I'd have thought episiotomies a better parallel, but I'm not looking at it from all the way outside.

No, I'm pretty sure I feel this way when episiotomies are discussed too.

WTF do I do?

put some dye inthe tank ( watercolor /wasable) and leave it alone for awhile - if the puddle is colored that would be a clue.

Is that shot legal in TKD tournaments? We have a fair number of people (male) that complain about groin shots, and think fights would be better without them. And this is even over the liver shot, which they cop to being more painful. And it's even more prevalent among those (male) who come from different arts, where they never had to think about it.

No, it's not. But his first martial art (of many) was karate where it is legal.

In pure TKD, punches to anywhere but the body are also illegal. But the only thing pure TKD about our school are the forms. Everything else borrows from TKD, Karate, Muay Thai, and boxing for striking arts, and judo, jujitsu, and hapkido for grappling. Plus, one of the instructors has been taking Krav and incorporating it into the other lessons as well as running a special class for it.

Invalid targets for sparring are the face (because broken noses are no fun) and the legs (because they don't anyone getting their knee blown out/shattered/insert bad thing here.)

Never been hit in the liver (that I know of) and don't really think I'd like to be. Sparring with no groin, however, seems silly, since it's such an obvious and tempting target.

I'm pretty sure I feel this way when episiotomies are discussed too.

Hmm. I don't see a parallel between the pain of one and the foreign mundanity of the other - where do you draw it?

This is what the men feel like when the women are discussing bras and tampons, isn't it?

Dana just made me spit Sprite all over the desk.

I took a vigorous 9-foot fibreglass spear shot to the inner upper thigh one Lilies War a few years ago, and realized it felt weird. As I walked off the field, and my (tired, overheated) brain was doing the math, the nearly-crushed-testicle realization caught up with me. To my best recollection, that's the only time I've been in armour without a cup in fifteen years of fighting.

Yikes.

No cups in soccer though, you just get booted in the nuts a lot.

I'm not sure I understand this. People intentionally hit you in the nuts if you're wearing cup?

::loves bon just a little bit more::

I'm all for the bon bon love, but I get nothing for being the bearer of good news?

::loves Cindy 4EVaH!!1!::

where do you draw it?

I wince and thinking about reading something else whenever they're discussed.

Never been hit in the liver (that I know of) and don't really think I'd like to be

Oh, you'd know. I've been tapped in the liver, and I had to take a moment and contemplate my mortality. Jumping spinning back kick, to boot. Stupid hyper-talented no-good sparring partner. Even holding a focus mitt in front of it to let your partner get the punch angles right is an un-fun experience (though I try -- I really do -- but they only get one try and then it's back to the more mundane).

Invalid targets for sparring are the face (because broken noses are no fun) and the legs (because they don't anyone getting their knee blown out/shattered/insert bad thing here.)

While we don't compete, everything's good for us -- as long as you don't blow joints out. Not quite any precise rules, but injuring your partner is severely frowned on. We've only had the one broken nose recently (and he ducked into it), and no blown joints that I can remember. Legs and faces are popular targets. But if you go for the knee or deliver strikes to the head you can't pull if they're going to hit bone, you'll also become rapidly ... unpopular. And there are myriad reasons to not want to be an unpopular sparrer.

I wince and thinking about reading something else whenever they're discussed.

Fair enough. It hadn't occurred to me that men would wince at bras.

It's HST - Harmonized Sales Tax.

I'm picturing a tax on barbershop quartets.

My karate instructure used to say that getting kicked in the balls wasn't all that big a deal, once you'd had it happen to you several times and realized it wasn't going to kill you. I have no way to verify this statement, although I can say that shots that would have put me down early in my training I was able to shake off later.