blog.jameshom.com

More Weapons for the High Tech Warrior

Just ran across the Pirela Blade Design folks, who design and sell an amazing array of beautiful knives through famous custom makers. Guys like Greg Lightfoot, Allen Elishewitz, and Mick Strider. Don't know how I missed seeing this outfit earlier, esp. now that I've been following Peter Atwood's projects for some time now.

If they ever make the movie version of Snow Crash, they've gotta use some of these babies in the fight scenes. Somehow that carbonfiber laminate katana looks much more stylish than Blade's overdone Sword of the Day Walker.

Hiro's sword:

Strider's industrial-strength crash axe goes metrosexual:

Style and substance:

Blade Art:

A Pen Mightier than an Empty Fist

Cold Steel, always finding new ways to make things out of glass-reinforced plastic (witness the Koga SD-1 yawara/sex toy mentioned earlier), now has their take on the "fighting pen".

Enter... the Cold Steel Sharkie.

I've noted the Allen Elishewitz-designed Tactical Defense Pen before--a stout pen made from strong aluminum, designed for use as a kubotan. But at $79.99 you wonder what kind of statement this pen is trying to make. Sure, a Cartier or Montblanc would probably snap in two if you tried to use one as a pressure-point weapon, but $80 is a lot more than what most folks spend on a pen.

Now there's a downmarket version--even looks like a permanent marker, so if you're caught with one in the urban setting people will just think you were using it to tag things.

Now this is pretty innovative stuff. I'll get my hands on one (hah!) and put it to a review test soon.

Reflective Shields for the Modern Ninja

If you remember the classic text Ninja Secrets of Invisibility by Ashida Kim (and what student of 80's martial arts doesn't?) you'll remember fanciful techniques of distraction and deception that could be used to become "invisible".

Ashida Kim, the nom de plume of a Caucasian guy from Florida, penned a bunch of books that taught would-be ninja how to hide from sentries, sneak up on victims, and wield all sorts of funky weapons (that mail order houses like Dolan's Sports and AWMA were eager to sell you).

TheShadowShield (spacing is theirs) seems like something that would've been perfect for that era, but is really a serious product.

Essentially a big lightweight mirror, the Shadow Shield reflects the surrounding foilage back at the viewer, allowing the user to hide behind it.

Before you say, "...yeah, right...", the company's FAQ has already covered your skepticism:

Can you use TheShadowShield in bright sunlight?

Yes. If the sun is to your left or right shoulder, it will cast a shadow away from the shield so the shield can be used.

Will animals or perpetrators see themselves in TheShadowShield?

TheShadowShield only reflects yards in front of itself. The shield is engineered to carry at the perfect angle to the ground.

I don't think this would be that useful for paintball or Simunitions gaming, but if you train where you have to account for every shot downrange (as you should in real life) this concealment shield wouldn't be compromised by marker shots.

Now what these guys really need to do is put a ballistic layer on the inside and make this cover, not just concealment.

Atwood on eBay

Peter Atwood put his first tactical folding knife for sale on eBay. The thing looks monstrous, as if the Terminator ordered a custom Strider folder:

I thought it was exceptionally cool how Atwood purposely titled his listing just "knife" rather than "ATWOOD Custom Folding Knife RARE NEW One of a Kind" or something like that. He could've easily doubled his final value through more search hits from the usual eBay bargain hunters. But instead he limited the auction just to customers and fans who knew he was posting it--definitely a class act.

Limited Ability Training

My arm is still busted, and besides compensating by doing most everything with my left arm, I'm reviewing ways to keep training.

Six years ago I wrote about limiting yourself on purpose to get more out of training.

Funny thing is, now that I'm reviewing the old articles from my About site, is that this same thing happened before. And like that time (probably the same elbow too) my ego got in the way and I didn't tap out soon enough. Tsk tsk.

There are some drills that make training worthwhile even if you are one-armed. Like when you're sparring with junior partners who you'd beat easily if you were 100%, but now can give you a good challenge in your currently limited self.

What should you do if you're confronted with a gun-wielding madman?

Slate joins in the monday morning quarterbacking fray with their article Fight or Flight at Virginia Tech.

Usually articles like this in mainstream press, greenlit by an editor wanting to jump in on the media frenzy for topical content, are glaring in their lack of realistic tactical or martial arts awareness.

Luckily they consulted a couple of "knowledgeable sources", a Krav Maga instructor from the KM LA headquarters, representing the new hotness Israeli counter-terrorist doctrine, and the leader of EPI, representing the old school ex-cop-as-bodyguard faction.

The advice is as good as it can be, given the short article length given to Slate's "Explainer" column. I think it's more along the lines of the articles written after 9/11 about fighting back on a terrorist-commandeered aircraft. If you know you don't have much of a chance anyway, why not charge the bad guy with a carafe full of hot coffee? But in a terrestrial situation, you have the possibility of slipping out a window--and the article does cover that option, albeit in passing.

Interestingly enough, the article doesn't mention the first rule of a gunfight--to fight back armed with a gun. Don't know if this is a reflection of the magazine's editorial bent or an understanding that most Slate readers aren't CCW holders (which, after all, would drive a particular editorial bent).

