Awesomeness, after a bit of tinkering this afternoon the new template is live There are bound to be bugs and I haven’t had the time to bug test it in Internet Explorer 6 yet, but it’s working nicely in FF3 and IE8.

I tells ya, IE6 is the bane of the internet. Such old, filthy code. I wish MS made the update to a newer browser mandatory with the onset of WinXP SP2. Would have saved the world a much better, gradually more standards-compliant place online

Anywho, if any bugs crop up, let me know. And again, apologies in advance to the IE6 users – once I’ve got my new template finished for Retro Otaku, I’ll go back and give you a nice little stylesheet to suit your archaic browser

Bloginated Saturday, 6th February 2010 / Wordpress/system stuff
Tag-isms: New template

Sorry again for lack of updates!! Just wanted to jump in and let people know that I’ve almost finished coding up the new template and it’s looking great! Will try and install it over the weekend, so if the blog mysteriously disappears for a few hours, don’t sweat – it’ll be back and look shinier before you know it Things will still be light for the rest of the month as I intend to code up a fresh template for my gaming blog, and once they’re both done, I’ll be back to blogging as per the usual!

Bloginated Friday, 5th February 2010 / Wordpress/system stuff
No tag-isms applied to this post due to unruly laziness :P

Just wanted to post a quick heads-up – I’m currently working on a new site template for here and my other blog, so once they’re both finished up, it’ll be back to business as usual

Thanks in advance!!!!

Bloginated Monday, 18th January 2010 / Wordpress/system stuff
No tag-isms applied to this post due to unruly laziness :P

Just wanted to wish everyone well for the coming year… and apologise for the dearth of updates to the site over the last couple of weeks – I was enjoying a few weeks off catching up with family, spending time with Wifey, celebrating x-mas and the new year, and taking a break from work/blogging/training/etc.

It’s been nearly 12 months since I first started up this site, and I also want to say a huge thank you to my readers, as well as the blogging and martial arts communities who continue to support, give advice and lend their encouragement to my little corner of the blogosphere. I think Wifey deserves a mention as well, since she’s the one who has to exercise patience owing to the time/energies I spend maintaining the site

I’m looking forward to a few changes in the next 12 months – there will be more image galleries as these seem to be popular with visitors, possibly a couple of videos and a new visual overhaul of the site to make it look a bit more interesting

Here’s to another exciting year!

Bloginated Monday, 4th January 2010 / Blogs/websites
Tag-isms: Milestones

Matt over at Ikigai Way dropped off an awesome comment on my recent whinge about mangling my stump. He provided some information and links to a classical style of karate – Hakutsuru or the White Crane – that his instructor has trained in. Apart from the fact that it’s an interesting style of karate to study due to the heavy Chinese influence in its forms vs the comparatively rigid styling of modern styles like Shotokan (note I mean “modern” as used in the “post-modern”/Japanese post-modernism sense, and not in the misuse of the word in place of the word “contemporary”), it also features techniques that only utilise one leg!

For those unaware of what Hakutsuru looks like performed as a kata, Matt posted a couple of vids that I’m going to pinch and post up here as well:

First up is Seikichi Odo, who moves around with amazing skill despite his age: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD78dP428ec (I can’t embed that one by request of the author, but please check it out, some amazing stuff in there).

The second one is of Matayoshi Shinpo:

Being the super champ he is, Matt even fired across a link to the Okinawa Hakutsuru Kenpo White Crane Association’s website, and in particular the articles written on the topic China and the Origins of Okinawan White Crane Kenpo (Part 1 and Part 2). I haven’t had a chance to do more than quickly skim through their site, but by plonking the links up here, I’m hoping it’ll remind to go through it in much more detail when I get a chance.

Since I’m curious about what I might be able to learn and apply from their style to me as an amputee, I’m going to drop them an e-mail to see if they can recommend any particular part of their literature or offer any advice on this one. I’ll post back with an update on how I go!

