I've decided to come home from china early, probably around March. Nothing against the training--I mostly need to get a job and make some money before school.
That being said, I'm not too crushed about it. I've realized how great my life is, mostly due to the people around me. I'm excited to get back to it.
Home for xmas in a week.
UBBT 7 in two.
2009 was the best year of my life, but 2010...well, you won't even see it coming.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Saturday, December 5, 2009
spective is so retro nowadays
Strangely, I didn't really think about UBBT 6 ending. I saw it more as the next step in my training, a permanent change in the way I think about the martial arts: a stage rather than a test. Even this ending is just a gateway into the beginning of UBBT 7: so it's appropriate I should talk about the past year in light of the next.
Especially since we began in September, it seems like ages since the test began. While these 16 months have flown by in a certain respect, I've experienced so much I get dizzy thinking about it. I graduated university, moved to China, even joined a band. Every day was full and exciting. Oh sure, I sometimes had trouble getting out of bed or going to class, just like anyone. On the whole, though, I managed to stay engaged with each day. This, in fact, has been the best year of my life because I worked so hard and so mindfully.
But the fun part is, things are just going to keep getting better.
I'm looking forward to more time in China, then moving to Vancouver. Hanging out with my amazing friends in that city, starting my master's, and trying to take my training in new and exciting directions. All good things.
There will be problems, of course. I'll be stressed, broke and there will be many days where I'll have trouble getting the motivation to do my pushups, let alone train. But that's ok. Stress means I'm challenging myself. No money means I don't have to care about it: enjoying the true pleasures of life instead of the consumerist wasteland. And no matter how much I don't want to train, I can and will--making it mean all the more.
The UBBT this year was a means of focus. A lens that has started to turn me into a laser beam. But that focus isn't obsession. Taking my training into the world has taught me that being alive takes work. Putting everything I have into my training has let me put everything into daily life.
I think the best thing I can say about UBBT 6 is it wasn't the race. It was the starter's pistol. Instead of winding down after a long and difficult journey, I'm amped to go further and harder this time.
So bring it on, because this year I'm going to get more out of myself and my life: more training, more positivity, more engagement and even more tattoos.
(ps- sorry about that last thing mom)
Especially since we began in September, it seems like ages since the test began. While these 16 months have flown by in a certain respect, I've experienced so much I get dizzy thinking about it. I graduated university, moved to China, even joined a band. Every day was full and exciting. Oh sure, I sometimes had trouble getting out of bed or going to class, just like anyone. On the whole, though, I managed to stay engaged with each day. This, in fact, has been the best year of my life because I worked so hard and so mindfully.
But the fun part is, things are just going to keep getting better.
I'm looking forward to more time in China, then moving to Vancouver. Hanging out with my amazing friends in that city, starting my master's, and trying to take my training in new and exciting directions. All good things.
There will be problems, of course. I'll be stressed, broke and there will be many days where I'll have trouble getting the motivation to do my pushups, let alone train. But that's ok. Stress means I'm challenging myself. No money means I don't have to care about it: enjoying the true pleasures of life instead of the consumerist wasteland. And no matter how much I don't want to train, I can and will--making it mean all the more.
The UBBT this year was a means of focus. A lens that has started to turn me into a laser beam. But that focus isn't obsession. Taking my training into the world has taught me that being alive takes work. Putting everything I have into my training has let me put everything into daily life.
I think the best thing I can say about UBBT 6 is it wasn't the race. It was the starter's pistol. Instead of winding down after a long and difficult journey, I'm amped to go further and harder this time.
So bring it on, because this year I'm going to get more out of myself and my life: more training, more positivity, more engagement and even more tattoos.
(ps- sorry about that last thing mom)
Monday, November 30, 2009
as you push, you go up
very tired right now. expect more later this week.
pushups this month: 10,990
pushups so far: 16,570
pushups this month: 10,990
pushups so far: 16,570
Monday, November 16, 2009
winter wonderland
It really snowed Saturday night, probably a foot by Monday. Sunday after lunch we had a snowball fight, then made snowmen/women and kicked their heads off. It was fun to watch the reactions of students who had never before seen snow.
The training hall is cold enough to see my breath now, but working hard warms me up.
The training hall is cold enough to see my breath now, but working hard warms me up.
Monday, November 9, 2009
the far out east
The martial arts come from very specific cultures and today carry many elements of that. But this leads to some very inaccurate ideas about the cultures themselves.
I hear a lot of martial artists talk about how wrong we do things in the west (and by west, I mean that ethnocentric, mildly racist 'west' of North America and parts of Europe): we dabble too much, are too egotistical or unfocused. Predictably, most of the talk I hear is from western practitioners.
Many of us hold Japan, China, etc. as some mystical land of wisdom and patience. We've frozen this already unrealistic portrait of a culture: after only seeing a few heavily edited bits and pieces we've assumed what's in the rest of the book.
After two months of living here I can say that everything you don't like about our culture is enthusiastically present in China. It's just as much a worry obsessed, consumer whore, shallow hateful culture as back home. There are good bits, of course--just as there's good and bad bits everywhere. My Shifu (ooo, dropping some mandarin spelling on y'all) even complains about how Chinese people don't take care of themselves as well as Westerners.
But let's take it one step further. After all, we're not necessarily talking about your average Chinese citizen. Well, the two Shaolin masters--as in grew up in the real Shaolin temple--I see everyday are, unsurprisingly, pretty human. They aren't stoic, infinitely wise men (it always seems to be men with this stereotype) who stroke beards and mostly grunt. One loves zombie movies, and my Shifu has fairly short temper.
So stop comparing cultures. The martial arts is a product of a certain worldview, yes. But that worldview is not an accurate picture of Oriental culture, both modern or ancient. Consider the rhetoric of medieval European chivalry compared to the brutal and often cruel practices of knighthood. So much smoke for the size of the fire.
At the same time, the martial arts has become a worldview of it's own. Embrace the humility, patience and accountability of our practice rather than a five point exploding palm or any other fantasy we like to tell each other. And don't project some imagined values on a different culture.
I hear a lot of martial artists talk about how wrong we do things in the west (and by west, I mean that ethnocentric, mildly racist 'west' of North America and parts of Europe): we dabble too much, are too egotistical or unfocused. Predictably, most of the talk I hear is from western practitioners.
Many of us hold Japan, China, etc. as some mystical land of wisdom and patience. We've frozen this already unrealistic portrait of a culture: after only seeing a few heavily edited bits and pieces we've assumed what's in the rest of the book.
After two months of living here I can say that everything you don't like about our culture is enthusiastically present in China. It's just as much a worry obsessed, consumer whore, shallow hateful culture as back home. There are good bits, of course--just as there's good and bad bits everywhere. My Shifu (ooo, dropping some mandarin spelling on y'all) even complains about how Chinese people don't take care of themselves as well as Westerners.
But let's take it one step further. After all, we're not necessarily talking about your average Chinese citizen. Well, the two Shaolin masters--as in grew up in the real Shaolin temple--I see everyday are, unsurprisingly, pretty human. They aren't stoic, infinitely wise men (it always seems to be men with this stereotype) who stroke beards and mostly grunt. One loves zombie movies, and my Shifu has fairly short temper.
So stop comparing cultures. The martial arts is a product of a certain worldview, yes. But that worldview is not an accurate picture of Oriental culture, both modern or ancient. Consider the rhetoric of medieval European chivalry compared to the brutal and often cruel practices of knighthood. So much smoke for the size of the fire.
At the same time, the martial arts has become a worldview of it's own. Embrace the humility, patience and accountability of our practice rather than a five point exploding palm or any other fantasy we like to tell each other. And don't project some imagined values on a different culture.
Monday, November 2, 2009
i are fifth
Some i ams to start the week
10. i am organized
"he'll be able to reach behind him and grab a tool without looking. move it two inches to the left and he'll spend weeks looking for it."
so says pirsig. so says a lie. enforcement by routine breeds only the hollow comfort of repetition and by forcing the disparate details of existence into a optimistic, arbitrary system do we reach behind ourselves to find everything in a place ascribed to it as opposed to where it actually is.
look back for once and you'll find the chaos of reality but as long as you keep your eyes forward on the system, the vapid optimism, the unreality you've chosen for your perception you'll stay happily sane and unquestioning: an orgy of order self-imposed that keeps us content and most importantly, quiet. This piece of plastic garbage goes there or maybe it should be moved two inches to the left because otherwise the whole place would fall apart and you, you the candide lacking even disaster, you'd have to look at things for what they are.
11. i am my business (i am my product)
i didn't know it was any of your business to be mine. i didn't know it was any of my business to give myself up to a brand. livelihoods are not conducive to living. real opinions aren't ok if i have something to sell. individuality unacceptable to the churnings of capitalism.
but i'll keep this all secret from myself because otherwise i wouldn't be able to wander through suburbia in eternal fear of doing anything out of the ordinary or even of real value because the soccer moms and dads are all peeking in terror through the curtains and my logo is scarred, branded, onto my forehead: uncle graham's family friendly beige coloured uncontroversial plastic wrapped generic martial arts fun club. won't change your life but we do birthday parties.
12. i am engaged (participative)
every moment is right here. all i do is breathe and see only what's in front of me. the only way i can recognize that i'm alive. a future means i'm blind and a past means i'm dead. only the next step is real and every punch is the last one i'll ever throw.
13. i am joyful
i've got a songbird drawn into my leg because i don't want meaning to sing and scream. i'll go onto rooftops to see the city as a collection of moments, clinging to the belief that nothing is worth more than my own worthiness, than my own sense of being. nothing matters more than right now, whatever it is.
at some point in space and time we'll press our foreheads together, surrounded by a city of garbage and the hopelessness we're told to have. i'll forget it all because for a second they'll be nothing beyond the smell of your hair and the flickering streetlight.
14. i am breathing
thinking about it, my existence suddenly becomes deliberate. staying alive no longer left to the medula oblongata--the piece of lizard still left in me, haphazardly flawlessly regulating the necessities. but i can take over that one piece, become simply the function, confront the details in order to see. in, out, in, out. inoutinoutinoutinoutinoutintoutinoutinout until never and forever.
i can't hold my heartbeat but i can clamp my mouth shut to keep the outside world and the gift of life at bay. i'll always open sooner rather than later because my medula and myself have interests in still being around. the joys of panic waver under the rush of inout.
10. i am organized
"he'll be able to reach behind him and grab a tool without looking. move it two inches to the left and he'll spend weeks looking for it."
so says pirsig. so says a lie. enforcement by routine breeds only the hollow comfort of repetition and by forcing the disparate details of existence into a optimistic, arbitrary system do we reach behind ourselves to find everything in a place ascribed to it as opposed to where it actually is.
look back for once and you'll find the chaos of reality but as long as you keep your eyes forward on the system, the vapid optimism, the unreality you've chosen for your perception you'll stay happily sane and unquestioning: an orgy of order self-imposed that keeps us content and most importantly, quiet. This piece of plastic garbage goes there or maybe it should be moved two inches to the left because otherwise the whole place would fall apart and you, you the candide lacking even disaster, you'd have to look at things for what they are.
11. i am my business (i am my product)
i didn't know it was any of your business to be mine. i didn't know it was any of my business to give myself up to a brand. livelihoods are not conducive to living. real opinions aren't ok if i have something to sell. individuality unacceptable to the churnings of capitalism.
but i'll keep this all secret from myself because otherwise i wouldn't be able to wander through suburbia in eternal fear of doing anything out of the ordinary or even of real value because the soccer moms and dads are all peeking in terror through the curtains and my logo is scarred, branded, onto my forehead: uncle graham's family friendly beige coloured uncontroversial plastic wrapped generic martial arts fun club. won't change your life but we do birthday parties.
12. i am engaged (participative)
every moment is right here. all i do is breathe and see only what's in front of me. the only way i can recognize that i'm alive. a future means i'm blind and a past means i'm dead. only the next step is real and every punch is the last one i'll ever throw.
13. i am joyful
i've got a songbird drawn into my leg because i don't want meaning to sing and scream. i'll go onto rooftops to see the city as a collection of moments, clinging to the belief that nothing is worth more than my own worthiness, than my own sense of being. nothing matters more than right now, whatever it is.
at some point in space and time we'll press our foreheads together, surrounded by a city of garbage and the hopelessness we're told to have. i'll forget it all because for a second they'll be nothing beyond the smell of your hair and the flickering streetlight.
14. i am breathing
thinking about it, my existence suddenly becomes deliberate. staying alive no longer left to the medula oblongata--the piece of lizard still left in me, haphazardly flawlessly regulating the necessities. but i can take over that one piece, become simply the function, confront the details in order to see. in, out, in, out. inoutinoutinoutinoutinoutintoutinoutinout until never and forever.
i can't hold my heartbeat but i can clamp my mouth shut to keep the outside world and the gift of life at bay. i'll always open sooner rather than later because my medula and myself have interests in still being around. the joys of panic waver under the rush of inout.
short and bitter
It started snowing today, big wet flakes that slowly drifted down and melted. A quick drop in temperature accompanied that-- thankfully, my room is warm.
