emotion behind the words, and experience the events from the characters points of view.

When it came to expensive software, I was less than impressed with the results. But to be honest at first I was excited. There's something exhilarating about being able to read words that are flashing in your face at a ridiculous speed. The problem was that while using the program I could read extremely fast but when it came to reading actual material outside of the program, I could at most read at half the speed as with the software. In essence I would have to plug every article I read into the program to make it effective. And again the wiki article explained this perfectly:

There are two different camps when it comes to speed reading software. One camp says it is the scourge of the earth and forces the student into "inorganic" reading methods that do not work (this author is in that camp). Real world reading material requires the reader to dynamically adapt to the material he or she is reading, and speed reading software forces a rigid pace on the reader. People who learn to speed read with software usually become dependent upon the software and have to unlearn everything they learned from the software and re-learn how to speed read all over again.

Real reading is an organic process that defies some machine trying to control your brain.

I got goose bumps when I read that, it's exactly what I was experiencing

The other main issue I've had is with reading groups of words together. Every time I attempt to do this my comprehension plummets. I abandoned those drills early on in the process.

Research indicates that only the words that were in focus and in the vision span that the eyes actually looked at could be components of answers in comprehension tests. Readers who attempted to take in too many words at a glance, or who tried to read so fast using finger pacing techniques that they tried to take in words using peripheral vision ultimately could not answer questions about the resulting garbled sentences involving the words not in direct line of sight.

Again I got goosebumps

I haven't totally written speed reading off as a whole yet. But I'm definitely approaching it from a new perspective. I feel like I've learned all there is to know about the theory of speed reading at this point (or all I care to know about it). And I have a more realistic expectation of it. I think at the end of the day what I gained from this whole experience was validation over results. What I mean by that is that I was already a proficient reader, I just didn't know it. I bought into the sales pitch, and the temptation to improve was too much to resist. That being said I think that with continued practice I could eventually reach 800+ wpm but I don't know how often I'll want to read that fast. I enjoy the emotional experience of becoming totally immersed in a good novel, which for me requires subvocalizing. And I knew from the start that I wasn't going to be reading technical materiel at break-neck speeds simply because of their complexity. So from the three types of materials I most often read: novels, technical blogs, and news articles; I will most likely only speed read through the news. Which honestly may not be worth the effort to develop the skill for.

I have no memory of this place.

I feel like I do this a lot when I'm looking at code I supposedly wrote.

Ignorance shattered

I think it's interesting that we paint pictures of our acquaintances based on what they wear, how they carry themselves, what they're interested in, their political views etc. And we subconsciously fill in the gaps with stereotypes and ignorance. It's interesting to see how people react when those stereotypes don't pan out and the people they thought they knew end up different.

My wife and I recently attended an employee appreciation dinner. It was a formal event with suite coats and dresses. My wife wore a beautiful dress that she made herself, she also did her hair up really nice, however... she does have a mohawk. It's not a punk mohawk with foot long points or anything, she does it up very elegantly with flowers and it's very pretty. Apparently though this was a bit of a stir. I've just been informed that we've been the center of gossip around the office. People know that I'm politically conservative and they know that I go to church every week. However based on that information they've assumed that my wife and I are conservative about everything in our lives. Seeing me in public with my beautiful wife shattered their ignorance, I no longer fit the stereotype of a conservative -- Only open minded liberals do crazy things like mohawks. Don't get me wrong, it was well received, they all really liked my wife and I'm still getting compliments on her dress and hair.

I'm pleased that we had this effect on people because when you throw a wrench in their ignorance they have no choice but to question the other assumptions they've made about you. Also I love my wife and it makes me happy when I get to show her off. I've received many compliments on her dress, and I've been told that people are still talking about it. She worked hard on it and it showed.

I wonder what they think of me now? Have I shattered their ignorance enough to make them question their judgments on others as well? I hope so.

Your new year's resolution will fail

Not to be rude, and don't worry it's not really your fault, but your new year's resolution is probably going to fail. Why do I say this? Experience mostly, but it's also the nature of a resolution, it's got a built in failure mechanism.

res·o·lu·tion [rez-uh-loo-shuh n]
noun

1. a resolve or determination: to make a firm resolution to do something.
2. the act of resolving or determining upon an action or course of action, method, procedure, etc.
3. the mental state or quality of being resolved or resolute; firmness of purpose.