Ballistic Evasion

Did a workout with my sifu Dave last night for the first time in weeks. [you can insert snide comment on slacking here]. Did a kicking set that got a little intense, at least for my out-of-shape self.

So being hampered by a lack of true fighting fitness, I couldn't evade as many kicks as I hoped to. A lot of our doctrine centers around not blocking an attack but using timing and movement to avoid the blow, or using a counterforce to move it past your vital points. Some call this "sticky hands", but we also incorporate it during kicking sets as "sticky feet".

But I couldn't make it happen. Instead, I found myself catching a lot of blows.

This is not good when your opponent outweighs you by 100 pounds.

Gradually I started "going with the flow". I couldn't avoid the impact, but I could ride along with it in the same direction of the force, so that it wouldn't hurt so much. This "ballistic evasion" worked for minimizing damage, but not so great overall.

Problem then became getting back into the tempo of the set. I've mentioned the OODA Loop, or Observe, Orient, Decide, Act cycle as stages in each exchange of blows in previous articles. But if you're spending time riding out the force of a blow, you're not setting up your next attack, and as such you end up being half a beat or a full beat behind your opponent.

In the end, I took a knee in the nerve center on the side of the thigh (similar to the classic Thai boxing move) that put me down for a couple of minutes. I don't really want to think about what a full-power version of that strike would feel like.

Training Weaponry for Budo Practice

Martial artists are always trying to increase training realism without hurting their training partners. If you're a hardcore iron shirt practitioner, you could do things the Dog Brothers way, where you use regular weapons and just wear gloves and fencing masks (and maybe a cup) to protect the important bits. But the resulting doctor bills (and gallons of dit da jow) get pretty expensive.

So a Google ad for "LARP Latex Weaponry" caught my eye. Wasn't sure if it was a NSFW "fetish" link, but turns out these companies make realistic-looking weapons for people who play Live Action Role Playing (LARP) games. I guess this is the whole Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) crowd all grown up.

Images from Knighthawk Armoury

These products are a few generations ahead of the old PVC pipe-and-duct tape contraptions that the SCA folks used to fight with back in the old days. Priced accordingly, too, at about $100 a pop.

The realistic look of the latex weapons give them a little extra realism than, say, the "air-soft" chucks, swords, and bo staffs of chanbara. With the chanbara "tools" you know you're using a padded object, and there are no defined "edges". Thus, you don't bother to use cutting strokes after impact (or even pay attention to where the cutting edge is).

Dull-edged "trainers" are now very commonplace these days--just about any "tactical" knife is also available as an OEM trainer, with dulled edges and tip and skeletonized blade. Such versions of my favorite Spyderco Delica have a red handle, mimicking the ASP RedGuns, to denote its training function:

Probably the ultimate in training weaponry is the Shocknife, which gives your opponent a little zap if you make contact. How much? Up to 7,500 volts but less than 1 milliamp. Think flea-market stungun. The company's tagline, "The only training knife capable of inducing fear!" makes sense, although I don't like getting tagged with a Spyderco or Benchmade trainer either.

The ultimate would be just for all of us martial artists to get mutant regenerative powers like Wolverine, so we could go all out and just snap right back. I'm lucky if I can haul my ass out of bed the morning after a tough workout.

Light As a Weapon, Times Two

Actually, make that times 5000 or so. A while back I wrote an article for the
Martial Arts site on Light-Based Weapons. The article mostly considered the blinding aspects of high-powered flashlights like the excellent SureFire and its competitors.

Now someone has overclocked a flashlight into a fire-starting ray of destruction:

Extreme Geek: The Fire Starter Flashlight

The inventor cites the amazing Osram Sylvania EVA 64623 HLX Bulb as the core of the solution.

Weird, though, how Amazon.com categorized the Osram product into "Musical Instruments". Maybe if you look too much at the light the pounding in your head from the pain approaches a 4/4 beat.

Getting a Kung Fu Grip, revisited

A while back I wrote about increasing grip strength, citing the Honolulu Heart Program's study showing grip strength directly proportional to life expectancy.

Well, the study has been updated recently, now with 40 years of data, and yep, grip strength is still an indicator of longevity.

Some of this might be experimental bias--grip strength is really easy to sample, given the variety of apparatus out there. Subjects don't even need to disrobe. There are even versions for lab mice. Luckily grip strength is proportional to upper body strength, so it works ok as a metric.

Someone needs to invent a mouse that includes grip strength training--think of a Gripmaster with optical tracking.

+

Now that would be a Mighty Mouse.

This Pen's Mightier than a Sword

Less-lethal options are becoming much more popular these days, as manufacturers mine the wealth of historical martial arts weaponry for ideas.

In my Return of the Yawara post, I described how Cold Steel brought back the 1960s "evil fighting stick" with the Koga SD series. Cold Steel's new "mini" model seems much more businesslike than the "adult novelty" (ahem) look of the original SD1:

The yawara of the 1960s is, like its cousin the kubotan, based on the koppo stick and tessen-jutsu techniques of medieval Japan.