Makes me miss home.
My sanda matchs on friday went pretty well. I dominated my second fight, though it wasn't all out. The first match was more serious. I managed to hold my ground and had some good shots, but a lot of my technique went out the window. That just means more opportunity to improve.
Being November, I've upped my pushups to 350 per day. I'm around 400 short of my schedule due to my injury last week, but I'll have caught up by this weekend. Here's the first of my monthly totals (well, most of this month--I didn't start counting until the 6th or so):
pushups this month: 5,600
pushups total: 5,600
pushups to go: 174,400
Makes me miss home.
My sanda matchs on friday went pretty well. I dominated my second fight, though it wasn't all out. The first match was more serious. I managed to hold my ground and had some good shots, but a lot of my technique went out the window. That just means more opportunity to improve.
Being November, I've upped my pushups to 350 per day. I'm around 400 short of my schedule due to my injury last week, but I'll have caught up by this weekend. Here's the first of my monthly totals (well, most of this month--I didn't start counting until the 6th or so):
pushups this month: 5,600
pushups total: 5,600
pushups to go: 174,400
Monday, October 26, 2009
stardom awaits
Wednesday afternoon Master Wong had a surprise for us. Somehow he had secured parts for nine of us (which grew to 14) as extras in a Chinese television drama titled East Dongfeng, which will be about the Korean War.
We stayed in a hotel that night--which I'm pretty sure was still under construction. But the top floor was done. The next day we woke up at 4, then drove to the coast. After getting on a huge ferry that took over 30 minutes to turn around, we sailed to a stunning island in the pacific ocean.
The scene was a meeting between Truman and General Mcarthar. We played members of the staff. I got to be a general, looking stern in the background. The hats were fantastic. One fellow student even got a speaking part--though he'll be dubbed over into Mandarin.
It was a very long day but the experience was too random and unique I loved it to pieces. That night Master Wong, dissatisfied with the dinner the film company offered us, took us out to a karrow (basically barbecue) place--where I had the best mushrooms I've ever tasted.
I've got my first real Sanda match on Friday. Full contact, even. I also picked up a minor pull in my tricep today. I'll fall a day or two behind on my pushups, which is becoming a much larger deal the more I do.
We stayed in a hotel that night--which I'm pretty sure was still under construction. But the top floor was done. The next day we woke up at 4, then drove to the coast. After getting on a huge ferry that took over 30 minutes to turn around, we sailed to a stunning island in the pacific ocean.
The scene was a meeting between Truman and General Mcarthar. We played members of the staff. I got to be a general, looking stern in the background. The hats were fantastic. One fellow student even got a speaking part--though he'll be dubbed over into Mandarin.
It was a very long day but the experience was too random and unique I loved it to pieces. That night Master Wong, dissatisfied with the dinner the film company offered us, took us out to a karrow (basically barbecue) place--where I had the best mushrooms I've ever tasted.
I've got my first real Sanda match on Friday. Full contact, even. I also picked up a minor pull in my tricep today. I'll fall a day or two behind on my pushups, which is becoming a much larger deal the more I do.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
ten to six or nine to five
Waking up yesterday, I had very little motivation to train. As I was dragging myself around after breakfast, I just felt lazy and a little sleep deprived. It's understandable, I have been going hard for 5 weeks now and the weekend often just reminds me of my lazy possibilities. But there I was anyhow, begrudgingly putting my on shoes.
Then I thought to myself: if I was at home on a Monday morning, I would be going to some job. Some piece of retail toxic waste that would be far easier but far more soul destroying.
I practically ran downstairs, grateful for where I am.
Then I thought to myself: if I was at home on a Monday morning, I would be going to some job. Some piece of retail toxic waste that would be far easier but far more soul destroying.
I practically ran downstairs, grateful for where I am.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
ahoy hoy
I started staff (well, pole) on Friday. I'm very excited, as I got to see someone perform what I'll be learning and it's fantastic. Lots of spins and intense strikes.
So that morning I get my staff and was shown the flower: a slight variation on double articulation. Then I practice that for an hour and a half. Tomorrow, I'll get shown the first one or two moves of the form and I'll practice those in a similar matter. While I was spinning my staff, I realized how different my approach to training is here. I have certainly practiced one form for that long, but not just one more, especially so consistently. But the devil's in the details and I'm improving at a pretty incredible rate.
In other news, I've got a new goal with my pushups. Right now I'm doing 4x40 knuckle pushups, 40 tiger claw pushups (but in a sandpit; I won't spoil the surprise about what these look like), 40 fingertips and 40 on the back of my hands for a total of 280. On November 1st, everything will go up to 50--raising then by 10 every month, with a new type of pushup being added in the new year. I'll do that until April 1st, where everything will be at 100 for a total of 800 pushups a day. Then I'll just raise the knuckles by 25 in May and June, for a total of 1000 by June. Assuming I can cut it, I'll do 1000 pushups a day for 40 days, so on July 11th, I'll give myself a birthday present of 180,000 pushups in 9 months.
Yeah, let's see what happens.
So that morning I get my staff and was shown the flower: a slight variation on double articulation. Then I practice that for an hour and a half. Tomorrow, I'll get shown the first one or two moves of the form and I'll practice those in a similar matter. While I was spinning my staff, I realized how different my approach to training is here. I have certainly practiced one form for that long, but not just one more, especially so consistently. But the devil's in the details and I'm improving at a pretty incredible rate.
In other news, I've got a new goal with my pushups. Right now I'm doing 4x40 knuckle pushups, 40 tiger claw pushups (but in a sandpit; I won't spoil the surprise about what these look like), 40 fingertips and 40 on the back of my hands for a total of 280. On November 1st, everything will go up to 50--raising then by 10 every month, with a new type of pushup being added in the new year. I'll do that until April 1st, where everything will be at 100 for a total of 800 pushups a day. Then I'll just raise the knuckles by 25 in May and June, for a total of 1000 by June. Assuming I can cut it, I'll do 1000 pushups a day for 40 days, so on July 11th, I'll give myself a birthday present of 180,000 pushups in 9 months.
Yeah, let's see what happens.
Monday, October 12, 2009
hip to the jive
An overextended tendon in my hip (or something like that) has been bothering me since my first week but it came to a head last week. I decided to take it easy: no kicking on the right leg, and very few low stances. It was an annoying, but good decision. Part of me wanted to just try and train through it, which is the usual advice from the Masters. They don't really care about an injury until you're absolutely floored by it. But I figured I knew my body better and that it was better to tone it down for a week rather than have to take time off for good.
I'm healing quite well now, thankfully. Common sense prevails.
I've already graded the basics, which went well. I might just be grading on Thursday, for a form called Tombei. It's intensely different than anything from Kempo, which makes it fun. There is a flying spinning cyclone at the end--good times. Actually, no. Bad times. But the rest of the form is fast and furious, with some wicked stances.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
i are fourth.
Have some i ams. Short and sweet, just some meaning.
3
I am connected.
there are mountains surrounding here. out every window impossibly ancient history juts into the sky. i think about it plunging into the earth, without moving. i think about it being the earth itself. i'll grind my feet a little more for the horse stance. twist it, pushing small bits of concrete aside. i'll feel myself go down according to what i'm a part of.
4
i am unencumbered
slam the palm against the tree, grip as i pull back. fingers are claws. fingers are claws. they learnt by watching, so i'll also proceed by metaphor.
fingers are claws.
not the usual trees, ones by the dining hall. far back in the dark instead. supposedly not to disturb those eating. really i just want to be by myself. out here in the dark the tree is hardly visible, pale fingers bright as they slam, then grab. out here in the dark it's only my hands and the tree. nothing to worry about when the fingers are claws.
last slam, last pull. start on the left. smell the sap on my fingers before i feel. sweetness isn't taste but an event.
5
i am an explorer
columbus looted gold--finding those already found. hard to discover something so big. the frontier only looks that way from the sepulchres, vast landscapes can never be home if you've only got a one way view.
contact zone is the new term, places of conflict and negotiation. trades and code-switching. you mucka high!
training as a pyramid, the spiritual mountain. everything has a top. walk long enough you start going down. walk even longer and i'll end up where you started. light bends, so watch your step--don't worry about where i'm going until i get there.
explore doesn't always mean contact. in pidgin x doesn't mean sh, so i'll stick to speaking in my own head.
6
i am listening
-ing. the gerund. an event in progress. active. something i do. listenING. hey, watch the eye contact. shoulders back, young man. you're listenING. lost skills that were never found to begin with. Nod at the right places, make the good sounds. lean forward, young man. you're listenING. ING ING ING. active. something i do.
7
i am open-minded
fell down the stairs not too long ago. head predictably split in two and the world spilt out. open only as long as i'm allowed to talk. open only according to me. tore it open on purpose yesterday and let the world spill in, slosh around. peeled away the cerebellum folds today and found a garden. no imposition, no order. i like it that way, but that doesn't mean i shouldn't pull the weeds.
8
i am a follower
the leader points we all look lazily. so we're beaten without us knowing and we learn to snap to attention. eventually we learn to beat each other. clubs behind each others backs. small words that keeps the mainstream pure.
i'm being pulled along by the crowd of happy marchers, fighting to leave but never quite making it because there is nowhere to go. we're all marching along, silent beatings given out by smiling friends. i'll stay out of step as best i can, but even that is tinged with bitterness and fashion. i'm being dragged all the same and there's no way i'll go quietly.
if wisdom points i'll look. but i won't snap and i'll never kneel.
3
I am connected.
there are mountains surrounding here. out every window impossibly ancient history juts into the sky. i think about it plunging into the earth, without moving. i think about it being the earth itself. i'll grind my feet a little more for the horse stance. twist it, pushing small bits of concrete aside. i'll feel myself go down according to what i'm a part of.
4
i am unencumbered
slam the palm against the tree, grip as i pull back. fingers are claws. fingers are claws. they learnt by watching, so i'll also proceed by metaphor.
fingers are claws.
not the usual trees, ones by the dining hall. far back in the dark instead. supposedly not to disturb those eating. really i just want to be by myself. out here in the dark the tree is hardly visible, pale fingers bright as they slam, then grab. out here in the dark it's only my hands and the tree. nothing to worry about when the fingers are claws.
last slam, last pull. start on the left. smell the sap on my fingers before i feel. sweetness isn't taste but an event.
5
i am an explorer
columbus looted gold--finding those already found. hard to discover something so big. the frontier only looks that way from the sepulchres, vast landscapes can never be home if you've only got a one way view.
contact zone is the new term, places of conflict and negotiation. trades and code-switching. you mucka high!
training as a pyramid, the spiritual mountain. everything has a top. walk long enough you start going down. walk even longer and i'll end up where you started. light bends, so watch your step--don't worry about where i'm going until i get there.
explore doesn't always mean contact. in pidgin x doesn't mean sh, so i'll stick to speaking in my own head.
6
i am listening
-ing. the gerund. an event in progress. active. something i do. listenING. hey, watch the eye contact. shoulders back, young man. you're listenING. lost skills that were never found to begin with. Nod at the right places, make the good sounds. lean forward, young man. you're listenING. ING ING ING. active. something i do.
7
i am open-minded
fell down the stairs not too long ago. head predictably split in two and the world spilt out. open only as long as i'm allowed to talk. open only according to me. tore it open on purpose yesterday and let the world spill in, slosh around. peeled away the cerebellum folds today and found a garden. no imposition, no order. i like it that way, but that doesn't mean i shouldn't pull the weeds.
8
i am a follower
the leader points we all look lazily. so we're beaten without us knowing and we learn to snap to attention. eventually we learn to beat each other. clubs behind each others backs. small words that keeps the mainstream pure.
i'm being pulled along by the crowd of happy marchers, fighting to leave but never quite making it because there is nowhere to go. we're all marching along, silent beatings given out by smiling friends. i'll stay out of step as best i can, but even that is tinged with bitterness and fashion. i'm being dragged all the same and there's no way i'll go quietly.
if wisdom points i'll look. but i won't snap and i'll never kneel.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
forks are so rou-tine. ha!
If you're looking to email me, it's grahamrobertson@me.com. Use this instead of the U of A address, because I don't know how long I'll get to keep that.
Anyway, you're all probably wondering about the training. Now that I've had two weeks I feel sufficiently into it to describe what we do.
Every day I get up at 5:45 or so and go outside for the optional Tai Chi class at 6. We do that for 40 minutes or so, then practice qi gong (usually the standing cauldron) for about 20 minutes.
Breakfast is next, with a break until 8:30. Then we split into our individual groups and go for a run, about 1 1/2 to 2 km. We then warm up, which is mostly stretching and some basic techniques designed to limber us up, like hopping while throwing punches, stiff swinging kicks, etc. A favourite stretch is to put one leg up on the windowsill of the training hall and reach into it. I could barely get my leg up when I started but now I'm pretty comfortable. I can even touch my toes with one hand. Sometimes.
