Shrew on shrew action.

German film-maker Tomer Eshed has created a fabulous animated short. Runs for about 5 minutes, and is an astonishing piece of work: beautiful, educational, and accutely observed fight sequences. You won't see a better nature documentary.

Watch Our Wonderful Nature on MySpace video.

Incidentally, this is one of the films nominated in this year's SIGGRAPH animation festival. This brings back memories of 1991 (yes, a long time ago) when I attended SIGGRAPH in Los Angeles.

A final, sad view of Mr Bike being taken away in a van. I've obscured the number-plate so you can imagine it was FBD 1. For what it's worth, "Honda" is a genuine samurai family name.

This weekend saw the retirement of a much-loved member of the Exploding Pen team . . . Mr Bike was the unimaginatively named, two-wheeled, shaft-driven workhorse of the team. Technically speaking he was a Honda NT 650V, also known as the Deauville, unkindly nicknamed the Dullville or Duvet, and considered by more sporty bikers as one of the most unexciting bikes on the road.

Sadly Mr Bike started losing compression in one cylinder last year. On the last run down to Eastbourne he began backfiring rudely at innocent pedestrians. So his number was up — too expensive to fix, it was time to let him go. On Saturday he left in a van in a manner that seemed awfully reminiscent of the workhorse Boxer leaving Animal Farm.

If you've bought a copy of Fudebakudo through Amazon, or from a chain bookshop like Borders or Waterstones, then your book got to you thanks in part to the power of petrol exploding inside Mr Bike's 645cc engine and pushing his Japanese (actually, made in a factoy in Spain) pistons. It's one of the joys of self-publishing — no, really — that eventually you get your hands dirty in every part of the process. In this case that means doing runs down to one of the national UK book distributors, Gardners, to deliver consignments and collect signatures. (Incidentally, if you bought your copy from Foyles in central London, that may have been delivered by bike (there's no congestion charge for bikers in London — yet) although it is equally likely that I delivered your book by tube).

Happier days — Mr Bike next to a pallet at the book distributor's warehouse. I loaded that pallet myself, with my own hands. Artist's hands.

On the last run down to Gardners, nobody was about in the goods bay when I arrived. So I punched the "Deliveries" button, which set off a satisfying industrial klaxon. About a minute passed and then the bay door rolled up. I could hear the 2001 music but that may have been in my head. Presumably the dry ice must have run out just before I got there too. And then they came out to unload the books with a forklift truck. Yes, they gave Mr Bike full cargo honours by coming out to unload him with a forklift.

Tim's sack barrow has no engine.

I got my signature on the POD (proof of delivery, don't you know) and we rode back, backfiring through the 30mph built-up areas of the A22, waking the sleepy villagers of Nutley and rattling the cultists of East Grinstead. I knew it was the end, but then Mr Bike must have known too. After all, he'd been given a respectful forklift send-off, which had never happened before.

So farewell Mr Bike. When the current consignment of Fudebakudo is exhausted, the next one will be delivered courtesy of Britain's unevenly managed and increasingly expensive railway system. I will probably be obliged to use Tim's sack-barrow. He bought it especially for hauling books for Seni last year. It has two wheels and can carry 50 books at a push . . . but it's just not the same.

There's a film out there that sadly hasn't been released in the UK (as far as I know) that would definitely appeal to fans of Fudebakudo: Big Dreams Little Tokyo.

It's due to be released on DVD in July (although the stupidity of the DVD "region" mechanism means that's probably not true for law-abiding UK residents . . . really, DVD regioning is one of the most stupid and offensive ways of penalising people for not breaking the law). I haven't seen the film, although I knew about it through an earlier Japundit review, but I am totally won over by the utter Japaneseness of this trailer:

Official site: http://www.bigdreamslittletokyo.com . . . and there's a review in LA Splash magazine, too.

Incidentally, I thought Lost in Translation, which somehow became the de facto Japanese-Western culture-clash film (Richard Chamberlain's effort in Shogun notwithstanding) was rather feeble. Maybe it was only clever if you hadn't been there. 

It's been all quiet on the Fudebakublog recently because I've been super-busy on another Beholder project. Oh, and in the South of France, oui. But here's Rex kwon do to make up for it.

"Now, watch this, everybody. Grab my arm. The other arm. My other arm! Okay, now watch this. I'm just gonna break the wrist and walk away. Break the wrist, walk away."  Nice.

