Dave Newton

670 reputation

bio	website	buckybits.blogspot.com
	location	NY and NJ, United States
	age	44
visits	member for	1 year, 3 months
	seen	Mar 8 at 1:56
stats	profile views	8

Java/Ruby/Groovy generalist with background in web development, dynamic (and less enjoyable) languages, and embedded systems.

"Microconsulting" available: extremely short-term, rapid turnaround, "solve your immediate problem"-style assistance for a variety of problem types. davelnewton at gmail dot com for details, quotes, etc.

Bucky Bits (general dev blog)
Code.averse (code elegance; nascent)
@dave_newton
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	670 reputation	bio	website	buckybits.blogspot.com	visits	member for	1 year, 3 months
27 badges		location	NY and NJ, United States		seen	Mar 8 at 1:56

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55 Comments

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Mar 8	comment	What strength and conditioning exercises are used in tai chi? @DaveLiepmann My hojo undo book shows some tossing and catching exercises, IIRC-I'd have to double-check though.
Nov 20	comment	Is it true that most fights end on the ground? What is the evidence? @Sardathrion Yes, we have, and we're not particularly good at it. Most peoples' awareness of where they are in space is poor at best. And here in New Jersey, the people that tend to get in to fights tend towards top-heavy. Also, bodies in fights tend to flail, most of that flailing occurs on the top half, providing energy well above both COG and COM, further making it even worse. -1 all ya' want, but we suck at staying upright in fights.
Oct 1	comment	How long should it take to gain fighting proficiency in tai chi? Yep. And I don't like the analogy. I hope that will be okay.
Oct 1	comment	How long should it take to gain fighting proficiency in tai chi? none of which means he would win an analogy competition.
Sep 18	comment	What martial notation systems exist for describing techniques in writing? I use various home-brew, art-specific notations. I can get away with some similar notations for gross movements, but everything else is so specialized, and so personal, I'm not convinced a "universal" language would be doable.
Sep 12	comment	Octagonal vs round shaped staff weapons @MatBanik Obviously that depends on what you consider the "radius" or "diameter" of an octagon. Normally the "radius" of a regular polyhedron is measured from its center to any of its vertices (circumradius), implying an octagonal weapon would have less wood than a round one.
Sep 12	comment	What are the origins of “tricking”? I don't see how it's anything other than the natural evolution of jumping and spinning techniques, which have been around for ages. On a related side note, somebody tried a jumpy thing on me once; I put my hand on their chest while they were in the air and helped them to the ground--it was quite funny, and I looked like a superhero.
Sep 12	comment	How do I improve my jumping technique for jumping maneuvers? Plyometrics is... are? one of the best ways to improve jumping. I don't really see how you're specifically train "jumps for martial arts", although if you're specifically talking about spinning jump techniques, you'd probably want to incorporate that into the plyometrics. That said, watch out; I trained with a woman who broke her own spine doing a spinning technique :( (No paralysis or anything.)
Sep 5	comment	What are good martial arts for aging bodies? @RobinAshe It's a mix of everything, not always clear which comes from what. Some of it is definitely silat, some is definitely BJJ, some is Filipino. In terms of percentages, anything I guess would probably be wildly incorrect.
Sep 5	comment	What are good martial arts for aging bodies? @KeithNicholas The FMAs I practice includes a lot of ground work, but that's obviously style-dependent. Plus much of it is Inosanto or Canete, which isn't typical. Agreed, though, mixing it up is almost always more effective.
Aug 29	comment	Are martial arts suitable for a busy, IT professional? Will it suit your lifestyle? No clue. How much time will it take? To accomplish what? Will MA bring you "peace of mind"? No clue--so might many other things.
Aug 18	comment	If I'm worried about concussions, should I train tae kwon do, or karate, or neither? Depends on the gong fu school; both of mine are pretty traditional in terms of what they teach, but my normal "SD is not MA" disclaimer applies just the same :/ Some wrestling teams will still let you on the team w/o comp prep, but they're all different..
Aug 18	comment	Are martial arts practice weapons regulated? Knife laws can depend on the city, too. Blade size matters. "Purpose" of knife matters, e.g., walking around with a karambit may be viewed differently than a wooden-handled Schrade. Wave-style openers matter.
Aug 16	comment	Where can I find or how can I make a tailored white dogi for women? They're a pain to sew, though, unless you have a fairly burly sewing machine. You may need to take the foot off for collar/seam work as well.
Aug 15	comment	Should political/religious discussions be allowed inside the training place? "Should"? Who is the arbiter? What's the context? Which MAs use politics and/or religion as part of their training? I don't understand the question.
Aug 15	comment	How do you prepare for the stress of a real self-defense situation? @Lohoris "I'd rather be tried by twelve than carried by six" is the US version.
Aug 14	comment	How do you take Notes on techniques you've learnt in class? @eidylon Gathering, tracking, recalling, etc. info is a bit of a hobby, and it's at least part of what I do as a programmer. The MM interface is a gutted FreeMind, although when I'm done about the only thing left from it will be the renderer. Search is built on a variety of autocompletes (work in progress), Lucene/Solr, some clustering/similarity stuff that I'll switch to Mahout. Wiki right now is XWiki but I don't know how long that will last. Will use Alfresco for XMS. Goal is to make weaving info from disparate sources intuitive and fast, and be able to retrieve/view same in a unified way.
Aug 14	comment	How do you take Notes on techniques you've learnt in class? @DaveLiepmann Our school teaches the Dan Inosanto curriculum. S/T ratio varies pretty wildly, I've had a few classes where it's just me, assistant instructors, and the head instructor. Larger classes might have a ratio closer to 1/6-1/10 depending on the class and day.
Aug 14	comment	How do you take Notes on techniques you've learnt in class? @eidylon I use a variety, including Evernote, but most things end up in a fairly-heavily customized wiki with a variety of front ends that include a mind mapping interface and a very configurable search/autocomplete mechanism.
Aug 9	comment	What do I need to keep in mind when picking a martial art as a bouncer? You don't want a martial arts class, you want specific training. Bodyguard, LEO-oriented suspect control courses, etc. would be substantially more useful.