“My childhood was a lot of work. From sunup until sundown, with my elder brothers and parents, we woke up at 4 a.m. and worked until 5 p.m. We took care of cattle, and we cleaned the plantations … There were times that money was so tight that we had to eat animal feed. We would eat the feed that we gave the pigs … it was a very bad time, and I don’t like to talk about it … I was driving a cattle cart, and it got stuck, and I fell on a cut coffee tree. The fall opened a deep gash in my chest. We were far away from town, and there was no way I could get stitches. The only thing we could do was use Scotch tape to close the gash and help it heal.”

“It was very special. Caring is not enough for all who are there. Causing a smile and maybe giving extra motivation for the children who are already full of will to live is the least I can do. I hope GRAAC continue with this wonderful work giving support, fighting and beating childhood cancer.”

Palhares has become feared in the UFC for his leg locks and heel hooks. It’s almost a joke at this point because he always seems to get them. I think he has more wins by heel hook than I can recall seeing total by other fighters over the last ten years. Unlike a lot of other jiu jitsu guys, he doesn’t apply the lock to make you tap, he applies it to break your leg and you had better tap before he destroys your knee. His leg lock success and total intensity spawned the meme I wanted to share. In case the parents that read this blog aren’t familiar, a popular and funny thing on the internet is captioning pictures (it kind of started with LOLcats). That said, I present some of the best Rousimar Palhares LOLs (note the chest scar mentioned earlier too):

(my favorite)

First, your assessment that the aggressor appears too cooperative is an extremely poignant and insightful observation which plays to the heart and inherent fallacies of many traditional martial arts. During the 1700s Japanese martial arts, under imperial order, became much more structured and less prone to injury. Kata, that is choreographed routines of martial demonstration, became popular and with it the beginning of the compliant attacker issue. Justification for the lack of hard practice and sport-ish competition was made that the art was too deadly for practice on resisting opponents and the like.

At the furthest extreme of the above described line of thinking you have martial arts like this. For the record, the MMA fighter he fights is a nobody. Additionally, I have no doubt that his students believed it worked, through and through. A sort of group hypnotism, a common psychological phenomenon well understood.

So, the question regarding Aikido and its usefulness: it’s a mixed bag. Of the many martial arts which fall prey to the above described problems my opinion is that Aikido is one of the better ones. Many of its techniques are inherently useful and though not often practiced in a sport environment, some of them are ones which are used in sporting situations. How beneficial it is when it comes to self defense can also be extremely subjective on the quality of the instruction. Dan Zan Ryu Jujitsu, the type of Jujitsu I’m a blackbelt in, suffers from many of the traditional problems. I also know some fellow practitioners who, with the martial revolution which started in 1993, have done a lot to make their DZR substantially more proven and useful. In the end, Aikido: better than a lot, but desperately lacking compared to a few. It can be practiced fairly safely and of course is better than no martial training. Practice would be decent workout though Aikido be hard on the joints if you’re not careful.

While what I’ve written thus far has answered your question my response wouldn’t be genuinely thorough if I didn’t explain a few other things, namely sport, 1993 and the other “few” (martial arts).

Those old styles of Japanese martial arts were thrown on their head by Jigoro Kano. Mr. Kano took a decent number of the techniques from Japanese Jujitsu which he deemed unpractical or inherently unsafe for real sporting practice and created Judo (another art I’m a blackbelt in). He proved his point when his students thoroughly dominated the jujitsu practitioners in a big tournament designed to determine the official martial art of the Tokyo Police Department. You see, nothing is as good as practice with a fully resisting adult. Extremely deadly techniques can’t be practiced by anyone, martial artists or street thugs alike, but learning to apply techniques on another trained individual really develops the skill to use them. Note, that skill will be easy to apply on someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing (i.e., mugger).

In some instances sporting martial arts have gone too far and neglect the threats of knives, bats, guns, two opponents, etc, things you won’t find in a ring but are all very real on the street. Of course, in most of those instances any good martial artist would tell you to run and/or give them what they want. Weapons defense training is great and can be practiced well with chalked rubber knives and the like (honestly, I’m more afraid of a knife than a gun).