Virtually any small-diameter, rigid stick works with these fighting arts, and a lot of martial artists carry small flashlights, like the venerable Mini MagLite, for this purpose.

The latest wrinkle in koppo stick design is the new defensive pens. Made of hard alloy, with strong business ends, these are designed to be easily accessed and legal to carry.

Mil-Tac's TDP-1 is designed to be a working writing pen, PDA stylus, and if the need arises, a handy koppo stick. Designed by Allen Elishewitz, responsible for many great Benchmade designs, this pen looks all business. It seems a bit pricey at $99 though. But would you want to break your $130 MontBlanc, or worse, your $700 Cartier on some perp's hard head? Didn't think so.

According to Craig Sword, Mil-Tac's founder (and yes, that's his name), "one end is pointed, which could be used as a very effective defense tool, while the other end is blunt and could be used as a control device. Not only is this pen designed to be used as a defense tool and writing instrument but it also has a very attractive appearance and can also be used as a PDA stylus or pen." I always dig multipurpose things ("It's an axle grease, and a dessert topping!")--makes you feel like your gear is more capable or something.

Hard to say if this pen would be permissible through security checkpoints. It is just a pen, after all, albeit one that's rather robust in construction. Unlike other similar products that have a hidden knife or canister of pepper spray inside, this one is just a pen--no blade or chemical weapon (unless you count the ink).

Jet Li Gives Up his Sword

The New York Times reports on Jet Li's retirement from kung fu movies:

It’s apparent that when he says his latest movie will be his swan song as a martial arts star, he really means only that he will no longer practice on screen the traditional wushu of masters like Huo Yuan Jia, no longer presume to represent the art at its highest level. This is not so different, actually, from what Mr. Baryshnikov did 15 years ago, when he retired from ballet but continued performing in the less demanding idiom of modern dance.

So does this mean that Jet Li will now be relegated to the straight-to-video market, like Dolph Lundgren, Stephen Seagal, Jeff Speakman and Jean Claude Van Damme? I doubt it--even Cradle 2 the Grave got to be in the theaters--if only for a few weeks.

Rule One: All Guns are Always Loaded

The US Army has a new program to increase firearms safety. New recruits were getting sent overseas so fast, they didn't have much time to familiarize themselves with proper gun safety habits, and so were accidentally shooting each other once deployed.

from the AP article:

Soldiers such as Pvt. Kenneth Dykeman, 21, of Portland, Ore., carry their gun to class, physical training and even have it nearby as they sleep. At night, Dykeman keeps his weapon under his mattress, with the rifle's magazine in his locker.

...

Even in the training environment, soldiers are required to keep a round of ammunition in their chambers and clear their guns before entering any building.

Looks like the Army is taking a lesson from Jeff Cooper's "enhanced" Rules of Firearm Safety. Most folks know them as follows:

Rule 1: Treat all guns as if they were loaded.
Rule 2: Never point a gun at something you don't want a hole in (your TV, your dog, your foot)
Rule 3: Finger off the trigger until you are ready to fire.
Rule 4: Be sure of your target, what's behind your target, and its surroundings.

Cooper's version of Rule One is as follows: "All guns are always loaded."

For those of us used to "cold" ranges, where guns are unloaded except at the firing line, this is kind of freaky, but it really seems to make sense, and is being proven so by the new Army doctrine.

If everyone knows every gun they see is loaded, they'll be extra-careful around the guns, especially their own. OK, they're not issuing real ammo until they get deployed into the field, but even blanks can do some pretty bad things (c.f. Jon Erik Hexum).

The Army says this program has reduced accidental discharges (AD's) considerably.

Ninjas are Back and Cuter Than Ever

The ninja craze petered out as the UFC ground-and-pounded its way onto the martial arts scene in the 1990s. But ninjas are making a comeback. This time, they're not just silent, deadly, and mysterious, but oh so cute!

For example, consider the Wee Ninja from designer Shawn Smith. This little bad boy comes in "Wee" (10x9 inches) and "Pocket" (5x5 inches) sizes.

Aren't these so much cooler than that sappy "Little Dragons" crap?

Smith even has a whole back story, illustrated in Smith's Keith Haring meets Peter Max style, entitled "Ninjatown".

This trend isn't new, however. The Flash cartoon Ninjai: The Little Ninja has been a cult phenomenon on the Web for a few years now, and has limited distribution through Atom Films and G4TV.

Now only if TMNT will come back! Heck, Power Rangers are still going strong, right?

Zidane's Head Butt Fu

So the sports world is all abuzz about French soccer hero Zineidine Zidane's head butt of opponent Marco Materazzi in the recent World Cup final.

Sure, the head is used a lot in soccer, and maybe that's why you see head butts on the soccer field, but the headbutt isn't a great martial arts technique.

It's hard to practice.

We don't practice head butts in our training sessions, just because it's usually an up-close, in yo face (literally) move, to be done when you're clinched and thus have your hands, elbows, knees, and legs busy. Not like you can use any other appendage as a weapon in such cases.

