If you are looking for a great representation of a Japanese katana, or what is commonly referred to as a “samurai” sword then this 40 Inch Gold Japanese Katana Sword w Dragon Tsuba and Scabbard is a very good choice. A katana is a moderately curved sword that has a slender, single-edged blade with a circular or square-shaped hand guard (tsuba) plus a long grip so it can be wielded with both hands when needed.

Typically, katanas possess lengths greater than 60 cm or 23.6 inches long. These swords have a reputation for being extremely sharp and lethal. Since it has been historically associated with the Japanese warrior class called the Samurai, the sword has become known by this name in the West.

Medieval Knights or Gunslingers

Although the Samurai can be traced back in time to the late 1300s, their existence was little known in the West until the age of European exploration began. Since then, the Samurai, who follow the Bushido, a code that typifies the philosophy of the “Way of the Warrior,” have been looked upon in the West like Medieval knights and at the same time like the tales of gunslingers that sold their skills to whoever paid the price in the days of the lawless Old West in America.

In fact, for some time in the late 50s and 60s, American movie audiences embraced many Oriental cinematic productions reflecting the tales and lives of the Japanese Samurai with a great deal of emphasis placed upon choreographed sword fights. When the katana became the weapon of choice during the warring days in feudal Japan, it was worn with the blade face up so its bearer could quickly withdraw it from the scabbard and strike a target and as quickly return it to its resting place.

Although this movement had been perfected for centuries before the western portions of the United States were visited and the emergence of a gunfighter anti-hero occurred, the Samurai’s sword-drawing movement was reminiscent of a shootout in the Old West.

Weapons as Art

Just like many gunsmiths in the West went to great lengths providing not only an efficient weapon when designing a gun but also works of art, sword makers also produced fabulous works of art, particularly in the design of the katana’s tsuba, or hand guard.

These hand guards started out as a practical component that aided in weapon control as well as protecting the wielder’s hands. It was for preventing the user’s hand from sliding onto the highly sharpened blade when thrusting at an opponent as well as protection against the opponent’s blade striking the hand.

Great Sword Features

This 40 Inch Gold Japanese Katana Sword w Dragon Tsuba and Scabbard includes an overall 27.5 inch blade size with a 10.5 inch handle made from imitation fish skin along with a dragon decorated hand guard (tsuba).

Just like in real world combat participants in airsoft battles prefer to have a side arm with them in case their main weapon fails or they run out of ammunition. One of the more popular side arm choices is the M9 airsoft gun. Below we will talk about one of the best m9 airsoft pistols on the market today, the SRC SR92 gas blow back pistol.

Why This Is Such a Great Side Arm

To Start of with is the price, this pistol can be found online for around $102. While it is true there are cheaper pistols on the market none will match the performance and quality that the SR92 has. In fact it rivals weapons costing twice as much! Lets look a t some of the features packed into this fine weapons.

• 6.04 Tight Bore Barrel
• Efficient Gas Usage
• 21 Shot Magazine
• Full Metal Construction
• Realistic Field Strip Capabilities
• Double and Single Action Firing
• Includes Hard Plastic Carrying Case

Looking At The Performance Of The SR92

This is where this gun really shines. To begin with the SR92 will easily shoot 325 FPS using.2 gram BB’s with the hop up adjusted. This is a great performance number from a green gas powered pistol. Secondly the 6.04 mm tight bore barrel makes this a very accurate weapon out to 70 feet. This makes it a very effective close and mid range weapon.

It is also very gas efficient and consistent through a magazine. The first shot will be the same speed as the first and there will plenty of gas left over to lock the bolt back after the final shot. In fact in our testing we were able to shoot a entire magazine then reload and refire about 19 additional rounds. However the performance started to degrade after about 10 shots as the gas started to run out. This is unheard of for most airsoft side arm pistols.

Bottom line is that if you want the best airsoft M9 pistol to give you the edge in your skirmishes you need look no further then the SRC SR92 M9 gas blow back model. It will offer you excellent performance and accuracy at a price everyone can afford.

