Lesser Sports...

For the record, I did wrestling, gymnastics, football, baseball, track, mountain climbing, drag racing,
...and I currently practice martial arts. I got stabbed by a sword last week.

In general I don't give a shit about professional sports, but this really cracked me up.

With that in mind, here's a great little essay from Counterpunch: March 29, 2012

The Dilettantes of the PGA
Golf is a Pussy Game by DAVID MACARAY

By all accounts, the most difficult thing to do in sports is hit a moving baseball. Virtually every sports writer who ever lived agrees with that observation. The ball is traveling at upwards of 95 mph. You’re standing approximately 60 feet away. The 5.25 ounce sphere reaches you in less than seven-tenths of a second. Sometimes the pitch curves, sometimes it sinks, sometimes it hops. You’re trying to hit a round object with a round club.

If you’re talented and fortunate enough to play in the Majors for 12-15 years, and you’re able to hit safely 3 out of every 10 times at bat, you have a good chance of not only being recognized as one of the game’s true stars, but of eventually being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Think about that. You regularly fail 7 out of 10 times during your entire career, yet you’re still celebrated as one of the greatest players of all-time. That’s how difficult baseball is.

But there’s another component to the art of hitting. It’s called courage. Not only do you have to instantaneously decide if the pitch is a fastball or breaking ball, a ball or a strike, you have to be aware that the object coming at you at close to 100 mph could hit you in the face, possibly crippling you, or even ending your career. And you have to deal with these variables on every single pitch, during every single at-bat.

Add to all of this the ear-splitting noise being generated by a hostile crowd. You’re at the plate, your team is behind by one run in the ninth inning, there’s a runner on second base, there are two out, and the count is 2-2. You’re in the batter’s box, scared spitless, being asked to do what is universally recognized as the most difficult thing in sports.

If there was ever a time that an athlete needed peace and quiet in order to concentrate on the task at hand, this is it. But the crowd noise is so loud, so shrill, it approaches the decibel level of a jet engine. It’s deafening. These rabid fans are literally screaming themselves hoarse, all 60,000 of them. Indeed, the stadium itself, solid and well-anchored in tons of cement as it is, is actually ever-so-slightly rocking.

Now let’s consider golf. A pro golfer stands over a two-foot putt. The gallery is dead silent. The golfer studies the ball. The crowd inhales; no one dares exhale. Then, just as he’s about to strike the ball, some guy in the crowd sneezes. The golfer abruptly straightens up, steps away, and glares at the man. People shush the hapless sneezer, who cringes in humiliation. A moment later, with the gallery once again silent, the golfer taps the ball in. Applause.

Why is no one permitted to scream during golf? After all, it’s a sports event, isn’t it? You paid your way in, didn’t you? Why is no one allowed to shout at the top of their lungs, “Hey, mister! You’re going to miss it!” But if you pull a stunt like that, the marshals escort you right off the course. Still, what makes golfers so special?

Are these guys so refined that wisecracks and booing from the audience is going to give them the heebie-jeebies? For crying out loud, the ball isn’t even moving. It’s just sitting there. You stare at it for as long as you like, then you wind up and hit it. Simple as that. Unlike baseball, it’s not suddenly going to fly up, hit you in the face, and shatter your cheekbone.

Granted, golf takes ability and finesse. No one’s denying that. But if baseball players can do their thing with tens of thousands of hostile fans urging them to fail, golfers should be able to handle hecklers. “Hey, Tiger….you’re going to land in the sand trap! Har, har, har.” If these PGA dilettantes can’t take the pressure of hostile crowds, let ‘em stick with miniature golf.

DAVID MACARAY, an LA playwright and author (“It’s Never Been Easy: Essays on Modern Labor”), was a former union rep. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, forthcoming from AK Press. He can be reached at dmacaray@earthlink.net

George Orwell on the Militarization of Sports

Today is the annual fist-pumping-scream-fest known in America as The Super Bowl. Or should I say "Stupor Bowl".
Millions of chickens will give up their wings. High-fructose corn syrup will rain from the sky, clinging to the sweating brows of obese former high school athletes.
Bud and Bud Lite will battle on the field of crappy Beers.