1993 marked the first UFC, an event which caused a martial revolution unlike anything the world has ever seen. Martial arts have changed more since then than they have over the last two thousand years. We learned that a lot of those kata-based martial arts were, well, fairly useless and were thoroughly dominated by a handful of sport style martial arts, namely Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and American Wrestling. Later, Thai Kick Boxing came into prevalence as strikers learned to avoid the take down of the grapplers. These days mixed martial arts (MMA) is effectively its own martial art, consisting of the best from Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Boxing, Kick Boxing, Wrestling and a few throws from Judo. For one on one fighting, nothing is better than those. Single style vs. single style, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu proved itself to be the best. Those are the “few.”

The back story here is that Bob Sapp is a monster. About 350lbs of all muscle, the quintessential hulking roided out black guy. Nog isn’t small by normal standards, about 220lbs, but he’s small compared to Sapp. This is the best of the many “freak show” type matches PRIDE hosted in Japan which were actually interesting because the differences created so intriguing fight situations. Sapp wasn’t some clown either. He had decent success in K-1 and MMA. Nog is a tough as nails jiu jitsu guy. Check the pile driver in the opening frame.

In the old “David vs Goliath” matches I always route for the David. Despite my height (wish I was broader of course) my relative muscular weakness growing up will forever have me associate with the little guy/underdog. This fight is intriguing because it harkens back to the traditional martial art spirit of old school dojos where technique and perseverance can overcome size/strength.

Part 1:

Part 2:

This week hasn’t been an entire haze of sleeping, netflixing, and gaming. I’ve moved forward with some super exciting projects and developments with the Doghouse Systems guys, including a faint possibility of post-Navy employment. That’s still a long ways off but it is something to look forward to and be excited about.

Tomorrow will be exciting but the details are hush-hush for now. This was something I’ve had planned for a while so it isn’t a “turn 30, get hernia, experience crisis” sort of decision. All I’ll say is “ink.”

Lastly, I’ll share this link to an old interview from 1989 in Playboy with Rorion Gracie. Tovah and I watched Lethal Weapon a few nights ago. During the final fight with Gary Busey (also the one overly cheesy moment imho) I commented on how cool it was that Riggs beat him with a triangle choke from the bottom. It’s a surprising movie demonstration of legit grappling long before grappling became as famous as it is now via the Gracies and the UFC. Tovah then noticed while the credits were running that Rorion Gracie was credited in the movie as “Brazilian Jujitsu Instructor” which blew my mind! It turns out that in order to make Riggs as “deadly as possible” they wanted him to be experienced in “obscure” martial arts. They got him training in capoeira, BJJ (Brazilian Jujitsu), and something I didn’t even recognize. The hilarious thing is to think of BJJ as obscure! However, back then it certainly was. Anyway, read the article. It’s another great insight to an incredible family.

It all began with UFC 126 when Anderson Silva knocked out Vitor Belfort with a front kick to the face. Previous to this it had been known in MMA circles that Segal had been hanging out with Anderson Silva. After the win Anderson thanked Segal for teaching him the kick, a comment which erupted a firestorm of discussion. Front kicks are karate 101 and when questioned Segal clarified the statement saying he merely helped perfect the kick for Silva. Most people wrote it off as a goofy publicity stunt. Segal is a legendary Aikido practicioner and extremely accomplished in that regard but his film career has long since passed its prime (he has been in 26 or so straight to DVD films in the past ten years). Combine that with his cheesy, but admittedly enjoying, “Lawman” t.v. series (think “Cops” with Segal) and he has become something of a pop culture joke.

Enter UFC 129 a few months later. Lyote Machida using the exact same front kick, but this time springing off his other leg Karate Kid style to knock out Randy Couture. After the fight Machida also credited Segal! At this point Segal was thrust into the MMA mainstream and is receiving a lot of attention. Joe Rogan had a lot to say about it on his podcast:

I find it awesomely amusing. Whether or not the Segal training is a scam/stunt, legit, or somewhere in between I think it is great. Regardless of the Segal aspect, I do believe the front kick is an underutilized weapon in MMA which is clearly devastating after these two high profile knockouts. In the the meantime I will continue to watch with amusement and enjoy more season 1 of Steven Segal: Lawman on Netflix. The weird zen/akido/cops/humanitarian blend is too excellent to pass up.

He taught a tremendous lesson I’ll never forget about how to hang in an opponent’s half guard, control their body and rain punishment in the form of short punches, elbows and hammer fists. This was five years or so before he died but I’m glad I had the opportunity to meet him:

I was so skinny then! My training partner outweighed me by forty pounds.

