ahhh yes, the "My Monkey love kung fu is stronger than your Funky chicken kung fu" syndrome. Hello people, love your art and respect others arts and lets get together "without" the attitude, learn a new trick or two and have some fun and some unity. Save the competition for the ring...When it comes to competition, It's not a matter of whether your art is better than mine, it's a matter whether you are better at your art than I am at mine and if you want to be better at your art, get together with folks that are studying something different and learn a few new things to incorporate into your own style.

The days of "My master can beat up your master "should" be long gone and left to cheezy kung fu movies from the early 70s.

As for a Bay Area FMA group, there are already a couple out there...the Oakland Eskrima club for example...However, for those of us who are lacking in "funds" to join a big club, lets see if there can be a little unity and start a smaller, informal gathering of east bay FMAers for knowledge trade and general training and practice...that would fantastic. I only wish I could be there to join in but I have gone and moved out of state and there is NO ONE here that does FMA to my knowledge and those that do anything similar have stupid rules about being of x rank in an "empty hand" art BEFORE being allowed to train with weapons....damn!