First, in honor of Martial Monday, a little Far Side humor:
Looks like Bruce MAY have been wrong in this case:
And, of course, we MUST have cat humor and memes…
And…
Memes of the Day…
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Martial Monday: Let’s Talk Kenpo Karate
Kenpo is the martial art I trained in the longest. Taught right, it can be brutally effective. Taught wrong, it becomes slap fighting and endless rumination about action. Because of that last part, I have a love-hate relationship with the art nowadays. I’ll get into that later on in the post however.
What Exactly IS American Kenpo Karate?
Honestly, that exact answer there depends upon who you talk to and what school they’re with anymore. I can answer the question in a little more general terms however. Almost all schools of American Kenpo are a hybrid martial art that aim to teach practitioners to be able to defend themselves at all stand-up fighting ranges (kicking, striking, grappling…). While some ground fighting used to be taught in the earlier days of the art, that’s no longer the case.
Kenpo originated in Hawaii, and uses a mix of Chinese and Japanese striking techniques and tactics. What differentiates it from most other forms of karate however, it’s it’s focus on pre-arranged self-dense techniques. In that regard, it would be easy to compare it to Krav Maga (the Israeli martial art), which also emphasizes specific combinations of moves in response to various threats (i.e. self-defense techniques). Due to Kenpo’s extreme analysis of motion, it’s also been called scientific street fighting by some practitioners.
Some History Before We go Further…
American Kenpo, as a martial art, is one of the younger arts out there. It was created by Edmund “Ed” Kealoha Parker a little before 1960, which is when he officially founded the International Kenpo Karate Association or IKKA. Parker, who had studied judo and boxing in his youth, went on to study Japanese Kenpo Karate under Frank and William Chow, who in turn were students of the legendary James Mitose.
I can’t give an exact date, because accounts vary on when exactly Parker decided that the traditional art didn’t function as well as it should in modern times. It is known that Parker got his Black Belt in 1953 while at BYU, and that he went on to open his first dojo (school) in 1954 in Provo Utah. That school was one of the first in the western U.S. of any style.
At any rate, somewhere along the line between 1954 and 1960, Parker decided that what he was teaching needed to be more efficient and effective. Unlike many current schools that just randomly combine things that the instructor may have learned from various sources, Parker was thorough and analytical. He spent extensive time filming himself and reviewing the footage in forward, in reverse, in slow motion both directions. He looked for any wasted motion, any ways to get more power out of a strike… Thus Parker Kenpo Karate evolved using intelligent design.
Al Tracy and His Version of American Kenpo
Now I have to cover the other branch of American Kenpo, founded by Al Tracy and called… Tracy Kenpo (surprise!). We could get into a LONG LONG discussion about who did what in terms of developing the art of Kenpo. There are a ton of variations on the history between Parker and Tracy. It all depends upon who you talk to. Some say Tracy worked with Parker to develop American Kenpo and they split over differences of opinion. More often from Tracy students, you’ll hear that Tracy kept the art purer while Parker butchered and bastardized the art.
I have belts in both styles of American Kenpo. What I can personally relate is that Tracy Kenpo seems more traditional (for better and worse), and that there SEEMS to be more joint destruction techniques in Parker style whereas Tracy sticks more to vital strikes.
Parker Kenpo also has a few more instances of extra strikes built into self-defense techniques with the idea that the first might not do the job. A good example is the self-defense technique called “Scraping Hoof” against a Full Nelson. I would provide a video link, but everybody on YouTube is doing it differently from each other AND both the Parker and Tracy schools I learned from. The key difference though is that after you’re grabbed, you kick to the opposite knee of the person behind you. Tracy Kenpo assumes that will be enough to break the attacker’s grip and upset their balance. Parker Kenpo will have you repeat the kick to the opposite knee with your other leg.
At any rate, just be aware that there are TWO major styles of American Kenpo out there.
Back to Self-Defense Techniques
As previously mentioned, Self-Defense Techniques are the backbone of American Kenpo. There are numerous ones designed to teach the student how to handle almost any kind of attack. Ultimately the goal of the techniques is NOT to teach specific combinations though. It’s to teach flow and body mechanics. By the time the student gets a few belts under them, they’ll start to see how techniques have similarities and how moves from one could flow into something different depending upon how an opponent responds, all while maintaining speed and power. Thus structured technique evolves into very effective freeform ability over time.
