Fight Club: The Tab

Sullivan, the sentiment is appreciated. I find it to be a bit idealistic, but a good thought nonetheless. People who know me know that I'm a non violent person... I'm a lover not a fighter. I have unfortunately been in a number of situations where I've been on the receiving end of the fight picking. I have never started a fight in my life... but if I have to defend, I will do so.

Sadie, you walk right next to me.. you'll be safe.

Maybe you've never been in a position where it's not an option... hope you never are... don't be too judgemental.

I have no reason to doubt that I wouldn't be..given I was NEXT to you, and not in the back of you, fights are breathing down your neck...


Sully- indeed, in a perfect world, there would be no reason to fight. Alas, there isn't a perfect person in this imperfect world, so, fights are bound to continue. I for one, have never been the instigator either...just the wrong place at the wrong time.

Hey, didn't mean to come off as judgemental. That wasn't my intention. I do understand that sometimes, there are just no other options.

And yeah, I will admit to being pretty idealistic on this point. The thing is, though, there's an idealistic side, and a practical side. I haven't been studying Fillipino martial arts for the past few years for nothing, you know.

__________________
Everything is destined to reappear as simulation.
Jean Baudrillard
America, 1988

there are women who are capable and courageous enough to defend themselves or someone they are protecting if NEED BE, then there are fightin' chicks who are just one or two hisses away from pulling hair and throwing a punch. (Jerry Springer comes to mind - bleck!). i hung out with a guy this past year, but his ex-girlfriend wants a piece of my face.....if she ever actually shows up, i know she will take a swing at me. untill that happens, i can say i've never been socked and i've never done the swingin. you can tell just by looking at her, or listening to her, that she's a fighting chick. i plan to steer clear of her.
there's another type.......tough talking women who will be verbal about perceived injustices......but i think if you get two of these types chest to chest the meow meow hiss hiss hair pulling isn't far behind.
i dunno, sades? you're a tough chick.....have you ever had to fight? ever been swung at? ever have anyone take you up on the "who's gonna make me?" retort? i like to play talk tough....but it's joking around.

__________________
on dance seul, on dance seul.....

Step back! Whoa...that's neat!


patti- I've punched a couple of girls. One was a girl attacking my sister. They were both in highschool. I clocked her good! Anger does wonders for your strength.

The other time, was this chick at a concert. Looooooooooong story.

That's cool. But here's a question for the women: how many of you have kicked a guy in the nads?

I ask, because I've met a lot of women who have threatened such a thing, but only one who has actually done it, and she actually did it in 9th grade.

I also ask because I have been kicked in the nads, by another man, and it wasn't all that bad. We were fighting at the time, though, so it was probably all the adrenaline and endorphins that saved me.

So: have you ever, or do you think you would?

I have never kicked a guy in the nads. My daddy told me not to unless I felt I was in real danger.

I'm deathly afraid of spiders, and one time, I called my dad in my room to kill a big one. He smooshed it in some toilet paper, then he made a quick gesture to my face like he was going to put the dead spider on me...my reaction was a stiff kick to the groin area...but in my haste, I missed and tagged his inner thigh. That's when we sat down and had the " balls talk". He said that it hurts a guy more than I'll ever know.

i would reserve the groin kick for serious threat situations only....like being grabbed.
it hurts women to land hard or get hit in that particular area too! - when i was a kid i was trying to ride a boys bike with the bar....i wasn't tall enough-- so when i had to stop fast ...yep...came crashing down on that bar.....not a good thing.

It's cool Sully, I can understand that. I would like for the world to be peaceful too but there are so very many who just disagree with that sentiment. So what does Fillipino martial arts entail? I am studying Aikido (well, I'm getting back to it). There is no punching and kicking only grappling and tumbling. I know how to break limbs from a thrown punch or kick but the discipline requires no offensive moves... only defense.

What I'm studying specifically is Muai Thai, also known as the "art of eight limbs", and called this because the primary weapons are the fist, feet, knees and elbows. It's much more offensive than defensive, and is definitely a stand-up fighting system, not a grappling or groundfighting system.

The reason I originally started studying it is because it was one of the "faster" arts, e.g. it's so comparatively simple that you can go from being a complete beginner to having street-usable skills in a little under a year.

My hat's off to you for studying a grappling art, though. I definitely see the need for me to learn some groundfighting art, if only for the fact that something like 70% of street fights end up going to the ground. I've watched judo, jujitsu and pankration classes and realized that they're definitely some of the most if not THE most demanding martial arts to learn. I've noticed that there are a lot more injuries in the grappling classes than in any Muai Thai or karate / kung fu classes, and the injuries are usually of a more serious variety.

Grapplers in general get a lot of respect for me, mostly because a lot of them could take my beating long enough to get me to the ground, where they'd proceed to tie me into a nice pretty bow.

I almost told off this dude on Saturday...he was talking during LOTR: FOTR...BIG MISTAKE Pippin would screw up, the entire cast of characters and the entire theater would be DEAD QUIET, listening for the sound of orc drums, and he says "Oops" in a VERY audible tone. Same dude who, during the slow-motion sequence after the confrontation with the Balrog in Moria, chuckled when an arrow went by Aragorn's head as he was heading up the stairs. Man, what an idiot: that was an emotional moment, and he's giggling? I wanted to smack him one.

