Jeremyz Discussion

A new exposure, converted to Martial Arts use?

2004-11-15T14:04:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, which is 14th Nov, i attended a talk held in Tzu Chi. For those unfamiliar with Tzu Chi, it is an organization formed by good-hearted people to help poor and helpless people to get on their feet. It was a motivation talk, and it did what it was supposed to. The host, a armless, one legged, one eyed man at first glance. But when he speaks, he speaks the word of a man with a thousand arms, legs and eyes. He is a Taiwanese artist, 谢坤山, i don't know his english name, so we'll just know him as some artist from now on as his name doesn't matter much ^^.Ofcourse, this would seemed like any other talks where some handicapped guy comes to the stage and tell us how he suffered. It seemed like that to me at first. What shocked me is, he didn't really tell us how he suffered. He told us how he carry on with his everyday life ever since the incident that made him.. him. Imagine with no hands, he can eat, brush teeth, wash face and even mop the floor all by himself!! Hell, i even know some with all limbs and still can't do what the host can do. But this guy, he creatively created tools to aid him in various tasks. Like when he's eating, he had this tin with a spoon glued to it and he would put it on his small remaining part of his arm and eat. The problem with the tin is, when it gets hot, he'll sweat in it making it very uncomfortable. Then eating tool version 2 was invented. This time he uses a wire coil which fits on his small arm and it worked like a charm until today. Well, i'm doing this not to show you all how to eat without hands but the lesson learned behind it. In a fighting scenario, or sparring in martial arts term, most people will encounter opponents with greater streangth, faster speed or even more experience. All these will contribute to a lost if not carefully taken in to account. But recognizing the threat is not going to win you a fight. What being done later will. In my club, i always meet opponents who "turtles" a lot. Turtle means, like the creature, heavily guarded. In other terms, "kia si" or 怕死. They contract their body so there's less area to strike. Hands close to their chests and small sparring stance for easy get aways. These type of guys may seemed easy to score as from what we can tell, most of the features they show only limit them to a few options of attacking. But BEWARE! As most people, like the once so naive me would do, is to attack the person head on. Careless and uncalculated offence will lead to poorly defended "targets", and this is what the opponent is counting on. Now, my situation is very confusing. Attack and risk of losing points. Wait and risk of later mistakes. Now, i mentioned about the host using tools to eat before. My tool here is the chop kick or axe kick. My sole and only advantage is my long legs. My legs are my friends ^^. The chopping kick is a fast and heavy strike to the opponent's head. But good things don't come cheap. Because it requires a lot of effort to execute, to recover to a ready stance from the attack takes a long time, around half a second more than any normal attack. Also, because it is a kick, there is also a risk of fallling as i'm balancing on one foot. So, what i do now? To further enhance my attack, i add in a fake. It will be most probably be a fake of a blow to the waist. This will probably lower the opponent's hands as they are thinking of blocking my low blows, and further increase my chance of success to land my chopping kick or kicks to the head. Problem solved.

Introduction

2004-11-12T01:08:00.000+08:00

Hi, I'm Jeremy. Recently i have this dying urge to listen to what everybody think about almost everything. Nowadays, communication is the first step towards understanding especially sensitive things like sexuality and physical or mental development. So i took the initiative to create some sort of a forum for us to discuss on life itself. As i have said, this will most probably be more of a discussion than about what i do everyday.Feel free to give any comments, after all i treat this as a discussion. I hope to expect wonderful feedback from you guys. Please bear with me of any typo or grammatical errors. Enjoy~

Be water, my friend

2004-11-10T21:29:00.000+08:00

Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless--like water.

Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup,

You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle,

You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot.

Now water can *flow* or it can *crash*!

Be water, my friend.-- Bruce Lee

This is one of the first quotations that i admired a lot. The legendary Martial Artist and a film star, Bruce has brilliantly made use of one element and turn it into a teaching. Well, to be simple, the whole quotation explains the characteristics of water. Water, 水 , as we know is the element of life, an interesting element which can't be cut but can be contained. It can float, and it can also very well sink. To me, water, not being as hard as ice or as formless as steam is the true balance of the two extremes. In Martial Arts sense, balance is the key to all basics in winning a fight. The proper balance of weight, in Aikido, is the determination of the downfall of the strongest enemy one faces. In Karate, one must learn to balance speed and power in order to deliver a lightning-speed yet jaw-breaking strike. In the state of our mind, as a student, keeping the balance between being calm and responsive at the same time is always a battle during exam periods. We tend to be too pressured by the time we have to finish the paper and also be tormented by the questions we are facing. As everybody wants good results, the goal is to deliver answers accurately and fast. Finding the true balance in exams, for me, has not been succesful, to be honest. I sometimes wonder off and spend too much time on patheticly easy questions and find myself in a struggle for time to finish the last few. So in the end, the wrong balance of the two extremes lead to something Bruce Lee calls "crash". Do share your experience on balancing two extreme behavior or any comments on my post. With this i end my post with a wish to all , "Be water, my friend."