There are better techniques to use

And in such situations, we'd probably bite the other guy's ear or nose off. I do practice this in a grappling round and with my mouthguard on I won't maim my training partner, but he will get the hint that I'm not totally weaponless.

Mike Tyson certainly subscribes to our vale tudo doctrine in that regard.

But as a technique used in open maai, meaning at kicking range? Why not just throw a nice front kick, or a spinning back kick, using the heel (with your spikes) as the impact point?

My theory is that Zidane wanted to give Materazzi a little love tap but didn't want to do anything really flagrant, like kick the guy in the balls or something. It's one thing to be tossed out of the game, and another to get tossed out of the sport.

Far better though, would've been for Zidane to do something to show his indignation but still make Materazzi look like the cad. Too bad no one had a handbag handy--he could've had a funny allusion to that other weird euro-football sport, rugby.

Hey you kids! Get off my lawn!

The idea of blaring uncool music to deter teenage loiterers has been around for a long time now. Classical music is the, er, classic choice, whereas Aussie shopkeepers are now resorting to Barry Manilow hits.

(What, those kids Down Under don't go for Copacabana, over and over and over again? Tsk tsk.)

At some point, musical tastes will come full circle and this will backfire. Like how Cadillac's TV commercials use Led Zeppelin songs now. Even Johnny Rotten is 50 this year.

The latest hi-tech method, the UK's Mosquito, uses a frequency that kids can hear but us old farts can't. Talk about your market segmentation. According to press reports, Mosquito's sound is unbearable to the younger set but old folks are perfectly oblivious.

This biological targeting works both ways, though. Some enterprising youths use the Mosquito sound as their ringtone, so they can receive calls while in class and the old fogie teacher won't be any wiser. Great way to order a pizza, a la Jeff Spicoli.

Urban Samurai in NY Times

The New York Times profiles their local kendo dojo, in Sunday's Lifestyle piece:

Swords and Shouts Next Door, but Don' t Call 911

Something about this piece, and especially how it made it to digg.com, was really Ric Romero-esque, as if this centuries-old sport was relatively new.

It's been a world-wide sport for many years now--just check out my coverage of the 11th Kendo World Championships. Felt just like the Olympics.

Best quote from the NYT article, on when the sensei's wife returned from Japan:

She had just flown in from Japan, and after weeks of separation, the spouses reunited not by embracing, but by exchanging blows to the head and shoulders.

Heh. Isn't that how it always is?

More on Gun Grabbing

In my last post I lambasted writer Tom Grace for adding a gun takeaway scene to his action-adventure thriller Quantum, saying that it would be impossible to prevent a cocked Glock from firing by merely grasping the gun's slide.

I take that back--if you moved the slide out of battery, you could prevent the gun from firing because the internal levers would no longer be aligned--the striker wouldn't be able to transfer the impact to the firing pin and then on to the primer of the chambered cartridge.

But that would take some real presence of mind to do in a split-second gun takeaway move. You'd have to be Jet Li in Lethal Weapon 4, field-stripping Mel Gibson's Beretta 92 right before his eyes.

I think most martial artists can't even begin to compare themselves with Jet Li. So again, don't try this at home.

Bad Glock Tricks - Reading List Thus Far

After finishing Double Whammy by Carl Hiaasen, I decided to switch gears and go back to some techno-thriller action.

But Quantum by Tom Grace turned out to be not up to par. I'm usually not the type to give up on novels--I've never walked out on a movie, for example--but I was hoping for more. Grace was doing fine with suspending belief on some big ideas--like breaking the First Law of Thermodynamics.

But I drew the line when he got the combat and gun-handling totally wrong. In the opening action scene, the hero grabs the bad guy's Glock and by firmly grasping the slide prevents it from firing. DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME.

Most sensible martial artists won't try this sort of thing anyway, but here's how to do a gun takeaway. Double-action handguns require two motions to occur before they can fire--the cocking of the hammer and the falling of the hammer onto the firing pin. The trigger pull drives both motions.

So if you're a real bad-ass martial artist, you could potentially block the hammer from moving back in the first place by closing your grip over the hammer. Hammer doesn't move? Weapon won't fire. Revolvers rotate the cylinder while moving the hammer, and so if you grasp the cylinder really firmly you can prevent the hammer from going back, even if your hand isn't anywhere near the hammer.

Got all that?

But Grace's hero does this gun-grasp move on a Glock, which does not have an external hammer. It has an internal striker, which isn't grabbable. Try this move on a Glock, or any cocked weapon, revolver or pistol, and the gun-wielder gets at least one shot off. Maybe into your chest.

You might be able to mess up the second shot though--if you prevent the gun's slide from moving correctly, you can cause a jam. So maybe the bad guy doesn't get to do a double-tap. Lucky you.

I was ready to let that one slide (no pun intended), but then a few pages later Grace has a cop confiscating the hero's scrounged Glocks, and then "checking the safeties". Glocks don't have external safety levers, other than that little flange embedded in the trigger itself. Excruciating!

Public service announcement to all fiction writers: There are a number of good resources to learn about firearms and martial arts for when you're writing action scenes in fiction. The NRA puts out a good book, but if that's too Republican for you, check out the book by Writers' Digest, which while still not authoritative, is better than nothing.