Here is the trailer. I don’t know how wide of a release it will receive (I unfortunately doubt it will be very mainstream) but I at least wanted to share it:

Prior to meeting up with Nick and Amy I crashed at Francesca’s house Tuesday night after my flight. Francesca was a great friend of mine back in High School and I haven’t seen her since the summer of 2002. Though we didn’t have a lot time due to my flight coming in late it was really good to see her. I think there’s something special about growing up in Middletown — probably how small the community was, but it is always a blast to catch up with Middletown peeps.

Francesca and I were voted “Most likely to succeed” our senior year.

The next morning I headed to San Jose to visit my Grandma Marie whom I had not seen since Tovah and I got married in June of 2005. It was really good to see her. We spent several hours together and I learned a bit about my family history. At noon I met up with my Aunt Nelda and Uncle Don for lunch. I hadn’t seen them for an extremely long time and it was great. Don is one of my Dad’s brothers and it was odd to hug someone taller than me (being 6′8″ it doesn’t happen often).

My Uncle and I

After lunch I dropped my rental car off at SFO where Nick picked me up to then commence three awesome hours at Crossfit Marin. Working out in a legit Crossfit gym is so inspiring. We did two different WODs and an hour of self defense. I’d forgotten how amazingly talented Nick is at self defense and martial arts. I’m certainly no slouch, but Nick has inspiring skills.

I also got to see some awesome Crossfitters I haven’t seen for over a year at Crossfit Marin. Case in point, Russell, an awesome gymnastics instructor. Gymnastics is a short man’s sport. That said, check this out:

Russell and I pre-WOD at Crossfit Marin

After Crossfit Marin I had a blast catching up with Nick and Amy. I’m really thankful for getting to know Amy better. She’s awesome and Nick has done well. Nick, if you’re reading this, “props homie.” To be slightly more eloquent and detailed, I’ve known Nick for 20+ years so we’re old friends of course. I’ve hung out with Amy before but with this visit focused specifically on multiple days with Nick and Amy it in turn facilitated getting to know her more which is nice seeing as how much she means to Nick. All good things.

During that time the primary impetus for my visit was Nick’s Police Academy Graduation. After a grueling year entitling over 800+ hours of training Nick graduation the academy. Beyond that, he was the top 2nd or 3rd graduate in multiple metrics, including academics, physical training, defensive tactics and overall. I was so happy to see him recognized for his hard work.

One of Nick’s many recognition moments

It has been an incredible trip to California and I’m extremely thankful for the time with some of my best friends. Big congratulations to Nick and thanks for giving me the couch. I’m looking forward to next time.

It has been a trip to watch these old movies I’ve neglected for over fifteen years. Bad music, sound effects, and bad dubbing in Return of the Dragon were a pleasant trip down memory lane while watching Game of Death was simply bizarre. I was aware the movie was only partially completed when Lee died but as a kid didn’t realize how poorly constructed it was. Silly camera tricks with a stunt double occupy 90% of the film with the final, and excellent, 10% being fight sequences Lee had filmed before he passed away. Not to mention Lee fighting Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

Enter the Dragon is the masterpiece though. It was the first big budget, Hollywood produced, Kung Fu movie and it blew open the doors to the martial arts genre in America giving us everything from Kickboxer and Bloodsport to 3 Ninjas and The Karate Kid. I could say more about it but why would I when I can just link to the best scene in the movie. Here is Lee fighting O’hara. It’s epic and begins with some beautiful philosophy.

My Japanese is rusty, especially for a lot of the techniques outside of the core basics, but so much technique came flooding back to me. Muscle memory is an amazing thing. The group that was there tonight was impossibly kind and helpful — that’s something I always love about martial arts, most of the people are fantastic individuals.

My Nage (throws) were, and always have been, my weakest techniques. They’re also the most complex motor skills. My Ne Waza (mat work/wrestling) felt like home though and I even used a beautiful transition I learned tonight to pin a guy when sparring at the end of class.

I can already tell Crossfit is going to help elevate my game. I just didn’t learn how to workout when I grew up and boot camp hardly teaches functional fitness. It wasn’t until after my college judo (my first two years or so at OSU before a shoulder injury stopped me) that I started to really learn how to be fit.

In short: I’m thrilled. Judo people are my people and being on the mat feels like home.