GEEK FIGHT CLUB
May 25, 2007 1:55 PM   Subscribe

The Gentleman's Fight Club: Armed with Dust Busters (Warning dopey MSNBC anchor and video ad.) How do you blow off steam after a long day of coding? Why smack your buddy over the head with a toilet seat, of course. Higher consciousness through harder contact (.WMV LINK - LOUD).
posted by tkchrist (18 comments total)
 
In a nut shell:

News Anchor "I see bruises and welts... that doesn't look like any martial arts or self defense I have ever seen?"

Exactly.
posted by tkchrist at 1:57 PM on May 25, 2007


I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
posted by augustweed at 2:13 PM on May 25, 2007


There's a pretty big difference between jazzercise Tae-bo martial arts and fighting martial arts. The bruises and welts look pretty much the same no matter what combative stuff you're learning.

In general, it's easier to keep a school open teaching 30 7-year old kids how to kick a pad or a board, than it is to convince people to pay to go home bruised and hurting.

Of course, all of this looks way more entertaining when people are smacking each other with keyboards than taped up sticks.
posted by yeloson at 2:13 PM on May 25, 2007


Dust Busters? Toilet seats? When I was a young man we used our fists* and that was good enough for us!

*well, there was the incident with thte sporks. but we don't talk about that.
posted by lekvar at 2:22 PM on May 25, 2007


Ahhh....I was shocked to see this, until I saw who posted it. Good stuff. Here's a link to the letter Art Davie, original promoter of the UFC, sent to the Dog Brothers. This is before any regulation in MMA, mind you, when it was still considered 'human cockfighting.'
posted by HighTechUnderpants at 2:44 PM on May 25, 2007


By this time next week, each guy on the Assault Committee has to pick a fight where he won't come out a hero. And not in fight club. This is harder than it sounds. A man on the street will do anything not to fight. The idea is to take some Joe on the street who's never been in a fight and recruit him. Let him experience winning for the first time in his life. Get him to explode. Give him permission to beat the crap out of you. You can take it. If you win, you screwed up. "What we have to do, people," Tyler told the committee, "is remind these guys what kind of power they still have."

Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 16

posted by chuckdarwin at 3:05 PM on May 25, 2007 [2 favorites]


For the sake of full disclosure I have only done real full contact stick fighting once. It hurts. I do some stick sparring every once in a while for fun.

As you get older this kind of thing loses it's glamor. I was having lunch with my BJJ coach, Brian Johnson, the other day. I've been nursing injuries that just won't heal now for about two years. I have a neck injury that get's re-tweaked every time I spar and I was telling him that it hurt after I caught a hard shot from a guy who was training for a fight (the fight is tonight in fact) two weeks ago.

"I don't want to get punched in the head anymore. I think it's messing me up." I said.

He sat there looking at me and let the comment hang over our bowls of Pho.

"Took you, what, twenty years to get to that conclusion, Einstein?"

Yeah. I guess it did.

There is no doubt though that hard sparring and full contact will prepare a person better for fighting and self defense than not. It's really the only way to know "for sure." But it does suck in the day to day sense. It really does.

You can train pretty hard up to that point of full contact and still be ok for some self defense type stuff and certainly (and IMHO most importatly) in great shape. But you can never know for sure if you can "fight" per se. You just have to admit that and move on.

If you can live with ambiguity you can train happily without getting punched in the face every day.

At 44 ambiguity is looking pretty good.
posted by tkchrist at 3:39 PM on May 25, 2007 [2 favorites]


tkchrist, I remember reading a long time ago in slate.com of a guy who'd gone off to some temple somewhere to live and train and he had a line that basically mentioned that when it comes to martial arts, the law of diminishing returns kicks in fairly quickly... ie. you can get really really better over three years but it's really hard to get better in say your sixth year than your fifth. Though I guess that's true of any discipline.
posted by Firas at 4:00 PM on May 25, 2007 [1 favorite]


"I don't want to get punched in the head anymore. I think it's messing me up." I said.