So I turned back to Carl Hiassen, and started Basket Case. You know how your Creative Writing professor would always try to tell you the difference between good writers and great writers? Hiassen's work is consistent and inventive, and, great.

What's In a Name? Jail Time?

In my last post I joked about wielding the in-yo-face named "Death Stick Nail Exhumer" cats paw as a weapon--how it might not look that great in court afterward.

This is something that firearms writer Mas Ayoob discusses a lot--the legal aspects of using a weapon in self-defense. Like it's better to go confront the bad guy with a "Gold Cup National Match" target pistol (even if it is a 1911 .45 ACP, and thus an "evil" semiautomatic) than a 12 gauge "Streetsweeper".

Benchmade probably thought of this when they started calling the old standby AFCK the "Advanced Folding Camp Knife" instead of the fighting knife it originally was marketed as.

Spyderco is pretty good about their naming, preferring the quality of the product to speak more than some badass-sounding name. Even their most wicked-looking knife, the favorite EDC of Hannibal Lecter, is named the Civilian:

My favorite Delica, of course, is just a modest pocketknife. Really.

"Be Able to Kill Your Students"

Words of wisdom from the "last ninja", Masaaki Hatsumi, printed in a ton of daily newspapers across the US last week:

Be Able to Kill Your Students

The AP story discusses the lack of a successor to Hatsumi's stewardship of Toshitsugu Takamatsu's legacy. Whatever happened to Stephen K. Hayes, who back in the early 80's was the only American teaching Hatsumi's doctrine, and thus rode the ninja craze to fame and fortune? Hayes has a page about his relationship with Sensei Hatsumi on his SKH site, but he doesn't seem to identify himself with "that ninja stuff" anymore.

Tactical Clipboard

The Barrier Shield folks finally have their own website, aptly named BarrierShield.com, having previously only lived on reseller ALD Company's web catalog for some time.

This thing is reminiscent of medieval bucklers, albeit a cross-cultural meld with the right-angle tonfa handle. I wrote an About.com article on the tonfa as a police weapon, and this shield seems like a logical extension of that idea.

Now they should make it out of ballistic polycarbonate, so that it can withstand firearms too.

And how about making it into a clipboard, so you have it with you all the time? Might have to make that obvious enable-striking handle a bit more public-friendly, though.

Free Kung Fu on AOL TV

Finally doing something with all that classic Time Warner content stuffed away in a subterranean vault under some nameless Utah mountain range, AOL is putting up classic TV episodes for your retro viewing pleasure--including classic "Kung Fu".

Kung Fu

List of episodes:

Pilot
King of the Mountain
Dark Angel
Blood Brother
An Eye for an Eye
The Tide
The Soul Is the Warrior
Nine Lives
Ancient Warrior

See for yourself. Is David Carradine as good a martial artist as Chuck Norris is an actor?

Now That's an Axe!

Remember that scene in Crocodile Dundee where the Croc-ster faces off a switchblade-wielding street hood by whipping out his 12" bowie? (That's a knife, silly reader--get your mind out of the gutter).

Now here's an example of one tough axe:

Strider CR

Strider's writeup of this baby is in the usual Mick Strider style: straightforward, no bullshit:

The CR is designed to be a hard substance destruction tool.

The materials and construction are intended to give optimum impact and prying strength.

The CR works as a system. The base of which is a .285” thick 6AL4V titanium head, with .775” thick cantilevered S7 impact bits. S7 is an incredibly strong material, most commonly seen on “Jackhammer” bits.

In addition to removing bolt stress, this cantilever action also allows for a multi strike action of the bits. The initial strike is achieved with human force by swinging the tool against a surface. The secondary strike is caused by the inertial force of the collapsing cantilever system. By using this system, the axe is actually working as a human powered Jackhammer.

I just finished Bernard Cornwell's Vagabond, second book in the Grail series, and found the depictions of technology during the Hundred Years War fascinating. What if you built old tech, like trebuchet and crossbows, using modern materials like carbon fiber and titanium? This would be a fine weapon for the days of men-at-arms and plate armour.

FrameMaker and Tang Soo Do

Holy cow, I never thought I'd be able to do a cross-category blog title like that one. Framemaker and Tang Soo Do in the same post? Talk about your single sourcing!

Anyway, turns out that Kay Ethier, Frame guru, DITA 2006 conference organizer, and co-author of the XML Weekend Crash Course, has kids taking TSD, and wanted them to learn their mahki from their chagi. Framemaker to the rescue, of course. A judicious application of some Frame single-sourcing fu and voila, one instant book + CD set.

Learning Korean: Martial Arts Terminology

Between Frame-enhanced Tang Soo Do and Springfield's XML tactical handgun light, there are a lot of choices now for tech doc folks who want to kick some butt.

Todd Hays Out of Medal Round

During the last Winter Olympics I wrote a profile of Todd Hays, er, Todd "Hollywood" Hays, former NHB fighter turned bobsled driver. Hays did well at the Salt Lake games, but finished 7th this time around.