Bloginated Wednesday, 9th December 2009 / Karate
Tag-isms: amputee | Classical karate | Hakutsuru | Okinawa Hakutsuru Kenpo White Crane Association | Okinawan White Crane Kenpo | stump | White Crane

Patrick over at Mokuren Dojo fired across an e-mail to me the other day about a post he wrote on tantojutso (a walking-cane adjunct to SMR jojutsu). Given the state of my stump at the moment (read more here), I’m currently using my walking stick where practical to get around the place, which meant Patrick’s post was eerily relevant to me

In 2008 I experimented with learning some stick fighting principles as an adjunct to my usual karate training. While the style wasn’t a strict or traditional one (despite some traditional aspects from the various systems present thrown into the mix), it was focused on some basic stick fighting principles, incorporating eskrima/kali elements with the rattan, bojutsu, defensive techniques with the hanbo and jo, a little bit of yawara training and a walking stick style that had its roots within a French system. The aim of the training was to give the practitioner the tools and principles to defend oneself by using any varietal of stick or pole as a weapon. I feel that, despite only spending a small period of time training in it, that it succeeded in teaching me some basic tenets for defending myself with varying weapons. While the eskrima stuff was probably the most fun (and made cool noises when training ), the most relevant was arguably the walking stick techniques I learned.

The basic training showed how to use a hooked walking stick in a variety of ways. It demonstrated basic blocking and striking using various aspects of the walking stick, even down to utilising the different ends of the stick to achieve different ends. For example, if performing a thrusting strike, using the bottom of the stick concentrates the kinetic energy to a smaller surface of impact, giving rise to a variety of fast, poking strikes; however, depending on the walking stick, I found that this technique put excess stress on the shaft of the walking stick and required greater accuracy to achieve a worthwhile result. Going the other way, you can thrust using the hooked end of the stick, which is useful for creating more of a clubbing motion even when thrust. I found this to be quite effective given I found it quite intuitive to do a re-enforced two-handed thrusting strike with this technique from a utilitarian perspective, since I’ll normally have my hand on the hook and can easily use my other hand to grab the other end of the staff and use both arms for the strike. While the greater surface area means you get a different kind of impact than with the butt-end of the stick, it also requires less accuracy, which means it potentially has a greater degree of utility in a self defense scenario where the adrenalin or panic may hinder your usual level of accuracy.

What I found quite interesting is that it wasn’t too difficult to translate some of the broad striking motions and diagonal patterns of attack from eskrima to the walking stick. The difference of course is that a walking stick is generally longer than your average rattan… but that being said, if you’re familiar with short staff techniques (like jo or hanbo) and you have a longer walking stick, then you can also truncate your walking stick skillset with some of these other techniques (some of my favourite techniques from jo and hanbo were the trapping and joint-manipulation techniques, which I think would prove useful with a walking stick).

I guess it shows the level of inter-connectivity with different styles and the relationship between them. I have a feeling my Sensei would be pleased to know I joined the dots in my head and found the commonality in the tools he gave us

It also demonstrates a strong focus on utility (something that’s a core focus on the posts at The Martial Explorer) and that, as a martial artist, you should be able to not only demonstrate the finer aspects of the forms you learn in class, but be able to take away those core principles and utilise them as essential tools in any instances of self defense, or if we’re getting a bit more philosophical, utilise those precepts as an approach to everyday life.

Bloginated Wednesday, 9th December 2009 / Kobudo
Tag-isms: bo | eskrima | hanbo | Injuries | jo | kali | Kobudo | prosthesis | self defense | stick fighting | stump | walking stick | yawara

Sorry for the lack of updates of late Last week ran away before I knew it!

So, update on how I’m going – erm, leg’s not holding up too well The issues that cropped up a week or two back have come back again, so it’s out with the walking stick again to keep me company I’m not sure why the stump’s not healing up as quickly as it normally does, I suspect it’s to do with the location of where the split skin currently is and the fact it’s in constant pressure, whether it be wearing the prosthesis or not.

So, I have to exercise something I’m not all that good at – patience

So, I’ll be taking an extended break, longer than I first thought when I took a week or two off in November. I’ll have to make sure I don’t indulge too much over the break as well, since I won’t be able to exercise as much!

This does raise a couple of questions though – how do I exercise whilst trying to minimise excess physical impact to my stump? I want to use the next month and a half until classes start again in January to get back into weight training, and I reckon this might be able to float the balance between being able to have a good workout, but do it without excess pressure on the rear of the stump since I can do a slew of different exercises on the bench, rather than standing.

The other thing I’m considering doing is working on adapting some of my core techniques to being able to do them standing on one leg. Taking a note out of Jesse’s (of the Martial Explorer) book and his interest in practical application of martial to real-world scenarios, I thought this is something I should be looking at. While I’m generally wearing my leg while I’m awake and out and about, there will be times where I’m going to be without my prosthesis, whether it be because I’ve mangled my stump or damaged my leg. So, I’m conscious that, in the spirit of trying to be a well-rounded martial artist, it’s important that I consider broadening my skillset to cope with performing at least a handful of upper-body techniques if ever I need them. So, I figure while I’m a bit mangled, it may not be such a bad idea to roll in an exploration of some of these techniques with my condition.