Once again, you prove to be my hero. Understatement is an art, and you are a true craftsman.
posted by quin at 4:03 PM on May 25, 2007


chuckdarwin: nice quote.

augustweed: you and me down by the old salt mill in 1/2 an hour. Bring a stick and a garbage pail with eyes cut out!

tkchrist: your profile lists you as graphic designer but I know your really a secret CIA Ninja or something. (Oops blew your cover- damn.)
posted by snsranch at 4:04 PM on May 25, 2007 [1 favorite]


If you can live with ambiguity you can train happily without getting punched in the face every day.

That's no shit. On a related note, I was playing pretty some pretty hard nosed soccer last year about twice per week throughout the summer. I played in college, but kept it up throughout my adult years.

At any rate, not being fleet of foot, nor talented in any of the usually ways, I had always prided myself on being an agressive defender, strong tackler, and not afraid to stick my head into places where few others would dare.

About this time last year in a particularly well contested game, I went up for a challenge in the air and though I caught the ball where I should have, on the hard part of my forehead, I took someone else's forehead right above my ear. I saw stars at that moment, and felt kind of sick for the rest of the day (mild concussion). Worse, though I noticed in the next few days what opthalmologists call "floaters", tiny pieces of the retinal wall that detach due to head trauma and just float around the vitreous of the eyeball. These aren't particularly dangerous if there are only a scant few of them, but they cause tiny shadows in your field of vision.

My D.O. told me at the time that they should fall down to the bottom of my eye in a few weeks, but a year has passed, and there they are, still hanging around.

I'm not playing as much soccer this year, and when I do, I am starting to hesitate to put myself in harm's way. As a result, I have lost the one thing that made me respectable on the pitch, and I think I may hang 'em up after this season. Wisdom, age and experience are all great and good things, but now I'm starting to miss being at least a little more fearless than I am now. Feel like I'm enjoying life a little less because of it.
posted by psmealey at 4:21 PM on May 25, 2007


Worse, though I noticed in the next few days what opthalmologists call "floaters", tiny pieces of the retinal wall that detach due to head trauma and just float around the vitreous of the eyeball. These aren't particularly dangerous if there are only a scant few of them, but they cause tiny shadows in your field of vision.

I have bad news for you. Those won't go away.

I think of them like the cool brain implants in Neuromancer - like little cross hairs or laser pointers in your vision. Sometimes I even do little sound effects when they drift was my vision. "Brrrt. Chrrrip. Zzzzzt."

Yes I have them. As well as some nasty scars on my eye ball from getting gouged and poked.

Here is what gets me. I did a bunch of hard contact for a while. But not nearly as much as many of the MMA guys do now. I walked away with a couple of life long, though not totally devastating, injuries that will tweak me every once and while until the day I die. So what are these MMA guys going to get? What are they going to me like at 60? And MMA is safer than boxing as far as head trauma goes. But hell on the knees (kicking)... and joints if you don't tap in time.

One of my boxing coaches, (former Olympic boxer teammate of Evander Holyfield) Robert Shannon has some damage and he didn't even go pro.

I recommend my sport to people and then I remember stuff like this. But you know life is for living. I say take it by the balls. And when they swell let go.

Just have a little left over so you can make it up the stairs when your sixty.
posted by tkchrist at 4:37 PM on May 25, 2007


Swiffers.
posted by Eideteker at 6:27 PM on May 25, 2007


Previously.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:16 PM on May 25, 2007


You really do have a gift with words tk. You're the best around my friend. Nothing is ever gonna keep you down.

These are for you. I was gonna try and work them into a fpp, but I think I'll just share them with you.

wrestle this

dubwise

montage

the best

flying daggers
posted by vronsky at 8:20 PM on May 25, 2007


For the sake of full disclosure I have only done real full contact stick fighting once. It hurts.

My one experience with stick fighting:

Instructor: Ok, are you ready?
Me: Yes.

*whack*

Instructor: Ok, let's try that again.

*whack*

Instructor: One more time.

*whack*

Instructor: You're supposed to dodge.
Me: I thought you were seeing if I could take a hit. My bad.
posted by dreamsign at 9:22 PM on May 25, 2007


You know back in the old days people thought 35 or 40 was like old age...anyhow I hate those floaters.
posted by Skygazer at 9:35 PM on May 25, 2007


Previously.

Oh. That's embarrassing. I looked. I really did. I don't even remember commenting in that other one. I totally plagiarized this post.

Shame on me.
posted by tkchrist at 10:24 AM on May 27, 2007


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