Not all of the best anti wrinkle products have to cost a fortune, as there are many remedies that you can use which require products that you can easily get from your local grocery store without paying a lot. One of the best at home remedies that I have found to reduce wrinkles includes drinking coconut water or applying a mixture of coconut water and lemon juice to the face, resulting in smoother skin.

Coconut water is the liquid that you find inside of a young green coconut, not coconut milk. Most people prefer to use the ones with a few age spots. It has been proven to be effective at reducing wrinkles and sagging skin, as well as slowing down the aging process. Research also suggests that consuming coconut water may produce an anti-aging effect on the entire body, reducing the risk of developing degenerative and age related diseases.

What’s In It?

It is composed of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, carbohydrates, antioxidants, enzymes and other phytonutrients. It is also a great source for magnesium and calcium.

How does it help with wrinkles?

Coconut water contains plant growth hormones, particularly cytokinins. Cytokinins regulate growth and aging and they are also known as anti-aging hormones. In plants they are responsible for regulating cell division and the rate in which plants age. The good news is that they have the same anti-aging effect on human cells and tissues.

One of the main causes of wrinkles and sagging skin is due to a breakdown of connective tissues in the skin this connective tissue gives the skin its strength and elasticity.

When cytokinins are applied to the skin, they stimulate cell division of connective tissues which replaces older, damaged tissue with younger tissue. The result is that on the surface of the skin, wrinkles will begin to smooth out. In addition, dry aging skin is replaced with smoother, softer skin.In an effort to provide consumers with the best possible products, many anti aging product manufactures are beginning to add cytokinins to their creams and lotions.

Other Benefits

-Reduces age spots

-Can be used as a sports drink (for re-hydration)

-Improves circulation

-Helps balance blood sugar levels

Coconut water is inexpensive and provides numerous health benefits, if you decide to purchase from the store make sure that you visit the refrigerated section as they are perishable. Also, be sure to look and see if your anti aging products contain this wonderful ingredient.

What Dell 320-2881 has to offer?

Dell 320-2881 is pluggable which makes it possible to make the optical interface better at the end of card manufacturing. It also help assist different connector interfaces or a mix of SX and LX SFP. Now, SFP cage is a layer attached to the PCB board which accept the transceiver. This way it eliminates extra manufacturing labor and reduce the price. Dell products are one of the best products in the market today.

Various Types Of Transceivers:

Today you will find SFP transceivers which consist of single mode fiber and multimode. Now these SFP are configured with 850nm VCSEL laser on 550m multimode fiber (SX), 1310nm laser over 10km single mode fiber (LX), 1550nm laser over 40km (XD), 80km (ZX), 120km (EX or EZX) single mode fiber and DWDM transceivers. Recently the transceiver industry has developed many improvements made to the SFP MSA. It is also known as SFP+. It is designed for higher data rates, lower cost and better thermal performance. SFP+ is able to support 8.5Gbit/s and 10.52Gbit/s Fibre Channel, 10Gbit/s Ethernet (10GBase SR, LR, and LRM), SONET OC-192 (9.95Gbit/s), and G.709 "OTU-2" (10.7 Gbit/s).

Today SFP transceivers are made with different kinds of transmitter and receiver types. This way, a user gets a choice to choose the appropriate transceivers for each link which are needed for optical reach over the actual optical fiber type. Transceivers are most often classified by the standard transmission speed on the medium (e.g. 1.25 Gbit/s for Gigabit Ethernet or 10.3125 Gbit/s for 10 Gigabit Ethernet). Multinational companies need SFP transceivers because it help companies reach their objectives of broad bandwidth.

What GBIC-SHOP Offers You?

We at GBIC-Shop provide different kinds of SFP to meet customer needs. GBIC products are produced exclusively with high-quality components and achieve above-average lifetimes with high availability. If you are looking for Dell 320-2881 specifically on the internet, GBIC-de is the best place to find the best transceivers both online or in Germany. Call us on 0208 – 777 2478 – 0 to know more about our services and offers. You can call our customer care on the specified time mentioned on our website. We can appoint a customer care representative to assist you with your query. You can also ask for details of a transceiver with our representative.

