Martial Arts

Looking for canes

/ hsoi / 19 Comments

I’m wanting to buy a cane… fighting cane.

The following is no endorsement. Just me Googling and listing what I find. I have no direct experience with any of these products… yet. I’m hoping to find someone to buy a good cane from.

There’s Cane Masters. There’s Goju-Shorei. But I want to find something else. Just because I want to see if there’s anyone else out there producing good product at perhaps a better price.

All I want is something simple. Wood cane, of a strong hard wood that can take a beating (e.g. oak). Crook neck/handle. I’d like the opening to be “straight” (no crook going inwards and closing the opening off). Keeping it very simple so it blends in; think: can I take this onto an airplane? That I can use as an actual walking cane, but can use for self-defense purposes as well.

I just found this website, simply enough: walking canes. Lots of great selection, but unsure of the fitness for the purpose.

And The Walking Cane Store.

I do see a lot of the same canes listed at the 3 above sites. Not 100% overlap, but a decent amount.

In the end, wood is wood. If it’s oak, it’ll be strong. It’s then a matter of diameter and things like the size of the opening to ensure it can properly hook onto things.

This looks like a small-time shop doing their own thing: Kentucky Walking Sticks.

Hrm…. most other things I find are crap like umbrella canes, sword canes, rattan canes (I like rattan for my staffs, but not for my cane… too much flex to support my weight). I guess my Google-Fu is weak.

If you have any good suggestions or outlets for quality canes, please comment and let me know.

Questions from the search stats

/ hsoi

It’s always interesting to see what the search stats turn up.

Ruger SR-22

This has been an amazingly popular search term. I haven’t seen anything like it in my blog stats before. People are really curious about this firearm. It’s interesting for sure, and to me the real interesting factor is the possible side-effects of producing such a firearm. I still have no compelling reason to buy one tho.

Hornady Critical Defense

This is another very popular term. My initial posting is here, but if you search my blog for it you’ll find other postings on it as well. The ammo is certainly interesting and I applaud Hornady for continuing to find ways to serve the civilian self-defense market. I also applaud their efforts to focus on “small calibers” popular for concealed carry and trying to find ways to improve upon the terminal effectiveness of cartridges in those calibers. That all said, I’m not yet sold on this ammo being something for me to trust my life on. It’s too new to the market and there just hasn’t been enough testing beyond some simple ballistics gel and newspaper wetpack testing. I’d like to see more data. Meantime, I’ll stick with Gold Dots for my 9mm and the LSWCHP’s for my .38 snub.

is a 9mm gun good self defense

Nope. It’s a good tool that can help you physically defend yourself, but really the best self-defense is using your gray matter. Get training, get skills, gain awareness, and conduct your daily life in a manner that works to keep you safe. That’s really better for self-defense. But if it comes to that point, I feel my 9mm handgun is a useful tool to have.

how to expand compress in snow leopard

StuffIt

(but I’m biased)

can you shoot a 45 bullet with a 9mm

Sure, if you’ve got really good aim and a steady hand… amazing what those sharpshooters and trick shooters can do. 🙂

But if you mean can you chamber a .45 ACP cartridge in a gun chambered for 9mm Luger? Nope. A .45 bullet has a larger diameter, just won’t work.

kimber with dawson precision sights

Envy. A 1911 is in my future… someday.

what does chl exam looks like

If you are curious about the Texas Concealed Handgun License course of fire, here it is.

“fear of girls”

Funny stuff.

9mm +p+ in any pistol

No. Only in pistols specifically rated as being able to handle +P+ (means that the round has about 15% greater pressure than a standard round). Using +P+ in a gun not rated as being able to handle it could have catastrophic results. If you’re not 100% sure the gun can handle it, don’t do it. If you’re not 100% sure, contact the manufacturer and ask (or check their website, they may have manuals online).

martial arts canes

Damned if I can find sources other than Cane Masters and Goju-Shorei for good fighting canes. I myself am looking for others. Not that I have a problem with what these guys are doing (I hear only good things about the quality of the CM canes) but I just want to see more selection.

If you know of any other cane makers, especially small guys that do good hand-crafting, please let me know.

selecting a gun for kids

Depends what you want to do with them (and I’ll avoid the obvious jokes and snark on this one), plus it depends upon the kid. But IMHO the best way to start out is with a .22. This is because for most kids, the power of recoil may be more than they can handle. Plus larger calibers are going to be louder, which can affect a lot of kids in negative ways. Ease them into things. Make it fun, make it easy (e.g. put the target at 5 yards not 50). If they can do something like shoot at some cans or gallon water jugs… i.e. make the target do something, that helps to make it fun.

But even tho they’re kids, don’t overlook getting them good training and ingraining proper safety habits. Safety is paramount.

Changing my stance on WKSA

/ hsoi

Yes I know. I’ve been pretty critical and unhappy with the direction the World Kuk Sool Association has been going. Just look at past postings and you can see.

