Karate
milhayser | December 4, 2014On Aardvarchaeology, Martin Rundkvist tells the story of a 14-year old Swedish Muslim girl who also happens to be very good at karate. Recently this young woman was disqualified from a tournament because she wears a veil and the rules state "that the umpire needs to be able to watch for damage to each contestant’s throat." She was also disqualified from solo performance, despite that lack of potential for neck damage. Martin writes, "Things are changing in the karate world. You couldn’t compete wearing any kind of veil until last year. When it became allowed, Iran’s women’s team immediately…
aardvarchaeology | December 3, 2014Here's an interesting case regarding Muslim women's veils. They're instruments or symbols of patriarchal repression, right? Well, check this out.
Dania Mahmudi is from my area, Fisksätra. She's 14 years old and wears a veil. Mahmudi has been practising karate for years. Two weeks ago she went with her club to the district championship, eager to compete. But the umpire disqualified her – for her veil's sake. It covered her throat, and karate competition rules state that the umpire needs to be able to watch for damage to each contestant's throat. OK, said her coach after a heated argument, so…
esiegel | March 28, 2008I remember being a kid and taking karate lessons. How cool was it to go somewhere for the purpose of learning how to kick ass? It was fun, of course, and one of the things you learned how to do was to attack (strike, kick, and punch) with your entire body, not just with your limbs.
Maybe the coolest parlor trick we learned was how to break a wooden board with our bare hands. (I remember surprising the hell out of Leon Hodge years later in High School by doing it in a history class one day; Hi Leon!) We also heard the story that the way this worked was that you compressed air molecules so much…