Monday and Tuesday we spend the morning practicing basics and forms. This often means holding stances with weights in our hands, such as horse stances with arms straight out. We also work on applications quite a bit, usually adopted from the forms. There isn't a whole lot of standing in a line throwing a particular technique--Master Wong (my Sifu here) seems to think the forms are sufficient for learning the techniques, or that we should be doing them with a partner. Usually form work involves him showing the student(s) a few moves, then we practice it for about 10-20 minutes or so. Then he looks at the form, corrects and lets us train more. If he thinks we have it, then he'll teach us a little more.
Wednesday morning is qi gong. It's at this beautiful little creek bed that feeds into a lake, where we stand on flat rocks jutting out from the water. We'll do the eight step qi gong form a few times, then practice standing and sitting meditation/qi gong. After that, when we're all chilled out, we do some hefty muscle conditioning. This usually involves bashing the backs of our forearms together and kicking each other in the legs.
Thursday morning we get into the padded sanda ring (which is actually a boxing ring with ropes, but whatever) and practice rolls and takedowns. We don't do a lot of acrobatics in our group, which I'm fine with. I'm hoping to at learn at least some fancy stuff before I go though, perhaps on the weekends from other students. The takedowns are all very fast and aggressive, due to the 3 second clinch rule in sanda. I kind of suck at these, but that just means I get to progress more. This is essentially the only time we train with mats. Everything else is on concrete.
Friday we'll do a bit of basics, but it's mostly power stretching. It's painful, but do I ever feel limber after having someone pull on my leg for 10 minutes.
Morning training ends at 12 (we have two sessions of 1 1/2 hours, with a 1/2 hour break at 10). Lunch goes on until 2:30, Usually I eat and then go have a nap or listen to music.
Master Wong loves Sanda (basically it's kickboxing with takedowns) so we train that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon. It's mostly pad or bag work, usually with emphasis on a particular technique or combination. Pretty straightforward, with emphasis on repetition. The bags here are much harder than the ones at Silent River, so my shins are taking a bit of a beating.
Thursday afternoon is power training, which is by far the hardest activity. Lots of angled planks, wheelbarrows, bunny hops, bench pressing, vertical sit ups and weighted squats. When not doing that, we're hitting the bags. Both times have been brutal, but productive.
Friday afternoon is the mountain run, which I've already described. A great way to end the week, as after doing that I feel like I've earned two days of rest. Sometimes (such as yesterday) we have a theory class instead. It's nice to get a new perspective on the martial arts. Nothing earth shattering, but certainly different than what I've heard before.
All this is done by 4, though the afternoon training usually runs a bit late. Then both shaolin groups do the form He Ha Ha together. It's only five moves long, 3 of those are similar to the narrow kneel stance. We shout either "he" or "ha" together, sort of like doing Hsieh Chen. We'll do it around 5-10 times and while I'm always really tired and not stoked to be going so low and shouting, it's an invigorating way to end training.
Finally, at 4:30 is qi gong class, also optional. Usually it involves a half hour of the standing cauldron qi gong, though there are other stances and moves we do occasionally. Then we'll practice Hsing I or conditioning. I've tended to skip this class on Wednesdays, as I had spent the morning practicing the very same thing. I'm conditioning every day, however, even on the weekends. I hit tree (not particularly hard at this point) with various body parts (palms, forearms, shoulders, etc.) a few hundred times. I'm also falling in love with Hsing I. I haven't done much, but it feels great. Soft but explosive.
After dinner there are optional classes. Mon-Wed is a very disorganized Mandarin class, with massage on Thursday and Buddhism theory on Friday. Friday also has a calligraphy class instead of qi gong, but I haven't made it out yet. The massage classes are fantastic, as I get to spend part of the time as the dummy for my partner to massage. I'm into that, especially after a week of training. Then a shower and by 9:30 I'm in bed.
Weekends so far have been spent on walks, reading, watching a film or two (predictably, most of the people here are fans of old kung fu movies) and going into the city--mostly for groceries but occasionally just to wander around. Chess is pretty popular, both European and Chinese (which I haven't learnt yet), so I can usually get a game or two in every day.
So there is my routine in (probably too much) detail. It's varied enough through the week to hold interest, which is good. I starting to settle into the rhythm of the place, discovering I have a decent amount of time to myself. I was worried I would have to be so involved in training my other interests would get shunted off to the side, but I feel like I can maintain a healthy balance here.
Two more things. The first is that every day I do a form from Kempo, just to keep my memory up. Even though I'm sometimes destroyed from training, I know I need to stay committed to my kung fu and keeping it mine. Think about that next time you're thinking about skipping training, because I'm beginning to realize every time you do it's a step backwards. I've joined some of the students in doing a little bit of training Sundays, mostly because I'm working so hard now I can see myself progressing every time I practice.
Second is that I've been doing a lot of knuckle pushups here. On concrete. It really, really sucks. I'm working on back of the hand and tiger claw pushups, which will both take a while. I saw the Mantis Master doing dragon fist pushups. That's right, pushups only on the middle knuckle of his middle finger. I've made that one of my goals for the year.
Anyway, you're all probably wondering about the training. Now that I've had two weeks I feel sufficiently into it to describe what we do.
Every day I get up at 5:45 or so and go outside for the optional Tai Chi class at 6. We do that for 40 minutes or so, then practice qi gong (usually the standing cauldron) for about 20 minutes.
Breakfast is next, with a break until 8:30. Then we split into our individual groups and go for a run, about 1 1/2 to 2 km. We then warm up, which is mostly stretching and some basic techniques designed to limber us up, like hopping while throwing punches, stiff swinging kicks, etc. A favourite stretch is to put one leg up on the windowsill of the training hall and reach into it. I could barely get my leg up when I started but now I'm pretty comfortable. I can even touch my toes with one hand. Sometimes.
Monday and Tuesday we spend the morning practicing basics and forms. This often means holding stances with weights in our hands, such as horse stances with arms straight out. We also work on applications quite a bit, usually adopted from the forms. There isn't a whole lot of standing in a line throwing a particular technique--Master Wong (my Sifu here) seems to think the forms are sufficient for learning the techniques, or that we should be doing them with a partner. Usually form work involves him showing the student(s) a few moves, then we practice it for about 10-20 minutes or so. Then he looks at the form, corrects and lets us train more. If he thinks we have it, then he'll teach us a little more.
Wednesday morning is qi gong. It's at this beautiful little creek bed that feeds into a lake, where we stand on flat rocks jutting out from the water. We'll do the eight step qi gong form a few times, then practice standing and sitting meditation/qi gong. After that, when we're all chilled out, we do some hefty muscle conditioning. This usually involves bashing the backs of our forearms together and kicking each other in the legs.
Thursday morning we get into the padded sanda ring (which is actually a boxing ring with ropes, but whatever) and practice rolls and takedowns. We don't do a lot of acrobatics in our group, which I'm fine with. I'm hoping to at learn at least some fancy stuff before I go though, perhaps on the weekends from other students. The takedowns are all very fast and aggressive, due to the 3 second clinch rule in sanda. I kind of suck at these, but that just means I get to progress more. This is essentially the only time we train with mats. Everything else is on concrete.
Friday we'll do a bit of basics, but it's mostly power stretching. It's painful, but do I ever feel limber after having someone pull on my leg for 10 minutes.
Morning training ends at 12 (we have two sessions of 1 1/2 hours, with a 1/2 hour break at 10). Lunch goes on until 2:30, Usually I eat and then go have a nap or listen to music.
Master Wong loves Sanda (basically it's kickboxing with takedowns) so we train that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon. It's mostly pad or bag work, usually with emphasis on a particular technique or combination. Pretty straightforward, with emphasis on repetition. The bags here are much harder than the ones at Silent River, so my shins are taking a bit of a beating.
Thursday afternoon is power training, which is by far the hardest activity. Lots of angled planks, wheelbarrows, bunny hops, bench pressing, vertical sit ups and weighted squats. When not doing that, we're hitting the bags. Both times have been brutal, but productive.
Friday afternoon is the mountain run, which I've already described. A great way to end the week, as after doing that I feel like I've earned two days of rest. Sometimes (such as yesterday) we have a theory class instead. It's nice to get a new perspective on the martial arts. Nothing earth shattering, but certainly different than what I've heard before.
All this is done by 4, though the afternoon training usually runs a bit late. Then both shaolin groups do the form He Ha Ha together. It's only five moves long, 3 of those are similar to the narrow kneel stance. We shout either "he" or "ha" together, sort of like doing Hsieh Chen. We'll do it around 5-10 times and while I'm always really tired and not stoked to be going so low and shouting, it's an invigorating way to end training.
Finally, at 4:30 is qi gong class, also optional. Usually it involves a half hour of the standing cauldron qi gong, though there are other stances and moves we do occasionally. Then we'll practice Hsing I or conditioning. I've tended to skip this class on Wednesdays, as I had spent the morning practicing the very same thing. I'm conditioning every day, however, even on the weekends. I hit tree (not particularly hard at this point) with various body parts (palms, forearms, shoulders, etc.) a few hundred times. I'm also falling in love with Hsing I. I haven't done much, but it feels great. Soft but explosive.
After dinner there are optional classes. Mon-Wed is a very disorganized Mandarin class, with massage on Thursday and Buddhism theory on Friday. Friday also has a calligraphy class instead of qi gong, but I haven't made it out yet. The massage classes are fantastic, as I get to spend part of the time as the dummy for my partner to massage. I'm into that, especially after a week of training. Then a shower and by 9:30 I'm in bed.
Weekends so far have been spent on walks, reading, watching a film or two (predictably, most of the people here are fans of old kung fu movies) and going into the city--mostly for groceries but occasionally just to wander around. Chess is pretty popular, both European and Chinese (which I haven't learnt yet), so I can usually get a game or two in every day.
So there is my routine in (probably too much) detail. It's varied enough through the week to hold interest, which is good. I starting to settle into the rhythm of the place, discovering I have a decent amount of time to myself. I was worried I would have to be so involved in training my other interests would get shunted off to the side, but I feel like I can maintain a healthy balance here.
Two more things. The first is that every day I do a form from Kempo, just to keep my memory up. Even though I'm sometimes destroyed from training, I know I need to stay committed to my kung fu and keeping it mine. Think about that next time you're thinking about skipping training, because I'm beginning to realize every time you do it's a step backwards. I've joined some of the students in doing a little bit of training Sundays, mostly because I'm working so hard now I can see myself progressing every time I practice.
Second is that I've been doing a lot of knuckle pushups here. On concrete. It really, really sucks. I'm working on back of the hand and tiger claw pushups, which will both take a while. I saw the Mantis Master doing dragon fist pushups. That's right, pushups only on the middle knuckle of his middle finger. I've made that one of my goals for the year.
Friday, September 18, 2009
those shoes are now a long way away
This week I have trained harder than ever before. It's fantastic but grueling. I thought I was in shape, but I just felt like a lump the whole week. I can tell I'm going to get very flexible and strong.
The second day I was so sore I could barely tie my shoes. Then I was that sore for the next three days. But I learned to ignore the pain and focus on training.
After strength training on Thursday my sifu here, Master Wong, asked me if I had been at school. I told him that I had just graduated university. So he said: "that's why you're so tired. Too much time in library!"
All I've done this week is trained, read, played chess and listend to music. This will be a good year.
The second day I was so sore I could barely tie my shoes. Then I was that sore for the next three days. But I learned to ignore the pain and focus on training.
After strength training on Thursday my sifu here, Master Wong, asked me if I had been at school. I told him that I had just graduated university. So he said: "that's why you're so tired. Too much time in library!"
All I've done this week is trained, read, played chess and listend to music. This will be a good year.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
dead valleys
So, I'm in china.
I haven't started training yet (that's tomorrow) but I can tell I'm going to like it. The other students are all very friendly, the staff and translators accommodating. Plus I'm surrounding by mountains. Fall seems to be when many people are starting, so there are quite a few who have been here less than a week. I feel less out of step as a result.
This country is very different. More so than any other place I've been--it's an exciting change. Jackie Chan's smiling mug is everywhere here. He even has a chain of cafes. Righteous.
Can't post photos because I left a piece of software at home, lame, huh?
Not much else to say until I actually begin training. Tomorrow the shaolin madness will begin.
I haven't started training yet (that's tomorrow) but I can tell I'm going to like it. The other students are all very friendly, the staff and translators accommodating. Plus I'm surrounding by mountains. Fall seems to be when many people are starting, so there are quite a few who have been here less than a week. I feel less out of step as a result.
This country is very different. More so than any other place I've been--it's an exciting change. Jackie Chan's smiling mug is everywhere here. He even has a chain of cafes. Righteous.
Can't post photos because I left a piece of software at home, lame, huh?
Not much else to say until I actually begin training. Tomorrow the shaolin madness will begin.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
she walked backwards, keeping her eyes on the ground
Walking at my parent's place I noticed leaves on the ground. Fall arrived without me noticing.
