It’s getting late and I have an early start tomorrow, but wanted to post at least something remotely worthwhile before I went to bed:

The Martial Explorer: Project Natal
Jesse over at The Martial Explorer has two posts (here and here) on Microsoft’s new Project Natal tech they demo’d at E3 last week-ish. Being a bit of a nerd, I didn’t really take much interest in it at first, but I’m now intrigued with the possibilities. Mind, the same promises of this kind of control were made with the Powerglove, Sega Activator (I bet nobody saw that reference coming!), EyeToy, EyeToy 2 and the Wii, so we’ll see how it goes. MA stuff could go quite well if the canned footage is anything to go by, and it’d be nice to see some more XNA love for indie developers and this kind of tech getting filtered onto XBLA or something. I guess time will tell!

Wim’s blog: Martial-intent, Maori-style
Wim’s got a great post on martial intent and its importance in training, with some great demonstrations of the precept in action. It’s gotten me to thinking that this might be something I have traditionally missed during previous sparring training, and will keep in mind as I continue my training. I’m sure I can find it somewhere, surely it’s lurking somewhere amongst my general placidity

Oh yeah, and Wim’s giving away free stuff as part of promoting his mailing list. Click here for more details and to sign up if you’re interested! Free stuff is always good

Black Belt Mama: Karate from an Outsider’s Perspective
I’ll keep this one bookmarked – BBM’s invited Lauren Balogh (of travel blog Get Fox’d) to give a guest post on the BBM blog. It is a brilliant piece on the nature of a martial arts as an art, and on karate in particular. The next time you get a funny or awkward look from a friend/colleague/family member/dude on the street when you tell them you do karate or martial arts, point them in this direction. Thanks to Lauren for posting her thoughts, and for BBM for giving her the stage to share it with the rest of us. You can read the post in full and leave comments here.

Oh, and Lauren gets extra points because she thinks Australia is awesome, even if she neglected to mention that I’m of course one of the contributors to this country’s inherent awesomeness.

Mind, I’m also prone to moments of delusion caused by illusions of personal grandeur. Keep this in mind when considering the previous comment about my personal level of importance and/or awesomeness in relation to this country

Well, that should do it! I’m off to bed now, good night!

Bloginated Friday, 12th June 2009 / Blogs/websites, General training
Tag-isms: E3 | martial intent | Outside views on martial arts | Project Natal | Technique | training | Video games | XBox 360

I was over at Win Demeere’s blog a few minutes ago reading through a couple of his recent posts, and he has a great two-part series on shin kicks (links – part one, and part two). I’ve been curious to see if I could use this technique for a while now, so will have to give it a crack over the next week and see what I can come up with. The posts in question give plenty of detail in how to perform the kick, and he’s linked in a few YouTube videos to demonstrate their use too.

I’m particularly keen because I feel my prosthesis would make for an awesome shin kick given I’d be delivering the strike with a raw titanium pole. Might just be the perfect technique if I can turn it into a fast, effective move. The extra bonus will be if I can get pull it off using my real leg, so we’ll see how that turns out.

In the meantime, check out the posts on his blog if you’re interested – plenty of good info there. Thanks Wim!

Bloginated Saturday, 23rd May 2009 / Prosthesis or amputee stuff, Technique
Tag-isms: prosthesis | Technique

Last one for tonight before I go to bed!

Matt’s done a great post on hikite (withdrawing the hand) and its use/applications on his blog, Ikigai. I love Matt’s posts because he often goes into plenty of detail and explains the practical application behind a number of techniques you learn in traditional Japanese martial arts systems. I harp on a lot about my exploration of application in karate, and his post on hikite is another great example of the importance of delving beneath the obvious to determine the utility of a technique. Hence why I’m plugging it from my site

This kind of discussion will no doubt continue to be fuel the fires of discussion between the different camps of martial arts theory, in that to some there is little point in applying “artificial” introspec in understanding a technique instead of, well, telling it to you straight away and knocking out the extended learning curve. I would recommend checking out Jon Law’s excellent Epic Martial Arts blog to get the viewpoint of someone who falls into this category – his website has some excellent posts on the topic and I’ve had the pleasure of discussing this with him in the past on my blog and on his, and I think he offers some excellent insight into the opposite end of the argument over traditional vs typical Western approaches to learning martial arts, even if I am usually a little biased as I personally prefer the traditional method, as it suits me and I enjoy the journey (and I also have excellent instructors who don’t just bark orders – they always take the time to demonstrate practical applications and are themselves constantly learning new approaches to martial arts to enrich their own understanding, which is very important).

I think all sides have merit, but as my interest is in learning a traditional Japanese martial art (as discussed plenty of times throughout this blog!), Matt’s post on hikite is essential reading for your truly!

