Comment - from here on I'm going to start posting my random notes on martial arts here. These will generally be pretty technical musings, usually analysis. They're not meant to be of interest to everyone in general - but I thought some of you might find them interesting.

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For some reason, I was thinking about Drunken Fist the other night.

"Drunken Boxing" is usually thought of as a component of a larger system. Choy Lay Fut (Cai Li Fo), for example, has a "drunken" form. There are a few people who claim to have learned a "system" of Drunken Boxing. Can't vouch for historical truth of their statements or training.

Seems to me that Zuiquan is a highly misunderstood (sub-)system that even many of its practitioners don't get or begin to understand.

My quick analysis of Zuiquan:

- "Staggering": deceptive footwork (obvious); rapid full-body approach into the opponent from different angles, and escape ("hidden")

- "Weaving": rapid structural reangling and shoulder/torso blows (obvious); fa-jin and shen-fa in the manner of xinyiba and spinal wave mechanics ("hidden")

- "Tipping": fa-jin from "awkward" angles to maximize usability ("hidden")

- There is a lot of opportunity to extract plyometric training from any of the typical non-"wushu" Zuiquan forms, it seems. ("hidden")

- Based on the forms I've seen and the extrapolations above, the applications and tactics of Zuiquan seem to be:
- Distance game played, looking for an opening. No engagement until then.

- Rapid entry into the opponent's close range using deceptive footwork and body angling

- Powerful close-range impact strikes using xinyiba and spinal wave. Emphasis on elbow, shoulder, and body strikes.

- Lots of really nasty joint locks and "grand overhead" shuaijiao throws are pretty explicit in most of the forms, not really seen in demos or "partnered" forms. The hand shape alone suggests that the hands grab, not strike (see above for striking surfaces).

- The famous "lifting a barrel of wine" movement is most likely a German suplex and a plyometric exercise posture when isolated.

- Some of the "landed" postures suggest ground submissions. I remember one particular submission from BJJ looks exactly like one of the zuiquan landed postures.

Using this video as a reference. Ignoring the demonstrator's applications, which are crap except for the back blow at 00:22.



- Ground submission posture at 00:33

- Pretty obvious throw at 01:33

This video shows how not to fight with zuiquan.



Using the staggering footwork as shown in the form is highly inefficient. Hell, fighting like the form is performed is very inefficient. Another example of the visual overtaking the meaning.

I got wind of a new compendium of Shaolin forms and was shown a link to a site that sells the books. Since I don't quite have the Chinese character set working right on the machine yet, I figured I'd have Babelfish do its thing. Boy, did it ever. ;)

"So I'm walking down the street, and I see a guy dressed in a gi. That should be my first sign that there's something wrong." <--- my favorite line :)

The Story of the Hungry Dachshund

arafel

Last night, after my board meeting, I met up with Vivian for drinks. We ended up at this hold-in-the-wall dumpling house in K-Town called Mandoo. Because of the crowd, we ended up sharing a table with a German tourist and his Spanish girlfriend.

What I want to remember from last night was the charming bi-lingual experience of their romance. On many occasions, he (the German) spoke Spanish to her, while she (the Spaniard) spoke German to him.

What a lovely way to put yourself out for your love. :)

As some of you know, I spent a good part of the late winter and early spring working on Stacy LoAlbo's (of Incogneeto) book of vintage accessories. Several hundred photos, a thousand+ pieces, and a baker's-dozen-or-so sessions later, the book is on track to be published in December.

I just checked the pre-order page on Amazon, and they finally uploaded the REAL cover! That's my photo of the lovely Christina Signorelli gracing the front of this monster of a book. I'm really excited - aside from a couple of event photos in Gothic Lolita Bible, I've never been legitimately published before!

Can't wait to get the book and see what pics made the cut. Perhaps we'll see a certain snuzzlebunnies in those pages...? :)

[disclaimer: I've had a couple of bad, stressful days. So I'm going to vent about something completely irrelevant in general.]

So. Avatar: The Last Airbender. Never actually watched the show. Seen a few clips. Seems cute enough. For a fantasy show claiming to base its combative styles on actual, well-known systems of kung-fu, it's pretty okay, from what little I've seen.

So then news that M. Night Shyamalan is casting a ton of Caucasians for his movie adaptation. Now, even a casual viewer can see that the show is clearly set in some sort of fantasy version of Asian, with clearly East and Southeast Asian ethnicities for the main characters. So already, boo.