I wrote in November that Martial Culture is not Jock Culture.
The "Art" of martial arts and even the challenge of man-to-man sparring is something intensely personal, while (especially "corporate") team sports (read football) provide that false sense of patriotism so necessary to gather the people around empire.


George Orwell, famous for his novel "1984", wrote a stunning essay on this type of sports in 1945.
Keep in mind that when Orwell mentions football, he is referring to European soccer.
Now, I am not fully in agreement with Orwell, for instance he lumps Boxing in with team sports in his critique. I disagree with that, but let's see what you think. Here's a few excerpts, you can read more at the highlighted link above:

"Nearly all the sports practised nowadays are competitive. You play to win, and the game has little meaning unless you do your utmost to win. On the village green, where you pick up sides and no feeling of local patriotism is involved. it is possible to play simply for the fun and exercise: but as soon as the question of prestige arises, as soon as you feel that you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose, the most savage combative instincts are aroused. Anyone who has played even in a school football match knows this. At the international level sport is frankly mimic warfare. But the significant thing is not the behaviour of the players but the attitude of the spectators: and, behind the spectators, of the nations who work themselves into furies over these absurd contests, and seriously believe — at any rate for short periods — that running, jumping and kicking a ball are tests of national virtue."
*
"Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting."
*
"Even in the English public schools the games cult did not start till the later part of the last century. Dr Arnold, generally regarded as the founder of the modern public school, looked on games as simply a waste of time. Then, chiefly in England and the United States, games were built up into a heavily-financed activity, capable of attracting vast crowds and rousing savage passions, and the infection spread from country to country. It is the most violently combative sports, football and boxing, that have spread the widest. There cannot be much doubt that the whole thing is bound up with the rise of nationalism — that is, with the lunatic modern habit of identifying oneself with large power units and seeing everything in terms of competitive prestige. Also, organised games are more likely to flourish in urban communities where the average human being lives a sedentary or at least a confined life, and does not get much opportunity for creative labour."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sound familiar?

The Mysterious North Korean Soldier

Earlier in March we had a series of posts on Korean martial arts and fighting systems. In the comment section, "Stazza" sent this link to an interview with a North Korean Special Forces soldier that had defected to South Korea:

(Snip)
"Mr. Im Cheon-Yong (45) was a captain of North Korean Special Forces. He is relatively short -- not quite 170 cm [TK: 5' 7"] -- but had unusually large fists, reminiscent of a cartoon character. The fact that this reporter met an officer of North Korean military's special combat unit became even more real after he explained, "I practiced punching several thousand times a day." His handshake was firm and heavy.
(snip)
"The training for special combat as told by Mr. Im was harsh as expected, and some parts beyond imagination. The training begins on 5 a.m. The fundamental of the training is to turn the entire body into steely firmness, and the basic part is training the fist.
Mr. Im said, "You would wrap a tree trunk with ropes, and keep punching it. You throw 5000 punches day and night -- do that for a month, the inside of your fist swells up until you can barely curl your fingers." He added, "Then you open a tin can and set it up on a stand. You keep punching the sharp part. When your hand turns into mush with blood and pus, you start punching a pile of salt. Repeat it, and your hands become like a stone." Mr. Im explained, "You punch the salt so that the salt would prevent the hand from rotting away with the blood." According to Mr. Im, with the hand trained like this "you can easily break 20 sheets of cement blocks, and you can kill a person with three punches." His hands would naturally make a fist throughout the interview. This reporter had to respectfully ask that he unclench his fist during the interview."

