Author: hsoi

It depends upon your goals

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Via Brillianter I read an article from Low Tech Combat on training realism.

I’m with both of the guys on this: that you need to train in realistic environments or as close as you can get while still safely training, but it can’t only be that. It’s a progression, going from learning in a calm controlled static manner, then moving towards more alive and realistic training.

Low Tech isn’t trying to bash traditional martial arts (TMA) in his article, but the faults he points out are correct that most TMA’s do not train in any sort of stressful and truly combative manner. But is that bad? Not necessarily. I would say it all depends upon the goals of the art, the school, the students as a whole, and the individual student.

If your goal is to be effective in combat, to be able to actually defend yourself if you got attacked “on t3h st433t”, then you better ensure there’s some training that actually simulates that. As Low Tech points out, you need to move beyond calm and relaxed training, there should be surprise, intimidation, it should be all part of the training.

But a lot of people take TMA’s for exercise and physical activity. Some find it as a social outlet. If it’s little more than “physical education” there is nothing wrong with that. If all you do is cooperatively tango with folks at the dojo, that’s fine. There doesn’t need to be yelling, surprise, ratcheting up the force, and so on. And there is nothing wrong with this. Everyone that undertakes martial arts does it for their own reasons, and so long as your training is consistent with your goals and you are honest about your training, that’s fine.

That is the key tho: being honest about your training. Every so often back in my Kuk Sool years there’d be talk about self-defense, being able to deal with “t3h st433t” and so on. But apart from a couple people who just “had it” mentally and physically, I know many of the people in that school would be p0wnd pretty easily because their training rarely if ever went beyond cooperative dancing. I got honest with myself about the training I was receiving, and while good in many respects it was not directly satisfying my goals of being capable in combat, so it was one reason I left.

Bottom line: know your goals, be honest with yourself about your goals and the training you’re receiving. Whatever your goals or reasons are for studying martial arts, as long as everything is in honest alignment, that’s what matters.

What he said

/ hsoi

A lot of people were pitching a major fit about President Obama and the speech to the children.

My take? It was somewhat understandable. There’s a lot of distrust of the man, his administration, and the current Congress. With the way things are right now, people were afraid he was going to turn it into some sort of agenda push.

Me? I expected the worst but hoped for the best. This is not the first time a President has spoken to the schoolchildren. And they’re generally always the same sort of thing: stay in school, education is important, study hard, etc.. And every time this happens, the “opposition party” has always come out screaming that the speech is going to be brainwashing the children. So, the speech and the reactions to the speech are just typical… happens all the time, nothing really new to see here.

My take? I homeschool the kids. Now, we had a 4-H meeting today so I couldn’t watch it, but it can be caught on YouTube and the transcript was posted. But the general plan was to go ahead and watch it with our kids. Then no matter what the message, discuss it. I think that’s really the best way to handle just about anything with your children: participate, be involved, discuss, help them understand.

Overall the speech wasn’t too bad. The overall message was a good one, and the illustrations and construction of the speech were alright.

But I do have a few beefs with the speech:

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.

Can someone point out to me where in the US Constitution it says anything about the Federal Government being responsible for education?

The other big thing I wonder is… he spoke a lot about being responsible. He set forth a great number of things — expectations of behavior. I can only hope that he himself, after speaking as he did today, holds himself, his cabinet members, all those czars, members of Congress, etc. to the same standards.

Low Light shooting

/ hsoi

Just noticed over at The Box O’ Truth that a large series of articles about Low Light Shooting Essentials has been posted.

If I can promote a bit… Old_Painless himself puts a disclaimer up saying this is informational and you really should seek adequate instruction. If you live in or can get to the Central Texas area, KR Training will be offering their AT-1A Low Light Shooting class on Oct. 24, 2009. It’s a fun class and provides a good and solid introduction to low-light shooting skills.

Who says it’s not a hunting rifle?

/ hsoi

See? An M1 Garand works just fine as a hunting rifle.