It doesn't get any better when Jackson Rathbone - who is so white that he can easily play a Twilight vampire without makeup - is cast as the lead. It gets even worse when he says, "I think it's one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan. It's one of those things where, hopefully, the audience will suspend disbelief a little bit."

Which all reminds me of crap like this:

Last winter, we did a shoot at the house for some calendar that hasn't materialized yet. It turns out we had four photographers in the house. I stuck to simple shots against the backdrop with my ringflash.

Pictures of the ladies are forthcoming. In the meantime, here are two of the mens!

( Cosplay Burlesque Manliness )

Both outfits by snuzzlebunnies. The pinstripe kimono is her original design and creation.

I didn't take this. I found this on one of the LJ photography communities. I think it's neat. :)

( Huge weird pic behind the cut! )

Tell me what it is, and you might get a prize. :)

In the summer before I finished 24 Hours Later, I took some time to submit a piece for the TCM Young FilmComposer competition, which was held annually through 2007.

I'll be the first to admit that my piece wasn't stellar - but goddammit, it was more interesting than the winning pieces from previous years.



Overwrought? Perhaps. Interesting? Definitely.

Please stop inquiring about a position that the job posting makes clear that you will not be considered for. Calling me and trying to argue your way into an interview will not impress me. In fact, it may just annoy me. I have many other things to do today besides tell biology, economics, and electrical engineering majors why they're not qualified for a position that explicitly requires a chemistry major.

Go find someone who wants your skills and leave me alone.

Love,

Me.

"A communist is just a fascist without a sense of fashion."

- my coworker and myself, just now, 2009 ;)

Saturday













Sunday

I grew up in a Chinese restaurant where my mother was waitress/hostess/manager. I spent many days after school and during the summer there, playing outside in the Texas heat on a concrete apron, drinking tons of soda and iced tea, and eating huge amounts of Chinese food made for white people.

To this day, one of my favorite snacks is a bowl of egg drop soup, a spring roll, and some fried wontons. I order beef & broccoli on a regular basis. General Tso's chicken is eaten regularly in my house. Yet, as a Taiwanese-American who grew up eating American, Chinese, and "Amerinese" food on a regular basis, I recognized how alien most of the food served in the restaurant would seem to my relatives overseas.

So I find the following video fascinating. I hope you do, too.

I'm tired and stressed. So I'm thinking about this picture:

On occasion, my various interests collide. Here's such an expression from 1999:

It's been a few days since the first salvo was fired in our little battle of bathroom etiquette. The urinal thankfully remained paper-towel-free for a few days, which is great, since I hate it when the urinal (or any toilet plumbing) clogs up.

Well, my most recent trip to the bathroom revealed that the Paper Towel Bandit has struck again. Apparently, our lone hero arrived on the scene before I did. I love his signage.

The men's room in my complex is often a mess. It's as if all those Ph.D's are afraid or incapable of doing simple things as flushing, putting trash in the trash can, etc. On occasion, anonymous signage has appeared, taking the general men's room populace to task for their uncouth behavior. Today, such wall markings appeared above the urinal, and the message was truly awesome.

Terra's Exotic Harvest Sea Salt and Mediterranean Chips: in a word, delicious. The inclusion of Kabocha in the Exotic Harvest chips was surprising and welcome.

Zombie Strippers: Couldn't tell you much, since I fell asleep soon after Jenna Jameson's strip act. She's looking pretty scary these days. Val says it was hilarious; I'll watch it all the way through when she buys it.

Injinji Black Tetrasoks: wonderful for long days on your feet or just just lounging around the house. Great black stretchy fabric that's not too thick. The spreading of the toes feels natural and comfortable. Bit on the expensive side at $12/pair, but the Injinji basement is running a great sale of $9/pair for product in the "old packaging." Ed, I specifically recommend these things to you.

Ronin Warriors: cute. Entertaining in limited doses, or when lubricated with artisan beers and good bourbon.

Scott Smith's A Simple Plan: a great suspense novel. The basic premise - how the simplest of plans can go awry when enough money is involved - gets progressively more twisted, dark, and devastating as the novel progresses. If not for the language, I could easily see this being taught in high-school English classes.

Panera's French miche: delightfully crusty and dense. The perfect bread to make French or cinnamon toast with, great unadorned, almost sublime with a spreading of apple butter.

Let the Right One In: one of the best vampire stories I've ever experienced. I'm currently reading the novel, but the film well stands alone. Wonderful work. I'm totally in agreement with AVClub.com's assessment of, "Why the fuck is Twilight getting all the attention when Let the Right One In is the better vampire story, the better novel, the better movie, etc.?"