North Korean Women


"In a martial art called "Gyeok-sul," the special forces train by sparring each other. Mr. Im said, "Kim Il-Sung used to say he wanted a warrior who can defeat a hundred, but honestly that's not possible. But we get trained enough to fight ten men without guns."
In the winter, according to Mr. Im, the special forces are thrown into the sea around 4 km [TK: 2.5 miles] away. Mr. Im said, "The ocean temperature is about negative 30-40 degrees in North Korea in the middle of winter," and said "The salt water feels like blades; the capillaries all over your body burst out, and some people just die there." He added, "It used to be just throwing daggers at the target, shooting guns and punching, but nowadays we receive a lot of training on driving tanks and armored vehicles as well."
(snip)
"Mr. Im said North Korean regime focused on the special combat brigades, providing them food and continuing the training even during the March of Struggles in the mid- to late 1990s. But he explains that recently, "The food situation is terrible, such that even special combat brigades get no more than porridge."
(snip)
"Each company of the Storm Corps is assigned to a major city in South Korea as a terrorism target. The target for Mr. Im's company was Chungju, Chungcheongbuk-do. As Mr. Im belonged to the assassination brigade, his mission was to assassinate the mayor of Chungju. The other members of the company had such missions as overtaking the broadcasting stations, gassing major locations and demolishing buildings.
(snip)
"Mr. Im pointed underground tunnels as a major route for special forces' infiltration, and worried that "It will be a significant problem for South Korea's security." He said, "There are a lot of tunnels especially around Cheolwon, and they are hard to find because the exits are usually deep in the mountains," and said, "It takes about 48 hours to come from North Korea to the South, then you would walk or take a bicycle to the point where you can use the public transportation. Then you would head to the city. There is no good way to stop this, so even as we speak there is a significant number of special forces infiltrated into South Korea."

North Korean women on Segway scooters, this just cracks me up...


(D.R.)
North Korea is still a very unpredictable, unstable regime. There's a back-story about General Choi Hong-Hi of Tae Kwon Do courting the North Koreans in the height of the cold war, seeking support for his International TaeKwon-Do Federation.
But that's for another time...

Link to interview at "Ask a Korean"

The Cruicible: I Would Have Been Killed For Practicing Martial Magick

My old "San Ti" posture, before I got it right


Last night we watched "The Crucible", the movie of Arthur Miller's 1953 play about the Salem Witch trials.
Part of me realized how far we have come as a society since the Witch trials, but as there is nothing new under the sun, I acknowledge the strong Puritan streak that still haunts us.
Miller wrote "The Crucible" as an allegory to the anti-communist witch-hunt conducted by Joseph McCarthy in the 1950's. In fact, Arthur Miller himself was threatened with contempt of Congress for not naming people he had attended political meetings with.
But first, let's look at the Puritan hysteria that caused the stonings, hangings and drownings of accused witches in Salem. People could be accused of any small indiscretion and labeled a witch. 19 out of 150 people arrested were put to death. Here's what Wikipedia says about evidence produced in the trials of 1692-93:

"Other evidence included the confessions of the accused, the testimony of a person who confessed to being a witch identifying others as witches, the discovery of poppits, books of palmistry and horoscopes, or pots of ointments in the possession or home of the accused, and the existence of so-called witch's teats on the body of the accused. A witch's teat was said to be a mole or blemish somewhere on the body that was insensitive to touch; discovery of such insensitive areas was considered de facto evidence of witchcraft, though in practice, the witch's teat was usually insensitive by design, with examiners using secretly dulled needles to claim that the accused could not feel the prick of a pin."

Now, put in that context, I would be accused of being a Witch. My spirituality lies somewhere between Daoist and Druid. I have successfully "Witched" three producing water wells with dowsing rods. The Chi Gong and Nei Gong methods I practice resemble ritual magick. If I was spotted one morning in the deep woods practicing slow, meditative martial arts it would be reported in such a way:

Goody Two-Shoes: "I saw him with my own eyes; there he was in the glen - he was fighting with demons that I could not see. He would move and strike, it went on for many minutes, and then he fell silent.
I say it is the work of the Devil!"

And then the town leaders would attempt to capture me, force me to confess under the weight of a plank stacked with stones to crush the life out of me.

Sound far-fetched?
Look at the new "McCarthyism" that has arisen. Tea-baggers march with posters of President Obama as a "witch doctor", "Birthers" deny the fact that Obama was actually born in the United States. They call him, and by association anyone who supports his policies a "Communist".
There is a religious test to hold high office; one must profess to be Christian.