A resolution is a strong and unmovable statement, and by strong I mean fragile, and by unmovable I mean it stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail. But hope remains, if friends stay tr... sorry, I just watch the Lord of The Rings over the weekend.

If you resolve to stop eating sugar for example, what happens when your super cute niece bakes you cookies and you can't say no because she won't understand that by eating the cookie you will be breaking your resolution? She'll just think you're a big jerk who doesn't like her anymore.

Let's face it, we're humans and we make mistakes, we compromise and we justify - we do all these things that prevent us from being perfect. Unfortunately a resolution requires perfect will and foresight to be accomplished successfully. The first time you mess up, your resolution is null and void, you failed!

Setting goals instead.

Goals are more powerful at motivating us because they don't have that built in failure mechanism that resolutions do.

goal [gohl]
noun

1. the result or achievement toward which effort is directed; aim; end.

Goals are more of a process than an I'm-not-going-to-budge attitude, they can allow us to be flexible, and they can be broken down into smaller short-term achievements.

What goals we set and how we form them will have a huge determining factor on their success. I want to share a few thoughts I have on the subject that may help you (and me) achieve our resolutions this upcoming new year.

As a conservative American when I'm told that I can't do something, it makes me want to do it even more, it's just in my nature to push back. Take fasting for example (not eating for 24 hours for spiritual reasons). There's times when I'll skip entire meals simply because I forgot to eat or I was too busy and just didn't think about it. But when I fast I get super hungry, suddenly everything looks good, and I can't stop thinking about food.

Think about this:
I want to but I can't.
vs.
I can but I don't want to.

The difference may seem very subtle but to me it's also very profound. I've found that setting positive goals works much better for me than setting those "stop doing" or "don't do" goals. For example instead of making a goal like "I'm not going to eat sugar" it's better for me to make a goal more like "I'm going to eat a ton more vegetables" So instead of wanting sugar and not being able to have it. I'll be able to eat sugar but probably wont want to as much because I'll want to save room for the vegetables.

I've also found that flexibility is a very important component. I'm a bit of a martial arts enthusiast and there's an idiom that you've probably heard before - roll with the punches. When you're in a fight you're going to get hit, there's really no way around it (unless you're very lucky (or just super good at fighting like me :p )). It hurts, there's no question about it. One thing you don't want to do is take a punch straight to the face, you want to roll with the punch. Basically turn your head away from the punch or step back. Doing this will deflect the punch a little and also soften the blow. You're still going to get hit, but you probably won't get knocked out and you'll still be in the fight. So why roll with the punch, why not just block it or move? It's a valid question and the answer is simple, there's no time. You obviously didn't see it coming and you have only milliseconds to react. Unfortunately our lives are filled with these types of situations. I'm not necessarily talking about getting punched in the face, but there will be obstacles in our lives that we didn't see coming and didn't fully prepare for. Things are going to happen that will force us to choose the lesser of two evils. How we react to these situations is important. Setting flexible goals that aren't sink-or-swim will help us make those split second decisions that will help to mitigate the damage. For example instead of saying "I'm going to eat more vegetables" it might be a little better to say "I'm going to eat more healthy by eating vegetables every chance I get" What if I eat out and they don't have vegetables? The answer is built in - simply make the healthiest choice.

If all else fails and your goal simply wasn't flexible enough, don't quit! Be flexible and reevaluate your goal, set a new one, or simply reword the one you have.

It's also well worth the mention to make realistic goals. Some goals no matter how flexible simply aren't realistic. For example I would love to live on a spaceship flying toward a distant earth-like planet filled with 15 foot tall blue aliens where I could remotely control a body just like theirs and reenact the Pocahontas story... but that's simply not going to happen, at least not for me. For one I have a family to support and I wouldn't want to raise them in a spaceship and two I'm not a scientist or anyone of particular importance, I don't even have a twin brother.

Making your goals measurable, specific, attainable, and trackable (has a time limit) will almost certainly produce a realistic goal. "Lose 10lbs in 4 months by eating more healthy, and eating vegetables every chance I get" is a good example, you can measure it by standing on a scale. It's specific. It's attainable with room for unexpected obstacles and it has a time limit. An unrealistic goal will be lacking in at least one of these aspects.