One of the most frequently asked questions in the realm of self-defense training involves the use of weapons, like guns and knives, for protection. This article outlines the four areas that make up a complete defensive handgun training program.

While most people, and subsequently most programs, focus on the shooting facet of gun training, there is actually much more to the subject. Just as any solid, well-structured, and complete self-defense program should include lessons on the care, selection, and safe-use of firearms if it is really to be of service to students in today’s often violent world.

As I said, unfortunately, most so-called defensive handgun training courses only focus on shooting skills. I say “unfortunately,” because shooting skills make up only one-quarter of the overall training that you should be learning if you’re really going to be able to defend yourself in a dangerous self-defense situation involving firearms.

Before we look at what I call, the 4 Pillars of Defensive Handgun Mastery, you need to understand that, to truly be prepared – to truly be effective – when it comes to self-defense situations involving guns, there are three possible scenarios.

You could find yourself in a situation where:

• You are armed but your assailant is not
• Your assailant is armed and you are not, and…
• Both you and your assailant are armed

And, of course, each of these situations includes variables such as when the weapon comes into play, distance between attacker and defender, and many more. All of these elements should be included in your training if you’re serious about self-protection.

Keeping these three scenario-types in-mind, we can see that shooting skills, while vitally important, are not the only skills we will need if we want to survive a hostile attack. In fact, in 2-out-of-3 of the scenarios, shooting is either not an option or may not be a legally viable option.

So, what are the 4 pillars of defensive handgun training mastery that you should be focused on?

Here they are:

1. Basic skills – Weapon Familiarization

This includes skills like proper grip, sighting, loading and reloading, stances, selecting a weapon, and more. It also includes overlooked skills like drawing the weapon, dropping the safety, moving (walking, rolling, etc.) while drawing, aiming, and avoiding incoming fire.

2. Target-Hitting Skills – Shooting

This should seem fairly self-explanatory but, to be sure that I’ve covered my bases, this area also includes not only target shooting, but also skills like:

• Shooting under pressure
• Drawing and shooting
• Off-hand shooting, and…
• Firing from positions other than standard standing stances.

3. Disarming Skills – Taking the Attacker’s Weapon

One of my teachers once told me that, you don’t truly understand how to use a weapon until you know how to defend against it. This is true whether we’re talking about a knife, martial arts long staff, club, or as in this case…a handgun.

Regardless of whether you’re carrying a weapon of your own or not, it’s quite possible that you could find yourself looking down the open-end of a barrel. Knowing how to avoid being shot while negotiating with your assailant or effectively taking his weapon away from him, is a critical skill to know.

And, contrary to popular belief, disarming an attacker is 95% psychology and only about 5% physical technique. Know “when” to make your move is often more important than “how” you do it.

And finally, the last pillar of mastery is…

4. Retention Skills – Holding On To Your Own Weapon

Most people, many experts included, are under the impression that, once you pull your weapon, the attacker is going to do whatever you say. And, while this seems logical, whoever said that people under pressure acted logically?

The truth of the matter is, you have no idea what he’s thinking or what he might do when faced with the prospect of:

• Being shot
• Going (or going “back”) to jail, or…
• Loosing

So, having the ability to hold onto your weapon should he (or anyone else who might try to help him) try to take your weapon from you is very important.

As you can see, when we’re talking about weapons training for self-defense, we really have our work cut our for us. So, you have the choice of resting on theory and so-called “common-sense” or you can see that there is more to defending yourself with a firearm than simply being able to make a loud noise and have a hole appear in something.

To truly be able to handle a dangerous, life-threatening situation where a handgun is involved, you need to understand and develop the skills from the 4 pillars of mastery. That way, you wont have placed all your eggs in one basket. You will have insured that you can handle any type of situation that might arise.

