In my deepest, most depressed mood ever, I watch this video, and all melancholy is replaced by hysteria (no, no, it's incredibly amusing).
Here are the guys who got thrown out of the auditions for stuntmen on Enter The Dragon:
The scary part is - I've met people like this.
Showing posts with label Martial Arts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Martial Arts. Show all posts
Monday, February 14, 2011
Laugh Until You Cry...I Know I Did
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Cage Match! Score: Karate 1 – Jesus, Zero
For those of you who haven’t seen this viral video, it’s set in a McDojo in the 80’s, where apparently (according to the news story) a mentally ill fellow came in, and wanted to try out some moves he ‘learned from Jesus’.
‘Turning the cheek’ is decidedly not a martial arts move. I haven’t seen the full video (hard to come by), but it looks like some sort of ‘kick school’ nonsense, which is fairly common the world over. The news report states that the victim says ‘he doesn’t want to fight’, but it’s too fast and burbled to make out. It also happened in the 80’s, when items like insurance, injury, and other modern sensibilities for an MA school weren’t a concern. That’s not condoning the behavior, that’s an observation.
Nobody knows if the fellow that was dragged out was still alive or not. Regardless, that wasn’t a dojo, it was a training camp for vicious guard dogs. Shameful.
Monday, October 05, 2009
Tai Chi And Qigong – Telling The Difference
As an avid Tai Chi practitioner, I run into a lot of misconceptions and confusion. Hope this helps.
I’ve been directed to parks by people who say, “Yeah, there are Tai Chi players there,” but when I arrive, all the folks there are doing Qigong. So let’s dispel a few misconceptions, and some myths while we’re at it.
1. Tai Chi is a form of qigong, but is also separate.
2. Tai Chi is a martial art – if you see elderly Chinese people walking slowly, or standing still for long amounts of time, it’s likely Qigong. If they’re just waving their arms about – probably the latter. If it looks like they’re doing a martial art move in slo-mo – probably Tai Chi.
3. Not every Chinese person is good at Tai Chi, so you probably shouldn’t make a snap judgment as to whether or not it’s any damn good.
Number 3 is an understandable one. I’ve been playing in plenty of parks, and some ancient Asian will come up, and start doing a Tai Chi form. Currently I see this little old man where I practice. He’s…well, he’s bloody awful is what. It looks more like some sorry calisthenics than Tai Chi.
Conversely, I was practicing in a park in Fremont a few years back, and this pretty Chinese gal came over when I finished, and chatted me up. She told me, “I just moved here from Beijing a few months ago, and you’re better than the old men I saw in the parks over there.”
Funny story: so this happens a lot. Elderly Chinese folk come up to me after practice, and begin to talk to me in Mandarin. I usually tell them (in Mandarin) that my Chinese is terrible. They figure, ‘Hey, look at this guy! He’s gotta speak the lingo!” So usually I hear a string of words + sentences, and I shrug and smile.
Thursday, October 01, 2009
♪♫Spinnin’ Wheel Got To Go ‘Round♪♫ – More Woo-Chi Mindpower Games
Came across this recently – for only $9.95 you can actually purchase a Chi-Spinner from this website. Wow! Lemme buy a dozen, the holidays are coming up! (Yeah, right.)
For the actual debunking of this (and other games and tricks) go here. But read the WHOLE POST – it starts out with what sounds like a testimonial, but actually flips to the scientific explanations. Pretty funny.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
More Mystical Magical Martial Arts Horseshit – Monkey See, Monkey Do…
When people do this sort of nonsense to my art, I get very, VERY aggravated. The embedded video demonstrates a number of cultic parameters:
1. All the students have some sort of dress code (at least in the video),
2. The students are obviously throwing themselves around to impress the ‘master’(willing to bet whoever flails around the most gets complimented on his ‘sensitivity’ by the ‘master’).
3. Claims of trophies and medals without an exhaustive list of both students and specific tournaments
4. No demonstrations of ‘chi power’ on outsiders
Now, I’ve watched some of the videos on lama Dondrup Dorje’s website, and while he looks to be a high level martial arts expert, this utter nonsense where the students throws themselves all over the place when the sifu touches any of them is just crap. If you watch closely (and you develop an eye for body language when you practice martial arts of any variety), you can actually see these folks tensing up to toss themselves about. I’ve seen this sort of nonsense before:
The martial arts is rife with this mystical, bordering on religious, nonsense – stories abound with flying Taoists, strange mental powers, chi from a distance. And of course, gullibility helps a lot. Usually when you challenge one of these guys, it goes a little something like this:
And like psychics, miracle workers, faith healers, and all those other frauds, there’s always some excuse when it fails when used on a non-believer. The reality? Doesn’t work.
Martial arts, like religion, does not a better person make. Obviously these folks are trying to solicit some business with EXTREMELY dubious and unethical marketing practices. Obviously derived from some Dragon Ball Z idiocy.