Going into the new year it's traditional to set a resolution that will typically take the rest of the year to accomplish. Setting big lofty goals is good, but it's not good if that's all you do. Goals like that are generally too long term. I personally love to procrastinate. If I know that something is a year away, I will do absolutely nothing about it. When it's about 6 months away I'll probably start to think about it a little, but still wont do much about it, and when it's only 2 months away and I haven't done anything about it and there's simply no way to accomplish it in time, I'll drop it altogether. So what's the solution to this common human behavior? Set more than one goal that aim to achieve the same result. Set a 1 year goal, a 6 month goal and 1 month goals along the way. Lets say I want to run a half marathon in 1 year. it might break down like this:

"In one year I want to complete a half marathon"
"In six months I want to complete a 5k"
"In one month I want to be able to run for 20 minutes without stopping or slowing down"
"I'm going to eat more healthy, and eat vegetables every chance I get so I have energy to run"

As you can see there's multiple short term goals and they all point to the end result of completing a half marathon.

My final thoughts on the subject are that a secret goal will almost always fail. Remember that we're humans and we make mistakes, we compromise and we justify, and if we're accountable to no one but ourselves we'll fall for these traps. Share your goals. Don't keep them a secret. Tell as many people as you can trust. Encourage them to also make goals and share them with you. Help each other out. Remind them about their goals and ask how there progressing, and ask them to do the same for you. Accountability is a strong motivating factor.

In the end you can call it a new years resolution if you want, but only for tradition's sake, goals are the only way to go. I'm not sure what my new years resolution is going to be yet, I still have a few days to think about it, but writing these thoughts down has help motivate me to get up off my arse and do something. Hopefully it has done the same for you. Enjoy the new year!

My first Black Friday

I got sucked into doing Black Friday this year. Here's how it went down.

Last year I took a week off of work and flew down to visit my parents in Arizona. It was a total veg-out type of vacation, and as a result I decided to watch the entire set of The Lord of the Rings extended version, all 726 minutes of it. If you've never done this I would highly recommend it. In fact I enjoyed it so much that I decided to make it a new tradition. So this year I've been watching the net for deals on the extended version of LotR. I found that Best Buy was selling the Blu-ray version for $50 - that's half off the listed price of $99. Recognizing a good deal when I see one, I ordered it. There's only one problem: I don't own a Blu-ray player. 

Not owning a Blu-ray player obviously wasn't a deal breaker, but in order to fulfill my new tradition I was going to need one before Christmas. I was fairly certain that there would be a Black Friday deal for one somewhere, and I was correct, Wal-mart had one for $38 - not bad!

This being my first experience queuing up for a good deal I didn't know how early I should be there. The player went on sale at 10pm Thursday night, so I figured we would just head over to the store directly after Thanksgiving dinner. We got there at about 3:30 and quickly realized we were way to early, the line hadn't even been designated yet, so we decided to ditch out for a few hours and watch a movie. We saw Red Dawn and it was fantastic!

After the movie was over we headed back to the store and by this time they had setup a line for the coveted Blu-ray player. We ended up being second in line.

Wal-mart had designated lines for all their big-ticket items, like TV's, computers, etc. but for the smaller items like DVD's Blu-ray's, thumb drives, digital cameras etc. they just had a huge "pit". Basically they had about a dozen cardboard shelves covered in brown paper with notes taped on them saying something like "These items will not ring up at the register until 8pm." Our spot in line was directly across from the "pit". At  7:30 there was seriously about 100 people gathered around the covered merchandise drooling over what lay beneath. When 8 o'clock hit it was a mad house, the store employees ripped off the brown paper to the roar of an excited crowed. My curiosity got the better of me and I left my wife in line so I could see what was under the paper. It was mostly just DVD's and Blu-ray's.

