First let me confess: I was one of “those people” trying to get my hands on a PS3 in hopes of making a quick grand by selling it on ebay. Love it or hate it, let’s move past that fact.

I have a life and couldn’t afford to be camping in line at Best Buy since Tuesday. So I resorted to my next best bet, a Sony store in a wealthy area of Denver.

The store is in one of those ritzy malls where people with a ridiculous amount of money go to show off what they can buy. This also means that the don’t have much of a tolerance for the type of people who camp out for a video game console. So they instituted a little rule to prevent this and uphold the image of the mall…

NO LINES for the Playstation 3 were allowed to form until 5:00am today! Doing so would result in a $600 fine. (which is ironically sill worth it as long as they didn’t kick you out of the line)

Needless to say, this “brilliant rule” was actually a perfect recipe for madness.

Arriving at 4:00am, we found a crowd of people waiting on the other side of a parking garage from the main entrance, standing safely on a public bike path while gently elbowing for good running positions. About 5 cops and another 5 mall security personnel were there attempting to organize the chaos, all the while laughing at the insanity of the crowd.

The cops told the crowd they would announce when the 100-yard dash to the waiting area (setup at the main entrance) would begin. I began to feel flashbacks of 6th grade track meets, only now I had a slight advantage as half the crowd was smoking. Suckers.

Right next to the main entrance, some smart person thought that a line made up of a piece of red tape and 2 cones was going to contain a sprinting crowd of roughly 200 people. He deserves a raise…

About 4:55am (before the cops ever told anyone they could go), the crowd began to creep just past the bike path onto some grass. It took about 3 seconds for the creep to turn into an all-out mad dash for the entrance.

Pushing, shoving, dodging cars and avoiding concrete pillars all the way to the entrance, I made it into the “line” with about 10 people in front of me! I was set. I was getting a PS3 and I had just made over $1K.

As I moved up next to the people in front of me, a wave of people (the smokers who were a bit slower) crashed through the red tape and into the line, creating what resembled a mash pit at the door. I had gone from #10 to #40 in a matter of seconds.

Those lucky enough to hold their spot were set. It’s tough knowing you’re 20 ft. away from $1,000, yet that 20 feet is full of a crowd of dudes ready to throw a punch if you so much as look at them wrong…and they’re smoking again.

The #2 guy in line sold his spot for $1,000. I’m not sure I agree with that decision, but he was back in bed before anyone else. Nothing like a hard day’s work.

Despite the rumors that the store was getting PS3 units in the “triple-digits” (apparently they weren’t just smoking cigarettes), or more realistic rumors of 30-40…they announced at 5:30am that all 14 units had been sold! 14! I can’t say I’m entirely surprised as that’s about on par with what other smaller stores received, but this is a SONY store.

Why did a Sony store get less inventory than our local Best Buy or Target?!?! Doesn’t Sony lose out on some of the margin if they sell it through a retailer rather than at their own store? This doesn’t make any sense to me.

If someone knows something I don’t, please shed some light on this subject.

Otherwise, go get a gym membership and start training for the PS4 release.

And don’t smoke, cuz you won’t beat me to the PS4 if you do.

This is almost totally unrelated to Martial Arts, but it’s about a mistake you DON’T want to make.

I love the holidays.  I already have Christmas lights up in my house.  I’ve been listening to Trans Siberian Orchestra for the past couple weeks.  And I’ve already drank a gallon of eggnog.  I love eggnog. 

Well this morning I’m working on the Experience Martial Arts website at Starbucks.  I’m planning on being here for a few hours and am so looking forward to my coveted Eggnog Latte.  When I know I’ll be sitting working for a few hours, I always order the latte extra hot for obvious reasons.

DO NOT order an Eggnog Latte extra hot.  Never never never.  You’ll end up with an egg in your cup. 

Turns out that anything hotter than a normal latte actually COOKS THE EGG in the eggnog latte!

For those of you who are avid Rocky Balboa fans, there’s no proof that drinking eggs will make you a better fighter/martial artist.  But if you want to test the theory for yourself, by all means…order it extra hot.