It shoots .30-06, which is certainly adequate as a hunting round, so why not the rifle itself? I used my M1A on my first hunting trip. Works just fine. But I opted to change to a different rifle for hunting, mostly due to two things: weight and noise. The M1A is a big heavy rifle. If I was sitting in a blind, who cares. But stalking hunting, that weight gets to you after a while. Plus the gun is noisy on two counts. First, the muzzle brake directed a lot of noise back at you and unless you’re wearing hearing protection (which I stupidly wasn’t on that hunt… finally got a set of Pro Ears Stalker Gold’s coming my way) it’s going to hurt. Second, the gun itself was just noisy… the safety is hard and heavy to click off and makes quite a noise when it does.

Still, it’s a fine rifle and I’m sure I’ll hunt with it again at some point.

How to recognize different types of AK-47’s from quite a long ways away

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

This is an AK-47:

The gun in this article is NOT an AK-47.

(h/t to Slashdot)

Updated: The Arizona Rifleman has an additional guide for those that need extra help, especially if you’re a reporter.

Kuk Sool action books

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

Check this out.

The Adventures of Mark and JayLee: Modern Masters of Ancient Skill

Came out just a couple months ago.

Interesting bit? Martial arts. Hrm. Korean tilt to things. Hrm. There was once a Master in Kuk Sool Won named Jay Lee. Hrm. He used to work for the Houston PD. Hrm. In fact, Marlin Sims (another former Kuk Sool Won Master) did some things there too. You know the infamous “pimp slap” video? That Jay Lee; in fact, in that video around 0:30 you’ll see a tall thin black man standing over the pimp, that’s Marlin Sims (note the Kuk Sool Won logo on the back of his t-shirt). Mark? Marlin? Close enough, especially since apparently Mark is the black guy on the cover. The white guy is JayLee… JayLee, Jay Lee, close enough.

Digging deeper I find: Selrauq Action Books

Even a blog about Korean martial arts.

Someone points out the name of the author. Selrauq is Quarles spelled backwards, as in Victor Quarles, 5th Dan Master in Kuk Sool Won teaching out of the Woodlands, TX.

In fact, their next book is going to be called Kuk Sool Saga.

I’m not sure why the pseudonym, especially if the little bit of sleuthing exposes everything. Nevertheless, it’s an interesting endeavor. I hope it proves successful for him.

It’s a good day

/ hsoi

So far, it’s a good day.

It’s the Labor Day weekend. It’s been productive for me, despite my overriding desire to be lazy all weekend long.

I just came in from a workout. I’m so happy with where my martial arts work is going. The Kali, JKD, Silat, Muay Thai, and boxing stuff… it all blends so well with my defensive handgun work. I don’t expect a self-defense situation to be a pure gunfight or a pure empty-hand situation. It always could be, but chances are it won’t. It’s wonderful to have many options at your disposal, and for these things to blend well into making your own system. I don’t regret my Kuk Sool training at all, but some of those aspects don’t really lend towards my current goals. But I envison later in life that I’ll find myself studying different martial arts again just for the sake of studying some art; for instance, Baguazhang holds appeal to me due to its Taoist underpinnings.

But for now, I’m riding a high of everything coming together so well. Serendipity. 🙂

Hopefully later this morning the family will take a trip to the best Korean grocery store in town and pick up some things. Need my kimchi fix. They also have a little diner in the store, which should make for a good lunch. Not sure what I’ll have yet, but if nothing else my default of a bibimbap would be just fine.

Then home, relax, have a beer, and just enjoy the rest of the day basking in the joy of my family.

It will be an even better day. 🙂

Joined the club

/ hsoi

Yesterday I finally was able to get out to the Austin Rifle Club’s range orientation meeting.

ARC is a private club; you must be a member. Membership isn’t difficult. You need to attend the orientation meeting where they’ll discuss club rules, policies, how the club and ranges work. You need to have a background check (or a CHL). There’s a range safety live-fire evaluation exercise. Then you pay money, fill out forms, and at the monthly general meeting you’re voted in (or not).

So as of now, I’ve done everything but had my membership voted on. So I’ll know in about a week and a half if I’m truly a member or not.