I leave Edmonton in two days and Canada shortly after. Before, a year away seemed like...well, a year. Now it feels like I'll be back in a flash. Perhaps it's the fact that I won't be returning to Edmonton after this adventure. I'm not sure.
I like the fact that I'm leaving. It's rare that the circumstances of one's life change so drastically and deliberately. Since I know that my outlook on the martial arts and myself will change so drastically in the next year, I'm almost more excited to come back to reflect and actualize those changes--though I still feel like a kid on chirstmas eve right now.
Leaving right after renovations was a good idea. Helping clean and maintain the place reminded me how much of myself is in that school. I've got bones in the foundation. They'll stay there, even though the rest of me will go.
Blogging is all about accountability, right? So how about a sweeping, overly grand, melodramatic statement to hold myself to:
I promise to always be a student here.
No matter where I end up--whatever else I've train in--as long as you'll have me Silent River, I'll be first and foremost yours. Kempo is my walk, my talk, my muscles. It's me. I aim to keep it that way.
Enough promises. A goodbye dinner then a few days in Vancouver.
I leave Edmonton in two days and Canada shortly after. Before, a year away seemed like...well, a year. Now it feels like I'll be back in a flash. Perhaps it's the fact that I won't be returning to Edmonton after this adventure. I'm not sure.
I like the fact that I'm leaving. It's rare that the circumstances of one's life change so drastically and deliberately. Since I know that my outlook on the martial arts and myself will change so drastically in the next year, I'm almost more excited to come back to reflect and actualize those changes--though I still feel like a kid on chirstmas eve right now.
Leaving right after renovations was a good idea. Helping clean and maintain the place reminded me how much of myself is in that school. I've got bones in the foundation. They'll stay there, even though the rest of me will go.
Blogging is all about accountability, right? So how about a sweeping, overly grand, melodramatic statement to hold myself to:
I promise to always be a student here.
No matter where I end up--whatever else I've train in--as long as you'll have me Silent River, I'll be first and foremost yours. Kempo is my walk, my talk, my muscles. It's me. I aim to keep it that way.
Enough promises. A goodbye dinner then a few days in Vancouver.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
i'm holding out for a longer goodbye
So begins my last week in Edmonton.
Not much to say, really. Going to China still doesn't feel real--a curse of planning it for so long, I suppose. I really have only the faintest idea of what to expect, so I plan to just jump into it with both feet and see what happens. No use speculating here.
Boring post, I know. You'll all just have to deal with it.
Not much to say, really. Going to China still doesn't feel real--a curse of planning it for so long, I suppose. I really have only the faintest idea of what to expect, so I plan to just jump into it with both feet and see what happens. No use speculating here.
Boring post, I know. You'll all just have to deal with it.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
buying in to the sellouts
Trying to keep street cred or whatever in art, is fashion. Fashion doesn't matter. David Eggers has a much better treatment of that you can find online.
But maybe selling out has a second meaning, one that matters. Compromising artistic integrity for capital gain? That sounds a little restrictive to me. Pandering is better. For bosses, critics, whoever. That's death.
But, and I need to emphasize this, not pandering to crowds. People aren't stupid, they have taste. I refuse to believe for a second that I somehow am able to better judge a song or book than the next person. Sure, the major industries push things that are easily digestible rather than good, but that doesn't affect people's taste. Hipster smugness for liking a band until they got popular is simple snobbery. The hipster assumes he or she is so much smarter for liking the band until other people liked them, then the changed, dumbed down. Because the hipster can't enjoy what everyone does, that would make them just like everyone else. We can't have that, can we?
Trying not to sell out, as Eggers describes it, is definitely pandering. When my art stops being for me, when it not longer is about my desire to make art, it's a sellout--hollow.
But there's more here. That's too simple an answer. What about popularity? What does it do? More importantly, how do you make art without pandering?
Let's only talk about music for a bit, keep things in perspective. It works well because what I love in music, what I do, is punk, and it's hard to find another genre so paranoid about not selling out. And selling is the operative word here, rejecting the corporate side of the music industry is, if I can be forgiven for such a sweeping statement, practically the point of punk. And I still firmly believe in that, despite all the posturing that comes along with that attitude, it matters. A friend put it quite succinctly at a recent show, something along the lines of "this music isn't about marketability, but passion". Getting heavy, no?
Maybe you saw the trick there--a little sleight of hand we punks, especially hardcore kids, love to pull. I'll be a bad magician and point the trick out: it's pretty easy to not care about record sales when you aren't selling records. It's not like Def Jam or Universal is kick down our doors. 100 people at a show is a good turnout because there are only a few hundred people in the city who enjoy this music enough to come see it live. No one reviewing our albums is about as decent insulation from the critics as I could hope for. I don't have to make the choice to keep it real, I've only got the one way to keep.
I've painted a fairly disingenuous picture, haven't I? The ivory dumpster of punk rock. And while there isn't a whole lot of money with this genre, one could still play punk and at least make a career out of it, all the while claiming legitimacy. Rancid has. They are a popular band, there is no doubt about that. They played a conference centre last time they were here, not some hall. And while they managed to get popular and preserve a good chunk of their original fanbase, many resent their rise. In the 90s, they merited much respect by staying with their tiny original label, Epiteth--which some nowadays, without the slightest hint of irony, condemn as a corporate sellout label. It must be maddening, if they care to think about it. They make music that people like, so why is entertaining people such a bad thing?
A good response comes from Tim Armstrong himself, frontman of the band. He was once asked what defines now a young person as a punk. In his own rambling, mildly confused way, he pointed out that if that kid felt like an outcast and came to music deliberately as an outsider--chances are it would be some type of punk. And then a man who many think speaks for the genre shrugs and asks "who am I to say what's punk?"
That answer, like most things, could benefit from a step back. I've been talking about making music like it just happens. There's another side to this lack of attention that starts with motivation. We can't be in it for anything beyond the music. There isn't anything else for 99% of us. Punk rockers, by and large, have day jobs--as do the majority of indie artists. Making music, or any art, despite their daily lives. No one plays noise to be famous. People want to be in the Pussycat Dolls for that.
That's important. In fact, that's the whole point of this rambling example. The guys from Rancid aren't rich (and remember they're near the pinnacle of popularity within the genre), the members of Converge, another popular band, aren't even full time. To make art in the cracks of life, to work around a job that you may hate, brings meaning to the process. In zen, inner peace can be achieved in a garden, but is earned in a traffic jam or battlefield or final exam. Same thing here. Those that are lucky or good enough to do it all the time should be applauded. Until they forget why they started--that's when trouble starts.
So Rancid will keep selling albums, though even now they're starting to get a little stale, irrelevant even. But as long as it's never a job to them--which they demonstrate with their live shows--the trimmings are irrelevant. The first time I heard that band it was magic, and I'm glad that so many others feel the same way too. But it's magic, not a catchy song you wouldn't mind hearing when you're drunk at a club. That's because good music is played the same whether it's for a hall or a stadium.
Selling out isn't only about labels, or the stupid sense of legitimacy that Eggers so refreshingly attacks. It comes from a lack of passion, a dulling of the process. Letting art get easy.
Turns out I've come full circle back to him: if something is good, it's good. Simple. The music industry is bloated with stale, copycat, manufactured pieces of garbage because those who run it have dollar signs in their eyes. The art world is full of thin works because the disconnected critics rule it. But the true artists are still there, no matter the circumstances.
But maybe selling out has a second meaning, one that matters. Compromising artistic integrity for capital gain? That sounds a little restrictive to me. Pandering is better. For bosses, critics, whoever. That's death.
But, and I need to emphasize this, not pandering to crowds. People aren't stupid, they have taste. I refuse to believe for a second that I somehow am able to better judge a song or book than the next person. Sure, the major industries push things that are easily digestible rather than good, but that doesn't affect people's taste. Hipster smugness for liking a band until they got popular is simple snobbery. The hipster assumes he or she is so much smarter for liking the band until other people liked them, then the changed, dumbed down. Because the hipster can't enjoy what everyone does, that would make them just like everyone else. We can't have that, can we?
Trying not to sell out, as Eggers describes it, is definitely pandering. When my art stops being for me, when it not longer is about my desire to make art, it's a sellout--hollow.
But there's more here. That's too simple an answer. What about popularity? What does it do? More importantly, how do you make art without pandering?
Let's only talk about music for a bit, keep things in perspective. It works well because what I love in music, what I do, is punk, and it's hard to find another genre so paranoid about not selling out. And selling is the operative word here, rejecting the corporate side of the music industry is, if I can be forgiven for such a sweeping statement, practically the point of punk. And I still firmly believe in that, despite all the posturing that comes along with that attitude, it matters. A friend put it quite succinctly at a recent show, something along the lines of "this music isn't about marketability, but passion". Getting heavy, no?
Maybe you saw the trick there--a little sleight of hand we punks, especially hardcore kids, love to pull. I'll be a bad magician and point the trick out: it's pretty easy to not care about record sales when you aren't selling records. It's not like Def Jam or Universal is kick down our doors. 100 people at a show is a good turnout because there are only a few hundred people in the city who enjoy this music enough to come see it live. No one reviewing our albums is about as decent insulation from the critics as I could hope for. I don't have to make the choice to keep it real, I've only got the one way to keep.
I've painted a fairly disingenuous picture, haven't I? The ivory dumpster of punk rock. And while there isn't a whole lot of money with this genre, one could still play punk and at least make a career out of it, all the while claiming legitimacy. Rancid has. They are a popular band, there is no doubt about that. They played a conference centre last time they were here, not some hall. And while they managed to get popular and preserve a good chunk of their original fanbase, many resent their rise. In the 90s, they merited much respect by staying with their tiny original label, Epiteth--which some nowadays, without the slightest hint of irony, condemn as a corporate sellout label. It must be maddening, if they care to think about it. They make music that people like, so why is entertaining people such a bad thing?
A good response comes from Tim Armstrong himself, frontman of the band. He was once asked what defines now a young person as a punk. In his own rambling, mildly confused way, he pointed out that if that kid felt like an outcast and came to music deliberately as an outsider--chances are it would be some type of punk. And then a man who many think speaks for the genre shrugs and asks "who am I to say what's punk?"
That answer, like most things, could benefit from a step back. I've been talking about making music like it just happens. There's another side to this lack of attention that starts with motivation. We can't be in it for anything beyond the music. There isn't anything else for 99% of us. Punk rockers, by and large, have day jobs--as do the majority of indie artists. Making music, or any art, despite their daily lives. No one plays noise to be famous. People want to be in the Pussycat Dolls for that.
That's important. In fact, that's the whole point of this rambling example. The guys from Rancid aren't rich (and remember they're near the pinnacle of popularity within the genre), the members of Converge, another popular band, aren't even full time. To make art in the cracks of life, to work around a job that you may hate, brings meaning to the process. In zen, inner peace can be achieved in a garden, but is earned in a traffic jam or battlefield or final exam. Same thing here. Those that are lucky or good enough to do it all the time should be applauded. Until they forget why they started--that's when trouble starts.
So Rancid will keep selling albums, though even now they're starting to get a little stale, irrelevant even. But as long as it's never a job to them--which they demonstrate with their live shows--the trimmings are irrelevant. The first time I heard that band it was magic, and I'm glad that so many others feel the same way too. But it's magic, not a catchy song you wouldn't mind hearing when you're drunk at a club. That's because good music is played the same whether it's for a hall or a stadium.
Selling out isn't only about labels, or the stupid sense of legitimacy that Eggers so refreshingly attacks. It comes from a lack of passion, a dulling of the process. Letting art get easy.
Turns out I've come full circle back to him: if something is good, it's good. Simple. The music industry is bloated with stale, copycat, manufactured pieces of garbage because those who run it have dollar signs in their eyes. The art world is full of thin works because the disconnected critics rule it. But the true artists are still there, no matter the circumstances.
Monday, August 3, 2009
mr. kuhn, you're tying to shift me, aren't you?
As ubbt members, we are pretty comfortable with our role as teachers of the martial arts. But one thing is starting to bug me: looking from the angle of a practitioner, what are the martial arts about?
'About' is kind of a weird word to use, but it fits. We see the opportunities in teaching the martial arts, but where does our practice fit in? What's the point?
As a physical activity, a sport, it lacks the usual rhetoric of competition, fair play, etc. Some of that's there for sure, but if a school or organization takes it to the level found on a football team, criticism follows. Maybe we're a bit elitist, but the black belts of the world by and large see ourselves as teachers, not coaches.
The martial side of things can't be neglected. Self-defense is a vital part of any practice. But if all you do is fighting, you're missing out. We can all agree on that. It's just what you're not getting that I'm curious about.