It's hard to explain the atmosphere when 8 o'clock hit. There was definitely a sense of urgency. It wasn't just the "pit" that opened at 8pm, other deals throughout the store kicked off as well. After scooping up all 8 Harry Potter Blu-rays for 3 bucks each, I ventured out deeper into the store. The toy isle was filled with parents scooping up whatever they could grab. People with carts filled with so much loot that they couldn't see in front of themselves were pushing their way down the isles for more. I, free of a cart and loot (having dropped off my previous hall with my wife), was free to weave in and out and around, trying to find something to grab. Surely there was something I could find interesting and cheap to buy. But what I ended up noticing was that the items marked as Black Friday specials that were quickly being snatched up by frenzied parents weren't even on sale! The price was the same as any other day. The scheme was quickly apparent to me, they draw you in with cheap big ticket items and dupe you into buying a bunch of other stuff you hadn't set out to buy. The excitement quickly wore off for me when I realized that there really wasn't much savings to be had. I forced my way past the toy section and into the bedding area where I found a fleece blanket for pretty cheap and a Curious George book for $5. 

With the excitement wearing off and feeling satisfied that I found something, I pushed and shoved my way back to my wife where I pretty much stayed until 10 o'clock. 

The people-watching was pretty good and kept me well entertained for the duration, Wal-mart never fails in this aspect. We even saw a guy dressed as Waldo, which in a crowd of people was perfect! 

At about 9:30 the same crazy frenzy began anew with a mob of people crowded around more bins covered in brown paper, this time marked for 10pm. This crowd was bigger than the first, and the items covered under the paper were more desirable too. When 10 o'clock hit and the crowed erupted I felt pretty nervous. This time I was leaving  the cover of the line I was in and I had my wife by my side. I rounded the corner and dropped all the movies I had under my arm. I fanatically picked them up and grabbed the Blu-ray player we were there for. We quickly darted for the checkout as a group of police officers with three-foot-long clubs ran past us toward the crowd. Because we didn't have a cart we were able to weave our way toward the front of a vary long line to checkout.

When we finely got home my wife went straight to bed and was asleep before her head hit the pillow. I was still way too excited for sleep, so I started to sort through our loot. I laid out all the stuff on the floor in preparation for a picture because everyone knows if there isn't a screenshot it didn't happen. It was then that I realized I was missing something! We only had 7 Harry Potter movies. I double and triple checked, but after reviewing the receipt I realized that I was in fact missing The Prisoner of Azkaban. I must have missed it when I dropped the stack. Panic started to set it. I knew that those movies wouldn't last all night so I grabbed my jacked and headed back to the store. The crowed was intensifying, the line to checkout was about 100 people deep, but I knew that in the chaos I could cut my way into the front. I frantically searched for the missing movie, there was only one shelf of Blu-ray's left and it was almost empty. I started to panic a little when I couldn't find it, but I lucked out, it was hidden on the bottom shelf behind a different movie.

I waited in line listening to a lady complain that the TV she was attempting to buy didn't match the sale price in the ad. After arguing with two managers she conceded that she must have stood in the wrong line. She demanded to pay the price she saw in the ad. The managers weren't about to budge "the lines were clearly marked" they said. She persisted and insisted that she receive the TV she wanted. By this point there was nothing the store managers could do, all the TV's, not just the one she wanted, had been sold. I made it through my line before her ordeal was sorted out. Some people just aren't satisfied in failure unless they can drag everyone around them down too. She sat at the register for over 30 minutes with more than 100 people behind her. I'm just glad I wasn't one of them.

I have to admit that I found the atmosphere of this experience to be fun, at least until it erupted into madness, and I feared for my life. I could easily be talked into it again next year for the right item.

My search for a new Martial Art

About a year into high school I stumbled onto Karate. It was great! It consumed a lot of my energy and attention; however as a teenager I think that was a good thing. I gained a lot from it – things that will remain with me for the rest of my life – but looking back at the experience as a whole I can see some major flaws in the system, and as an adult has left me wanting.

It started when my younger siblings were invited to test for their gold belt after taking some after school classes.  For whatever reason I decided to attend their “test”, it was all very basic, they stood at attention showed their fighting stance, did some punches and kicks and that was that. After the test the instructor gave my mom a sales pitch encouraging her to enroll my siblings in his Karate school. I remember asking the instructor some questions, (actually I was trying to point out how weak I thought the stance was) I had watched a few Bruce Lee, and Jakie Chan movies and considered myself well versed in the martial arts. The instructor answered my questions (short of slapping me in the face) and my Mom enrolled my younger siblings, myself and herself for some classes. As it turns out my Mom had wanted to take Karate ever since she was a kid.