I still think Hays should've kept up the whole kickboxing thing. The media coverage made a big deal about the hotdoggin' skier who is going to try out for the NFL as if that guy's two-sport prowess was extraordinary. But I'll bet Hays can still kick his ass. And that's what counts, right?

Springfield's XML Tactical Light

I'm implementing an XML-based authoring environment for my employer, and as I also write about martial arts-related topics, I found Springfield Armory's new "XML Tactical Light" rather funny.

Jeff Cooper comments on the use of "tactical" and "digital" as appelations for products to make them sound sexier, without the products themselves actually being better than the garden variety:

I have always been interested in words but I cannot remain on top of the situation. Take, for example, this adjective "digital." I have asked around at length and I have yet to find anyone who knows what it means. In common usage it signifies "better" or "best," but for reasons unknown to the user. I have yet to see advertised a digital burgundy, or a digital laxative, or a digital South Sea island cruise, but I await the day. Possibly if Steyr Mannlicher had advertised the Scout as a digital Scout, they might have pushed the sales of the weapon into economic success.

[I don't really want to know what a digital laxative would be, given that most doctors and nurses have 5 digits on each hand. Turn your head and cough now.]

I've seen similar things when XML was just starting to catch on--before everyone really used it, you'd see tools advertised as "XML ready" or "works with XML". Like Microsoft Word, for example, which may or may not be truly useful for anything to do with XML.

But now we have gunlights marked "XML". Maybe my DITA XSL transformations might run faster if I hold them at gunpoint?

Chuck Norris Random Fact Generator

I've been playing with the Chuck Norris Random Fact Generator. Kind of a Comedy Central-meets-Hot or Not? site, it cranks out a random Chuck fact with every click.

Most are just crap (and you can rate them so), but there are a few gems, like:

Chuck Norris once roundhouse kicked the earth, thus creating the hole in the ozone layer.

and

Every night at 8:00, a truck pulls up to Chuck Norris' house. In the truck are a bunch of orphans. For the next half-hour, Chuck Norris practices roundhouse kicks on the orphans while "It's a Hard Knock Life" plays in the background. At the end of the session, the orphans say "Thank you, Mr. Norris." in perfect unison, then march into the truck in silence.

I always thought Norris' fave kick was the hook or spinning back kick, but then again, "roundhouse" sounds funnier.

And then there's all the Chuck Norris nostalgia merchandise now:

I gotta get me one of these shirts.

In the meantime, I guess I'll just have to settle for one of the Top 5 Chuck Norris Movies.

Farewell, Mr. Miyagi

Pat Morita's recent passing marks the end of an era--he was one of the first Asian actors to really break out of the stereotypes and carve out an (hate to say it, but it's true) honorable niche for themselves. No more Hop Sing characters, or Charlie Chan, or Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Morita played his roles with charm and character and respect, and it was great to see him doing so well.

When I put The Karate Kid on my list of Top Influential Martial Arts Movies of All Time, people wrote in to complain. WTF? they said.

But when you think about that era, when Ralph Macchio actually got gigs and before Elizabeth Shue became a Vegas hooker, The Karate Kid really got mainstream America to jump on the martial arts train. Martial arts weren't exotic, or just for Asians, or weird--they're a good, wholesome family pastime.

I think martial arts have taken a turn for the better with the relatively recent ascent of the reality fighting genre. Now that the UFC and it's ilk are mainstream, there's a return to the more martial aspects of martial arts, and that's what they're named for, right?

Campus Safety for Teen Girls

ABC's Primetime show aired a segment on campus security for young coeds. The piece was rather alarmist--made me feel like I couldn't send my kid to college unless she had a Chelsea Clinton-esque posse of Secret Service guys following her around.

I wrote about this issue in my Back to School Security article. I think awareness and defensive tactics training can go a long way toward making your kid (and your kid's parents...) feel safe.

Get Ready for Atlatl Hunting Season

Duck season, rabbit season, atlatl season.

When I first saw this, I thought, "why would anyone want to hunt those cute Mexican salamanders? I mean I support hunting and all that, and even prairie dog shooting doesn't bother me, but man, those little axolotl's will be dead meat."

But no, this refers to the use of the good old throwing stick (and really old, like Cro Magnon shit and stuff).

The great state of Pennsylvania is about to set standards for hunting game with an atlatl. They liken it to hunting boars with spears, or good ol' bowhunting (Bo and Luke Duke, anybody?).

I think this is great. Preserving ancient technologies and history in this modern age is really important--kids these days might know the best spin strafe move in a first-person shooter video game, but won't know, perhaps even conceptually, how to start a fire without matches ("uh, like, do you use a lighter, man? My dad's got a Zippo").

Even better if people learn to make their own atlatls. Although I see from the press that the commercial atlatl armorers are already ramping up production. Can't wait until the carbon fiber models are available. Oh, I mean the "tactical" atlatls. And if they can make them digital too, well heck, sign me up!

The Pen is Mightier than the Sword?

I've been seeing a resurgence in stun gun products, mostly due to the new "pen" form factor:

Not like this really helps. I wrote about the effectiveness of stun guns in my article on less-lethal weaponry and their use in a force continuum. I still think they're lame.