Yesterday’s meeting changed me a bit. I gained some deeper insight into many things. I saw a little more of the human side of things. I see what In Hyuk Suh is doing, and I really don’t blame him. In the end, he’s just a man that wants to take care of his family, and I find no fault with that; in fact, that’s how any good father and husband should be. I still don’t think the franchise agreement is sound business… I think existing schools may get by but the agreement is mighty scary for any new franchisees. So while the implementation may not be best, the goal… well, I’m a little warmer to it.

I think what really changed was a solidifying of a stronger separation between the art and the business. You see, I really don’t have a problem with the art. I think the art itself is good, is sound. There are only so many ways the body can move, and things like the main curriculum really work to help teach you that: both how to move your body and how to move someone else’s body. The structure of the curriculum is very well done, and there’s a lot of subtle things in the structuring that are well thought out. Sure it’s not perfect and there are arguments that moving some things around might be better, but on the whole it’s pretty well done and not just something slapped together. Is it a perfect art? No, but there’s a lot about it that is good and sound. I still love the art itself.

But the business of the art… that’s really what drove me away. Be it this franchise stuff, be it all the politics, all the bullshit, all the watered down teaching, the memorization-regurgitation aspect of it all, money money money “>money money money, buy t-shirts! buy merchandise!… this is all business stuff. In the end, business killed it for me.

So like I said, yesterday really revitalized me. It was a situation that, business wise, was well… practically business free! So little bullshit. The teaching was sound, working towards truer understanding and application. Old school, where business doesn’t really matter and it’s just art. Man, that’s great. So yes, I’d love to have more private lessons if he’s willing to do them. 🙂

I’ll still be critical of WKSA, if needed. I don’t tolerate bullshit. But let’s not confuse the business and the art.

A Kuk Sool kind of day

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

Today was a good day. Interesting day. Educational day.

I had the good fortune of having lunch with a particular gentleman. This man studied Kuk Sool for many many many years. He’s well versed, Master level, skilled. He’s also very friendly and talkative. He loves the art, and that was evident in his teaching today.

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Video analysis

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

So the hot new video to watch, examine, and learn from:

This is actually an old video as I saw it some long time ago. Nevertheless, t3h Int3rw3bz knows how to recycle, so here we are.

Over at Ikigai, he provided a reasonable analysis: the victim didn’t lose his cool, kept it simple, the victim sought to end the confrontation and once it was over let it be done. However, I don’t like what happened in the video.

The thug got too close, way too close. The thug put his hands on the victim. For me, none of that should have happened in the first place. This is where skills like Practical Unarmed Combat come into play: Managing Unknown Contacts (MUC), The Fence, and other such techniques really need to be applied. The situation should never have gotten to the point it did. But if someone did manage to get up in your face, that’s why that fence is important… to be able to hit that “default position”, eye flicks, or whatever else may be necessary. Having your hands folded and down like that, there’s no way you’d be able to get them up in time to be of any use to you… not with an attacker in that close.

In fact if we want to talk fences, how did this thug get past the homeowner’s physical yard fence? Now you’re trespassing on my property, and that changes things a whole lot. Granted, I think the video was in the UK and unfortunately law-abiding citizens are neutered there, but here in Texas and in much of the United States there is the Castle Doctrine and that plays into effect in a situation like this.

I will say that the outcome shown on the video was fortunate and the thug was lucky all he got was a bruised ego. The victim was lucky he was able to walk away with just his yard to clean up. To me, the take-home lesson is to not allow situations to get to that point. Acquire and use skills to prevent such situations in the first place.

Injuries suck

/ hsoi

For the past few weeks I’ve been having some pains in my hands, especially my left hand. It’s difficult to grip things even slightly tightly. Trying to get that Todd Jarrett Kung-Fu Action grip on my gun? forget it, it’s way painful, especially in the knuckles of my left hand. 😦

I have some spring clamps in my garage for woodworking and repair needs. I sometimes just squeeze them to work on my grip strength. I can barely squeeze it with my left hand, without pain.

I don’t know what’s wrong, but I’m suspecting it’s due to typing all day and having slacked off recently in my posture. Especially with my left arm because I picked up a bad habit of resting my left elbow outward while typing thus canting my left wrist and stretching out the ligaments on the back of my hand leading up to my index finger. When I look at the mechanics of it all, it makes sense given the way the pain hits me.

I haven’t been to my martial arts classes in a couple weeks because it all involves either hitting things with my hands or having to grip/grab things. I figured there was no reason to risk making it worse. My hands are very important to me, especially given how vital they are to my earning a living.

*sigh*

But I just came in from doing my first workout in weeks. Swung my sticks around for a while, then some calisthenics like push-ups. Things to work with my hands but not work them too hard. It wasn’t too bad. I think I’m going to get back into the swing of things and just take it as it comes. Of course, I’m also kicking myself for not working out at all. I could shadow box, I could work on other empty hand things, or I could have just gone back and practiced my Kuk Sool hyung to keep my conditioning up. I don’t know why I didn’t do that stuff, but back in the saddle I go.

