Announcing Community Contest Winners (May 8th)

We’ve arrived at the moment of truth and I want to give a big thanks to everyone for participating. It was a great pleasure for me to start up giveaways on this site and I hope to do plenty more in the future (with new and interesting ways to win).

I’d also like to extend a thank you to Karate Depot for being a great sponsor and hooking up our winners with some cool prizes.

The winners were selected at random using my randomization program (developed just for this purpose). For the comment prize, every comment submitted by you got you one entry into the pool. For the Facebook prize, being a fan of the Facebook page got you a single entry.

No, without further adue, The winner of the Comment Prize and new owner of a pair of Discipline Martial Arts Shoes ($50 retail):

Congratulations Mike Oliveri! You’ve been a killer commenter so you definitely deserve the win here. Thanks to all the other commenters too, I’ll get you in a future giveaway!

The winner of Facebook Contest and the new owner of the KD Elite Double Sided Focus Target ($30 retail):

Congrats to Christopher Lee! Who knew Facebook could be so lucrative, haha.

I’ll be in touch with the winners shortly to collect the necessary information. Should either of them decide to decline the prize, I’ll alert a newly drawn winner.

Thanks again to everyone for playing and being involved, and I’ll see you around tomorrow for a brand new post!

Matt

The Mafia vs The Yakuza

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm………

The game seems to have changed. Gone are the days of predominant hand to hand combat. What we have here is a whole different realm of taking people out.

The Mafia vs the Yakuza – not sure which way I’m going to go for this one. I bet on the wrong horse last week (the knight), making me 2/3.  I can’t afford to go 2/4! With that in mind, let’s take a look at what I consider an obvious issue with this episode.

Aren’t the Weapons Basically the Same?

I understand that there are technical differences between the guns available to both societies, but weren’t they really close?

I suspect that both parties will be utilizing a machine gun, a sidearm, and a short range stabbing weapon. From what I can tell, the mafia will be using the Tommy gun and an ice pick.

Will the Yakuza be utilizing a katana? As I understand it, the katana was more ceremonial amongst their ranks.

Unfortunately my knowledge of Japanese culture doesn’t extend into guns, and there is very little information online about it. It seems to me like this episode might devolve into a comparison of hardware capability, rather than warrior skill+weapon effectiveness. Who knows, I could be wrong.

One thing I am willing to say though is that guns seemed much more available to the mafia. The yakuza had to import a lot of their equipment, where the mafia had quick access to American made firearms. That means they would get the chance to be much more selective about the quality of their guns.

Quick Cultural Note

Did you know that the Yakuza made the bulk of their profit running prostitution rings? It’s true! They augmented that with drug running and business extortion. The mafia on the other hand dipped more into alcohol (and later drugs), and racketeering.

Decisions, Decisions…

This is tough. On one hand I think the mafia is going to have an edge when it comes to quality of firearms. On the other hand, if the yakuza are granted their katana, they will have a distinct advantage at short range.

Ultimately, I see this as a major long range battle. Who can do the most damage with the most accuracy from a distance. That’s why, based off of supposition and limited information, i’m going to make my guess for the mafia.

How about you?

If you know more about these guns and crime organizations, please include something in the comments section! Not only do I want your input for this one, I need it!

Demotivational Posters for Martial Artists

It’s friday so I’d like to leave you with something a little fun for the weekend. Have you ever heard of demotivational posters? They are spoofs of the original motivational posters that had impressive pictures and inspirational slogans.

Demotivational posters have gotten popular and have even branched out into martial arts. The following are some of my favorites. Enjoy!

Posters Inspired By the Martial Arts

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