parakkum

For Tim:

Yellow Bamboo training, which promises to teach you how to repel threatening people with spiritual energy (and imparts money-making secrets -- it's very comprehensive).

A supposed demonstration of deflecting attackers with spiritual energy.

...and, finally, two BJJ guys [link killed for becoming NSFW] totally tooling up two would-be practitioners of this mystical art.

I'll stick with my jiu jitsu skills.

Bullshido is a martial arts site devoted to sports martial arts practitioners, with a strong bent against unverifiable claims and hack instruction. They have a particularly interesting FAQ which touches on why they think sport/competition training is superior to many kinds of "street" training.

More in the extended.

www.bjj.org contains a DB tracking the "training lineage" of practioners, that is, who learned from whom.

My old BJJ teacher, Roy Harris, is listed. Turns out I was two steps removed from a Gracie.

Roy is an excellent teacher, able to explain techniques and how they fit together, and covering just enough new material in each class, reinforced with drills and open practice.

Appropriately enough, ESPN is showing kickboxing right now.

My recent martial arts-related reading has given me a new perspective on why I did or didn't like different classes and groups I've participated in over the years. With that in mind, some thoughts on training over the years...

Big chunk o' notes in the extended.

As mentioned over in decaffeinated, today was a Kendo day. It was also my first day of fully gearing up, including wearing the men, or helmet and face protector.

First impression: I'm deaf in that thing. And I have tunnel vision.

We did a lot of kirikaeshi, which amounts to organized hitting each other in the head -- or, sometimes, in the side, and occasionally on the wrist. After some initial confusion on my part, I got into the groove and was no longer trying to move when I wasn't supposed to, or vice versa.

After today, I have a new appreciation for what a thrilling experience trying to fight in heavy armor must have been, just purely on the level of being unable to see or hear anything around you.

Yesterday's Kendo practice included my first sparring match. I was paired up with someone a touch bigger than me, and it went down rather like this:

1) We charge each other
2) We charge each other
3) Sensei pulls us both aside and tells us to relax and remember to just do what we do in normal practice
4) Big guy hits me on the head
5) Repeat

Afterward, a different instructor gave me some pointers on actually deflecting and delaying attacks from my opponent until I like the situation. Overall, a good experience; I thanked my partner for the match. He said he was happy to go up against someone with some strength -- as a beginner, we tend to end up paired up with kids a lot, and even if a kid is technically more competent, it's just hard not to knock someone around when they weigh half as much as you do.

This marks my second week of blistering my left (trailing) foot in Kendo class. Whereas last week I managed to not notice the forming and breaking of a blister, this week the new one hurt enough that I was pretty much done after the match. I'm sure I'll callous up after a while.

One recurring theme in my current kendo practice is that folks -- our big folks who can get away with it, especially -- don't commit. Kendo, as in other martial arts, gymnastics and probably life in general, includes many things that just don't work if you don't commit. If, for example, you are trying to strike men (the head) and attempt to do so by leaning forward rather than driving your whole body forward, you are likely to both miss and be hit in turn.

Or, as our instructor emphasized, just miss and look stupid.

Of course, the difficulty in committing is the fear of getting hurt on the way in (perhaps very literally, as in kendo). To that end, here are my instructor's words of wisdom on that topic:

"If you're going to die, die looking cool! Don't die looking like an ass!"

There you go. Motivational.

Kendo has its own (Japanese) vocabulary. Some terms, chiefly for my benefit, in the extended.

I picked up my own set of armor (bogu) for kendo yesterday. I'm quite pleased with it -- the headgear (men) feels good, the chestplate is comfortable. The gloves still need to be broken in. I spent the entire workout trying very hard to keep my hands closed on my shinai, as the gloves really wanted to stay open. The sensation eventually returned to the ends of the fingers on my left hand later on after workout.

Now that I'm all geared up, I can go back to concentrating on integration -- that is, moving forcefully as I strike and covering a lot of ground in the process.

After my workout finished last night, I spent some time watching the more advanced folks spar. Watching the head instructor and one of the senior instructors spar was oddly like watching Obiwan and Vader duel.