A wee bit more at http://www.rexkwondo.com/.

At the core of most martial arts is the business of learning, acquiring physical skill. In fact, since most modern practitioners are never going to be in a combat situation where the need for what martial artists love to call "application" arises (despite the fantasy of believing otherwise), I think one of the key justifications for practice is simply to develop your ability to learn any skill. Certainly in aikido, which I practice, this is overtly the case, since a lot of the structure of aikido practice is so abstract. And of course there's nothing unique about the martial arts when it comes to acquiring skill — it's there to the same extent amongst people practicing sport and (in my experience) especially dancers.

In traditional martial arts the process of learning is often very explicit, because you're shown the right form by an instructor demonstrating, which you are then expected to acquire first by extreme amounts of repetition, and later, only when you've absorbed those movements, by self-analysis of them. I don't think you can practice a martial art for a long time — let's say over a decade — without wondering about learning in general and why it can be so difficult. In fact, if you can train for that long and not develop any insight into how you learn, then you're probably practicing something that is too easy. That might be good if the skill itself is your end-point, but it's no good for developing learning skills, which is possibly one of the most beneficial and transferable side-effects of all that time spent training. Of course, your mileage may vary, and maybe you just like training because hitting other people makes you feel good about yourself.

The process of learning something which looks simple and turns out to be a bit trickier as soon as you try to do it really well is made very clear by good jugglers. I'm lucky to have met some fairly serious jugglers (Eric at Flaming Sparrow, and Charlie Brown whom I met in his kitchen). On the TED site they've just released a presentation (recorded in 2002) given by one of greatest jugglers in the word — Michael Moschen — in which he confronts this directly.

Make yourself a cup of tea because it runs fo 40 minutes (that's over twice as long as a normal TED talk) but there is some insightful stuff in there about learning.

Here's what he says, in passing, about watching and learning. Of course, with a "regular" instructor things are a little different, but specifically this applies to when you are watching a master from whom you are supposed to learn, and (in my personal experience) this is how things are.

And later...

Anyone who's practiced aikido for a while will have heard that before.

So, anyway, here's the presentation:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/260

If that's too academic for you, that's OK: enjoy the Raspyni Brothers juggling for the sheer joy of it instead (also at TED).

Oh yes, the other thing there: Moschen really is one of the true juggling masters, and yet, yes, he still drops things. As the Japanese say, Saru mo kikaraochiru!

Great trivia fact: if you've seen Labyrinth, those were actually Moschen's hands sticking out from under David Bowie's armpits when the Goblin King is "contact juggling" his crystal balls.

Lassie knows some moves.

Thanks to Ed for the link. 

Trophies at Seni08. I didn't win one. Based on what I saw, it might have been because I wasn't being silly enough.

This weekend Seni, the UK's big martial arts expo, was held in London. Exploding Pen didn't have a stand this year and the event was, of course, poorer as a result.

I did attend though, to have a look round and to see the staff on the MAI stand, especially Moira. She's the one who continues to put Fudebakudo into the magazine despite the awkard suspicion that the other regular cartoon in there, Surviving the Martial Arts, is funnier, uses full colour, and is drawn in considerably more detail by Chris Perry (the man is a cartoonist and, according to his own website, an O Sensei too — some people have all the luck). Meanwhile, back at Seni, the MAI staff treated me to what can only be described as lavish corporate hospitality by Huddersfield standards until eventually my minder returned and I had to go away.

This year's Seni had the usual inverted-iceberg of public martial arts events — a large number of disturbing people doing some preposterous things for uncertain reasons, with a considerably smaller number of people doing some quality stuff if you take the trouble look hard and deep enough under the surface. Still, no Fudebakudo tattoos on display, again.

Browse the Exploding Pen Seni reports from previous shows to see days of former glory. 

A lady takes a bow

There's a new illustration in the gallery on the topic of Women Fighting Men. You won't find this one in the book — it was drawn for the May issue of MAI magazine (the one with Shannon Lee on the cover).

