Friday, October 5, 2007

   Now that Bif's outta the way, let's talk about fighting!
This should be an interesting post that goes into my evening internet mindset . . . in case anyone has ever wondered why the hell I post so many random YouTube links every day . . .


I can't remember exactly what I was looking for at the time as I searched for videos the other night (I know, I'm a hopeless YouTube addict . . .). It was something martial arts related, in any case . . . which then led to a clip of random people performing this or that style of fighting . . . which then led to an odd clip called "Human Weapon screws up Human Anatomy".

http://youtube.com/watch?v=lBw7aFLK6TE

Evidently, there's some show on tv that shows martial arts, and this particular one forgot what side of the body the liver was on in their motion-capture 3D example (at least at one point, though they put it on the correct, right side later in the episode). So I'm thinking, "heh, neat . . ."

That leads to more of these 3D "mechanics" animations for more martial arts techniques, from punches to throws . . .


(Here's a short Judo example of what I'm talking about if you wanna watch:)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=8O1CvYVKwpY

So at about this point I now have a separate browser tab on Wiki' (my other internet time-killing addiction) to read up about this "Human Weapon" show which I apparently do not get here in Canada (Turns out the Canadian "History Television" channel is different from "The History Channel"). Suddenly I'm really intrigued by this show's concept: two American martial artists travel the world, learn different fighting styles and their histories, and then after a week of training try it out on a local champion . . . this could make for some good television . . .

Back to YouTube, I found the "challenge fight" between the host and an Eskrima champion (Filipino stick-fighting, among other things). So for the next six minutes I'm watching these two guys just pound the hell out of each other with sticks while the guy gives a commentary on himself and how the fight went . . . then he got smoked in the finger by the other guy (possible fracture) and they call the match then and there.

Yeah, I was sold.

So hopping back and forth over YouTube, I find a few more clips here and there of "Human Weapon", but now I really wanna see a full show . . . here's where Google comes into play . . .

So at this point I still have the Wiki' entry out as my episode guide that tells me which episode is about which martial arts (in case I needed it), and Google does the rest . . .

. . . Google wins, finds a full episode (streaming, no less) on another video site. So I learn all about Judo and become amused when the one host gets completely schooled by the Judo master . . . but he's gracious about it, especially seeing as he's studied Judo for all of a week compared to twenty-odd years for the other guy . . .

From that video, I looked to see what other videos that particular guy had uploaded. Lo and behold, he had a couple more episodes of Human Weapon uploaded! Further, another dude had another one or two!

I spend another 45 minutes learning about Savate, something I've been wanting to look into for a long time just to see how it differs from "normal" kickboxing. Heh . . . one of the main differences seems to be that it's very violent, has streetfighting origins and savateurs fight wearing padded boots . . . so they're kicking each other with boots on . . . . . that's wild. Just sayin', ya can't underestimate the French, they're a violent people if they wanna be . . .

Oh yeah, the host (the other, larger host) fought the Savate fighter to a draw in this one. I was more than impressed with this show and its premise by this point.

So the night continues on . . . I ask Duo (who's online on MSN at the time and by this point had learned all sorts of neat little random facts about Savate) what I wanna learn about next: Karate, Pankration, or Krav Maga. She emphatically exclaimed "Karate!!!" I mused about how I have somewhat of a hate-on for Karate - probably because in my early years of life it was the only one anyone ever knew and I got tired of correcting them on what I studied - but agreed to watch it anyway . . .

. . . by this point, pretty much anyone I was chatting with online was getting an earful about what I was watching . . . either people in Kansas, people in Australia . . . . . I'm bad like that . . .

It's well past midnight at this point. Everyone else has gone to bed or left work. I still have Pankration and Krav Maga to go through . . . . .

. . . as I watch the Pankration episode, I suddenly realised how this related to old-school Greek training and such. Thus, I went to the Anime Evolution cosplay forum, replied in the "300 cosplay" thread with a link to the video in case anyone was curious . . .

After that, watched the thing about Krav Maga (which I hadn't even heard of until that night), was really happy, really excited . . . but I still really wanted to watch the Kung-Fu episode . . .

. . . . . double-checked back to Wiki', it then dawned on me that this is a very new show on History, and as such still hasn't aired about a third of the season's episodes - Kung-Fu is the next one.

I went to bed after that.


So yeah, that's generally how my evenings work. They're not always so video-heavy, but I more or less drift from one thing to the next like that (you should've seen me last Monday when I caught myself up on every single Heroes graphic novel out so far . . . I was up late that night . . .).

. . . and in case you were curious, I watched the Muay Thai, Eskrima and MMA episodes yesterday. I'm just missing one and I'll be all caught up.


In other news, the kids at my kung-fu club performed a couple weeks ago. Some of them are newer than others, and those who aren't as new are half-assing . . . but it's still neat:






Martial arts is an awesome hobby. Just sayin'.
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