But a sword dipped in ink, now, that's a good compromise
I’m late reporting this but, over in Sweden, Monica Lundström has insightfully illustrated the experience of reading Fudebakudo. How fabulous is that? Very fabulous, that’s how fabulous.
Available in the original language and also in English if your Swedish is a wee bit rusty.
You can see more of Monica’s supercute illustrations, which are part of a journal-like blog of aikido musings (in Swedish, mind), at http://aikido.sjalvskyddsakademin.se.
There can be no doubt that Steven Seagal was a Fudebakudo master in a previous life.
But still, that’s no excuse for driving over a puppy in a tank. Obviously his actions are motivated by compassion for all sentient beings (cock-fighting chickens in this case) and not simply an irrepressible masculine tendency to over-egg the weapon pudding. But still, that’s going to be a tough one for the karma committee to sort out.
Marina Hyde has written an excellent piece in the Guardian about the “the giddy thrill of seeing two go mankini-a-mankini in ancient contest” and the shenanigans behind the composition of the team GB wrestlers.
It’s a little disappointing that the Guardian have used such an uninspiring image for that article (no disrespect to Mark McCormick, but I don’t much like the illustration there, sorry). For a few months not so long ago I worked in the Guardian HQ (although I wasn’t employed directly by them) but, despite this, Fudebakudo seems never to have infiltrated their illustration department. Odd, that. Actually, while I was there I did get to sneak over to peek at the drawing boards of both Steve Bell (we share the irrelevant qualification of both having been in Cartoon County, the difference being that I know about his work and he’s got no interest whatsoever in mine, of course) and the most excellent Nicola Jennings, who is responsible for the Graun’s exquisite caricatures.
Enter the Dojo is a comedy web series on Ameri-do-te, an unnervingly plausible martial art. The disturbingly earnest and witless Master Ken (Matt Page) is scarily close to some of the more dangerous loons we’ve met at Seni over the years.
Anyway, this may have been brought to my attention a little too late (sorry, so be quick if you want to help) — but Enter the Dojo is fundraising at indiegogo. If you like what they’ve done so far, support the project!
(Thanks to Tom Hill for the tip-off.)
By way of this blog’s recognition of International Women’s Day, here’s a tip o’ the hat to the most remarkable Edith Margaret Garrud, suffragette ju jutsu teacher. Amongst other impressive achievements, she taught the all-women Bodyguard corps specifically for protecting key Suffragettes against the police. She was introduced to the art by the perhaps better-remembered Edward Barton-Wright, he of Bartitsu fame (who was himself a fascinating character and pioneer, and who taught Sherlock Holmes his fighting technique, as far as such a thing is possible).
Mrs Garrud’s Ju jutsu as a Husband Tamer, from the website of The Journal of Non-Lethal Combatives.
“I’ll learn this ‘ere jucy jujubes, Liz, for I could do for you if I was sober,” he says.
Anyway, on the topic of Suffrage . . . Royal Holloway (now of the University of London) was built as a women’s college and was opened by Queen Victoria in 1886 (hence the Royal). Inevitably, given the minority status of women’s education at the time Holloway was built, several key members of the Suffragette movement studied there including, for example, Emily Davison. This is pertinent because I have a number of connections with the place. Not only do I live very close to it, have studied there, worked there, trained in at least three different martial arts there (technically true), wrote a large part of one of the Exploding Pen books in the Victorian library there, but to top it all I was once commissioned to produce the Royal Holloway Board Game there. Yes, really.
If you’re interested in the Suffragettes, as clearly — today of all days — Fudebakudo expects you to be, I highly recommend the defaced penny episode of the BBC’s excellent “A History of the World in 100 Objects” series.
In case you haven’t seen it yet . . .
C’mon, Jackie, did the world really need this? More worryingly, they’ve made this film without hiring anyone from Exploding Pen to act as Fudebakudo consultants.
Ah well. I suppose I should take the opportunity to remind you of sweeptheleg.com.
Olivia, who eats ice.
It’s long overdue . . . a shout-out to Mr Rowzee and his hakamablog. Featuring food and ice-chomping doggie action.
Fudebakudo p.45, “Kagegamijo”
Readers of Fudebakudo already know about the forgotten art of making kagegamijo — “shadow paper castles”, by which samurai would rapidly fold decoy paper castles to mislead advancing enemy armies into laying siege to the wrong one.
Well, perhaps it’s not quite so forgotten. Wataru Itou, a Japanese artist, has produced Castle on the Ocean. It’s impressive in terms of execution, and the addition of Ferris wheel and rollercoaster is a great idea — what besieger could resist the lure of all the fun of the fair? Sadly, it’s not 1:1 scale, but it’s a start.
Via BoingBoing.
Now obviously on a blog dedicated to one of the most sophisticated cultural treasures to come out of the Land of the Rising Sun (I’m talking about Fudebakudo here, keep up at the back of the class) I’m hardly likely to suggest that the Japanese are one raisin short of the full cake mix. But . . . but . . . but . . . well, let’s just say, when Japan does fruitcake, it overdoes fruitcake:
Japanese Fruitcake valued at a cool $1.65 million
I have met a few Japanese fruitcakes in my time, some of whom got that way by having strayed too close to the edge of the martial arts’ sanity vortex. But they weren’t encrusted with diamonds.
From icanhascheezburger.