About the time I started high school, Nixon had just been forced out of office. I had believed that the old, restrictive thought would disappear the way of the dinosaurs. It was the age of Aquarius, and Jesus Christ was a superstar in a rock opera. It was to be the age of progress and free-thinking.

But the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Is Western Boxing An "Art"?

The last post on the influence of Western boxing on Asian martial arts brought these responses:

samuel.x.killer said...
big fan of the blog, but i humbly disagree that western boxing lacks philosophy. "fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee" may be one of the most zen lines about combat i know. i would be interested if there are other boxing quotes which exemplify universal aspects of martial arts

And:

JAB said...
Pu En Fu, Hu Xi Lin's Shuai Chiao coach, studied with professional boxers that were part of an Italian delegation that came over in the 40's or 50's to Beijing. Pu Laoshi stated many a time how good their boxing was, how tough they were, and he became a student and studied boxing with them. Combined with his already legendary throwing skills this made him a often sought out trainer!
As for boxing not being an "art." You have not been exposed to good solid boxing then mi amigo. I look at what influence Cus D'Amato(?) had on Tyson, and what could have been if he had lived longer. He took a punk idiot and made him somebody with hardwork ethic and discipline. That in itself is an art form!

My response:

Samuel and Jake;
I guess I've gone over and over this before, but I consider boxing and wrestling (and the misnamed "mixed martial arts") combat sports. Don't get me wrong, I have a great appreciation for both and have practiced both. I wrestled in High school for four years.
There is technique, self-improvement, conditioning and self-defense in boxing and wrestling.
But there is NO underlying philosophy such as Zen aspects in Japanese arts, Taoist or Buddhist aspects in Chinese arts, calligraphy as practiced by martial masters, etc.
There is also no aspect of health improvement (other than raw conditioning) such as Chi development or meditation. In fact, boxing can even damage our bodies (My friend Brian boxed with some pros and loved it. He had to quit because he developed skull fractures in his cheekbone) and wrestlers have even died trying to make weight classes.
Now, I suppose all those arts can be practiced without any thought to those underlying philosophies. Then I would consider them combat skills like boxing and wrestling.
Combined with philosophy, they become an art.
-Just my opinion.


Let the shitstorm begin...

Circular Or Linear? You Decide...

Our old buddy Pat over at Mokuren Dojo has an interesting post up titled "Pay attention; Aikido is not circular". Pat's contention is that there are no true circular (or linear) aspects in human movement. I say he is splitting hairs. That is in the context of, let's say a comparison to Shotokan Karate or Hsing-Yi, Both Aikido and Bagua are indeed composed of circular movement. Colin Wee made a good observation that perhaps a better distinction should be if the technique takes the opponent's center directly, or if it captures it and spins it off. The above video is one of my favorite Aikido demos, and I think it displays both linear and circular aspects beautifully.
Below is an example of Bagua circle-walking. The best example of circles-within -circles begins around two minutes in:

So perhaps Pat and I are BOTH splitting hairs, but I have been involved in far more linear martial arts, and they did not employ the amount of circular movement demonstrated in both videos above.
Click the link above to Pat's discussion for his views and the excellent comments that follow...

Backwoods Bagua

It's fun and challenging to train on rough or slick ground.

Basic Hitting Drill

Ok, I think I finally figured out how to post our videos.
This is a VERY basic drill that combines a parry-type blocking technique, with constant movement. This is an example of what I refer to as a "Live" drill.
Sure, it is not a formula for perfect self-defense, but it wakes up your hands, gets reaction time down and has lots of movement.
In the video, I hit to the attackers chest. We like this because you can have medium contact without injuring your training partner. In reality, I would press hard and advance with the hitting and continue with other techniques. In this case, we wanted to demonstrate a fun and safe drill for others to practice.
Once you get the pattern down, keep it live and active, and feel free to alter it and experiment. the important thing, I believe, is to keep it moving in a constant flow. Have fun, More advanced stuff to follow...