Boxhead Zombie Wars is a shooter game controlled with only one stick and one button. It is currently available on the iPad, iPod, and iPhone devices for $2.99. It is the Boxhead series’ 5th installment. Before it became a popular shooter game on mobile devices, Boxhead Zombie Wars was a web game developed by Sean Cooper. The game was published by MEDL Mobile, who also published the popular Fruit Blast and Jungly Jump.

In Boxhead Zombie Wars, you shoot hoards of undead zombies on three maps with three difficulty levels. Your primary goal is to avoid getting killed by the zombies and stay alive as long as possible. The mobile version of Boxhead Zombie Wars allows you to use your own music as the game’s background music as you play. The three difficulty levels modify the quantity and speed of the zombies that attack you. Boxhead Zombie Wars offers plenty of variety on how you want to kill the hoards of zombies coming at you. The game has a total of 11 weapons. The handgun works fine if you want the game to be more challenging, but the shotgun is better for killing a bunch of zombies each shot. You can also call an airstrike to wipe out all the zombies in the field. Careful timing of the airstrike is very important if you want to stay alive in this game. You can also place barricades to manage the zombies’ path. You can also set-up some turrets that help you dispatch the nasty undead. All of the weapons need ammo except for the handgun. Health and ammo pickups regularly appear on the map.

Boxhead Zombie Wars also have Devils as the mini bosses. They can breathe fire and are very dangerous. They give a huge point boost if you manage to kill them. If you prefer to only kill zombies, you can choose to remove Devils from the game by turning them off in the options menu. There are some notable issues when playing Boxhead Zombie Wars on a handheld device. The game’s menus are a bit clunky and sometimes it does not respond to your touch. The default pause button was often unresponsive so I ended up having to use the weapons screen to pause the game. The game characters also become paralyzed for a bit when hit. This means that you can easily kill a Devil by shooting him repeatedly, or you will surely die when you’re attacked by two zombies at the same time. The game also has a few bugs. One serious bug is that the game occasionally stops after you complete a level, leaving you unable to continue the game.

Overall, the game was fun to play but the price $2.99 is a bit too much. There are a lot of better games priced at $2.99 and you can play this game for free on the web without any issues. Still, if you don’t mind a few touchscreen issues and bugs, Boxhead Zombie Wars can be a lot of fun.

‘Enters the White-Knife Alone’ is another name for this Shaolin Secret Fighting Exercise or ‘Kung’ enabling avoidance of the swords, spears and weapons of others. With mastery of ‘Qiang Dao Bu Ru Fa’/Anti-Spear and Broadsword Arts, individuals lose fear of such edged weapons and develop ability to turn these back upon their owners.

Technical Analysis

Proficiency in other Kungs before training begins is required: Arhat Arts for concentration-power and Light Body Arts for step-work, for example. Anti-Spear and Broadsword Skills, one of the few Yin Rou/Hard External examples amongst the 72 Kungs, contains elements of both key categories. It is also one of the ‘Stake Arts’.

The Internal Kung Fu skills of soft-waist and soft-legs and hand and finger skills also need developing. Most importantly, the eyes must also be trained, alongside hand-eye-body coordination (The Three Positions).

This technique’s Yin/Yang balance is subtle–outwardly dodging opponents’ violent attacks, whilst inwardly conserving energy and waiting to ‘seize the moment’. As the Shaolin Maxim says: ‘Retreat only to advance! Defence is for attack!’

Method

Stage 1: The Eyes

Failing to train the eyes adequately is a severe handicap to this Kung’s mastery. Start by counting inanimate objects: the numbers of tiles on a roof or floor, bricks in a wall and paving stones on a street or path, for instance. Practise estimating their numbers and checking your guesses, until you reach a 95% accuracy-rate.

Progress next to guessing the numbers of animate or moving objects: chickens in a coop, ducks on a pond, fish in a pond, sparrows on roofs, flies wherever and finally ants, milling on the ground in front of you, in that order. When you can count a couple of thousand of the latter within a 5% margin of error you are ready for the next stage.

