Let's You And Him Fight

Or, you know. Let's not.

Earlier this week, I got to do something I haven’t done in a while. I let someone punch me in the face.

Not actually me. Image from Photography Informers, “How to Shoot a ‘Punch Portrait’ Without Actually Getting Punched”

OK, OK. I let someone try to punch me in the face. I was wearing punching mitts. And he was actually doing his best to not to hit me too hard, since he was actually demonstrating his form and technique. But there was definitely some punching going on; along with a little bit of kicking, quite a bit of elbowing, and some general man-handling.

That’s just what goes on when you’re someone’s uke for a martial arts belt test.

I didn’t get thrown around this time, at least. The gentleman in question had finished learning his white belt techniques. He was testing for his yellow belt in hapkido, and—at least in my friend’s studio—students don’t get into takedowns until they’ve learned more about breakfalls, and how to fall properly. (Don’t knock it ‘till you’ve tried it! It’s actually kind of fun.)

While I opened up with talking about punching (strikes), there’s not a lot of that with involved with the various techniques we learn. We teach and test a variety of basic strikes and kicks, but those aren’t really part of the techniques we practice. Almost all of those are reactive, teaching you how to deal with various grabs and holds. For our form of hapkido, this particular test is made up of various types of breakaways from a particular type of grab: one-handed, same-side wrist grabs.

Which brings up an interesting point. The initial techniques we teach are designed to be fast, simple, and effective… and not a single one of them involves a kick or a punch.

There are, however, quite a lot of elbows that get thrown around.

That’s a younger me on the left, standing next to Master Edwards on the right. For the record, yes, I am absolutely sucking in my gut.

That’s something interesting that you learn when you start doing martial arts of any kind. You realize that there’s fighting, and then there’s cinematic fighting. The first is what you learn. The second is what you see in the movies or on TV.

Real fighting is surprise, elbows, grappling, breakaways, close strikes, and running away… um, I mean, “establishing distance”. Which is all effective, but it’s not very visually exciting. A lot of times, it’s more about endurance than strength. Who has the will and the energy to keep going longest?

Cinematic fighting is exactly that. Cinematic. Flashy. Interesting. Visually appealing. And, ultimately, the sort of thing that would be completely useless in an actual fight. Well. Not completely useless. They will likely end the fight very quickly, by allowing your opponent plenty of opportunities to step in and give you a heel palm strike to the nose.

That’s one of my favorites, really. If—God forbid—I get into a fight at my age, I don’t care about looking good, I just want to stop it as soon as possible. And if you’ve ever gotten popped in the nose accidentally, you know it hurts.

So when I watch a movie, a lot of times the fighting sequences take me out of it. “You have a gun! Get some distance and shoot him! NO! You don’t jump and kick, that kills your balance! Why are you throwing roundhouse punches instead of jabs? AUGH!”

Which makes me wonder: what other things in life do I have a “cinematic” view of? Police work? Small airport operations? Sword fighting? Horse riding? Hiking?

What real-life experiences do you have that make you watch a movie or TV show and shout at the screen because they’re doing it WRONG?

The Business of Writing

A mid-week update on my three major commitments: to write, to edit, and to read.

“Harrold of the Gods” is out today for ZNB Presents! As mentioned, it will also be part of the ZNB Presents: Year Two anthology (available for pre-order soon!)

My copy edits for the first Tull anthology are done! Well… the first pass. I need to go back and make sure that some words are using typical UK spellings. (Jethro Tull is a British band, after all!) I’m going to take another look at everything while Shari is doing her edits. I hope to have Minstrels in the Galaxy out in June.

I estimate that the overall time spent so far on Minstrels is about 88 hours. Figuring about 2 hours a day productive time, that works out to about 7 weeks of work. Two hours a day may not seem like a lot, but there’s been writing, editing, etc. for other projects intermingled there as well. There are days when the anthology has seen zero effort, others when I’ve jammed in 4-5 hours. It all adds up, though. I’m doing my best to track it all for the benefit of any future projects.

Car Wars short is almost ready to hand off. So far it’s been through a couple of reviewers who’ve not dinged me for any in-universe problems, so I think I’m doing well! I’ve actually jotted down some notes for the next book, too. Woot!

Last but not least: LibertyCon looms! I’m starting to pull things together to prepare. This year I’ve got fewer panels and more talky time, which is nice. If you’re going to be there, please stop by, say hi, and chat for a bit!

Other Stuff

The #1 Minion and Snugglepuppy are both home. For a while, at least. #1 Minion is going to head off to Japan for a couple of weeks as part of a school trip. She is a little nervous about it, but she’s amazing. I can’t wait to hear about her adventures.

We took a sawzall to an old mattress to slice it up for disposal. If you are down in the dumps, I heartily recommend cutting things up with a sawzall. It’s less awkward than a chainsaw, but it still gives you that wonderful, “I am become destroyer of junk” vibe that will definitely lift your spirits.

That’s about it! Until next week, then: take care, and remember to keep the sharp end pointed away from you.

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