If I may take a detour to explain that while there is an actual Japanese martial arts style called Karate, in America, the word Karate is used as a generic term for martial arts. The type of Karate we took was called Jhoon Rhee Tae Kwon Do. Jhoon Rhee immigrated to America from Korea in the 1950’s and in the 60’s he befriended Bruce Lee and is commonly known as the father of American Tae Kwon Do.

I ended up really enjoying it. It gave me a lot of structure and discipline. It definitely increased my coordination, something that has stuck with me to this day. I moved through the lower belts at lightning speed. I even tested for two belts in one test. After the first year the belt frequency tapered dramatically, and so did my motivation, but I stuck with it. Long story short, after about 4 years I tested for my conditional black belt, which I received, and then I basically quit to go on a 2 year mission for my church.

While I do feel that I gained a lot from my experience with Karate, I also feel a sense of disappointment. When I look back at the experience as a whole, I’m realizing that it left me lacking in practical self-defense skills. I think the reason for this disappointment is because the style I took focused too much on the “art” aspect of martial arts. It was all about how your technique looked. For example, in order to pass a test for your next belt you had to perform the techniques in a series of steps called a “form” (often called kata in other styles). We also had something called point sparing, which was basically a glorified game of tag. Both opponents would wear protective gear on your head hands and feet (and chest for the lower belts) and square off against each other attempting to gain points. Points are awarded for a kick to the head or stomach, or a punch to the head or stomach. When a point is gained the ref would halt the match, record the point, and square you off for the next round. Best of 5 would win the match. Every once in a while, literally only two or three times a month, we would spend 5 ot 10 minutes on “self-defense” we were never tested on these techniques and it was only taught when we had a few extra minutes toward the end of a class. These were the only practical techniques we were ever taught, and they usually consisted of how to defend yourself from bear hugs or some choke holds.

Overall I feel that the Karate I took lacked practicality. While I do feel that what I gained in coordination and a slightly increased sense of awareness, is better than nothing. I don’t feel that it has prepared me in a substantial way to defend myself from an attacker in the real world. Shouldn’t that be the point of martial arts?

So here I am nearly 10 years after the fact wanting to take martial arts again. Only this time I did my research. I wanted something practical. I definitely knew I didn’t want a competitive style, the real world has no rules and forms and katas aren’t my cup of tea anymore. Even MMA has issues in my opinion, for example it has rules that don’t apply on the street, and in the real world you’re most likely not going to face off against an opponent of equal weight and skill. You’re probably not going to be prepared for the fight and you’re not going to want to prolong the fight in any way. But MMA is still at the top of my list because it’s a purely combative style. I ended up finding Krav Maga and I’m thoroughly enjoying it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krav_Maga

Krav Maga is a noncompetitive martial art and eclectic self-defense system developed in Israel that involves striking techniques, wrestling and grappling. Krav Maga is known for its focus on real-world situations and extremely efficient, brutal counter-attacks. It was derived from street-fighting skills developed by Hungarian-Israeli martial artist Imi Lichtenfeld, who made use of his training as a boxer and wrestler, as a means of defending the Jewish quarter against fascist groups in Bratislava in the mid-to-late 1930s. In the late 1940s, following his immigration to Israel, he began to provide lessons on combat training to what was to become the IDF, who went on to develop the system that became known as Krav Maga. It has since been refined for civilian, police and military applications.

Krav Maga seems to focus a lot on physical conditioning and performing technique under stress. For example last night we ran some drills to simulate being blind-sided by an attacker. We would spin in circles while bent over until we were sufficiently dizzy and then the instructor would yell FIGHT! We would then have to start fighting off our attacker (a partner holding a pad). My partner said he’s been blind-sided before and this drill felt very similar, you feel dizzy, sick, and disoriented, except in real life your head also hurts and you’re pissed off.

At the end of each class I leave feeling thoroughly exhausted but with a smile on my face. I feel good that not all the techniques I learned as a teenager in Karate are useless; however I’m now learning how to apply them and adapt them to work in the real world. We’ll see where this takes me, but so far I’ve found and end to my search. Krav Maga is exactly what I was looking for!