In short, you go from THIS:
to THIS:
Jeff Speakman, the star of “The Perfect Weapon” is a Kenpo black belt, and the movie’s fight scenes were choreographed by Ed Parker himself. Using the wallet as a distraction and then spinning around to dislocate the knife wielder’s elbow (thus neutralizing the knife) is very much in keeping with Kenpo teaching.
It’s About More Than Fighting…
It’s effectiveness when properly taught is only half of what drew me to Kenpo and kept me with it through so many schools. Unlike many newer arts, Kenpo teaches values like self-discipline and courtesy towards others. At every belt level, there’s a new pledge to learn and an overall Kenpo Creed. It all has to be memorized and show in a student’s actions.
The Purple Belt Pledge is a better example of the self control expected from students:
Parker believed in these ideals so much, he even made sure they were incorporated into “The Perfect Weapon”.
That scene also gives you an idea what the tiger and dragon symbolize in the IKKA crest above; the tiger is the beginning stages of learning, and the dragon is the more advanced.
Kenpo’s Fall from Grace
During Ed Parker’s lifetime, Kenpo was a reasonably well respected art with thorough instruction. Parker created and hosted the Long Beach International Karate Championship; the most prestigious tournament on the West Coast in 1964. It still is held to this day. Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do demonstration was a notable part of the 1967 tournament.
Parker died in 1990, not even getting to see the release of “The Perfect Weapon”.
The big problem is that Parker died relatively early at the age of 59, and had no plan in place for how Kenpo and the IKKA would be managed. Not even a chosen successor.
The result was total chaos. Parker’s widow tried to keep an extremely tight rein on the IKKA, limited access to the numerous books Parker had written, and charged hefty fees for both the association and books. The vast majority of Parker’s students went their own way. They edited Kenpo as they saw fit and formed their own Kenpo Associations.
Around this time is also when we began to see a rise in injury lawsuits, dojos backing away from realistic training as a result, AND soccer moms treating belt promotions as participation trophies to the point of becoming full on Karens. These factors damaged the integrity of martial arts of all types. Kenpo seemed to get hit especially hard though.
MANY instructors began editing out portions of the formerly official curriculum, shortening or eliminating self-defense techniques, and otherwise dumbing the entire art down. Some of them even justifying it by claiming Parker wanted his students to continue to “evolve” the art after he passed on. You can guess where I stand on the issue, LOL.
Truth, if I saw any of the forethought and research that Ed Parker had put into originally creating the art, I might not object. Even my current Wing Chun instructor feels similarly. He has a 5th degree black belt in Kenpo and switched to Wing Chun instead. When I asked him why, his response was that Kenpo was now run by fat old men who could talk all day about how to fight but not actually fight.
That’s not to say it’s ALL bad. Some associations stayed fairly close to Parker’s teachings. Last I looked, the USKKA was one example (but it’s been a while).
Others made even more of a convoluted, overly complicated mess out of it. Jeff Speakman’s “Kenpo 5.0” includes 3 times the number of basic foot movements as Parker’s Kenpo. All the new stuff is minute variations on the existing movements.
There’s a balance to be sought between dumbed down and overly-complex.
So, as I mentioned early in this post, at too many schools the art has been reduced to empty slap fighting and endless discussion about theory instead of practical application.
As for Tracy Kenpo, it never got the press that Parker did. HOWEVER, I DO think it suffered by name association with the decline in quality of Parker Kenpo. Some of it’s teachings are, to be blunt, antiquated also. The best example I can give the reader is the use of a side horse stance as a basic fighting stance.
If you’ve never heard of a “side horse stance”, picture a tradtional horse stance like so:
Now, as you imagine being in that stance, turn your torso 90 degrees so you’re facing one of your feet, and put your arms up in a guard position. There yah go. Needless to say, the biggest problem here is mobility and loss of speed. Tracy Kenpo does a surprisingly good job of fighting from that stance, but nowhere near what the same person could do in a more proper fighting stance.
With modern grapplers being trained to go after the knees for takedowns, I have to imagine the style is at an even greater disadvantage there.