So, while there are definitely some negatives with where things are at, there are also some opportunities in there as well. I’ll update as I go I’m actually a bit excited about exploring what techniques can be transferred to training on a single leg, hopefully the resultant posts won’t be too convoluted!

Bloginated Monday, 7th December 2009 / Prosthesis or amputee stuff
Tag-isms: Injuries | prosthesis | stump | stupid injuries | Technique | training

Thanks to coverage on my local radio station of choice, Fresh FM, Tuesday December 3 is International Day of People with Disability (http://www.idpwd.com.au/).

I actually hadn’t heard of this before, despite the fact I’ve had my awesome leg of awesomeness since I was a year or two old, so it was great to hear it getting a bit of exposure, and I thought I’d try and do my bit to promote it and talk about it. Particularly special was that Melissa Noonan, co-founder of Limbs 4 Life (a not-for-profit organisation supporting amputees through peer-support programs and an excellent website with forums for people to post in), was a recipient of of the 2009 Social Inclusion Award for all of her hard work helping out fellow amputees and their loved ones.

I think in the lead up to next year’s day I’ll see if there’s something I can get involved in to help out or just celebrate the day. Hopefully this little plug here will wander out into the various search indexes floating online to draw attention to the event, as I think it’s an extremely worthwhile cause.

In the meantime, I’d encourage you to check out the International Day of People with Disability website (http://www.idpwd.com.au/), as well as Limbs 4 Life (http://www.limbs4life.com/). I’ll be adding links to both sites to the side navigation after I post this up.

Bloginated Thursday, 26th November 2009 / Prosthesis or amputee stuff
Tag-isms: amputee | Amputees doing cool stuff | International Day of People with Disability | Limbs 4 Life | Melissa Noonan

As the heading suggests, I’m in a very mature and rational mood Was heading home from work yesterday looking forward to jumping into a good session last night at the dojo, and thought – “My stump feels a bit funny, I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with the prosthesis though”. By the time I got home and walked out the car though, I knew it was happening again – much like the problems I was having with my leg last week, where I thought the skin had healed over the split in my skin, it was in fact splitting open again. I was actually pretty confident that it was on the mend, but I must have gotten ahead of myself; I should have kept the bandaids over the wound a little longer, but to be honest, it was probably the great little training session I did on Tuesday that started undoing all the good I’d achieved by taking it easy over the course of the last week and a half.

The bummer is that this throws my training regime completely up in the air, as it means I definitely won’t be able to train outside of class, and wholistically, I definitely won’t be able to grade before the end of the year. I know martial isn’t all about the grading, but I like to set goals and achieve them, and am a little bummed that I’ll be falling behind that target I thought I could achieve. Not that it’s really something I could have avoided as I didn’t know the wound hadn’t completely healed over, but still, it’s a bit disappointing.

Still, all the extra effort has not gone to waste by any means – all training is good training, after all – so I’ve now revised my goal to grade up by the end of Q1 2010, and will try to train hard and get myself to a level of expertise so I can grade again before the end of next year.

Bloginated Thursday, 26th November 2009 / Prosthesis or amputee stuff
Tag-isms: grading | Injuries | prosthesis | setbacks | sores | stump | stupid injuries | training

Back in August (here) I blogged about a few things you can do while driving long distances to stretch your stump out on a road trip. The weekend before last Wifey and I jumped out into the far north to catch up with my little brother Tank and his lovely wife Meru, and while the drive was a good 4 and a half hours either way, I didn’t have much of a problem with the trip, which was great. While using the cruise control certainly helped (as did the liberal doses of Cheap Trick and Tears for Fears courtesy of Wifey’s iPod), taking a moment every half hour or so to gently stretch the stump made a huge difference. We also had a break half-way through the trip to grab a coffee and stretch our respective leg(s) which was good too.

If you’re interested in reading up on what I’ve done in the past to alleviate some of the aches you get whilst driving for an extended period of time, feel free to to check out the post in question – I’m not sure how helpful it’ll be for other amputees, but I thought it might prove useful to someone else out there apart from me!

Bloginated Tuesday, 24th November 2009 / Prosthesis or amputee stuff
Tag-isms: country | driving | prosthesis | road trip | stretching | travel