...Fast as lightning....

It’s a Life blurb for today. Wanted to talk about the quasi-Kung Fu course I joined in on a couple months back. The official name is something like Kempo-Kung Fu Karate, and from the somewhat garbled explanation they gave on the first day apparently that’s actually an accurate name – rather than my assumption that some one in marketing was smashing as many martial arty-sounding names together in hopes that it’d attract more people.

I joined for a number of reasons, which start with getting my horrible self back in some semblance of shape. The laziness issue has been mentioned, yes? It follows through with working out. I’m not what anyone would call fat, but I’ve occasionally fallen into that category of skinny individuals who couldn’t run more than a mile without their lungs expiring. It’s actually more common than you’d think; those of us blessed with a quick metabolism seem to forget that being light doesn’t magically grace you with amazing cardio. The plan at the time was to find a way to rigorously force myself into shape by virtue of a couple factors:

1. I had paid money for the damn course, and not exactly pocket change either. It might not be the most noble of goals, but hammering yourself with money-guilt if you think about missing a class is surprisingly effective.
2. Entering a competitive environment. There’s dozens of people at the class I go to. Unsurprisingly many of them are much, much better at this than I am. I can be fiercely competitive in physical activity and was whole heartedly willing to abuse that to keep myself working out.
3. Since the first two would keep me in the class, I had better pick one that was going to all but outright murder me if I didn’t work out at other times as well. So I did. Now exercising in my free time is a survival trait.

It’s been working out (ha-ha!) so far and I see no reason why it’s liable to fail it the future. It only merits a posting now because I’ve noticed I passed a threshold of sorts. I think I’ve finally begun to learn enough of the techniques and methods of the class that I’d feel at least marginally confident using them should I find myself in a fight. This might not sound all that earth shattering, I know. Sure, learn how to punch better – use punch in fight; not very complicated. But trust me when I say there’s a distinction between techniques you’re willing to try out in a friendly spar and then working them into how you’d handle a particularly aggressive thief who decides taking a swing at your head is his best option.

I honestly suspect I would’ve gotten to this stage a lot earlier had I put more work into learning the various moves in something like a practical environment, but we can’t all just magically make sparring partners appear, now can we? Most of my friends don’t seem up for trying it out, really. They’re either not all that enthusiastic about learning a martial art in the first place or without the time and resources to get into it. Adding to that is the difficulty in finding a place where you can actual do said practice. Most gyms are rather adverse to the idea of letting a couple guys wail on one another in a corner somewhere and the course I’ve signed up for doesn’t have a designated sparring area we could use. It’s something I’m going to continue to look into, I’ll try to remember to mention it if I come across anything spectacular.

Oh, and a tease of an idea. My friends and I happen to be somewhat insane when the mood strikes us, so we’ve formulated an appropriately mad game. To get the crazy cards down quick; it requires four practice swords at least (wood or steel, just durable and blunt), and a couple of bows to complement them. We only have that much so far, and really that’s the bare minimum you’d need to make it interesting. At that point you divvy people up in two teams, a couple swords a bow to each. Buy a bunch of cheapo arrows and cut the heads off so you can stick tennis balls on them. At this point you could pretty much just take all your friends and equipment out to a field and wage a tiny war if you wanted, but we added a few rules and objectives:

1. Make a goal for each team. They can be anything – a jacket, a tree, a hat (if it isn’t windy), or a friend no one likes.
2. Include a center line that everyone is aware of between the two goals.
3. All you have to do is hit the other goal with your hand or weapon of choice (arrows included) to score a point for your team.
4. If some one scores both teams have to retreat back across to their side of the center like to begin again.
5. If you’re hit anywhere by either a tennis-arrow or a sword, regardless of strength of impact; you’re dead. You need to run back to your own goal, touch it, and wait five seconds to re-enter play.

Ta-dah! An incredibly simple and awesome game that’s liable to cover you in bruises where-ever you skimp on the protective gear. I tell you of this because I’m tempted to run a game of this soon, and even more tempted to collect enough people that I can have them play a match of it while I film it. Promise policy plays heavily here, but we’ll see what happens!