Working on this one reminded me of something that I didn't have enough information to include, although it fitted the theme perfectly. Years ago a friend told me that he had come across some amazing rules for conducting fights to settle disputes between men and women in medieval Germany. I remember him showing me copies of the illustrations that accompanied the detailed descriptions. At the time I understood that the book from which they originated was illustrated by Dürer and my friend was working on a collaborative translation; but now I suspect that I may be combining two different works because Dürer's fechtbuch is rather well-known and I don't think it includes such things. I've never seen the finished result, if indeed it ever was finished (the person concerned has since died). But I should chase it up because the rules were very odd indeed — for example, very specific about the different (and unequal) types of weapon each could have, and that one of the combatants (I forget which, but I think it was the man) was obliged to stand in a pit. I'm not making this up. If I can find the details there may well be a second illustration, a part ii to this topic.

An extraordinary rendition of Smoke on the Water, Japanese style.

Via Japundit.

Phil Goldman was denied the job of male stripper in Tokyo because he was too hairy. But he posed for me, fully clothed, in Bangkok, when I drew the T'ai Chi Long Syllable Form. It's based on the White Crane Yang style long form, which Phil knows well because he studied properly with an accomplished master in Boston. I concealed his identity in the illustration by not drawing any hair. Or facial features. Or face. But if you know Phil, you can still probably recognise him.

He's just started writing a blog online.* He's a fine teller of tales, and he made me laugh a lot when we hung out in the City of Angels, so if you like to read about other people's more interesting lives, catch up on http://tunafishicecream.blogspot.com/ — it's early days so you can jump in now and still be at the begining of the journey.

* As Phil is a man of the world, and (at the start of the story) in Bangkok to boot, some might consider the subject matter N entirely SFW. Just to let you know.

From the Onion again:

Wii Video Games Blamed For Rise In Effeminate Violence

From an aikido point of view, of course, this is a good thing, because feeble attacks are so much easier to defend against! If someone were to combine aikido with Wii technology, then we could produce a whole generation of super-effeminate attackers, which would not only make the streets of the world safer but also ensure aikido's popularity well into the next decade. C'mon Aikido3D guys, surely you could hack something together?

I'm working on a new Fudebakudo frame at the moment.  I used (and continue to use) the same set of pens, given to me by a special friend, for all the Fudebakudo cartoons.  These are Rotring Rapidograph, and I use four different widths, working on marker pad over a light-box. I usually sketch in pencil or fibre-tip pens first, sometimes sketching the same thing again and again and again before inking-in. Of course other stuff in Fudebakudo is entirely digital (for example, the ninja — although the background was done in felt-tip pen first), and there's even a tiny bit of POV-Ray inside the book (the electron microscope scans of the blades on p.52, if you care). So Fudebakudo really is an MMMA (mixed media martial art).

What prompted today's entry was recently reading a Pixelsurgeon interview with the accomplished American illustrator Bob Staake in which he says:

Incidentally, if you're interested in how some people work (and I know most people don't think they would ever be), there's a great little video on YouTube showing his surprising technique (music by the artist, I believe).

You're looking for a oonnection with the martial arts here? Well, there doesn't have to be one, since this post is about production, which is what is concerning me right now. But there is something explicit from my on-the-mat training that crossed over directly to my drawing technique (not to mention the whole business of repetitive practice, and observation, and, well, a whole load of connections actually). And that is breathing.

An old aikido friend, years ago, drew my attention to this and subsequently I noticed I held my breath when drawing long lines (like borders, which often sneak into my cartooning style). In general, especially in the internal or soft martial arts (although some people are surprised to discover it matters when you learn to use a sword properly, too), how you breath is important. Obviously I don't mean exhaling with a shriek or power-grunt when you slam your fist into somebody, but the more subtle stuff in all the movements around that. You're rarely told this to begin with, but later you start to notice that some of the people who are really good have worked it out, and sometimes they even tell you about it when you ask them.*

So when you look at a long line in a Fudebakudo cartoon (yes, the long lines are the ones that tend to wobble a bit) you can be confident that I was breathing out (not in; not holding my breath) when I drew it. A little bit weird, no?

* Not always, though. I was once present when an eccentric Japanese sensei got very angry when someone asked him about how they should be breathing. So pick your moment carefully.

We like to think that martial arts typically develop out of military or oppressive environments (that is, they arose to facilitate the work of soldiers, or the rugged people who were opposing them). This is a deadly serious and full-time occupation. Neither soldiers nor the oppressed peoples in this scenario would likely be described as hobbyists.

