You Might Be A Martial Artist If...

• You find yourself casually standing in a half cat stance.

• You trip, go into a roll and come up in a fighting stance. In church.

• You answer your boss Ossss.

• You put your hands together in a martial arts bow position (one hand open the other closed) after grace at the dinner table.

• You tie your bathrobe belt in a square knot. Then check to make sure the ends are exactly even.

• You accept change from the cashier using a perfect knife hand with the thumb carefully tucked in.

• Every time you handle a screwdriver or razor knife, etc., you just can't help changing grip from hammer to reverse to flip over to dagger grip etc. And your shop help is standing cautiously far, far away from you.

• When you're outside doing landscaping/gardening you "practice" with all the neat weapons.

• The first word out of your parrot's mouth is KIAI! and you teach your cat how to free spar.

• You have more bruises than a roller derby queen, and you still go back for more.

• You shut the refrigerator door with a side thrust kick.

• You shop for clothes based on whether you can kick in them.

• The only clothes you'll wear are gis.

• You actually crave a beach workout.

• The books on your night stand are by authors like Gichin Funakoshi, Hirokazu Kanazawa and Musashi Miyamoto.

• The Twelve Days of Christmas becomes: one boxing bag, two boxing gloves, three shin pads (includes an extra pad for the one you'll inevitably lose), four Tokaido gi's, five rolls of adhesive tape....twelve cases of Tiger Balm.

• You look for a place to live based on the amount of practice space it provides.

• You refuse to wear shoes.

• You say to the salesman in the men's store, "Nice pants, but I don't think I can kick in them."

• You go to the shoe store to try on shoes and instead of walking or jogging around the store, you practice pivoting, sweeps, stances and kicks; you check to see if the shoe has a sufficiently hard striking surface and whether it protects the toes well and lastly, you don't even care if (and they probably are) the other patrons are looking at you funny. (That's the big clue!).

• You hit your head on a low doorway or ceiling and kick it in anger and damage it.

• "GAK! NO! The left side of the bathrobe goes on top...."

• "What was I doing in my office when I was spinning around and flailing my arms and legs? Ahhhhhmmmmmmm....."

• You're practicing your arm blocks while driving down the highway, notice someone in another car staring at you, and suddenly turn your block into vigorously fanning away an imaginary fly.

• You use various strikes to turn lights off and on.

• You don your clothing with kicks, thrusts, and punches.

• You open and close doors with spinning kicks.

• You find yourself idly doing iaido and kenjitsu moves with the plastic knives at the fast food places.

• You can't walk by anybody else from your school without casually exchanging a flurry of mock strikes and kicks.

• You haven't gotten over the phase of seeing everybody walking around with a blanket of little red cross-hairs on all their vital spots.

• You leap to your feet and shriek with indignation while watching "Kung Fu", " Walker , Texas Ranger", and "Highlander" at home.

• You deliberately go to see martial arts movies in the theatre so you can leap to your feet and shriek with indignation during the movie, out in the parking lot, and with all your friends the next time you're at class.

• You find yourself practicing bo staff techniques in miniature with your pencil during dull meetings.

• You try to backfist the correct floor button on the inside of the elevator, based on your memory of the button's location, before you get in far enough to see it.

• You notice you never stand with your arms crossed or your hands in your pockets.

• You tend to keep at least one flavour of martial arts weapon close at hand by your bed when you sleep.

• You buy shoes either because they're particularly flexible or have steel toes.

• You have at least one fantasy where you are a martial arts hero and end the fight by saying something so cool that you make Arnold Schwarzenegger and Clint Eastwood look like nervous chatterboxes.

• You have the urge to bow every time you enter or leave a room.

• You accidentally call your favourite professors 'sensei'.

• You find yourself practicing stances while standing in lines.

• You bow going into and out of the bathroom.

• You don't use any tools while splitting firewood.

• You are introduced to someone and you bow to greet them.

• You see some wood or concrete, even things like stools or tables, and get excited while you picture just how you would go about breaking it. Then you get funny looks as you feel it and give it a look of hard concentration, then maybe measure off a few times.