We have a move in a form that requires holding a hand in front of the solar plexus. One of the kids was holding his hand a little low, so I mentioned it to him.. He start hitting his chest a few times with his hand, so I laugh. "Think you got it?" He does it a few more times and starts coughing. "Ah, now you got it."

Sparring can be one of the many reasons one wants to join a martial arts school, sometimes even their only interest. Unless you join a school based on street defense, you may not do as much as you'd like. Besides, the insurances and legality issues being what they are, usually you are limited to sparring gear which lets you mostly throw punches and kicks. The teacher of a traditional school probably won't let you spar until after you get a belt or two, because you need to break in your body and the techniques you are learning – besides, you don't have enough control to know when to stop your strikes, so if your opponent fails to block, you could hurt him quite a bit.

So, you've decided to start taking a martial arts class. Good for you! Why do you want to join? Is it to fight, to learn to defend yourself, to develop self-discipline, to learn kata ('forms'), for health reasons? All of the above? For the purpose of this article (if nothing else), I will make a differentiation between a fighting style and a martial art. In a fighting style, you are learning to fight, and that is it.

codebase is like a library and a programming team is like a librarian. A good codebase is a library that uses the Dewey decimal system, and a good programming team is a librarian that knows the Dewey decimal system. Also, the Dewey decimal system is XP practices. (duh :p) As the library grows, it becomes literally impossible to find your way around without using some version of the Dewey decimal system.