But in the modern word, to the vast majority of people who practice them, the martial arts emphatically are a hobby. Ellis Amdur has written eloquently on this topic, and has reasonably yet provocatively asserted that if you're not comfortable calling what you do a hobby, then you have an attitude problem. I know lots of people (and see a great deal more) who practice the martial arts who would be uncomfortable with this. Personally I suspect that it's less of a problem amongst the readers of Fudebakudo, because by embracing the Way of the Exploding Pen, you are pretty much acknowledging the silliness of a lot of what passes for fact and acceptable behaviour in the martial world. But perhaps I'm wrong and there are Fudebakudo practitioners who genuinely believe their martial art is a Way of Life. I can think of a handful of individuals for whom such a claim might actually be true (inevitably, though, none of them would be so pretentious as to state it in the first place).

Although I am not a nun and never have been one (bear with me on this), I have an opinion about "Way of Life" because I did work with nuns for a few years, and the contrast was stark. Being a nun is a Way of Life. Going to kickboxing or aikido or t'ai chi classes three evenings a week — or, yes, even if you do it for three months at the Shaolin temple — is a hobby. Even most professional martial arts teachers (and already you have to wonder, in most cases, what went wrong with their proper jobs) are teaching a hobby. Stamp collecting is arguably a way of life for the philatelists at Christies auction house, and it has a genuine and functional history; but still it's a hobby, even if there are a handful of professionals who are supported by it, and thousands of pounds change hands every month in its name.

Here's the nub of the matter: being a nutter is a way of life. I think that's what a lot of people are confused about when they say that their chosen martial art is a way of life.

None of this in any way diminishes the value that the practice of a martial art may bring. Certainly my own practice has had a massive influence of how I have developed as an adult, where I have lived, the people I have met and the way I relate to them. But that's simply how influential hobbies can be. (As an aside, I think it could be fairly easily argued  that throughout the Edo period in Japan the martial arts were often pretty much an institionalised hobby amongst the samurai classes, although with ritual and caste clouding the comparison a little).

Anyway . . . the relative unimportance of a hobby compared to a way of life is at its most stark when politics arise. Someone or some organisation decides to explicitly influence the way you behave. If it's benign, this means you practice in a structured and organised micro-society of hobbyists. If it's not, then this is where the trouble starts.

That's why the mantra of "it's only a hobby" is one that can serve as an important reality checkpoint. Sooner or later (later, if you're lucky) you find yourself having to deal with someone who is exercising maverick power over you, an influence beyond that to which you thought you had subscribed. Most people who have practiced seriously in the martial arts, even within the native countries of those arts, have run up against behaviour which in a place of work — or a public situation — would be seen as unacceptably tyrannical. But in the martial arts there is a dangerous potential combination of machismo and superiority and it's sadly common. Sometimes it's laughable, sometimes it's appalling.

I mention all this — not, as you might expect, because I have just witnessed a mind-numbing example of political shenanigans in the martial arts (I haven't; well, not recently, but we all have stories, of course, and — like buses — you only have to wait a while and another one is bound to turn up) — but because of a wonderful quote that I came across in the "Twisto book" Judith sent me this month. Some explanation: Judith has the unqiue honour of being the hidari-peiji proofreader of the Fudebakudo book (a bizarre experience I should document here one day). You're thinking, wow, it doesn't get much more distinguished than that; but no — for many years before that she was the editor of the Enigma, the newsletter of the National Puzzlers' League (the American NPL). Judith, or perhaps in this context I should say Sibyl, has recently put together a small book about Twisto. Twisto is the nom, that is, the pseudonym, of an exceptional member, now departed, of the NPL.

In this book, there is a throwaway exchange concerning "it's just a hobby." Yes, in the world of brain-aching cryptograms and crossword clues, just like in the parallel world of spinning kicks and wrist-locks, the ugly politics of organisation creep in, and members sometimes need reminding that their life-blood activity is in fact only a hobby. How silly the squabbling hobbyists always look from outside! (And I'm looking at you too, religious people). Anyway, after all that, here it is, attributed to Smaug (who is, by no coincidence, a senior grade in the art of Fudebakudo):

I'm a bit busy at the moment, so here's another link. It's a bit late too, sorry. Still:

Karate Lessons Give Child Self Confidence to Quit Karate

"'If it wasn't for the focus and determination I learned in karate, I would still be in karate right now,' he added."

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