It chaps my hide, it does.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
And Here I Am Again – And When Did I Get So Damn Old?
So last Saturday, June the 6th, I went and competed in another Wushu tournament. Three Gold medals and a Silver (I almost lost my heavy metal fan, and kept pushing my glasses back up my nose, which is why I placed second). And yes, I need to lose that weight, but I conveniently blame my hypothyroidism.
Still, pretty spry for an old guy, or so I keep telling myself…
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Who’s That Old Guy? Wait, That’s Yours Truly!
Last Saturday, I competed in another martial arts tournament. Yes, that’s me in the pony tail. The style I’m performing is Fu Style Tai Chi, created by Fu Zhen Sung, a Pa Kua master who created the style when he retired.
I always place with this form, and this is about the sixth time. I also brought home 3 other gold medals, and a Grand Champion plaque for my division.
It’s a little bit of all right. Funny story: right before I was ready to leave, my name was announced. I was confused, mostly because the last tournament, you had to enter 6 events, I only entered 4 in this one. Plus, I thought I had to pay extra (which I hadn’t). So I reported to the announcement table, and one of the people lugs over this HUGE trophy. I was agog. Luckily, it was a kid’s trophy (I don’t think the thing would’ve fit into my car anyways), and they brought the plaque over.
Am going to another tourney this Saturday – wish me good play, as luck’s got nothing to do with it (why do I hear a Tina Turner song in my head when I say that? Hmmm…)
Sunday, April 12, 2009
I Came, I Saw, I Coulda Stayed Home
So it was depressing as hell.
I got 1 Gold and 1 Silver (in Tai Chi Internal Other and TC Other weapon). I could have sworn I did a way better job than the guy who captured 3rd place in Men’s Advanced Yang.
Oh, but I got a Gold! Big deal. I was the only person in the category. I could have phoned it in: “Hi, yeah, this is Douglas, 1st I do Wu Chi, then I do Grasp Sparrow’s tail, yadda yadda yadda, put the medal in the post please.” But the head judge asked me what style it was, and 3 of the judges came up & shook my hand (something I’ve never seen in a tournament before).
I got a silver in Internal other, competing against a fellow student (hey! I gave him a ride! I shoulda tossed him outta the car halfway there!). For the last 2 months I’ve been bugging my sifu, “Who’s competing, who’ll be there?” He never knew. Then I run into this high-level guy, he claims he’s just the photographer, I turn around, he’s lost the street clothes and is wearing full silks. Kept telling me he was the photographer, up until he got a gold medal. Had I known he’d be there, I’d have trained harder.
On a more skeptical note: Pharyngula had this post the other day, and I ran into one of these guys! No, it wasn’t a bible thumper. It was this Asian con man selling this nonsense:
So I watched him for a bit. He would pull someone over. Tell them to stand in this position, feet together, hands at the side palms up fingers pointing inwards. Then he’d pull downwards to the left, and over they’d topple. Then put amulet in hand/pocket, do again, look! You didn’t topple!
I walked by, and he pulled the barker routine. I said, “I don’t know, I’m skeptical.” He insisted he was a skeptic too (another of their rapport tricks), and he ran his banter on me (it didn’t help that he smelled like he hadn’t wiped his ass proper, I might add). First time, he knocked me over. The second time, I had to put the amulet in my badge (no pockets). He knocked me over. He sputtered, “Well, if you’re going to act like that.” I had to go anyways, as I had events to attend, but I said something in parting about how that was garbage. He tried to explain how I should believe it, since I did Wushu, but his smell was too much, and I had to go.
It’s easy to spot the obvious swindle implicit: of course he’ll knock you over the first time not the second, because now you’re ready for it. The second part of his patter was the knock-over-point. You did the first part, then he sets it up (if you have a friend or kid, I watched this), the friend/kid knocks you over on the second time, first iteration, but then the con man with the amulet points at you, voila! You don’t fall over anymore! Is that magic? Hell no. You’re unconsciously following a script, because he’s established a subconscious rapport, and you’re friends with the guy now, so you follow along.
Sadly, the martial arts abounds with this sort of nonsense. The guy who breaks a wire tied to his chest? He treated the wire to a dab of acid. The guy who tears a phone book in half? He folded the phone books pages in half, to facilitate the tear. The guy who slaps huge bricks, they break? That’s possible, but you can treat bricks so they’re more fragile. Those clowns who seem to be able to knock down/out people from a distance? Hey, you need to be a student AND a believer (though it probably helps to be the former: that way, the instructor’s made some easy money).
Yeah, so it’s not just religion. People look for woo under the surface anywhere, and they want to hear that they’re special, or if they’re not, that they will be special some day soon, for the low low price of 19.95, plus we’ll throw in a set of Ginsu knives along with your inflated sense of worth!
It is to plotz, sometimes, I tell ya.
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