I started to build up a bit of resolve, but thankfully, after Moria, he was almost completely quiet. Good thing, too...I was so fed up with this punk. A dark rider shows up, and he has to chime into his buddy or something "Ringwraiths!" Yes, yes, you're very smart, you read the book at some point. We'll all shower you with praise AFTER the damn movie. ARGH.

Sounds like how I feel almost evertime I go to the movies now. I don't understand the people who can't remember that they are not in their livingrooms. You can't just blurt out any random thought that enters your head! I hate the couples that explain everything to each other...or try to second guess the movie, predict it. You should have heard these people the second time I saw Memento. They were like," I'll bet he's a mass murderer and doesn't know it, cuz he forgets." I turned around and said," That's totally what happens! Wow, are you clever!" Then when the ending started wrapping everything up, I turned around and said," Confused much?!"

That's to funny

I'm in the baby stages of learning Aikido. You are right though, there are a lot of injuries as sometimes people will try to fight out of a hold instead of giving in. Leverage is a very powerful thing and once you learn how it can be applied to the human body you can pretty much get yourself out of a dangerous situation without doing any real harm to anyone.

Have you ever watched Joyce Gracie in the ring in the UFC's?

It's just amazing to me that a 168# grappler could win overall so many times and against so many monsters. The guy is like a snake... he twists around his opponents like a boa constrictor...

Yeah, I've seen him a few times. The guy's pretty amazing.

As far as getting out of dangerous situations without hurting someone else, that's the ideal for me, and it sounds like Aikido really provides that. My other options at my current dojo, judo and jujitsu, seem a little more oriented towards harming your opponent. The jujitsu instructor at my current dojo said to me: "Really, oftentimes the goal of jujitsu is to create pain somewhere to distract your opponent from the fact that you're about to create a lot more pain somewhere else." Said with a smile. That's not quite sadistic in my books, but it is approaching the line.

Basically, if some hood jumps me in the street, I don't want to have to break his wrists to get him to take a hike. That's the thing I've noticed with martial arts.....it's not hard to learn how to be dangerous to your opponents. What's hard is to learn how to be safe with them.

I actually got started in Aikido through the recommendation of a friend. This guy is head of security for a concert venue that we have in Houston. He has all of his security force trained in Aikido so that they can remove problem people from the venue, by means of submission, without causing any damage to them and thereby avoiding lawsuits. It's @ss kicking with a soft touch

so Sullivan, have you ever studied Kendo? a good friend of mine was into Kendo....fencing with bamboo swords......he studied it first when he lived in Japan for school.

hey Toose, how's the leg? i'll be joining you and T in SugarFree Land come January 1st...............!!

and Holden, are you a student of the martial arts?

I had to lay off the sugar free for a while... it was messing me up. I was eating almost no carbs and getting the aches and pains that potassium can't cure. I'm back on complex sugars for a while...

Leg is doing well, thanks for asking
It's somewhat ugly to look at still, if long ropy scars bother you. I have 5 of them now going from knee to ankle... gives that leg character! I'm just glad I didn't lose it... I was hours away from having nothing but air below my right knee.

Nope, but I've seen it done and found it rather interesting. My thoughts on kendo are that it would be quite cool to study....especially in Japan, and eventually using real blades....but apart from the novelty factor, there's not much practical application for it as a fighting system. Unless I buy a sword and carry it around wherever I go. Which would be "cool", but impractical and probably just asking for trouble.

It's cool he studied it in Japan though. That's the best way to learn any system......go to the country of origin and study it at the source.

I thought I'd reviatlise this.

My own experience isn't so much a fight as it is a waiting experience, I guess.

In 1998 (I was in 7th grade) me and six of my friends won a trip to Paris. I'm not sure I've ever brought that up around here. Anyways. We spent a week there as a part of the International Children's Summit -- a Disney run thing. We were up at six and going to bed at 11 every night, we were running purely on adrenalin. By about the fifth day we were stuffed -- was the day when we were actually going into Paris to look at stuff. We went into the Lourve, and when you're stuffed, tired and running on adrenalin (you know, you're heaps tired, but hyper still) the Lourve was not the right place for us. It justn't wasn't the right time or place. We were on this tour with this really boring woman and I turned to one of my friends, Dave, and said "I dare you to make a scene."

Well. The tour guide was not impressed with our shenanngians. First we stood behind her and did the whole "why are we waiting, it's getting irritating" chant, very childish, but it didn't REALLY seem to get to her. So we pushed our luck, I guess. We were standing there and pretending to whisper to each other and then the next thing he said, really loud was: "I'M NOT STEALING THE MONO LISA!!!" and I was pretending to try to calm him down and he's going "I'M STEALING THE MONA LISA!! YOU CAN'T MAKE ME STEAL THE MONA LISA!!" and then I dropped it and started going "WHY NOT?! YOU WUSS!!!" and he's going 'YOU CAN'T MAKE ME, STOP LOOKING AT ME!! STOP IT!! STOP IT!!"

And he flung himself on the ground and started jittering and my other friend, James, comes over and goes "You've giving him a fit!!! YOU'VE GIVEN HIM A FIT!! HE'S EPILEPTIC!!" and I'm going "WILL YOU STEAL THE MONA LISA WITH ME?!" and he's going 'NO!!! NO!! NO!!" and Dave's jiggling over the ground like an idiot.

They were not impressed.

__________________
www.esotericrabbit.com

Yeah, well, I am! That's hilarious...and it takes some guts, too. I'll have to tell my brother...that's the kind of thing he lives for.