Drunken Monkey

not sure yet. i'm trying to find somewhere that the girl i mentioned in the other thread hasn't been yet... right now, it's a tie-up between reykjavic (super cool land of fire+ice!) or lisbon/cascai/estoril (my old stomping grounds...). i wanna do something special before she moves back home all of 70 miles away. it's not far but i kinda feel like i'm gonna 'lose' her... y'know, she might not see me as anything other than a friend but i sure as hell aint gonna let her forget me! damn.... oh yeah, while i'm on an open mood, my first two interviews have gotten back to me saying 'no thank you....' got one more place to get back to me. in the mean time, i think it's time to start cold calling about the CVs i sent.

everyone. go find a copy of 'grave of the fireflies' now. you might find it titled 'tomb of the fireflies'. in any case go watch it. i challenge you NOT to cry.... go, NOW!

...you do not know the meaning of 'bad film' until you have witnessed some of the offerings that come from hk....

....yeah but what you gonna do? go hunt that target? you hit what is available. it might be a head target, it might not. of course you can make it available but that's a different matter. anyway. let's see, the famous scottish technique the 'nut'. it will almost always break the receiver's nose on connection. it doesn't always stop the fight. while we're on the subject of favourite technique, my current favourite is to 'tie up' the arms (or open them depending on what's going on...) then just walk forward with front covering elbow high to either rip across throat or across jaw. lots of follow ups possible. or leading them to my outside gate then stepping in close to get my hand on their forehead to unbalance and to reveal throat as a target. still can't believe it's a one-step move. it takes 'two beats' so it's easy to interrupt though... been working on my closing of gaps/distances recently, in case you haven't figured....

ninjas? nah.... it'd go against my chinese background. besides, the proper triad way is to attack them in broad daylight. with plenty of witnesses. that way, people know who you are and what you would do. then they will learn not to mess around. sorry. i'm getting carried away now.... been a long day.

...stances are transitional, not fixed. think of them as how to place your feet whilst moving rather than singular, stationary positions. the one you described is basically a step forward. lets just say you are in a normal stance (let's just say bow and arrow, left foot forward). you've made an extension/technique with your left hand and wish to keep the pressure on. therefore you can take a step with your right foot whilst keeping upper body exactly the same. this would put your feet as you described. it allows you to then advance position whilst maintaining a covering position+forward pressure, as well as putting you in position to kick. if your friend can't move, then he is doing it wrong. if he is doing them wrong and yet feels like he can 'show you how it's done', i think you should think twice about taking advice from him...

...recently i've been gorging myself on travel books, namely lonely planet and time out guides. ahem, guess what i'm planning......

..what? you mean you don't get injuries every lesson? blood was a regular occurance at my wing chun. i guess it's part of how the style works; y'know, sometimes you just walk forward to gain position and somehow elbow seems to meet face...

...that's why i said the only government input i wouldn't mind seeing was them legalising kick door. anyway. i get sued? i beat the crap out the lawyer who represented the plaintiff. then i go and beat up his wife (or her husband). then i go beat up their children. and their parents. and their parents' friends...... and when they lock me up? another of my kung fu brothers will take my place. then when i get out of prison, i go find that lawyer again.... soon, lawyers will know not to take them cases. and IF they are also 'martial artists', then they will know better than to mess with this kind of affair. damn.... looks like i'm turning martial arts schools into triad schools again... looking beyond the extreme actions mentioned, i really think the only people who can regulate are the people who are involved. we all say we hate mcdojos and what have you but honestly, what have any of us done about them? how many of us have gone into one such establishment and told the students they are being ripped off? how many of us have gone into a known place of bad teaching and said, 'this is wrong'? only we[i/] can put a stop to it. self regulate. kick door.

The 1980's - the decade that taste forgot not quite. i like to think of it as the decade that taste ignored...

yeah..... 'banana' and two great big walnuts.

