Do You Feel Lucky?

(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Close to Perfecting My Fighting Style!

As long time-readers are aware, I'm not only a surpassingly excellent martial arts critic, but I am also a surprisingly humble martial artist in my own right. Or should I say: in my own rite. By which I mean, I have been developing and perfecting and tearing down and building back up again from scratch, my own unique and peculiar martial arts fighting style. Unique, peculiar, and surprisingly breathtaking!

My style is a bit hard to describe. As a martial artist, I class myself firmly with the Modernists. But the fundamentals of my technique are firmly rooted in Classical forms. The combination brings about some interesting juxtapositions. While my attacks are largely straightforwardly representational, my defensive patterns are for the most part abstract, and can be almost impossible for the opponent to correctly interpret. One might say my blocks are not only obscure, but abstruse - often pretentiously so. I find this works to my advantage, or at least, in practical terms: I make it work to my advantage. About every damn time.

For the past year or so, as my style has really blossomed into a fullness and maturity rarely seen in a martial artist of my years, and a sophistication almost unheard-of in one with my comparative lack of formal schooling, I've become more and more preoccupied with naming my style. A style needs a name. It's like a final step, a baptism. It's just not a style without that stamp of descriptive, "hey, here's a cool name that lets you know a little more about how you just got your ass kicked."

It's been tough, though, because my style is so hard to describe. Such a unique mix of calm and ferocity. Ferocity and calm. And not just one kind of ferocity, but several! It's similar to the idea expressed in the phrase "lung fu mo shi" - dragon on top of tiger, strength on top of strength. Only in my style's case, it'd be more like ferocity on top of ferocity on top of ferocity!!! Only, with calm in between. In between each ferocity. Sandwiched in-between, like a sweet buffer of calm in between grueling dueling twin triple hurricanes of bestial ferocity! In fact, all of that taken together would be a very good description of how I fight. But you can't name your martial arts style after a really complicated paragraph. No. I needed to boil it down, crystalize it into the intrinsic, definitive, pivotal -ness (or if you will, the "ness-ness") of its descriptive essence.

For a while I was soliciting help from people: "THERE! Describe what just happened - what does it feel like just finished kicking your ass? What metaphor would you use to describe what just hit you, and how you got hit by it? Something descriptive, please - NOUNS ONLY!" I find it weak when people put an adjective in their martial arts style name. Oh, Soaring Eagle Style, are we? It sounds like your dojo is in a teepee, no offense. So I was mostly after nouns. Sometimes I had to elaborate quite a bit, people weren't really sure what was wanted: "You know, beings, forces...ferocious animals..." I'd say that last part kind of low. I was definitely feeling the animal angle myself, but I didn't want to skew the results! Occasionally, I'd execute a few extra additional moves on them to further illustrate, which often got good results. Clarified things.

Anyway, I got a lot of good feedback from people, and based again on some of the classical forms I'd incorporated and the way they seem to come across, I believe I've finally whittled it down to perfection! And this is the name I've chosen...are you ready??? It's perfect, it perfectly expresses the mix of calm and ferocity I was talking about. Specifically, 3 parts ferocity, 2 parts calm. I practice...are you ready???

Lion Zen Tiger Zen Bear Style.

Oh, my.

7 comments:

Mel said...

I am so feelin' what you are saying Joe.

Last night I was having this discussion with my friend.

I said that in my day dreams I am a badass. In my dreams I MESS PEOPLE UP who PISS ME OFF. In my day dreams I use my knuckles to HIT THEM HARD. In my day dreams I call my fist THE EDUCATOR. In my dreams this TEACHES THEM A LESSON.

In reality I abhor violence. In reality I am a 5 foot, 50kg wimp who slaps like a girl.

To prove this, I took this pic

http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/8423/educator.jpg

you, however, sound deadly.

In a cool way.

dogimo said...

I'm not one for naming my body parts (apart from the ol' "Don Henley" of course), but I will admit that I refer to my entire left arm, considered as a unit most emphatically including the clenched left fist, as OL' BESSIE. (if the fist is unclenched, the whole thing goes back to being just my arm)

Sample usage: "You might want to watch it there BUD, or I might have to give you a taste of OL' BESSIE!" - complete with an impressive brandish with simultaneous "in one smooth motion" sleeve roll-up.

Mel said...

Judging from the descriptive narrative of this post, Ol' Bessie would sort The Educator out quick smart.

Just another reason why I resolve to never get into fisticuffs with Joe "MadDog" McDeadly

:-)

dogimo said...

It's true, I'm a fighter not a lover.

dogimo said...

Well...relatively speaking, I mean!

dogimo said...

Talent and inclination are two different things.

dogimo said...

I GET NO COMPLAINTS.

especially on the fighting.