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From: wall@fortune.UUCP (Jim Wall)
Newsgroups: net.sport
Subject: Re: Go, Granny! Go, go, go!
Message-ID: <5149@fortune.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 25-Mar-85 17:22:20 EST
Article-I.D.: fortune.5149
Posted: Mon Mar 25 17:22:20 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 26-Mar-85 06:11:23 EST
References: <347@ptsfc.UUCP>
Reply-To: wall@fortune.UUCP (Jim wall)
Organization: Fortune Systems, Redwood City, CA
Lines: 31

>    In O'Fallon, Missouri, Lucille Thompson, an 88-year-old 
>    great-grandmother, showed off her skills at the 1985 Tae
>    Kwon Do championships by breaking a board with her elbow,
>    crushing a piece of concrete with her foot and vanquish-
>    ing a male opponent.
>

    Sounds like a great little lady to me, so don't get me wrong,
but...    even over the net, I could teach anyone to break a 1"
pine board with their fist/hand/foot/elbow/etc.  in about two 
paragraphs.  And a piece of "concrete" is not much more difficult.

    There is an excellent article that was in Scientific American
that explained the physics of Karate. Amazingly enough, there is no 
magic, no laws of physics are broken. 

    I believe very strongly in martial arts as an art, a self 
confidence builder, a mental and physical strengthener, and a way
to protect oneself. But the board and brick breaking is the lowest
end of the scale in the martial arts.

   And just to start an argument,  some Aikido legends and modern
day demonstrations do border on "magic", as near as I can tell. It
can lead to the total use of the human bodies strength, which is 
much more than even modern athletes can acheive. Of course, they are 
very, very few that appear to be able to do this, and those that do, 
are not interested in showing off. But I hear that they can do these
things....

							-Jim
						...amd!fortune!wall