Martial Arts, Manliness, and Camp

So, it looks like tomorrow night will be my triumphant return to the wonderful world of martial arts. My grand total of experience runs for about a yearl and a half over the past twenty, well spread out, and in different disciplines. Aikido when I was in middle (or was it elementary?) school; and Judo for the past semester in college. Aikido tends to be a series of redirections, throws and holds with very little emphasis on weapons training or on punching or kicking. It's very much (as I hazily remember it, so feel free to correct me) about using your attacker's energy against him. Very pacifist, very new age, and I think the whole discipline is less than fifty years old. Judo, on the other hand, is simply wrestling with a wider variety of throws and holds, including chokeholds.

I, on the other hand, am now signed up to head out tomorrow night with my stuntman friend to begin basic Karate lessons- a brush-up for him, a totally new thing for me. Karate, as near as I understand it, seems to run on a philosophy almost perpendicular to Aikido. I've been told to expect punching and kicking in my very first class, and, to be honest, I'm very excited. I've made bizarrely successful strides towards improving my diet and exercise this summer, but I've worried about the transition back to college- surrounded by pizza joints and a near-constant influx of alcohol makes difficult grounds for dieting. I'm thinking that if I can get involved in Karate, maybe I can continue to follow it on campus, and through that find some real motivation to continue eating right, etc.

I was thoroughly unimpressed with Judo this last semester, to be honest. The chokeholds and throws were fantastic and really engaging, but they only came in the last week or two of the program, meaning that just when I was starting to get engaged with the material, the program was over. Karate, on the other hand, should drop me right into the water with strikes and kicks and whatnot- the really interesting stuff. Holds and trips are great, but they don't give you quite the same rush as throws or hits. That same rush, I'm hoping, will keep me coming back and striving to get better.

Anywho, on an entirely different note, I'm off to see A-Team tonight and am very much looking forward to some quality bonding time with my padre, and the opportunity to laugh righteously at such a ludicrously campy action flick. It looks (maybe) like it might join my recent of action favorites, a group which includes Jason Statham's Crank, and Clive Owen's Shoot Em Up, and could easily be expanded to include such greats as the Evil Dead series or really, any of Sam Raimi's or Robert Rodriguez's work. I'll let you all know how A-Team seems to me, but in the meantime, if anything on that list looks unfamiliar to you and you're in the mood for a goofy action or horror flick, take something for a test drive and get back to me.

Adios testosterone junkies!