But our art doesn't look like other arts either. We have a slavish devotion to craft rather than art. Expression comes into it, but the way we practice the same thing over and over makes us look more like masons than scuplters. No shame in that, of course--but there has got to be some reason we call what we do an art. We do express ourselves. The best kung fu or karate is more than beautiful, it's an outpouring of the self. We turn ourselves inside out. But definitely not in the same way a painter or musician does. At least I think so. I have my share of experience with other art forms and I can tease out similarities between them. The martial arts are different. Art is for the sake of itself. It can have an agenda, but to be any good a play, painting or piece of music needs to be at least partially have no motivation beyond the art form.
Well, of course we do that. We all start for different reasons: health, self-defense, maybe even something to do. But we stick it out because we love it, plain and simple. Yet the more I progress, the more my kung fu is about self improvement. The point I make through my kung fu is one of character. The martial arts, for many of us, exist as an uneasy allegory. We're not actually learning to kick and punch. That's what the ubbt is all about. So maybe it is that simple. students going to to class to hear fables, settled in a circle around sifu aesop. We get told the moral, but have to hear the story first for it to have meaning. In this case the story is another throw or block, another thousand reps.
Somewhere in the middle is too simple of an answer.
I'm beginning to think that we use the martial arts to make sense of the world. Like a fable, we do pushups and throw punches to embrace a worldview. But how? And why? No easy answers tonight.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
bam! pow! cliched!
While I was changing after the gym a few days ago..
(first tangent: going to the gym is a fantastic idea. Even if you're training every day at home, lifting weights at the gym gives a nice sense of routine to help stay focused. The extra strength is nice too)
...there were some kids from a summer camp getting ready to go swimming one row of lockers over. Amongst the yelling I heard them talking about superpowers. I remember these imaginary arms races. One of them started out as Spider-Man, then the other claimed the Hulk, then it just went on, then they started
(second tangent: just to make the record clear, the Hulk is unkillable, and if mad enough one of the most powerful beings in the marvel universe. Y'know, if anyone was curious)
...on characters from Watchmen. Nite Owl vs. Ozymandias was the first match, and eventually Dr. Manhattan's ability to make people explode with his mind was brought up. My first thought was that the kid made a good choice. Second was how weird they were talking about it. I mean, Watchmen is hardly for children, though I guess
(third tangent: my love for comics is obvious, and I've stood up for them in the past, so I won't go into that. But Watchmen is an incredible piece of work by any standard. Not that awards mean too much, but Time magazine did name Watchmen one of the top 100 novels--not graphic novels, any sort of novel--of the 20th century).
...the movie adaption has popularized it. Even still the movie, but more so the book, are about a group of washed up, flawed people. They aren't superheroes at the time, some never really were. There is an alcoholic, a sociopath, a disconnected man with the powers of a god.
One character in the book, Ozymandias, goes public with his identity and forges a business empire, with a fundamental piece being merchandising based on his former self. Action figures, cartoons, all that good stuff. The others are uneasy or offended by that move--it feels like a sellout.
But here we are. Watchmen action figures, journals, mugs, t-shirts, even a Nite Owl brand of coffee. All there.
This story, a comment on the myth of the superhero, has stepped into the shoes it criticized. It seems sad to me. Not that crass commercialization and the comic books don't go hand in hand. Many say it's what saved the industry in the 70s and 90s, but I'm still
(fourth tangent: the comic industry, despite having a few million monthly readers, has always been a bit shaky. Seems to be doing fine now, with all the royalties off superhero movies)
...really uneasy. These characters were never meant to be heroes, how can we have missed the point so easily?
(first tangent: going to the gym is a fantastic idea. Even if you're training every day at home, lifting weights at the gym gives a nice sense of routine to help stay focused. The extra strength is nice too)
...there were some kids from a summer camp getting ready to go swimming one row of lockers over. Amongst the yelling I heard them talking about superpowers. I remember these imaginary arms races. One of them started out as Spider-Man, then the other claimed the Hulk, then it just went on, then they started
(second tangent: just to make the record clear, the Hulk is unkillable, and if mad enough one of the most powerful beings in the marvel universe. Y'know, if anyone was curious)
...on characters from Watchmen. Nite Owl vs. Ozymandias was the first match, and eventually Dr. Manhattan's ability to make people explode with his mind was brought up. My first thought was that the kid made a good choice. Second was how weird they were talking about it. I mean, Watchmen is hardly for children, though I guess
(third tangent: my love for comics is obvious, and I've stood up for them in the past, so I won't go into that. But Watchmen is an incredible piece of work by any standard. Not that awards mean too much, but Time magazine did name Watchmen one of the top 100 novels--not graphic novels, any sort of novel--of the 20th century).
...the movie adaption has popularized it. Even still the movie, but more so the book, are about a group of washed up, flawed people. They aren't superheroes at the time, some never really were. There is an alcoholic, a sociopath, a disconnected man with the powers of a god.
One character in the book, Ozymandias, goes public with his identity and forges a business empire, with a fundamental piece being merchandising based on his former self. Action figures, cartoons, all that good stuff. The others are uneasy or offended by that move--it feels like a sellout.
But here we are. Watchmen action figures, journals, mugs, t-shirts, even a Nite Owl brand of coffee. All there.
This story, a comment on the myth of the superhero, has stepped into the shoes it criticized. It seems sad to me. Not that crass commercialization and the comic books don't go hand in hand. Many say it's what saved the industry in the 70s and 90s, but I'm still
(fourth tangent: the comic industry, despite having a few million monthly readers, has always been a bit shaky. Seems to be doing fine now, with all the royalties off superhero movies)
...really uneasy. These characters were never meant to be heroes, how can we have missed the point so easily?
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
for whom the bell tolls (the answer is zombies)
Okay, okay, okay. I've always loved zombies, so I am very stoked on a book I was given my birthday. Brace yourself for a brilliant title:
It's the original Jane Austen text, except parts have been added or modified so that there are zombies wandering all over England, with the Bennet sisters being the most accomplished, ruthless killers of the undead in their parish. You must read it. If you think Austen is boring, there is now violent zombie action to hold your interest. If you love the original book, the zombies actually manage the highlight how funny the original text is.
Among certain crowds this has caused an uproar, with some people call this sacrilege. Austen's new...er...co-author has taken on one of the towering giants of western literature. People love that book, don't you remember the BBC adaption? Or Kiera Knightly's? People love her!
Should we modify a text that's achieved a sort of sanctity nowadays? Maybe it's because this take suggests that the book is boring. Having read the original, I can say I respect it and enjoyed parts of it, but wouldn't take it up again. With zombies, though, it's much more entertaining.
Right on the heels of this book is JD Salinger suing a man for writer a sequel to A Catcher in the Rye. But this is a different situation. For one, copyright laws have expired on Austen. You can do whatever you want with her works, legally speaking. Two, this isn't an attack or a joke, it's kind of a remix. Like I said, having one of the most pulp symbols of our current lives casts the satire and (dare I say it) pop culture crush Jane Austen had into light. She didn't write about people, but artifacts of her culture. In a way, the original novel is camp for the 19th century, just done really well.
So go read it.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
wet bamboo
Discipline isn't about doing what you don't want to do. Most people think that, I did for a long time. Going to work (for some people most of the time, for all of us occasionally) isn't so much an act of discipline but an act of needing to pay the bills.
Discipline isn't about obligation, but priorities. It's choosing to pursue what you see the value in. I train because I love it and I know it makes me a better person--physically and mentally. When I'm sitting on the couch with my book, though, it's pretty hard to get moving. But I know, as I go to bed and reflect on the day I'd rather have practiced. So I do it.
...nearly all of the time.
But if I saw my practice as one more thing to get done, it would fall behind other priorities, stuff that seems more important because it demands to get done today. I need to go the registry, to study, whatever. I can't even imagine what that list looks like with a kid. By keeping what training does for me in front, though, I set my priorities properly by what does me the most good.
In other news, two months. Terrexited.
Friday, July 3, 2009
she has a book where she keeps track of all the lists
I had to make a list of everything I was grateful for, as part of this challenge. My initial thoughts were the standard. Friends and family that challenge and support me, kung fu, books, school, etc. But then I thought about good chedder, loud music videos on youtube of people falling off trampolines, parks, getting stuck in traffic so I don't feel bad bringing the mosh while driving. Stupid, awesome things that belong in some weepy, fictional diary. Those are fantastic. So my list goes like this:
life, and all its associated frustrations
life, and all its associated frustrations
Monday, June 29, 2009
warm and fuzzy
In Vancouver for the week, doing my challenge for the soul. Today I have to compliment (genuinely) someone every hour that I'm awake. This is an interesting one because compliments aren't normally something so mindful for me. I just compliment people when I have something to say. But it is a good idea, I should think, to be on a mission to make people feel good. Especially since in looking to compliment my friends and the like, I discover good things about others I hadn't known before.
My shoulder still hurts from the shows last week (I ran into a pillar and fell down a lot), but I can do pushups now. So that's something. For the record, all that was...kind of accidental. And totally worth it. I'm still taking it a bit easy so I don't make it worse.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
movie poster ambitions
This counts as last week's entry. Thinking that I had so little to do (that is, no job or school) has made me fill up my time more aggressively than normal, so blogging slipped my mind.
I'm back from Europe. It was fantastic. Often lacking the space, comfort or normal energy I bring to my usual training, I had to devise new ways to keep progressing and motivated. I was reflecting on this in Heathrow airport when I realized something important about progress.
Progress, I thought to myself, isn't just about skill or learning. Getting better as a martial artist means improving my kicks, punches, wisdom and compassion. But also it means improving how I approach my training. The best martial artists are the ones who are willing to adapt and improve how they train. I say they're the best because they will always improve at improving--which means that they will always get more bang for their buck.
Stunningly obvious, isn't it? I even said to myself, probably a little too loudly for sitting in a crowded airport, "well everyone knows that".
And we all do. But how many of us have taken the time to realize we know? I only fully got it two weeks ago, even though at school I've constantly honed how I study, research and write in order to allow my effort to take me further. So from now on, I'm going to start seriously examining how I train.
There is a 'challenge for the soul' that got kicked around Silent River last week. Once I've sold out and gotten a job (which will be in a few weeks) I'm going to do it. I want to wait until I'm around people more, especially strangers, because then I feel it'll have a greater impact. I admit straight up, there are parts of this I am not looking forward to doing--blogging about it even less. But after looking at the challenge I know that just means they will do me the most good. Stay tuned as I laugh, cry, love and show the world how just how far the bond between a small boy and his dog can go.
none of those things may actually happen.
I'm back from Europe. It was fantastic. Often lacking the space, comfort or normal energy I bring to my usual training, I had to devise new ways to keep progressing and motivated. I was reflecting on this in Heathrow airport when I realized something important about progress.
Progress, I thought to myself, isn't just about skill or learning. Getting better as a martial artist means improving my kicks, punches, wisdom and compassion. But also it means improving how I approach my training. The best martial artists are the ones who are willing to adapt and improve how they train. I say they're the best because they will always improve at improving--which means that they will always get more bang for their buck.
Stunningly obvious, isn't it? I even said to myself, probably a little too loudly for sitting in a crowded airport, "well everyone knows that".
And we all do. But how many of us have taken the time to realize we know? I only fully got it two weeks ago, even though at school I've constantly honed how I study, research and write in order to allow my effort to take me further. So from now on, I'm going to start seriously examining how I train.
There is a 'challenge for the soul' that got kicked around Silent River last week. Once I've sold out and gotten a job (which will be in a few weeks) I'm going to do it. I want to wait until I'm around people more, especially strangers, because then I feel it'll have a greater impact. I admit straight up, there are parts of this I am not looking forward to doing--blogging about it even less. But after looking at the challenge I know that just means they will do me the most good. Stay tuned as I laugh, cry, love and show the world how just how far the bond between a small boy and his dog can go.
none of those things may actually happen.
Friday, May 29, 2009
today i heard a violin from some second story window, today i heard a singer forgetting her lines
Support for the arts is an issue that gets a lot of talk. Last election in Canada there was a huge uproar over it, people demanding the government not cut funding to certain art programs. But I'm not here to talk (boring) politics.
I suppose large chunks of money are important when you want a huge symphony hall, but I don't think art needs support. Art, by nature, survives. When you're playing a basement or your paintings are hanging on the wall of a coffee shop (or your own wall, for that matter), that's thriving if you're doing what you love no matter the circumstances. Through that struggle, art becomes even more meaningful, maybe the only thing that gets a person through a 9-5 wage slave day.
Now what about our art? We often complain about something like support, about the world aligning to suit our training needs or skipping a day because we're sore. But that sort of support is fleeting at best. We will always have lives and bodies that get in the way of our training, but by setting our priorities properly, making the martial arts important enough for a struggle--well it becomes the most meaningful thing in the world.
the city of lights breeds good thoughts.
I suppose large chunks of money are important when you want a huge symphony hall, but I don't think art needs support. Art, by nature, survives. When you're playing a basement or your paintings are hanging on the wall of a coffee shop (or your own wall, for that matter), that's thriving if you're doing what you love no matter the circumstances. Through that struggle, art becomes even more meaningful, maybe the only thing that gets a person through a 9-5 wage slave day.