...not my idea. well, the 'kick door' concept, power struggles aside, was basically self regulation. you have school A and school B, both teach different styles and both are 'legit' schools. both have visited each other and test each other. both teachers have beaten the crap out of each other. because of this 'discussion' both people understand what each style has to offer. of course, behind closed doors there will still be the 'mine is better' being said but there is also going to be respect. then a new school that teaches style A opens nearby. teacher a visits school A2 to see who he his, where he came from (a chinese custom). now, IF school A2 is legit, there would be harm in students meeting and training at each establishment every now and then (friendly meeting of hands). IF school A2 is bogus, then the meeting of students would/should show things as they are. sometimes, if any dispute between styles (in terms of 'superiority', technique etc etc) arises, a challenge would be issued and the fight would be used to settle the martial art matter. this is how things worked. yes, the challenges were often thinly veiled attempts at proving one is better than the other but then again, you didn't hear many of the big famous schools being challenged that often... the actual 'kick door' is actually a very serious situation. 'kick door' basically means 'to destroy the school. to go down that route means to once and for all, finish the matter. it is, retribution of the highest order in terms of martial arts schools. say a bad thing without proof, lie, cheat, insult, teach badly and you have to fear the martial arts community coming to kick your door down. i know what i have typed here are very simplistic and more or less an ideal case scenario but the basic idea is easy to grasp and it doesn't give any opportunity for bad schools to last that long. but then again, any system can be abused.... what's to stop the bad mcdojo from taking a band of 100 students to kick door at a legit school with 10 students?

....could you stop pointlessly replying in your own thread. it's very, very annoying.

life of pi rocks... hmm, those four words could almost mean just about anything.... anyway. nyone here read perfume but patrick suskinde?

.....i feel the need.....

leaving las vegas was pretty realistic.... how about requiem for a dream? ok, they're also very grim films but the portrayal was horribly real, wasn't it?

i would've thought that taking of moves and applying the kenpo way to them would just make it kenpo again. i mean, isn't it the kenpo way? to take theories and movements and to 're-form' them into 'new' movements that are alive and adaptive to situations?

......i'm still confused over why a thread needed to be made about this. while i appreciate that (almost) good debate has arisen, the simple answer, and don't forget that what we face in our training with respect to rules etc may not be the same as what you face, would be gotten by asking your sensei. anyway. ask yourself why do you wish to wear make up? or more precisely, why can't you remove the make up, especially if you know it to be a contentious issue? (or is this the actual question you are asking?) i don't see this to be any different to the kid who refuses to change into street clothes to go home two streets away, even though there are thugs hanging around. then he wonders why he gets picked on.... i remember something in karate about essence, about purity. in the dojo, quan, training hall, i believe there should be no adornment. there should be nothing to recall what/who we are outside those walls. a banker can train with a police officer, a refuse collector, a carpenter, a pole dancer, a bodyguard or even a humble architecture student. everyone is equal. make up, like it or not sets you out, not to mention it is an 'excess'. think about the gi that you wear. what does it mean? what does it represent? what does it say? then think about whether or not make up fits in with the ideals of the gi.

...sledgehammer? what sledgehammer? oh, that thing in my pocket, that ain't no sledgehammer.....

..so does being a martial artist involve being a good person, leading a good and honest life? i thought that was part of being a decent human being.... in any case, if being better than yourself and being a good honest person and all that what a martial artist is then bruce lee doesn't qualify....

the only time i have seen 'nerve cutting' is in fantasy books (some of which have been made into films). oops, i think i just answered another little question there....

ahhh, but they'd both have good 'kung fu'..... not that 'kung fu' necessarily meant 'martial art' but i think i've mentioned that enough times before....

okok, maybe industry was the wrong word.... i meant market....

...well, i just said wing chun cos that's my base. i mean, some of the things you've mentioned before; i could've replaced the kempo terms and inserterd wing chun moves and it would still be 'correct'. i'm pretty sure the same could be said by any other styles.

it's expensive to fix a toyota? well, like i said elsewhere, i've only just realised that our car industries are too different to be able to compare things directly. let's just say, toyota is cheap with regards to all facets of upkeep over here as well as having the best after-sales care. but then cheap doesn't mean good..... the thing about costs is that their 'worth' depends on how much you earn and what you drive. i mean, the poor student who pays £30 for an oil change once a year at his garage is going to go spare when he finds out that his dream ferrari needs a £100 (not done in a garage mind you and hence much cheaper) worth of oil every 3 months.