Stage 2: Flower Poles Exercise

Within a carefully delimited square, erect a number of wooden and bamboo poles of varying height and thickness about one-foot apart and randomly distributed. Next, sprinkle white-lime around their base.

The student then runs side-ways through the poles avoiding touching them or stepping on the white-lime around their base. Whilst side-ways running is difficult initially, practice eventually brings proficiency. Students should avoid running is straight lines and steer a more angular course through the obstacle forest. Running speed through the poles is then gradually increased. When this can be accomplished with ease, it is time for Stage 3.

Stage 3: Sharp Points

Knives and sharp hooks are attached to the tops of poles and sharp nails and spikes lower down (sometimes ‘iron puncture-vines’ are also scattered near their base) and the student repeats the Stage 2 activities, until these, too, are easily accomplished.

Finally, the student runs through an armed group of friends or co-students, who proceed to attack vigorously with their weapons. When this can be done with impunity, the weapons seized and used against their former owners, ‘Qiang Dao Bu Ru Fa’/Anti-Spear and Broadsword Arts has been finally mastered.

Overall

The secrets behind this remarkable exercise were lost until documents retrieved in an archaeological tomb excavation revealed these anew. Such Chinese texts, frequently written on bamboo strips, are often legible many, many years later (1).

Notes

(1) For details of some nearly 2,000 year old fitting this description see ‘Master Sun: The Art of War!’ on EzineArticles.

I’m sure a lot of you remember the scene in the movie “The Presidio” were Sean Connery’s character decimates the jackass in the bar with nothing more than his thumb!

Some of you may remember Andy Adam’s book on Ninjutsu highlighting Hatsumi. Several photos showed the intense conditioning of natural weapons including the ‘boshiken” or thumb fist. One photo in particular impressed me. That showed a small flat stone being broken by a “thumb” jab.

Sykes, it has been reported, had a tremendous amount of grip and hand strength. He was apparently quite fond of the “thumb” jab. Though NOT a basic method, since conditioning over a period of time is mandatory, it still was a favored “personal” weapon of his.

Allowing the thumb to jut out along the side of the fist was a “street” tactic shown to me when I was a kid by my father and uncles. Aimed at the eyes it made that left jab a really potent weapon.

The thumb as a weapon can be used to strike, gouge and/or apply tremendous concentrated force. It is also used in many Judo/Jujutsu “shimewaza” of the “combat” variety.

Many methods employ this type of strike. The problem is CONFIDENCE in its use! Here’s a method of toughening and strengthening the “thumb” that is specific to its use in hand to hand combat:

Grab your palm sized “crushing” rock. Keep the flattest side UP. If the rock you use is TOO round, find a flatter one.

Get a THICK DENSE piece of foam as used in upholstery.

Place the rock in the middle form your “thumb jab” fist, place the pad of the thumb on the rock and PUSH. Try to push/press the rock right THRU the foam. DON’T STRIKE IT YET! Just numerous repetitions of the FORCEFUL push! Repeat it over and over. Over time you will be able to strike the rock and ram it right down fully to the bottom of the thick foam pad.

Other good exercises such as the “thumb” hook push up on bricks or cinderblocks can also be added as well as any other personal favorites, BUT the exercise as described above is about as specific to USING the “thumb” jab as you can get.

I train the thumb in several uses:

Boshiken – Thumb tip jab

Boshiken – Thumb knuckle Uechi style

Oyayubiken – Thumb knuckle fist

Tohote – Sword tip hand (thumb hook)

Dim Jeang – Palm strike with thumb jab. From Fushan Wing Chun as taught by Sifu Chong.

Ying Jow – Eagle claw with thumb crush/gouge

In Dr. Ernst Jokl’s excellent treatise on the scientific and medical aspects of boxing blows, he describes the “old” street fighter’s trick of jabbing the extended thumb into the carotid and causing a knockout. He also details some “jiu-jitsu” blows with the edge of hand.

All of the foregoing weapons can be trained on the makiwara. Just start EASY. And………………keep a bottle of “New Skin” handy.