Now what about our art? We often complain about something like support, about the world aligning to suit our training needs or skipping a day because we're sore. But that sort of support is fleeting at best. We will always have lives and bodies that get in the way of our training, but by setting our priorities properly, making the martial arts important enough for a struggle--well it becomes the most meaningful thing in the world.
the city of lights breeds good thoughts.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
i kept saying that this place is beautiful in the summer, but that was only because i knew it would die
I'm at a desk in a tiny, amazing parisian apartment. We got a lucky hook up for the place which ended up being cheaper than a hostel if we stayed long enough. Why wouldn't I want six days in Paris.
I can't see the Eifel Tower from the window, which is kind of nice. My view of Paris isn't iconic, but the street below (3 sex shops and all) still has that charm that only this city has. The kitchen is a microwave and a hot plate on top of a mini fridge but I would still live here without a second thought.
My shoulder's been acting up so I've fallen behind two days on pushups. That's ok, making them up is never a chore. I'm at the point where most of my daily requirements are no longer a concious desicion--I just do them as naturally as eating breakfast. Only when something goes wrong do I have do adjust and work things around it. It's a pretty fantastic feeling, plus it allows me to devote more energy to my practicing, knowing that my meditation, pushups/situps, running and the like more or less take care of themselves by virtue of routine.
One thing I'm regretting is that I didn't include enough projects--it's mostly stuff that extends the entire UBBt. My rationale was that moving to China is sort of putting that end of my life on hold, but these two extra months means that I could at least add a couple of things to my requirements.
Anyways, I'm in Paris! Woooooooooo!
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
the captain kept calling us landlubbers, but i had been born on the sea
Today's backdrop for practicing was the rolling hills of Sweden. I felt like I should've been battling vikings or something.
Making up for last week, couldn't get any reliable internet in Amsterdam this weekend. That city was a real blast, bikes outnumber cars about 5 to 1 so we rented some and had a relaxing afternoon riding around. Instead of carparks they have a few multi level lots where you can just lock up your bike, in addition to the thousands that are locked up along the sides of the streets.
In Berlin we went to a jazz club in the basement of an alley and in Prague an old style pool hall which was just behind an unmarked door. Dig a little in some cities and the results are wild.
I'm beginning to recognize what the real value of the UBBT is for me. I've decided that my nomadic tendencies should be encouraged, so I'll probably end up doing a lot of extending travelling after my master's degree. Couch surfing, working odd jobs, all that fun stuff. Even if I have a real address, after China it won't be in the same city as Silent River and there's no way I'm leaving that behind. But the focus the UBBT brings to my training allows me to monitor and challenge my progress. I'm now learning the finer points of teaching myself through the test, especially as it gives me a common ground with those back at Silent River, so we can be training together half a world apart.
Making up for last week, couldn't get any reliable internet in Amsterdam this weekend. That city was a real blast, bikes outnumber cars about 5 to 1 so we rented some and had a relaxing afternoon riding around. Instead of carparks they have a few multi level lots where you can just lock up your bike, in addition to the thousands that are locked up along the sides of the streets.
In Berlin we went to a jazz club in the basement of an alley and in Prague an old style pool hall which was just behind an unmarked door. Dig a little in some cities and the results are wild.
I'm beginning to recognize what the real value of the UBBT is for me. I've decided that my nomadic tendencies should be encouraged, so I'll probably end up doing a lot of extending travelling after my master's degree. Couch surfing, working odd jobs, all that fun stuff. Even if I have a real address, after China it won't be in the same city as Silent River and there's no way I'm leaving that behind. But the focus the UBBT brings to my training allows me to monitor and challenge my progress. I'm now learning the finer points of teaching myself through the test, especially as it gives me a common ground with those back at Silent River, so we can be training together half a world apart.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
actung! landmine!
In Vienna now.
Tai Chi in Crotia was fun, though on rocky, uneven coastal ground which made things awkward.
I paid 3 euros for standing seats to the opera. Impressive building, that's for sure. I stood for two hours (which was just the first act) listening to Wagner played by probably some of the best musicians in Europe. My interest in classical music has waned a bit over the past few years but this still blew me away.
Yesterday we saw that new Wolverine movie. It was weird and interesting to directly experiance globalization like that. Also what's been fun is trying to figure out the posters for Austria's upcoming election. This country's recent political history is pretty sketchy, with parties in control which have a facist whiff to them.
There is a lot of graffiti here speaking out against racism, which is sweet. I'm a huge fan of graffiti, though only the more artistic or political ones. Eastern Europe has been very exciting for that, especially here and Croatia. Trying to be a sharper observer of the cultures than I was last time has really made me think even more than usual about hierarchies and capitalism. It's nice to see such vocal resistance here.
Northbound next.
Tai Chi in Crotia was fun, though on rocky, uneven coastal ground which made things awkward.
I paid 3 euros for standing seats to the opera. Impressive building, that's for sure. I stood for two hours (which was just the first act) listening to Wagner played by probably some of the best musicians in Europe. My interest in classical music has waned a bit over the past few years but this still blew me away.
Yesterday we saw that new Wolverine movie. It was weird and interesting to directly experiance globalization like that. Also what's been fun is trying to figure out the posters for Austria's upcoming election. This country's recent political history is pretty sketchy, with parties in control which have a facist whiff to them.
There is a lot of graffiti here speaking out against racism, which is sweet. I'm a huge fan of graffiti, though only the more artistic or political ones. Eastern Europe has been very exciting for that, especially here and Croatia. Trying to be a sharper observer of the cultures than I was last time has really made me think even more than usual about hierarchies and capitalism. It's nice to see such vocal resistance here.
Northbound next.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
looooblyaaannna
I'm in Slovenia right now, using some free wifi on my friend's tiny laptop. I'll repeat the important part: Slovenia.
(woooooooooo)
Just ambling around for the next month, taking in Europe. We rented bikes in Paris and weaved around traffic, then got ripped off by Switzerland in general. Having a general blast. Also, been mainly subsisting on bread and cheese but managed to eat some tasty Slovianian pizza for lunch.
Having some trouble keeping with my UBBT requirments here, mostly because of my mobility. I'm doing pushups and situps all over this continent, though. I need to learn how to practice while on the move, since I have a real nomadic streak in me. We're renting a super cheap apartment in Croatia, so I'm going to do some tai chi on the mediterranean coast.
(woooooooooo)
Just ambling around for the next month, taking in Europe. We rented bikes in Paris and weaved around traffic, then got ripped off by Switzerland in general. Having a general blast. Also, been mainly subsisting on bread and cheese but managed to eat some tasty Slovianian pizza for lunch.
Having some trouble keeping with my UBBT requirments here, mostly because of my mobility. I'm doing pushups and situps all over this continent, though. I need to learn how to practice while on the move, since I have a real nomadic streak in me. We're renting a super cheap apartment in Croatia, so I'm going to do some tai chi on the mediterranean coast.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
the opportunities of incompetence
Turns out I'm not leaving for China until the end of August now. I'm a little disappointed, mostly in myself as the delay is because of some mistakes on my part.
That being said, I'm still going to Europe for a month, leaving Monday. Exciting.
Secondly, summer in this city is sweet. I'm looking forward to working just enough to pay rent and spending most of my time with training and hangouts. I can't see how getting to see my friends more before I leave can be a bad thing.
Monday, April 13, 2009
pigs at the trough feel no fear, pigs at the trough slit and squeal
On Friday I drove to Calgary with some friends. We were going down to pick up some equipment and see a show. The times, they were good.
We were in red deer on a bathroom break. Everyone else had gone inside and I was sitting on the curb by the car. I realized three things:
-No one has ever had a good reason to stay in red deer for longer than thirty minutes. Not once.
-If was another person walking through the parking lot and saw myself (shaved head, shorts, red shoes, squinty sort of look) I would have a small suspicion that I was about to be mugged. By myself. You know what I mean.
-Semi-aimless traveling makes me really happy. Going to another city to see a band and meet people is a really great experience. I like the feeling of bumming around a different place and meeting cool people/listening to good music. Planned, guided tours of the polished spots of something else have always been so much less satisfying to me than wandering.
The sun is out now, the snow melting. Every spring, being able to practice outside puts me in the best mood and the past two weeks have delivered.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
the land of twang
Postcolonialism has ruined me. But papers are done, so I can blog now.
Alabama was good times, enough people have expressed better than me how inspiring working with everyone was. The highlight for me was definitely meeting Dave Mcneil--a truly amazing man. Seeing Greensboro was staggering. The racism, poverty and a whole wack of other things floored me. A place like that simply shouldn't happen. But it's getting better.
I think one of the best parts of the trip was the past week, when people have asked me "so why were you down there?"
Quicker than they can react I whip out the spiel, hitting them with terms like "real self defense", "living the martial arts" and, of course, "out of the dojo and into the world". I've given some variant of the UBBT speech at least a dozen times and everyone has reacted fantastically. A few people I saw after a few days and they've told their family, other friends, even a professor or two. My friends are, for the most part, jaded punks or academics who are very good at dismissing everything. But I've found that enthusiasm shines through. I used to think inspiring people was hard, but all you need to do is have passion and be willing to show it.
Plus, some guy in Alabama said "howdy" to me. It was amazing. And Sifu Edge slit open my finger with a swiss army knife. For science!
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
poetry, etc.
Sifu Terry Beckett turns 50 on Thursday--to celebrate she challenged the students and sifus on kwoon talk to write a poem. The subject was how we feel while working on a form or technique. To be honest, I didn't really do that. It's about kung fu, at least.
the subject the subjectism
reinhabiting myself
twice removed.
form as meaning
(behind form)
At any rate, I haven't decided if this is good or terrible, but she encouraged us to post it on our blog, so here it is. It's called 'Happy Birthday Sifu: A Study in the Mating Habits of Africanized Honey Bees When Exposed to Barry White.'
Ok, so the title is still a work in progress.
-----------
first direction
body input as a sense(s), twice removed from the inheritance of painthe subject the subjectism
reinhabiting myself
twice removed.
form as meaning
(behind form)
second direction
the analogy of combat
enemies flicker on the cave wall I am weighed down sinking into removal
the analogy of combat
enemies flicker on the cave wall I am weighed down sinking into removal
until the light becomes air the sunshine burns my eye out.
blind fighting never existed.
move back, once again
shed unreality
become form
as
become form
is.
blind fighting never existed.
move back, once again
shed unreality
become form
as
become form
is.
third direction
is is isis
conceives horus.
tricks of the tongue become flashes of the fist.
meaning goes cave follows.
nothing left but process but form.
the eyes are growing back.
play it right,
we'll make it out alive.
is is isis
conceives horus.
tricks of the tongue become flashes of the fist.
meaning goes cave follows.
nothing left but process but form.
the eyes are growing back.
play it right,
we'll make it out alive.
no direction
four as not number
circles back to one
bowing
no applause sign, empty seats unreal
performing for a reflexive audience.
four as not number
circles back to one
bowing
no applause sign, empty seats unreal
performing for a reflexive audience.
quiet as a mouse, big as a house
The silence is done.
I don't think I truly captured how sublime talking felt last night. It was a sheer joy just to have a conversation, feeling language and form rippling across my tongue. Even though I've rediscovered the joy of speech, I think it'll be a good idea to talk a little less. The best lesson this week was that listening well is a full time activity.
It's interesting to see my command of language in my postings begin to deteriorate after a few days. I miss pronouns, repeat myself sometimes and generally just write awkwardly. Despite how much I write for school and pleasure, it is still rooted in sound. Losing my sense of that sound really threw me off balance.
Whenever I had to deal with a stranger, I pretended to be actually mute. Most people were very accommodating (especially considering my terrible handwriting), but there were two cases (one at a shop, the other at the gym) when the other person treated me like I was an idiot. Even after explaining that I could hear fine, just couldn't speak, they both sounded their words out slowly and used very simple diction. They were basically trying to make me feel stupid.
Amongst friends or acquaintances, it was really cool. At the beginning, because of my ridiculous charades or writing things down I had serious trouble contributing to a conversation--by the time I had written my point down everyone had moved on. Pretty quickly, though, everyone had empathized and accommodated to the point where, hanging out in a group of 6 people, everyone would just stop talking if I was writing, giving me the chance to have my say. It was pretty touching. I also heard this joke about six times: "It's funny they call it a handicap, since it makes me like you more".
The impact was even more extensive. Sifu Prince mentioned that around me he felt the urge to not speak as well, which I found with a few more people. Others noted how they felt much more inclined to open up to a person who didn't say anything, since I was completely involved in the act of listening. I got a lot of confessions/revelations from unexpected sources.
I could see it inspiring people as well. My roommate was silent for a night to encourage me to extend my vow beyond a day and I answered many, many questions about learning how to truly listen and empathize, as well as the value of communication. I broke my silence (by saying "facetious is my favourite word") right before playing a set Sunday night, and so many people had heard and were talking about it that the simple line, without context, caused about half the crowd to applaud.