(As Littlestar will tell you, this shows I'm a huge geek.)

I'd like to spend more time practicing Kendo, both to be good at it and to get some more exercise. But at the end of the work day, there are generally other things I'd rather be doing (e.g. hanging out with littlestar). Previously I've considered waking up an hour early every so often to work out, but that didn't appeal much either. This morning, I did a test-run on the compromise -- waking up twenty minutes early /every/ morning and practicing.

I think this is the best method -- rather than the kick in the stomach of losing an hour of sleep, I just shave off a third of that. Then I can wander outside to the nice parklike environment (or even park environment -- since I'm next door to one) and practice for 15-20 minutes. That way I start the day energized by the exercise and feeling good about things, and I'll have the valuable training experience of practicing every day.

And so far, I don't seem to have weirded out the morning walkers in the park too much, either.

...is not the usual thing you expect to hear from someone who fell of their bicycle.

Recently, Littlestar and I picked up lovely new Trek hybrids (7300s) with the intent of doing more riding and less driving for local errands, and for fun. She just got hers, but I've had mine for a little while and, shame on me, did not practice on it.

This matters, inasmuch as I am not at all good on a bicycle. I had one fairly briefly as a kid, but my neighborhood, by reason of steep hills and fast cars, was not bike-amenable. So as it happens, me on bike with loaded panniers equals unbalanced. As we were riding, I caught myself pitching to the left and, deciding that hitting the part of the street cars use was bad, leaned back to the right (still falling, but now not in front of any cars).

I was happy that, without thinking, I did a perfect softroll out of a fall. I stretched clear of the bike, my right hand touched down, then I rolled up my right arm, over my back, to a soft stop on my left side. Nice to know that I still have all that ingrained in me.

So, while feeling duly foolish for not having practiced with my lovely new bike, I'm happy that I still have all those reflexes I trained in from martial arts over the years. Other than one tiny scratch, I'm completely fine. But no more panniers full of stuff until I've practiced more.

On the train this morning, I heard a classic exchange between two women (and it's always two women).

The first one mentioned something about picking up a self-defense item -- I think it was pepper spray. Her friend responded with that ancient bit of folk wisdom:

"You shouldn't do that. It can be taken away from you and used against you."

Who invented this atrocious piece of poor advice? Was it some guy who felt women shouldn't know how to fight, or just couldn't be bothered to explain how a knife or other weapon worked?

Think of it this way. All things being equal, this idea suggests that the world is a place where anyone is in danger the moment they pick up any weapon, because it might be "taken away and used against them." Does that strike you as sane? Try putting it in context:

The Scene: June 14, 1994. Allied forces continue to advance into Western Europe. A small patrol of American troops happen to run across a downed German pilot wandering the countryside.

Sgt Jones: Private Smith! Capture that man!

Pvt Smith: I can't, sir. It's just too terrifying.

Sgt Jones: What are you on about, Smith? He's unarmed!

Pvt Smith: I know, sir. But he might take my rifle away from me and use it against me!

Silly, right? Right.

So we don't live in that world. Soldiers use guns, because they are a tool that gives you a huge advantage in a fight. The risk is not in having the weapon taken away from you; it's in not having brought a weapon when the other guy remembered to bring his.

So what's that advice about, then?

The message of this advice is that you, the woman who is being told this, are so helpless that there's just no point in trying to equip yourself with some self-defense item. A taser, pepper spray, a knife -- it won't help. It'll be taken away from you, and you'll lose. The core message there is you are a victim, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Makes you a little angry, right?

It's bundled in with other winners like "Don't fight back, it'll only make things worse."

Here's an alternative message:

Pick up some pepper spray, a taser, a knife or other device if you feel like it. Learn how it works, learn its limitations, and have a backup plan. Do fight back, because it's a proven fact that fighting back doesn't "make it worse". In fact, in the specific case of sexual assault, women who try to fight (and you don't have to be any kind of expert at all!) successfully avoid rape much more often than those who don't try to fight.

I'm looking forward to a world where women are not handed an issue of Cosmo that explains their deficiencies while their friends tell them they're helpless.

That, if you don't recognize the name, is the Green (and later White) Ranger from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.