If you're close enough to someone to touch them with a pen stun gun, why not just poke them in a pressure point with a real pen? (Former or current residents of our nation's penal system will know that a sturdy pen or a simple No. 2 pencil, given a good sharpening, is a lethal weapon, but such implements are pretty innocuous to us folks on the Outside).

Pepper spray is much more useful, due to the maai or distance factor. The pen-form factor pepper spray is old hat these days. But how much range do you get from the perfume mister delivery mechanism?

Now the stun gun thing could come in handy if it was merely an option on an electronic device you're already carrying all the time. Like your cellphone or PDA. You already have electrical power, and a reason to be holding it in your hand/carrying it on your belt.

It could even be just a software/firmware hack. Like you cause the battery to discharge through the charging port at the base of the handset. I'm surprised Make hasn't tried this yet.

Use a Knife...Go to Prison?

I've been following this Pring-Wilson case on CourtTV's Web site. In summary, this pretty Harvard boy got voluntary manslaughter instead of murder when used his "Spyderco military knife" to stab Michael Colono, a young Latino teen father. Now he's out on bail awaiting a new trial, because the law now says the court can consider Colono's history of run-ins with the cops.

The story is that Colono and his cousin Sam Rodgriguez made some comments about Pring-Wilson's drunken state outside a Cambridge MA pizza shop, they got into a fight, and Colono got stabbed five times.

What should you learn from this? Obviously, to walk away from bullshit confrontations where people shoot off their mouths. And just as you shouldn't drink and drive or drink and dial (like that embarassing scene in Sideways) you shouldn't drink and stab.

What are the laws concerning use of a lethal weapon in self-defense in your municipality? Mas Ayoob covered some of these issues in his book In the Gravest Extreme, but that text is about 30 years old now.

Man stabs five people outside Dodger Stadium after game

Who called baseball a sissy game?

Man stabs five people outside Dodger Stadium after game

Associated Press: LOS ANGELES - A man is wanted for allegedly stabbing five people outside Dodger Stadium in a dispute over the sale of counterfeit T-shirts following the Dodgers' loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, police said early Monday.

Wow. This one guy did so much damage? Good factoid to keep in mind when practicing those knife disarms or knife-vs-knife drills.

Wax on, Wax off. On DVD

DVD Savant has a totally funny review of the Karate Kid Special Edition DVD. Talk about "tellin' it like it is".

The Karate Kid was one of my "Top Ten Most Influential Martial Arts Movies." Say what you will about the movie, but I think it influenced the boom of the martial arts in the USA in real terms as much as Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon. Just in a different way.

It's The Karate Kid that is responsible for such things as Junior Black Belts, and Little Dragons programs at your local YMCA. So now you know who to blame.

Karate Makes it to the Olympics...Almost

So the IOC kicked softball and baseball out of the London Olympics. Too bad, because it would've been fun to see Japan pull its all-stars out of the US league teams to field a kick-ass national squad. So much for the American pastime, huh?

Instead, they looked at some other replacement sports, including karate. But in a political mess, here's what happened, according to AP:

In a farcical display of bureaucracy, IOC members went through seven rounds of voting to decide which two of the five would-be Olympic sports should be put up for a vote to give them Olympic status.

Having selected squash and karate, the members then overwhelmingly rejected their bids to join the Olympic program.

The other three candidates were rugby sevens, golf, and roller sports. "Roller sports"? What the hell is that? Skateboarding? If so, that would put a different spin on the whiners who complained that baseball and softball were booted because they are "native American sports". Huh? I don't remember reading anything about the Navajo or Hopi doing batting practice, other than to whack those durn homesteaders.

But seriously, you've got to figure that the US would dominate skateboarding, rollerblading, and other "roller sports". Can you see Tony Hawk atop the podium, with a string of gold medals around his neck?

Ninja G-8: The Protest II

This photo shows a bunch of cops adopting a rather Highlander-esque ready stance. Connor McLeod, anyone? But I guess this is the Edinburgh constubalary, after all...

Ninja G-8: The Protest

This image of an ASP-wielding cop taking on a would-be ninja protester was front-page news here in Silicon Valley the other day. Having written about ASPs for the About.com site, I found the photos rather interesting:

Looks like the hooligan-in-black is attempting a lame two-handed quarte parry of the cop's ASP. What body target was the cop aiming at? The stick? Why not rap the punk on the upper arm (in the fleshy part, not the elbow, naturally) and make him drop the weapon? If this technique is a "beat", in the fencing sense, the cop needs a good follow up, and it's hard to tell if he's setting one up from the photo.

Interesting to see differences in baton doctrine in Europe. Wasn't it just a few years ago where the introduction of the PR-24 baton caused all sorts of protest? Now they're starting to carry ASPs. Next thing you know, they'll start carrying .40s too--no more crappy 7.65 Browning. Delivery like a brick through a plate glass window? Yeah, right.

Pimp Beaten by Karate Master

Great clip, courtesy of iFilm:

Pimp Beaten by Karate Master

Ok. Name the technique.

