At some point, I’ve heard that if you become a certain level in karate then you would need to register your hands and/or yourself as a deadly weapon. I was pretty sure that this was an old wive's tale, but wasn’t positive since so many people mention it when we talk about being in karate. One day while discussing the grading and what happens when people become black belts, our family started to play around with the concept of registering yourself as a deadly weapon. It went something like this…
We went down to town hall and asked where we need to register. The receptionist asks, “Oh, do you want to register to vote?” She said with a smile.
In response, I said, “No, we all need to register including the kids.”
“Ah, you have a pet to register,” she said confidently.
“No, no, we did that last month for our dogs.”
“Ok, you must be talking about registering your car in which case you’ll need to go to the DMV?” she said a bit more warily.
“Nope, that’s not due for another 2 years,” I cheerfully said.
“Uh, I’m not sure what you want. Maybe you can explain what exactly needs to be registered,” she asked hopefully.
“Well, we need to register our hands as deadly weapons now that we are all black belts, but I would think that it would probably apply to our feet as well. They can be deadly, too.” I would explain enthusiastically.
“Oh, don’t forget about Dad’s bad body odor, that can be deadly too,” my youngest one pipes in.
“In that case, you’d better register Mom’s bottom too. When she gets that thing swinging it’s a lethal force,” the older one chimes in teasingly.
“You know. We’ll need to register your attitude as well,” I shot back at her.
“Don’t forget about little one's voice. She’s got that ear piercing scream,” my husband would point out.
“Let’s not forget about her cuteness either,” my oldest would offer. “It has been known to bring grown men to their knees.”
We all looked expectedly at the receptionist who is shaking her head mumbling, "I should have stayed home today".
I’ve done some research on the web regarding this to see if you really need to register yourself, and haven’t found any evidence that you do. However, it seems that we aren’t the only ones with an imagination on this subject. Below is a site with some hilarious commentary on the registering yourself and treating your body as a concealed weapon:
http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=55546
At this site, I found that the registering thing is just a myth and there are some other interesting Martial Arts myths de-bunked as well:
http://www.blackbeltmag.com/archives/452
Have fun with this one. We certainly did!
- Wendy Austin
If you want to see how it all began, you can go to the blogs that I wrote while being a White Belt. I've placed them in the order that I wrote them for ease of reading. To see the original comments posted by users, you'll need to go to the actual blogs.
No doubt about it. The placement of your feet in martial arts is critical. No matter if it’s during the forms or sparring. This is especially true during the different types of kicks that they teach you in karate. During the month of sparring, we were introduced to various karate kicks and how to correctly execute them. Kicks are mainly used in karate as a diversion tactic, but only if you can get them above the belt. When we first learned how to do karate kicks, I’m afraid I was doing the chicken dance instead of executing a karate kick. You know what I mean; arms flapping crazily to keep my balance, my leg only getting about a foot off the ground, and hopping around once my foot landed on the ground.
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