Here’s another “good” one: Get a cinder block. Place it long ways in front of you. Open hands, and “hook” thumbs in openings on each end of block. Apply OUTWARD pressure with THUMBS ALONE and lift AND HOLD. Repeat several dozen times.

Also any king of “pinch” grip work is also great!

Copyright 2003 thetruthaboutselfdefense.com

Account bound items are just one of the many improvements/additions to be included in the latest World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King.

Let’s face it, every single World of Warcraft universe addition has brought with it the age old question – “will there be new items or weapon content to match?”. If you look at it in the cold light of day, you will see that there are thousands of different items, weapons and armor pieces already available.( Granted, the rarity has already forced the prices of many of these items through the roof).

The arrival of Wrath of the Lich King has been no exception to the great question, and the buzz (as with any great game) is, once more, well and truly up and running. However, this time there appears to be significant substance to the speculation, with the introduction of Heirloom Items to the game. This is a significant event, being the first new classification of items for some considerable time, and will, no doubt, change the way many players approach the game.

These Heirloom Items are denoted by yellow text and will scale in power as you level up; they can be purchased with your Emblems of Heroism for heroic instances and 10 man raids.

Interestingly, the new Heirloom Items do not actually bind to your character, but to your account, which means that you are able to mail it between multiple characters on your own account ( but not to others’). If nothing else, this will allow more versatility with how you choose to distribute your gear.

These Heirloom Items will be faction vendor rewards; however, reports have come in that they have actually shown up in the occasional loot table (though this has yet to be confirmed).

For the most part, these account bound items are not necessarily expected to be as incredibly powerful as their counterparts at the highest Epic level at Level 80, but they will prove to be among the best at any given level they scale; on par with, or above, almost any twink gear from level 10 to 70. If you are going to be leveling up a new character, having a BtA item on your account to send them could be a major boon.

When boomerangs are mentioned, often people think of Australia. However, these amazing sticks actually predate Australia, having been found in Ancient Egypt and throughout Europe. “The famed King Tutankhamen of Egypt had an extensive collection of boomerangs over 2000 years ago.” Australian boomerangs are the most famous since they are the best preserved specimens, some of which are ten thousand years old. The oldest boomerang found was in Olazowa Cave in Poland. Made out of a Mammoth tusk, it is has been dated to be about 30,000 years old.

Historians are not sure when the first boomerangs were developed, since they require careful construction to get the delicate balancing right so the stick will return. They speculate that the flat throw stick used by early hunters was the ancestor of the boomerang and accidentally “discovered” by a hunter fine-tuning his throw stick, probably somewhere in the Orient. Not only used for hunting, the boomerang was a useful weapon for ancient cultures that had yet to invent bows and arrows. There is historical evidence of the Greeks using boomerangs as weapons, called “clavas” or “stick”, it was even used by the mighty Hercules in the ancient stories. The Romans used spears instead of boomerangs, but they have records of fighting against the Gauls and Teutons (considered the French, Spanish, and Germanic people.)

Historically and currently, boomerangs have been used for combat. Often a combat boomerang is not intended to return to its user, instead it is used as a club or basic throwing stick much like the ancient cultures first used it. Often boomerangs were considered a “weapon of the gods” and many cultures from the ancient Babylonian kings to Brazilian sorcerers have used them as “royal badges and signs of favor from the gods.”

According to Wikipedia, “Boomerangs can be variously used as hunting weapons, percussive musical instruments, battle clubs, fire-starters, decoys for hunting waterfowl, and as recreational play toys.” Almost any material can be used to make a boomerang. Wood, metal, carbon fiber, plastic, and ivory are all just a few of the textiles boomerangs have been made from. In 1997 the smallest boomerang was thrown by Sadir Kattan for the Australian National Boomerang Championships. It measured 1.8 inches long and 1.77 inches wide and flew a distance of sixty-five and a half feet before returning. The largest boomerang was made by Gerhard Walter of Austria in 2008 and was named the “Flying Bigfoot – Highlander.” This boomerang measured 8.49 feet and flew over twenty-five meters.