Month: April 2009

Cornyn is voting against the budget

/ hsoi

Just received an email from (my) Senator John Cornyn’s office, pointing me to an editorial he wrote for the Austin-American Statesman. The topic, why he is voting against the budget.

Again I say, I’m not 100% with Cornyn, but overall I like the guy. Here’s one example of why.

Of wind and ducklings

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Today is particularly windy. Sustained winds in the mid 20 MPH range, with gusts pushing nearly 40 MPH. 

There’s a pond near our house, and it is home to many ducks. Being springtime, the ducks are wandering the neighborhood in search of food and nesting areas. Our house is a popular destination because we always put black oil sunflower seeds out for them. The usual crew of mallards and muscovy ducks made their routine morning visit, but then we were greeted by a new group:

A mother mallard and her seven babies.

Of course my children were all excited, proceeding to name each one of them. We put down more seed just for them and watched them eat. Then… the wind would blow. I don’t know how much a duckling weighs, but it’s not much. The wind would blow a strong gust and you’d watch all seven ducklings get blown into the yard, rolling tuckus over teakettle, struggling to get back on their feet against the blowing wind. It was a pitiful sight, but of course had a good degree of cuteness to it. I wish I was able to catch some video of it for truly it was a sight to see.

Keeping your eyes involved and on the level

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

I was at the dojang today and because we only had a few people and thus space to do so, we spent time working with staff. One thing I did was work on a staff form, Joong Bong Il Hyung (middle staff, 1st form). You can see a portion of the form here:

Notice at the beginning of that clip how the gentleman is doing 360º turns? I spent a lot of time on that today because I always have problems with that movement. I know the theory of what to do, like a figure skater that you need to turn your head all the way and focus your eyes on some point, keeping your head level, and so on, yet still it gives me trouble. However something hit me today that worked like a dream.

I took a cue from my motorcycle riding. On a motorcycle you look where you want to go. Where you look, that’s where you will go. So if you look down, you will go down. If you look through the turn, you’ll glide gracefully through the turn. Looking is very important to motorcycle riding. I noticed when I was turning that while I looked, I was only looking at the end points… that I start facing north (if you will) and look north, then I perform the 360º pivot and work to lock my eyes 360º around at the end point. But what am I doing with my eyes during the turn? Well, I wasn’t looking at much of anything… my eyes just went, wherever, I couldn’t tell you.

What I did was ensured that as I turned, my eyes stayed involved. No I didn’t still focus on any points during the turn, but your eyes still have to do something… they will still be looking, they will still be taking in whatever whirrs past them. So what I did was kept my eyes level the whole time. My eyes were semi-actively scanning and taking in everything on a plane parallel to the ground… kept it all level, kept my eyes involved. And lo… I was steady. I could pivot and rotate without any problem.

This has other implications too. Not just for empty hand martial arts skills (e.g. helping with 360º spin kicks, turning back kicks, etc.), but even for other tactical matters. I did notice while I was turning, while I wasn’t actively looking at anything, I was certain that I was taking in a great deal of visual information… I was far more aware of what was going on around me (duh!). Just goes to show that we’re not always aware of what we’re doing, and these little things can matter.

Fear of Girls

/ hsoi

If you ever played a role-playing game, you’ll understand Fear of Girls.

I discovered it a few years ago, and every now and then I go back and watch because I find it hilarious. The guys that play Doug and Ray play their roles (!) extremely well. I thought the second episode was pretty funny and built well upon the first. I discovered today that they did a third episode, in three parts. I didn’t find it as funny as the first two, although it had some good moments and certainly worked to evolve the characters a bit more (e.g. we got to peek into Ray’s life). I do look forward to future episodes.

If you visit their YouTube channel you can view all the episodes along with outtakes, some of which are hilarious (e.g. episode 1 outtake 5).

Sohn Mohk Soo

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

The second set of techniques one learns in Kuk Sool (at yellow belt level) is Sohn Mohk Soo — wrist techniques.

Many people put down defenses against wrist grabs, and I can understand why. It’s complicated, and in a “real fight” situation a lot of it is unlikely to work unless you’ve had a lot of training, practice, and know how to set it up. There’s merit to learning how to escape from wrist grabs because they do happen, but you just don’t always need a lot of fancy flowery moves. If what you want is to just break their grip on your wrist so you can get away, there’s really nothing special: work against their thumb (weakest point of the grip), use your fully body (weight):

Other simple movements can work too, e.g. stomp on their instep.

Back to Sohn Mohk Soo.

What has to be considered here isn’t so much that you are learning “defense against wrist grabs” but that you are also learning body mechanics. Sohn Mohk Soo teaches more about how the body works: how the wrist, arm, shoulder work, or perhaps more importantly how they don’t work. It also teaches ways for you to move your body: methods of grabbing, methods of entry, body positioning. Furthermore, just because these techniques are set up from a same-side wrist grab position, that doesn’t mean they are only applicable in that instance: an arm bar is an arm bar no matter how you enter into it. When viewing and learning these techniques, don’t stop at the surface, look deeper. There is a lot taught and much to learn.