Looks like backhand shuto (knifehand) to the carotid, the way the pimp drops so quickly. Kind of a bold move by the karate instructor--almost like he just wanted to try it to see if it would work (knowing he had a bunch of cops to back him up).

Cooper Comments on Martial Arts

Guru says:

Now it appears that some curious group in England has decided that too many people are getting stabbed, and that therefore long, pointy kitchen knives should be banned. Apparently they think that kitchen knives with blunt points would lessen the incidents of stabbing. Hoplophobes being what they are, it does not occur to them that they might reduce their problems by making armed assault illegal. Of course if they did that, they would find it necessary to do something about unarmed assault, and presently we would be called upon to eradicate boxing, wrestling and kendo.

If I was a rapper I could could switch to 52 Blocks.

RZA: "I ain't have to quickdraw Mcgraw ya, I could Fifty Two Block ya Switch my stance up Southpaw, drop ya ..."

Time for me to practice my "Filipino Stick Dance". Ahem.

Lessons from the Street

My best friend and I were discussing how things were when we were growing up as compared to now, where we both live in calm suburbs where crime is rare rather than rampant.

I wrote about this paranoia awareness when discussing Jeff Cooper's Color Code--how growing up in the big city taught me to be aware of my surroundings and prepared to act in case of a threat. Little things--like using the reflective glass of a storefront window to watch my back, or how to sense body posture of people walking by to see if they're going to jump me, or proactively moving my body to shield my kid and protect my weapon side.

Would we be better off if we hadn't had such "training"? Or are we doomed in a weird way to be less trusting of others? To be always wary?

And how do we teach our kids the same skills, now that they will grow up (thankfully) in a much better, safer environment than the one we knew?

Hillary Swank on Boxing vs. Karate

I wonder if any of the trade rag (think Variety, Hollywood Reporter, E!) hacks asked Ms. Most-Talked-About-Arms-Since-Linda "T2" Hamilton about her thoughts on boxing vs. karate.

Huh, you ask? Have you already forgotten the epic blockbuster that was "The Next Karate Kid"?

Ok, it was pretty forgettable. Didn't even have 30-year old Ralph Macchio hitting on high school girls or anything. The perv!

But Ms. Swank is one of the few actors in Hollywood to have portrayed an "expert" boxer and an "expert" karateka. With the exception of her "Million Dollar" archvillianess, Lucia Rijker, of course. Some producer (Chili Palmer, anyone?) should make her into the "female Rock".

At least Black Belt could've wrangled a cover article on that spin.

Four Guys with Machetes. What Do You Do?

So this Malaysian dude gets carjacked by four thugs armed with machetes. These dudes were some tough mo-fos:

But having stripped the car, the thieves became frustrated when they wanted to restart it. They found they again could not bypass the immobiliser, which needs the owner's fingerprint to disarm it.

They stripped Mr Kumaran naked and left him by the side of the road - but not before cutting off the end of his index finger with a machete.

Sheeeit. Now at the risk of doing some Monday-morning quarterbacking, what could you do in such a situation? This sort of scenario planning is good tactical preparation. I covered it somewhat in my Fighting Multiple Attackers and Mind over Matter articles.

Bonus points if you think through the scenario using all levels of the force continuum: unarmed techniques, less-lethal weapons (pepper spray? ASP?), and firearms.

Triple bonus points if you first considered getting into your vehicle, locking the doors, and then running over the bad guys. This malaysian dude had a Mercedes, after all. Aren't they built like tanks? Who needs a 150 grain projectile when you have a 3500 lb one?

Return of the Yawara

I'm starting to see a renaissance in "pocket stick" weapons, particularly yawara sticks made from hard polymers. This may be in response to the post-9/11 world where metal detectors are everywhere, and non-ferrous (well, of course, they're plastic) yawaras can be carried anywhere.

First up was Kelly Worden's Impact Kerambit, which has branched out from the original plain black into a whole spectrum of vivid fashion colors:

Now there's Cold Steel's Koga SD1, which is more along the lines of the classic Yawara/"Judo Stick" concept from the 1940s-1950s. You can actually buy this from Amazon.com now:

The PS5 folks in the UK have a new one too, similar to the Koga in construction and overall size, but with some nasty looking points (not totally sharp, about 1mm in diameter at the tips).

I would think that most of these would have the same issues as the yawaras from fifty years ago, that a sharp blow to a sensitive spot (like the temple) could kill a person. That's true with any weapon, even an improvised one like a stout writing pen, but these are intended for control use, and if the operator isn't trained in things like the wrist pain control (promoted by Kubota and Hatsumi) they'd quickly resort to blows with the tips.

One thing about these (and any other less-lethal weapon) that really requires practice is the transition from less-lethal to lethal weapon. Let's say you're using a pain compliance hold on some jerkoff. Turns out he's impervious to the pain on his wristbone/pressure point and he pulls a knife. But your yawara is clamped in a death grip in your gun hand.

You need to drop the yawara, draw your sidearm, and give the perp some lead poisoning pronto, all without getting sliced up or shooting yourself. Simunitions would probably be the best way to practice this.