OK, enough rambling.  Back to business…

Well, since we’ve been in business for a few months, I haven’t really taken the time to introduce myself to all you MA bloggers. But first I want to thank all you supporters of the martial arts and ExperienceMartialArts.com. Your visits to our site is what is driving this business so far.

Now about myself. I’m basically the other half of EMA - the martial arts guru. I guess you can say I’m a Karate freak. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy other sports and activities, such as football and snowboarding, but there is just something about Karate that I truely find fasinating. But it’s not the martial (physical) that I enjoy so much as I do the art (beauty). I mean, I do like to kick and punch people in the head while training, but the art side of Karate is the most beautiful part of martial arts. I’ll save that story for another time, but like I said, I’m a Karate freak…

How I Got Started

I was the kid that would watch all those Van Damme films (when he was a huge MA icon) and other MA flicks with my folks on Saturday nights. We’d rent one of his movies and before it started I was rolling around the floor, jumping, kicking, punching, and anything I could throw that “looked” like Karate to me. My parents saw a trend, obviously… So, they bought me lessons for my 10th Birthday. I would say the rest is history, but then that woudl defeat the purpose of this blog.

I can’t quite tell you how my first class went ’cause I can hardly remember what happened a couple hours ago, let alone 15 years ago. What I can say, though, is I was like EVERY kid first starting in Karate - stoked to go to class every night. That probably kept on for about two years until I hit a burnout phase in my life. This is a pretty typical reaction to all kids and adults committed to anything for a long duration. Good thing the folks were like “we’re paying all this money… and you need to continue training”. Get the idea? So I stuck around. Good thing too, because there really isn’t anything out there that I’m truely passionate about.

The Growing Years

As I was closing in to my Black Belt test, I began to mature (physically and mentally). My interest in Karate began to grow again and a new Instructor entered my life that was and has always been very influentcial - even to this day. I was then invited to assist the school’s instructors during classes. This is when things started to change because I was leading small groups of underbelts students - under the careful guidance of the main instructors. This is where my passion for teaching started, but I can go into that some other day. I was than promoted to 1st Dan onFebruary 1993 in Wado-Ryu Karate-Do. A great accomplishment for anyone, let alone a 13 year old kid. Around that time, I was briefly flirting with Sport Karate tournaments, but nothing serious. I would attend our manadatory school tournaments regularly, but never really took it any further. I guess ’cause I didn’t know to much about them and not very many people at our school competed much.

My Early Tourney Years

I had a couple of instructors that were competing regularly at national and local tournaments around the country. After a few stellar performances at some tournaments, they got me involved a bit more by “chasing points”, kinda like NASCAR. Drivers go around the country racing at different venues while receiving points for their performance, or places they finish. Same concept for Sport Karate.

By the age of 18 I had traveld to some of the largest tournaments around the country on a couple of circuits, one regional and the other national. I was well recognized at these tournaments after awhile and began to build a reputation as a good fighter. My last year as a junior competitor I finished 2nd in Point Fighting on the national circuit. Not a bad accomplishment for traveling the circuit for about 3 years. The tough part though was jumping into the adult division…

To Be Continued…

I was having lunch with a friend of mine yesterday and he said he wanted to look into Martial Arts as he was inspired by the website I’ve been working on for the last few months. (That’s this website.)

At first I felt a feeling of accomplishment. After all, growing the sport is what we initially set out to do. Then I thought about the hundreds of hours of work that went into the website and how the only response I’ve gotten so far is one friend who is going to “look into it”. Needless to say, I was a bit discouraged.

Thinking about it some more, this relates a lot to martial arts training. You go into your first class wanting to be the next Karate Kid in a week. But it doesn’t happen overnight. It doesn’t even happen in your first 6 months. Accomplishing the large goals you first set out takes time…more time than you want it to.

Patience and perseverance are the lessons here. People who are ingrained in martial arts always talk about how their training has helped them in other areas of their life. This is a perfect example.

As much as I want to being making a difference in thousands of people’s lives by inspiring them to visit their first school, I need to face the reality that it will take time. I can’t get discouraged. I can’t give up. I need to see my goals become a reality.

Carpe Diem!