Hubud drills, and other FMA finds

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Ever have one of those online sessions where you’re just browsing the web, you come upon something interesting, then either you start clicking deeper or Google for more information, and just come upon all sorts of interesting things? I’m having one of those, relating to a Filipino martial arts drill known as “Hubud” or maybe “hu bud” or “hubad” or “hu bad”.

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Search term blog fodder

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

And so… back to the search terms, for more cheap blog material.

hwarangdo vs kuksool

What do you want to know? Both rather controlling, ego driven, Hapkido-related, traditional Korean martial arts. They both have really fancy schmancy uniforms. They both claim to be the ultimate in martial arts covering everything for every one. They both claim to have gazillion year old lineages, full of secret information.

I remember long long ago when I first heard of HRD that I was impressed… I thought it was such a cool, bad-ass martial art. Then I read a lot of the rules, rules that broached into your personal life for a total code of behavior. While I can sorta see the traditional aspect behind that, it also reeks of cult-ism, which both of these arts have been accused of. Not that they are a cult, they aren’t, but they do exhibit cult-like behavior. Still, if you watch the senior ranking masters perform, they’re quite awesome. Taejoon Lee of HRD and Sung Jin Suh of KSW (both the sons of the respective art founders) are fantastic martial artists.

Given a choice tho, I’d study neither. HRD offers me nothing that I haven’t already dealt with in Kuk Sool, and after 6 years of Kuk Sool I opted to leave it and study other things.

difference in damage from 9mm to 45

On paper, in ballistics gel, in the laboratory, .45 ACP probably does more. In the real world, doesn’t really matter… both suck.

Shoot the gun that you can shoot best: fast, accurate. You want to get fast, accurate hits in the proper target zone. Shot placement is key. The biggest baddest round in the wrong spot means nothing. And lots of little “weak” .22 LR’s placed in the right spot have taken down all sorts of things over the years. Shot placement matters more.

And so to improve your chances at shot placement, you want to shoot the gun you can shoot better. Me, I can shoot .45 ACP just fine and dandy, but I can shoot 9mm better because there’s less recoil to manage (I can get back on the sights and on target faster). I can shoot it faster and maintain a high level of accuracy with it.

YMMV

best email client for macintosh snow leopard

What’s left these days? Microsoft Entourage and Apple’s Mail.app. Is there anything else even available?

Mail.app has the advantage of a lot of integration with the OS, with your iPhone, and so on. I still don’t think it’s as good a client as Entourage is tho. But I must admit, Mail’s complete integration, especially now that I have an iPhone, really makes it tempting for me to want to switch to Mail.app. Why don’t I? Inertia. There’s WAY too much to overcome to make the switch.

how to manage geeks

See: how to herd cats.

Or more easily: enable them to do their work and leave them alone to do it. Don’t bullshit them. Meritocracy tends to be strongly in play.

“kuk sool won” mcdojo

Yup.

I shouldn’t be so harsh. Any martial art can be a McDojo. Unfortunately, more and more the way World Kuk Sool Association is running Kuk Sool Won, it’s reeking more and more of McDojo-ism. The art itself can be a very solid art, unfortunately the way the business side of things is run, you get what you got.

hfs+ detect changes spotlight

FSEvents.framework is your friend.

why did marlin sims leave kuk sool

Why don’t you ask him?

But if you don’t want to, my understanding is disagreements with the WKSA. He wanted to do one thing, they wouldn’t let him. Exerting too much control over a person, restricting and restraining, that’s not a productive thing. He left. I don’t blame him.

But whatever. He’s doing his own thing now. I think it’s better for the martial arts world in general, because now he can control his own destiny… he can share his vast knowledge, experience, and ability with the world and no one can stop him. It’s a loss for WKSA but a big gain for the rest of the world.

BTW, I got to speak with him at length on the phone one time. Great guy. Funny. So knowledgeable. An artist, but more so a scientist. I never got the chance to directly train with him, but would love to do so if the opportunity arose.

best good nine 9 mm handgun

As opposed to the best bad nine 9mm handgun? Or maybe the worst good nine 9 mm handgun?

how far does a 9mm hand gun shoot?

If you angled everything just right, centerfire handgun rounds can travel about 1 to 1.5 miles.

This is why you must follow the rules, especially NRA rule 1 or Cooper rule 4.

how many shots does a 9mm gun carry?

Depends upon the gun and the magazine. For instance a Glock 17 magazine holds 17 rounds. A Springfield EMP magazine holds 9 rounds. I can buy a 33 round magazine for the Glock…. it sticks out a lot, but still can be used.

best 9mm handgun 2009

Springfield Armory’s XD(m) won the 2009 NRA Golden Bullseye Award for Handgun of the Year. Take that for what it’s worth.

shotgun vs pistol home defense

Neither. Rifle.

DVD Review – ShivWorks’ Reverse Edge Methods, Volume 1

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

This is my 3rd of 4 reviews of the ShivWorks DVD series. I previously reviewed the Practical Unarmed Combat DVD and the Fighting Handgun Volume 1 DVD.

The intent of this DVD is to provide an introduction to ShivWorks’ reverse-edge knife skills, for use in extreme close quarters combat situations.

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