Category: Website

There’s a new image in the gallery — this one is
Ways of Throwing.

It was drawn for the current issue of
MAI magazine. This is the June issue that’s out in time for the Seni expo in London. Sorry, but Exploding Pen won’t have a stand at Seni this year, although I will probably be there for a few hours just to marvel — not in a good way, you understand — at the current state of the art of Eye of the Tiger-backed jump-kick demos that have more in common with Riverdance than the performers would care to admit, juxtaposed with lots of grimacing bald men surging with preposterone. And maybe to meet a few Seni friends there too, from previous shows.

 

There's a new illustration in the gallery answering the question Does It Work?

It's from the current issue of MAI magazine and finally gets into the print the "works on the boulevard" gag that springs to my mind whenever people talk about martial arts working on the street. What about working on the avenue, or the crescent? Maybe that's what crescent kicks are for. It's probably more appropriate to ask if the art works in an alley or a cul-de-sac. Those are the places where you're more likely to really need to know.

It only makes sense to say "it works on the street" if you're talking about a driving system. Otherwise . . . there are a lot of misguided martial artists out there at risk of being run over. Hey, people! If you're going to take your brawling outside, you should really be asking: does it work on the pavement? *
 

* sidewalk, for the American readers

It's that time of year again. Time to dust off the decorations and post the Fudebakudo Christmas animation.

 

Only six months or so after the front page ninja animation went live, I have finally added crosshairs to the end of it (because several people had complained about this "obviously" missing feature). You have to sit through the whole silly film to get there, though.

Coming next year (or, uh, maybe later): sound!

 

So . . . a new year, a new animation. The new Fudebakudo index page features a ninjaful animation.

 

I've fixed a couple of minor problems in the ambiperplexity game.

Eagle-eyed readers of the book may have noticed that on p.22 the diagram is wrong and one of the positions is in fact duplicated. It's an exercise for the reader to spot which one.

 

This week the 10,000th M.A.Q. (Martial Art Quiz) was completed. Ten thousand people have racked their brains. And because we delete repeat attempts, that even allows for those who took the quiz again immediately in order to get a better score. Wow. That's a lot of people. (Not all of them bought the book, heh.)

There are currently over 380 questions in the quiz database, and you get asked 15 each time you take the quiz. The quiz is tricky because it deliberately doesn't ask you much about your own art — that would be too easy —  and because, in true Fudebakudo style, it draws from eclectic sources. So in fact the logs show a further 8000+ people started but never got to the end.

The average score for all completed quizzes is 12.49 (that's from a possible range of -15 to +30).

The most common complaint I have received regarding the MAQ is "it's dumb" — which seems to mean "I couldn't answer the questions"… So I haven't done much about that.

But the other grumble is that there are too many questions about Entertainment (that's one of the categories from which questions are chosen). That's an interesting one. Some people don't think they should know who Hong Kong Phooey was. And they may have a point, but I think the role of the mass media (even cartoons) is an undeniable influence over the practice of martial arts in the West. Of course, Bruce Lee is usually cited as the classic example of this (his films really introduced kung fu to the West), but even the documentary-like realism of Karate Kid or Crouching Tiger (and, yes, you too can take a guilty bow, Mr Seagal) significantly affects the attitude to, and uptake of, martial arts outside their native lands. I'm sure many practitioners don't like to admit this because it's neither good for machismo or credibility to acknowledge that some of the people in the same class (not yourself, obviously) are only there because they secretly fancy themselves as Tony Jaa in Ong Bak or — God help them — Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai. Even the current popularity of MMA (with Brazilian jujutsu leading the way) has been driven not because it is a more functional system of effective combat (although it may well be), but because it coincided with the rise in demand for pay-per-view TV fight material. Yes, I know there never was a Gracie/Hong Kong Phooey grudge match, but it's still all to do with how martial arts get into the public consciousness.

Incidentally the MAQ is a rolling project and I am always adding a question or two to the database. So if you think you have a particularly insightful question that should be in there, please have a look at the submission guidelines and consider sending something in.

Oh yes, that grudge match. Phooey woud win, no problem.