Bloginated Saturday, 23rd May 2009 / Karate
Tag-isms: Technique

Okay, bit of background on this theory – when I seriously mangled my stump back in… early 2006, and had almost a year off from my training to recover from the damage, I found myself trying to transfer those skills to my existing condition and start to work on theorising how I could transfer the techniques and knowledge I had gained from learning karate as an amputee into something I could do on one leg — literally, as this was when I couldn’t even wear my prosthesis.

This seems a bit odd – karate (and by extension, martial arts in general) draw from the body’s natural synergy insofar as the body’s symmetry is concerned – that is, you have a left-hand side and a right-hand side of your body, and it’s by using both sides and all four limbs together that you can extract maximum performance, strength, efficiency and so forth. Training in a martial art with one leg whilst wearing a prosthesis presents challenges to the body’s natural equilibrium, but what happens when you remove the limb altogether?

That’s what I started to investigate. My early experiments were seeing if it was possible to control techniques whilst on crutches. As time has gone on (three years if I’m not mistaken given its 2009 now), I’ve tried to move beyond this, and try and transfer at least some techniques to performing them on one leg. I think I’ve started making a little progress at this stage, and as amateur as it may seem, I might have to get my wife to take some photos so I can post them up on the blog. The main difference is that it is significantly more difficult to transfer powerful techniques on one leg, and the amount of energy required to keep up is absolutely incredible. When doing standing reverse-punches, you have to shift your center of balance slightly, but with practice you can start to pull off techniques with a high degree of hip rotation to start achieving effective technique.

Blocks and grappling are a bit restricted, but if you use measured effort to hold your balance, there is a degree of light technique that I’ve been able to achieve at this stage. Whilst my holds/grappling skills are pretty weak, I think there is a huge potential here to investigate different options, as the lack of a limb theoretically gives you greater access to monkey-style grappling where you can easily grapple with relative agility around/over your opponent. I think it would take an experienced jujutsu/BJJ or grappling fighter to really harness this, but I think the possibilities are there. If ever I learn groundfighting styles further down the road, it would certainly be an interesting exercise to work out how to transfer those principles to this style of technique.

Kicks obviously are pretty much non-existent unless I’m on my crutches, but at that I’m only really limited to thrusting kicks which only have a certain degree of utility. To be honest, it would probably be far more effective to separate the bottom shaft of the crutches and wield them like kali sticks than rely on the crutches for support in doing a thrusting forward kick.

So yeah, just a few thoughts there. Like I said, in a couple of weeks I might get Wifey to take some snapshots whilst I investigate techniques and demonstrate a few techniques I’ve worked out for when I’m without my prosthesis. This train of thought was inspired in part because I’ve had issues with my stump this week and it got me back to thinking about what’s possible in such a condition. Definitely something to think about.

Bloginated Saturday, 23rd May 2009 / General training, Prosthesis or amputee stuff
Tag-isms: stump | Technique | training

Well, I finally went back into training last night, and it was awesome I’m a bit sore today because I tried to push myself as far as I could, but it was definitely worth it. There’s a grading on this weekend, but I’m definitely in need of further practice so I won’t be attending. At the moment the biggest thing I want to work on is my kata – I have pretty much the basic form sorted out for Heian Nidan (though, let’s be honest – it isn’t really all that complicated to begin with compared to other, higher-grade kata), now its moving to refine my technique. The biggest problem I had last night was my breathing. I’m generally/reasonably good with controlling and utilising my breathing during training, especially kata, but I just didn’t find my center with it last night, there wasn’t the natural flow I aim to achieve. Sensei made the comment that I looked like I was going to explode some times because I wasn’t regulating my technique correctly, and looking back on it immediately afterwards and again tonight, he was definitely on the ball.

In the past, I’ve tackled this by slowing my kata right down, focused on the detail, rhythm, breathing and visualisation of each technique’s application, and would repeat until hitting that crazy, transcended state you sometimes get through really good, focused kata. I don’t get it every time, but when it hits it really makes you appreciate the continual uses of kata, not only as a test for form and the key to technique usage/application, but as a means to use physical movements as a form of meditation.

The other bemusing thing that happened last night was that I ended up splitting open my foot enclosure again, and I think I’ve started splitting it open in a second spot as well! Ah well, serves me right for not being super pro-active in calling up and making an appointment to see if the replacement’s in. Will have to do as such tomorrow and get it fit asap. I stumbled a couple of times as the foot crumpled up beneath me, but I didn’t seriously injure myself or any of the other students, so at least that was good!

Oh, and I dragged Jyastin-kun along to training last night and by the sounds of it he really enjoyed himself. If he’s keen to continue training with our school, will be good to have him come along as he used to be an excellent training partner at our previous club, so we’ll see how it goes!

For those checking out the blog on a semi-regular basis, apologies for being a bit slack with posting this week, it’s been busier than I anticipated. I’ll make sure to get another one added tomorrow so I can at least the lower-portion of my average, which is two posts a week!

Bloginated Thursday, 23rd April 2009 / Karate, Prosthesis or amputee stuff
Tag-isms: Karate | kata | mangled fake leg | Technique