I’ve wanted to be a member for quite a while. ARC is one of the better facilities in town for shooting. Many pistol ranges, 100 and 200 yard rifle range (they used to have a 300 yard range but that was removed due to the action bays, tho there’s talk of a 400 yard range right now), ranges for silhouette. They are a little weak for shotgun but you can do some basic shotgun, just not a lot for things like skeet and trap due to the sheer space that tends to require. And the brand new action shooting bays. From how they were talking last night, they’re growing at a rate of almost 30 new members a month, primarily due to the action bays. That’s great news. Part of why I’ve wanted to join is the action bays, especially if they get opened up for regular member use (i.e. not just limited to being used in formal matches). I’d like to be able to go there to practice shooting on the move, working with my AR transitioning to handgun and back. I’m not sure they’ll do that because while membership tends to be on the better side of gun-handling (background checks and the range safety eval help), there’s no question that membership isn’t always the best. Witness the holes in the ceiling and eyebrows of the 15 yard plinking range, the fact the target holders on the plinking range get shot to hell (shotguns are prohibited on that range since they destroy the target holders, yet people use them there).

In my class yesterday, there were about 30 people. The age range was pretty wide, from a few teenagers to a few seniors. I’d say probably a third of the people were female. Mostly white folks but a few other flavors as well. I’d say probably half of the people had CHL’s, but I believe I was the only person that was actually actively carrying. I’m not sure what to make of that. Perhaps some of them normally carry but opted to disarm for this function because they weren’t sure how the procedures were to be handled? Perhaps some were carrying but opted to shoot another gun? It didn’t seem like that tho. Most appeared to not be actively armed, except perhaps one other gentleman who had an OWB holster on… but it was odd because his Glock was slide-locked back and in the holster (when did he do this?). Bottom line: if you’ve got a CHL, you ought to be using it for more than an adornment on your wallet.

Glad to finally (well, almost finally) be a member.

Monster Hunter International – Finished it

/ hsoi

I just finished Larry Correia‘s book, Monster Hunter International.

My early feel on the book bears out to the end. It’s a monster/sci-fi sort of thing, and while I can enjoy that stuff it’s not 100% up my alley. And yes, lead character Owen Pitt is the uber-hero. But by the time you get to the end, you see how it all fits together. I do see that Owen is given slightly more faults, he isn’t indestructible (sorta), but he’s still uber-hero. Then again, this also isn’t the deepest of books. Does there have to be any real character development here? There really isn’t and no it’s not really necessary. The book takes place over a short span of time and is pretty directed in what it’s trying to accomplish. That’s not really a bad thing… this isn’t high literature, but it’s decently written and sure damn fun.

And really, that’s the thing that surprised me the most in reading this book: how much fun I had in reading it. I did not expect it to be as much fun as it was. I found myself smiling a great deal. I found many nights where I’d be reading before bed and not wanting to put it down, only having to because my Wife found me falling asleep (not due to the book, just a long day and my body said it was bedtime). It was an enjoyable read. You can’t take it too seriously, you just suspend disbelief (and oddly, the whole “keep an open mind” thing is part of the story itself), and enjoy it.

I repeat what I said before. If this was made into a movie, I’d pay money to see it. It’d be a lot of fun. Get Julie Strain (NB: her website is NSFW) to play the role of Julie Shackleford. In fact, due to the events during the climax and given the book is told in the first person, I wondered if shooting the entire movie through Owen’s eyes (first person perspective, like a first person shooter game, which in so many ways fits) would be an interesting way to do it. Might be annoying to have it filmed that way, but the thought popped in my head that it could make for a way to do this. For reference, while I was reading the climactic scene I was thinking how Owen’s eyes were crusted shut… you would see what he sees: darkness, black, nothing. But you hear everything. Then when his eyes are opened, well, you’ll see it all again through those eyes. *shrug* I am not a movie maker.

Yes, Larry Correia is a gun nut. It’s so evident. Little gunny gems throughout the book.

Anyway, I enjoyed the book. I thank TXGunGeek for lending me his copy of the book. Now I suppose I need to enter the songwriting contest. 🙂