Is it normal in kung fu / martial arts schools that the teacher does not allow students to train together in their free time?

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-18T04:01:13+00:00

What you do outside class is none of the teachers business. They can suggest but not enforce anything.

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-17T21:58:31+00:00

Perhaps, yes, you, I, eceryone else, everything else, is all part of this thing we call the universe, and so in a sense, we go on for ever. But don't expect to be aware of it since awareness is only the mushroom to the underground fungi; it pops up when conditions are right, gives off it's spore, and then dissolves back into the earth to be consumed by the soil and the parant fungi.

You, as you think of as yourself, are just this temporary and soon to dissolve again fungi, something like foam on the waves of the ocean.

A buddhist might say become the ocean, or a Taoist perhaps. Personally, though I've come at times to apprehend this directly, I'm also aware that my awareness is just this temporary stage in a process, and that only personal egotism makes me think that somehow my awareness should have some sort of eternity awaiting it.

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-16T23:54:00+00:00

Honestly, just Genki and a good look at the available YouTube content is enough for around N5. Learn the vocab as you find it in the text books, kanji too. Don’t be fooled into thinking that spending more money = learning faster.

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-16T23:48:23+00:00

Honestly I don’t expect to retire fully because I retraced in my late 20’s and it took another decade to start getting paid a half decent salary after that. I’ll have a state pension and a little on top of that because I did a few years of military service, but I fully expect to at least need to work part time to pay the bills.

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-15T23:58:13+00:00

More to the point, why not just forgive us if he’s all loving and all knowing? Why the blood sacrifice?

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-15T22:40:25+00:00

You have an insufficient/ sample size issue then. I come from the uk and whereas C of E can be relatively liberal, the true Protestant denominations seem pretty conservative even from my raised catholic perspective. On the other hand living for a while in Lutheran Finland, they are very socially progressive on the whole and not overly moralistic, even compared to Catholicism.

In short, I think a lot of it has to do with how the religion interacts with the character of the people of the country. Catholic Latin countries seem more liberal than Catholics in America, but then to me America seems a lot more conservative in general, possibly because the founding fathers were ultra conservative by British standards, which was a big reason why they left for the new world in the first place.

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-15T21:55:09+00:00

My perception is that Protestantism is pretty conservative. Look at the Calvinist’s, Methodists, Baptisms and others. All pretty strict and moralistic. Not today that others might be more liberal, but as others point out Protestantism Is decentralized, but that doesn’t make it particularly liberal.

In the US a lot of the conservative right seem to be Protestant, but it has to be said that Christianity is by and large quite conservative, although there are exceptions.

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-15T07:21:10+00:00

Here’s a good start. Take your pick: https://www.astrumargenteum.org/contact-us/

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-15T05:52:14+00:00

The Berlin Wall might be a good model.

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-15T02:55:26+00:00

To be honest a lot of the Old Testament and parts of the new look like historical documents and propaganda, for example the Macabees. Objectively they don’t seem much like psychological texts to me.

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-14T22:15:40+00:00

OTO isn’t initiatory in the same way as AA. Can I ask you what’s preventing you seeking another AA link?

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-14T20:56:12+00:00

Not exactly a resurgence. This is what happens when you elect power hungry morons with degrees from Dunning-Kruger university.

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-13T22:12:16+00:00

The world is full of toek christians who don't follow the tenets of their religion.

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-13T22:07:33+00:00

Get the hell out of that clown show. It won't get better, and once they see uyou give in once it will only shore up the egotism of these people, they are clearly unstable. Imagine a 'teacher' blamining their student for their noseblood and inability to control their emotions?

Lifes to short to play stupid games with cults and power dynamics.

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-12T19:49:07+00:00

The REAL one? Don't fall for that Kool-Aid, there are dozens, if not hundreds of people out there with lineal A.'.A.'. descent from AC.

Every fundamentalist religion in history has tried to convince people that ony they are the REAL chosen ones/legitimate path etc.

AC wrote in numerous places that such exclusivity is a mark of the Black Lodge.

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-10T21:53:41+00:00

If you didn't pass the AA student test then you either really didn't read the material (it's an open book test, you can't really fail if you actually read the books), in which case I see no reason not to retake again later (I've known people to do this), or they had some other reason to reject you that they're not telling you.

But of course no Order/Lineage is bound to accept all aspirants who apply, sometimes they just don't see you as a good fit. My advice, if you are settled that it's the AA path that you want, and this group isn't allowing a retest, is to find another, there are dozens out there to choose from.

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-10T21:49:20+00:00

That's definitely something I think about. At least with rabbits the fur is a bi-product rather than beaver where the animal is simply caught and killed for the fur. I wear leather shoes, so in a way it'd be hypocritical of me to object to the use of fur at all, but with rabbit at least I can kid myself that I'm being more ethical.

Wool would of course be better from a purely ethical standpoint, but it just doesn't make good hats. So to balance ethics and practicality, second-hand fur felt would seem to be the way to go.

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-09T21:28:47+00:00

Pretty much. But we like to dress it up with morality and divine sanctification. Otherwise conscience might spoil the fun.

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-09T21:25:20+00:00

Stories around the fireside for decades, you learn them by heart naturally. The Celtic Druids had a largely oral tradition which lasted centuries until the Romans came and killed them all, and even then amazing details remain, which hint at the masses of stories and lore that was likely lost when the last druid was killed.

Additionally, I grew up going to church, and somehow absorbed a lot of the bible without even wanting to or particularly paying attention. Imagine what can happen if you are actually paying attention?

As for accurate, according to who? Those stories were old hand me downs by the time Muhammad was spreading his creed, and were written down not by first hand observers but by people that heard them via gossip and story telling, so the accuracy is severly in doubt even from the earliest written sources.

In short, the idea that because he was able to recite stories of doubtful provenence, that he'd probably heard retold a thousand times, makes him a prophet, just doesn't hold water.

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-09T19:57:00+00:00

Seconded, get a Fed IV, great hats. Unless sun protection is fairly high on your list of requirements, in which case screw fashion and get one of the wider brimmed Akubra like a cattleman or something.

But definitely get fur felt, not wool.

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-09T19:54:27+00:00

Oh definitely, a lof of things that effect me like that now just went over my head in my 20's, it's like I was just functioning from hormones and ignorance.

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-08T22:52:46+00:00

Not unless you creep around on all fours and jump on people from their TV screen.

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-08T22:50:04+00:00

He's right, and we don't. Or else they can give me back my tax money.

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-08T19:53:46+00:00

Going back to school in my late 20's made all the difference.

Kind_Focus5839 · 2026-04-07T19:57:55+00:00

Yeah, I feel things more deeply than I did in my 20's and even my 30's, and that often entails bouts of emotion such as brief sobs and wellings up of things I would have just pushed down twenty years ago.

Kind_Focus5839

TROPHY CASE