Whenever I had to deal with a stranger, I pretended to be actually mute. Most people were very accommodating (especially considering my terrible handwriting), but there were two cases (one at a shop, the other at the gym) when the other person treated me like I was an idiot. Even after explaining that I could hear fine, just couldn't speak, they both sounded their words out slowly and used very simple diction. They were basically trying to make me feel stupid.
Amongst friends or acquaintances, it was really cool. At the beginning, because of my ridiculous charades or writing things down I had serious trouble contributing to a conversation--by the time I had written my point down everyone had moved on. Pretty quickly, though, everyone had empathized and accommodated to the point where, hanging out in a group of 6 people, everyone would just stop talking if I was writing, giving me the chance to have my say. It was pretty touching. I also heard this joke about six times: "It's funny they call it a handicap, since it makes me like you more".
The impact was even more extensive. Sifu Prince mentioned that around me he felt the urge to not speak as well, which I found with a few more people. Others noted how they felt much more inclined to open up to a person who didn't say anything, since I was completely involved in the act of listening. I got a lot of confessions/revelations from unexpected sources.
I could see it inspiring people as well. My roommate was silent for a night to encourage me to extend my vow beyond a day and I answered many, many questions about learning how to truly listen and empathize, as well as the value of communication. I broke my silence (by saying "facetious is my favourite word") right before playing a set Sunday night, and so many people had heard and were talking about it that the simple line, without context, caused about half the crowd to applaud.
I don't think I truly captured how sublime talking felt last night. It was a sheer joy just to have a conversation, feeling language and form rippling across my tongue. Even though I've rediscovered the joy of speech, I think it'll be a good idea to talk a little less. The best lesson this week was that listening well is a full time activity.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
regrowing the limb of language
This is one of the best feelings of my life. Talking again has given words taste. I can feel the variations in sound across my tongue. The meaning hardly matters, just the experience of form. Amazing.
I'm going to bed, though. The first thing I did after not talking for 6 days was to scream for 15 minutes, so now my throat hurts.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
up and in
I was enjoying myself until today. I'm now pretty sick of it. Really would like to start talking.
One more day.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
blah interrupted, extended
I'm extending my muteness a little longer. Playing a show on Sunday night, so I can't resist the ridiculous melodrama of ending the silence with a scream.
Have slipped up twice so far. I said 'yeah' to a question from my housemate and thanked some random guy for moving out my way. Going to keep chugging along, though.
I'm going to wait to write a full report, don't want to fully reflect until the exercise is done. I did realize that if I did become mute, my chosen career would be closed to me. That sucks.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
apparently the verb is 'to tweet'
This is interesting. It'll probably be even more valuable if I extended it. Guess I have to do that. Midnight on Friday I'll break the silence.
Hope I don't say something stupid.
what is this, twitter?
I'm trying to limit writing things down somewhat. Now I realize why charades is a game and not a way of life.
blah interrupted
I've discovered I talk to myself a lot. Pretty much anytime I'm alone. This mute day is going to be tougher than I thought.
Monday, March 16, 2009
people that age
I didn't blog last week. For some reason I thought my last one was on Tuesday or something. Whoops. Here's my makeup, then.
I'm starting to see a shift in direction in the way I approach my training and life in general. Even more so than usual I find myself endlessly fascinated by some little concept, taking it apart like a little kid with a watch. Getting so pedantic has caused me to rediscover my forms, especially my weapons. I'm redefining what is correct or perfect now, and am at the point where I can start to worry about which direction my spear blade is in when I'm spinning or stabbing. It's a great feeling.
I'm also beginning to learn the value of real puns. Not the stupid jokes (which are awesome in their own way) but turns of language. Words that are nouns and verbs are just getting cooler to me. Look at my title and switch how 'age' functions. That's what I think about.
I'm just pushing this blog further into obscurity.
Tomorrow (well I guess today because it's past midnight) is mute today. I'll reflect on the exciting adventures of saying even less than usual tomorrow.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
wide awake and off to the races, out of gas and lost in space
I'm going to the doctor tomorrow to discuss immunizations for going to China. For some reason that makes this whole thing real. It hit me that I'm leaving in 4 months, full time training for a whole year. I've been dreaming about this since I was fifteen and now it's happening.
In two months I'm also graduating, finishing off a four year process. University has changed me so much it's hard to think about who I would be without it--just like with kung fu. I'm excited for grad school, though it will be hard. Plus when I get back from China I'll be immediately moving to a new city.
There is this cliff at the end of April with a sign labelled "WARNING: ADULTHOOD AHEAD!"
ohgodohgodohgodohgod
I'm a little terrified of moving to a new country to train with shaolin monks and then entering the world of serious academia, but starting something new has never been so exciting. These new chapters are what really shape people, I'm interested to see what sort of person I become over the course of the next few years.
The thought of getting a mortgage still makes me break out into a cold sweat.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
left foot in, left foot out
A friend mentioned 'Come On Eileen' offandedly today and now it's running through my head. I'm listening to it right now. I know everyone rags on the eighties, but when you consider this song, the Transformers cartoon, Black Flag and giant cell phones it doesn't seem that bad.
I was talking with a friend on the weekend (we were at a poetry reading, being super cool) and she asked me a very interesting question.
She said that since I'm the intellectual type (considering my foot spends most of the time in my mouth I'm sometimes surprised at this reputation), why do I spend so much time with kung fu, which she saw as a mostly physical activity. She could see me trying to keep fit, but didn't get why I was so passionate about it.
You all know that the martial arts have a hefty mental side to it, in the changes it promotes and the intense discipline/meditative states that are necessary. There's also a real satisfaction in figuring out how to do a technique properly, sort of like finishing a crossword puzzle. But there's another reason.
Like many of us, I started because of old hong kong action movies. Enter the Dragon was the tipping point, but I mostly grew up watching Jackie Chan. I wanted to be able to move like him, simple as that. Of course, you begin at the beginning, but it was so much fun and rewarding I quickly found a thousand other reasons to stay. That desire stayed in the back of mind, only surfacing years later.
I've always been pretty clumsy, I've gotten better but still am constantly tripping over things. So all the fancy techniques never came easy--usually I felt really awkward. When I was a green or blue belt, around 15, I practiced the flying spinning outside inside cyclone kick obsessively. One day I got it, which always happens eventually. For the first time I felt a little like Jackie Chan moved. I was invincible. That feeling has stuck with me today, and still remains one of my fondest memories: the sheer joy of the process.
There's no end product in kung fu besides myself. And that feeling of perfecting a technique for the sake of the technique alone, improving skill because it makes me a better person, is a lesson I try to apply to every part of my life. That's what it's all about.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
terrible study techniques, volume eight
Today's topic, class, is cramming.
...there's no one in this room. I'll still go on.
I had a schedule conflict last night, so I wasn't able to make it to class. Instead, I was playing a show, singing (ok, screaming) in the band Maus. The black belt class being the highlight of my week, I was a little disappointed, but getting to play a show is a ton of fun and only happens every month or two.
Right before we played, I was thinking about what I put into the black belt and I Ho Chaun classes: two hours of pure sweat, focus and intensity. So I decided I was going to take that work, especially the intensity, and cram it into the next 15-20 minutes of music. I wanted to try and be as exhausted and sweaty as I was every Friday night. It worked. My roomate's girlfriend called me 'crazy eyes' because of my high level of intensity. After just one set of 5 songs all I wanted to do was sit down.
This made me think about every technique or form I do. A rep of Kempo, for instance, is the culmination of my eight years of training. I don't know how many times I've done that form, but it's a lot. Add all the time of fine tuning certain parts of the form and I've spent a pretty decent chunk of my life practicing this form. All that is in the background for every rep, but I want to bring it up--cram all those years of practice into the next rep so I'm mindful of what I'm capable of.
Independent of this I've also been messing around with what I like to call 'flash meditation'. Master Brinker recommended to a class a while back to take a deep breath while saying "I'm breathing in" and then exhale with "I'm breathing out". That would bring us into the moment of whatever we were doing to appreciate it better. It's a great technique--what I've been trying is just taking five breaths while trying to zone out for just a second. Anytime I need to focus or really appreciate what I'm doing, I try to do 10 minutes of meditation in five breaths. It's pretty neat.
So think about what's behind all your practice, or even outside actions, and start cramming.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
being positive is all a matter of charges
I went skiing this weekend in Jasper, got home about two hours ago. I'm very tired. I didn't sleep well last night, I spent a full day on the slopes then was in a car for four hours. My bed is two feet away from where I'm writing this, and it looks very inviting. All that's left is 50 pushups and situps to finish my daily total.
I usually do this part of my UBBT no problem, even after much more exhausting days, but pushups are the last thing I want to do right now. Maybe it's the thought of going back to school after a week off or the fact that I was using muscles in a different way this weekend, I'm just completely drained. But I'm not going to skip them, despite how (unjustifiably) bad of an attitude I have right now. Because I know that the minute these take to do will pass no matter what. And I'd rather spend a minute making myself a better person than an extra one in bed.
Figure that's a good way to start the week.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
just let me find my face and we can continue the interview
I've been house-sitting for my parents for reading week, it's just been myself and our pets. I've been semi-productive.
I almost burst the pipes when I forgot to turn on the furnace before I left saturday morning.
Spent an hour or two talking to a pattern matching chat program: basically a computer program that is made to try and pass as human. I wasn't convinced, but it was fun trying to teach it the relationships between various words.
I also watched some tv. Now, I do watch the office at my house, but other than that I avoid it. It's horrifically boring. But I've had a few shows on here and there, mostly out of novelty. What I've found most interesting are the commercials.
I haven't actually paid attention to any sort of advertising in a long time and I'm struck by how irritating it all is. First, the sexism is blatant--so many commercials rely on 'woman love shoes! shoooooes!', sometimes to sell a product not even aimed at women (for instance, I just watched an insurance commercial that was going on about the husband working for his family, while the wife stayed at home and passively worried about the insurance payments). Mostly, though, they're just dumb. Unfunny, unoriginal dregs that shriek that we need to consume more. I'm not okay with someone yelling into my ear for twelve minutes of every half-hour to buy more junk in order to make myself happy.
Plus, out of train wreck curiosity, I watched a reality program called 'Paris Hilton's My New BFF', where a bunch of girls (and two guys) competed to become Paris Hilton's new best friend, basically by doing whatever she told them to do. The whole thing was such a consumerist, celebrity obsessive orgy that I had to do extra pushups just to calm myself down.
tv is the worst. Reboot did just come on, which is pretty awesome.
I almost burst the pipes when I forgot to turn on the furnace before I left saturday morning.
Spent an hour or two talking to a pattern matching chat program: basically a computer program that is made to try and pass as human. I wasn't convinced, but it was fun trying to teach it the relationships between various words.
I also watched some tv. Now, I do watch the office at my house, but other than that I avoid it. It's horrifically boring. But I've had a few shows on here and there, mostly out of novelty. What I've found most interesting are the commercials.
I haven't actually paid attention to any sort of advertising in a long time and I'm struck by how irritating it all is. First, the sexism is blatant--so many commercials rely on 'woman love shoes! shoooooes!', sometimes to sell a product not even aimed at women (for instance, I just watched an insurance commercial that was going on about the husband working for his family, while the wife stayed at home and passively worried about the insurance payments). Mostly, though, they're just dumb. Unfunny, unoriginal dregs that shriek that we need to consume more. I'm not okay with someone yelling into my ear for twelve minutes of every half-hour to buy more junk in order to make myself happy.
Plus, out of train wreck curiosity, I watched a reality program called 'Paris Hilton's My New BFF', where a bunch of girls (and two guys) competed to become Paris Hilton's new best friend, basically by doing whatever she told them to do. The whole thing was such a consumerist, celebrity obsessive orgy that I had to do extra pushups just to calm myself down.
tv is the worst. Reboot did just come on, which is pretty awesome.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
i is third
I am an example.
Sometimes I make bad desicions--I waste time on wikipedia instead of working, I don't put all I have into a practice session. I wear t-shirts with offensive band names on them. Sometimes I have bad days. Most times I have good ones.
When I first thought of myself as an example, I saw eyes everywhere. What if someone saw that? What kind of example does that make me? I beat myself up for being human until I decided to start seeing my examples as human too. Then I relaxed, was who I was, who I am. Decided that only showing people a part of my life as an example wasn't a very good example. That even on my bad days I can maybe still inspire someone. If so and so slacks off, well, I shouldn't feel so bad. But then he or she snaps out of it and keeps going. If my examples are human but still do what they do, and if I can show people the same quality, isn't that so much better?
Sometimes I make bad desicions--I waste time on wikipedia instead of working, I don't put all I have into a practice session. I wear t-shirts with offensive band names on them. Sometimes I have bad days. Most times I have good ones.
When I first thought of myself as an example, I saw eyes everywhere. What if someone saw that? What kind of example does that make me? I beat myself up for being human until I decided to start seeing my examples as human too. Then I relaxed, was who I was, who I am. Decided that only showing people a part of my life as an example wasn't a very good example. That even on my bad days I can maybe still inspire someone. If so and so slacks off, well, I shouldn't feel so bad. But then he or she snaps out of it and keeps going. If my examples are human but still do what they do, and if I can show people the same quality, isn't that so much better?
Sunday, February 15, 2009
i is second
I am a student.
I walked into the library once, not sure what I was looking for, so I just wandered around. The stacks seem endless if you look at them right. Rows of information, of thought. Some of the spines were too cracked to read the title, I didn't really mind. It was still there.
I stopped looking at the books, running my fingers over the covers instead. Rough canvas mixed with the inviting touch of worn leather. The presence of knowledge, thousands of voices talking to themselves.
I got to a section of phd dissertations, started looking again. Some had been turned into books, but not these. Most them were collecting dust. Each person had spent years working on it, pouring all they had into a few hundred pages of them. Each was only occasionally checked out by another academic. But it wasn't about who was reading, rather who wrote.
I waited until everyone else had gone home for the night. I pushed the couches against the door, blocking the world out and giving me space to practice. I settled down with the first thesis and never left.
I walked into the library once, not sure what I was looking for, so I just wandered around. The stacks seem endless if you look at them right. Rows of information, of thought. Some of the spines were too cracked to read the title, I didn't really mind. It was still there.
I stopped looking at the books, running my fingers over the covers instead. Rough canvas mixed with the inviting touch of worn leather. The presence of knowledge, thousands of voices talking to themselves.
I got to a section of phd dissertations, started looking again. Some had been turned into books, but not these. Most them were collecting dust. Each person had spent years working on it, pouring all they had into a few hundred pages of them. Each was only occasionally checked out by another academic. But it wasn't about who was reading, rather who wrote.
I waited until everyone else had gone home for the night. I pushed the couches against the door, blocking the world out and giving me space to practice. I settled down with the first thesis and never left.
flattened snakes and a cop in my bedroom, with empire hovering at the edges of my vision
Anyone remeber the movie 'Hackers'? It's on right now--I'd forgotten that, in the 90s, screenwriters seemed to think that computers could do anything. Plus, so much rollerblading and neon.
...hack the planet.
I'm been thinking about empathy a lot, mostly what it's good for. What I think is that a deliberate lack of empathy is a cultural force today that is making the world a worse place--if not the cornerstone of the explotitive capitalism we operate on.
Our economic and political actions are guided by our cultural choices and attitudes--and a part of culture is what's considered normal. Many people latch onto the little everday deviations from the status quo: different forms of eating or sexuality, different kinds of music or clothing, of politics and thinking. By dimissing these things as weird, by mocking them even while professing acceptance, we create a rigid, narrow notion of what it means to be in our society. This happens all the time--what you may think is a harmless gay joke is pushing people outside of society.
This lack of empathy is the root of our problems. A combination of relentless social enforcement and apathy about what really matters. The only way we can go to war or exploit third world workers is if their way of life is unacceptable to us, and that begins at home.
So how do we gain empathy? There are two kinds--the everyday social intution, reading people and such. I'm bad at that kind, but that just makes me awkward. What I'm talking about is the in kind found in other people's shoes. Our culture is expanding, different kind of lifestyles are popping up every day. So next time you see someone not taking the beaten track, instead of just calling them weird, think about why they are living like that. The answer could be surprising, and maybe you'll be struck with the urge to dip your feet outside the maintstream.
...hack the planet.
I'm been thinking about empathy a lot, mostly what it's good for. What I think is that a deliberate lack of empathy is a cultural force today that is making the world a worse place--if not the cornerstone of the explotitive capitalism we operate on.
Our economic and political actions are guided by our cultural choices and attitudes--and a part of culture is what's considered normal. Many people latch onto the little everday deviations from the status quo: different forms of eating or sexuality, different kinds of music or clothing, of politics and thinking. By dimissing these things as weird, by mocking them even while professing acceptance, we create a rigid, narrow notion of what it means to be in our society. This happens all the time--what you may think is a harmless gay joke is pushing people outside of society.
This lack of empathy is the root of our problems. A combination of relentless social enforcement and apathy about what really matters. The only way we can go to war or exploit third world workers is if their way of life is unacceptable to us, and that begins at home.
So how do we gain empathy? There are two kinds--the everyday social intution, reading people and such. I'm bad at that kind, but that just makes me awkward. What I'm talking about is the in kind found in other people's shoes. Our culture is expanding, different kind of lifestyles are popping up every day. So next time you see someone not taking the beaten track, instead of just calling them weird, think about why they are living like that. The answer could be surprising, and maybe you'll be struck with the urge to dip your feet outside the maintstream.
Monday, February 2, 2009
readily ignored for the good of humanity (i are first)
The I am project is a part of the UBBT in which I need to somehow talk about how 57 adjectives apply to me. I'll be posting all of these in addition to my regular postings. I'm gong to warn you all, while my blog is about communication, these will be more along the lines of expression. In other words, forget all of you in the nicest way possible, I'm writing whatever pops up.
So yeah, nothing else to do but do.
I am exuberant.
I'll inhabit a wasted day with nothing wasted, chasing imagination through the pain in my knuckles. Just keep telling myself tomorrow is an illusion, until one day I can forget what hasn't happened long enough to make something happen now. Keep going, keep going, the pain grows, I can't take but take it and then there is the one glorious second when my passion outstrips my body and I'm invincible. I collapse, thinking of old movies from the 70s and hope one day to fly--leaping off the roof long enough to forget the ground.
a funny thing happened on the way to the store
Who says charity can't be fun?Benefit show for the Silent River Benevolent Foundation--the community building arm of Silent River Kung Fu (ok, technically it's a separate organization). That's the back of my head on the right, responsibly wearing earplugs. The singer of a band called High Jinks is somewhere under that group. Photo by Andrea Janzen.
Doesn't my friend on the left look like a jaguar hood ornament? Oh, and he doesn't have jaundice. We think his neck is just the lighting.
Putting this on was a lot of fun, raising 1200 dollars in a night wasn't too shabby either. Entertainment for chairty is the way to go for fundraising, in my opinion. People would have come anyways, they also helped out. After the show someone told me that it felt good to have fun in support of something.
I've added the I am project to my list of requirements, so I guess I'll start that tonight. I'm going to go work on some logic first.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
they're taking the hobbits to isengard! to isengard! to isengard!
I don't spend a lot of time on youtube, but I see a few things. Including this. It's human tetris, but not the hilarious Japanese game show. Instead this is a stop motion art project simply representing the video game. As you're watching it, take a second to consider how much work this must have been--painstakingly moving each person to the next exact position. Some people might ask what it's good for.
It's not like this art will inspire revolution or social change--it's hardly a commentary on the idea of video games (though I think it does have some things to say about how we view the digital world). It's not really beautiful in a strict sense.
But it is one thing: awesome. Pure, unadulterated, home style, organically farmed awesome. Go watch it again. It's absolutely brilliant for no reason other than what it is.
I don't like it when people question the point of art. While subtext is vital to any artistic work, many things don't need a point or a movement. They're just fantastic. Spice of life, right there.
This video really illustrates my point. It's pretty stupid, I know. But watch it tomorrow morning and then just try to have a bad day.
Monday, January 12, 2009
i believe in something, but i don't know what it is. it's either the future or the end. it's every reason that i do or don't get out of bed.
Defiance, Ohio=amazing band.
I was walking between classes (listening to that band/song, actually) today and the ground went something like this:
snowsnowsnowsnowsnowICEICEsnowsnowsnowsnow
At one point I slipped. I'll leave it up to you to figure out where.
I'm not the most graceful guy in the best of circumstances, so it's not like falling is exactly a new experience. Usually I breakfall or just kind of sit down, but today I stuck my hand out and nearly dislocated my shoulder. It was kind of disturbing for me: I've been practicing breakfalls for over eight years--normally they're automatic.
For those of you playing along at home, there's a lesson to this. No matter how ready you think you are, sometimes you're not. Prevent this by practicing, you all know this--long and hard, sometimes under induced pressure. But stuff happens--whether a slip, important form, tough sparring match or a real self-defense situation, sometimes those ninja skills seem to abandon us under pressure.
Beyond practicing twice as hard afterwards, the only thing to do when you're floundering is work through it. For me that involved a dust off and my best attempt at a casual shrug, hopefully for the benefit of that cute girl walking behind me. A fall is over quickly though, other times when we become skill-less can last a while. In that case, take a breath, stay calm and remind yourself you know it and can perform. If that fails do what I did and try to make it seem like you meant to screw up.
Not that it did me any good.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
we control the vertical, we control the horizontal
There is something I should clarify.
I've written a lot about the punk and hardcore communities, but I don't want anyone to think that I consider them perfect little worlds. There are stupid people in both--sexism in hardcore, for instance, is a persistent issue. But we're rebellious and working on it. We want something better from the world and have decided not to sit around and hope we can elect someone who will do it for us. We're making a better world for ourselves--that's the point. I don't delve into the issues of punk and hardcore because I know most of you don't care.
There are also two kinds of hardcore scenes. The first is young men who are probably on steroids writing terrible, chuggy music that glorifies violence, homophobia and other bad stuff. As far as I'm concerned what I participate has nothing to do with those bands or individuals. I don't respect them at all and don't want to associate with them.
The other kind, or 'real' hardcore for the purists, is diverse in style (within reason) and participants. More nice people. The problem is, when most people think of my subculture, they think of the first kind since it's better known. Please, try not to.
Also, why do I write about this so much? Well, not only is it a huge part of my life, it's also something fairly unique that I can bring to the UBBT table. We all know how great the martial arts are: that's why we're here. In talking about my loud music, I'm trying to show the impact its had on my life as well as further demonstrate the power of a real community.
i may burn this all down if gas goes below fifty cents
I was in Vancouver this past week visiting friends and have two pieces of advice. First, Excellent Sushi downtown on Granville St. 22 rolls for five dollars. Secondly, go to Uncle Fatih's Pizza right outside the Commercial drive Skytrain station and order a slice of potato pizza. It'll change your life.
I've also revised some of my opinion on buying used. While I still love the idea, I've decided it's more ethical to buy DIY goods new. By DIY I mean a t-shirt/record from the band who are struggling to eat while on tour or a lovingly crafted piece of art or zine (not that anyone charges for zines). The whole point of buying used is to not buy (ha, ha) into the corporate mentality--the consumer treadmill I talked about in my last post, and I feel a good way to resist that is to support those who are trying to do what they love outside of the corporate mainstream.
This have gotten me thinking quite a bit about what I buy into on a daily basis. As most of you know, I consider myself in subculture of hardcore, but what does that mean? Most of my close friends are punk/hardcore types, I go to shows, listen to the music, consider and discuss ideas that come out of hardcore, have ideas about what my subculture should look like--all sorts of neat stuff.
But I still am sitting in my house in Edmonton. I'm still a privileged Northern citizen with a car (well, kind of) and disposable income. More importantly, I participate in this culture. The question one of my Vancouver friends raised is: why should I?
Why should I count myself as part of a culture that tells me that I have to be rich to be happy? That tells me that I'm somehow better because I'm male and white, somehow worse because I'm young? Why should I bother with something that wants me to beg at the feet of politicians for any real change? That tries to make me profit off the backs of third world labourers all while dulling my brain on cotton candy entertainment? Why should I let this culture take my power away?
In the UBBT we talk a lot about changing the world. I think I've got a different view on it, that too many are settled with the way things are and we aren't going to wake enough of them up. In order to truly change the world there would have to be such massive economic and class restructuring that we would lose the lives we're used to. And we're comfortable with the power structure, because the middle class of North America or Europe are pretty near to the top. At some point we sold our true power as individuals for the shirts in our closets and the trappings of a modern life, for some, are too good to give up.
But a subculture (in the real sense, not the I shop at Hot Topic because no one understands me sense) can let me help create a space away from the mainstream where I do have power as an individual. That's what I want: for people to reject the mainstream and recreate the world as they wish. For example, I don't think racism can ever really be overcome--despite the colour of a president's skin. There are still many racist individuals and institutions out there. The best thing would be to change their minds--I doubt that'll happen. In my view, they can just go off and be racist by themselves, if they wish to act like that then they aren't welcome in the culture I want.
Now you all don't have to go about this as angrily as I am. You can, of course--a good way to start some sort of rude gesture at a Wal-Mart. Anyway, the subculture of martial artists has great power to redefine our worlds. The UBBT is perfect for this, especially because self-improvement is a key step in this process. But please, my fellow UBBT team members, recognize that a big chunk of our society is against us in this endeavor of changing the world, that our culture is in fact built to resist any positive change. So instead maybe we should kind of start fresh, while encouraging people to do the same. Let's take our power, starting with the power we hold over ourselves.
Writing this got me pretty worked up but I have to go back to studying latin. Get ready for some super intense verb conjugations!
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