Had Kenpo maintained it’s integrity as an art and kept being taught the way I learned it, I think it would still be held in the same regard that arts like Krav Maga are.
Added Bonus: Parker Version of 5 Swords w/Black Belt Extension:
Memes that Maul Darth Maul + One Obi-Wan Meme
OK, so I got in the mood to post a couple more things today while taking a break from other stuff.
This first one is OLD and well known among fans, but is still twisted funny
And one more…
Love the writing there, LOL. OK one last bonus one:
Hawkeye and Black Widow Unmasked
Sunday is typically my quiet or off day from blogging. None the less, I thought today I’d leave you with a meme that reveals the true identity of Hawkeye and Black Widow. 😮
Spiritual Saturday: Labels and the Spiritual Community
Apologies to my followers with a more traditional religious outlook, but I’m returning to discussing the “New Age” world today, particularly how people trying to apply every little label to divide up everyone is hurting spiritual growth.
This is actually nothing new. I first noticed it back in the 90s. Back then it was the emergence of the idea of “Indigo Children” and when everybody claimed to be one, along came the idea of rainbow and crystal “Star Children” so some people could go a step farther. It was all special enough to get everyone fired up, and runs on the same idea as the current labels going around:
“I’m not different, I’m special… more special than the other special people and I have a magnificent destiny to guide (lead) you all”.
All of which came with the unspoken message that anyone who had issues with the person, it was because they were jealous, not because our “Indigo Child” was completely socially inept. In most cases, it was pretty obvious from the ego driven behavior and need for validation that the person claiming the role had nowhere near the emotional or spiritual growth to be what they claimed.
It struck me much like telling a child that the “M” formed by the lines in their palm makes them special and that’s why people don’t understand them. Except that adults should be above the need for, or use of, such self-delusion.
It’s Always Been This Way I Suppose…
Much like mainstream religions have been prone to targeting and excluding various sects as false, the “new age” movement has suffered from the same issues. Self-righteous Buddhist posers who look down on everyone who doesn’t think like them as one example. They’re known as Marin County Buddhists in Northern California. Apparently in my reading on Buddhism, I missed where Buddha taught intolerance, materialism, and pride as a guiding virtue. Those into schools of “magick” will debate the validity of everyone else’s school, and too many members of all systems will hold themselves as superior to anyone who is “just a psi”.
This is FAR from making blanket accusations at entire communities. All I am saying is that the overall spiritual community, and it’s sub-groups, all have good and bad people in them… just like EVERY other group out there. Yes, the bad elements like to sow division also.
Things Seem REALLY Bad Anymore Though.
With all the media promoted fear, anxiety, conflict and general drama out there, people are labelling everything and everyone. The spiritual community isn’t any different, and it’s still done with the neurotic need to feel special… even more special than other special people.
I’ve done blog posts about being a true Empath (as opposed to just mislabeling empathetic as empathic). Hell, I even had a whole separate blog for a while that was devoted to the subject. I avoided the spiritual community for a long time while physical injuries put a major damper on my gifts though.
When I started reading again, imagine my surprise when, per all these “fluffy bunny” sources, there are now numerous types of empaths.
Ok, so for those who didn’t read my past post, a “fluffy bunny” was defined as somebody (typically a tween or early teen girl) who wanted to be called a Wiccan for the coolness factor. They tended to only superficially learn about Wicca, and were more concerned with looking the part and acting cool. It can be and sometimes is applied to any poser claiming a magical, psionic or psychic path though.
Now, as I pointed out earlier, one of the trademarks of such posers is that they try to reclassify or invent new names for things to make themselves (and their fans) appear special. Hence you can go to a search engine, key in “Types of Empathy” and get 100 different links giving you 100 different variations on “Empathy” and their definitions. 4 types, 10 types, 20 types of Empaths… All depends which site you read. Most of this nonsense has either zero to do with empathy, or is giving people with multiple gifts extra special empath names:
Look at the actual definition of an Empath at the very top of the graphic and tell me what most of those have to do with Empathy.
The trouble with this particular list is that almost none of these are actual EMPATHY. “Claircognizant Empathy” is at best a psychic awareness of intentions, and at worst cold reading. Sometimes a bit of both. Pyschometry, Geomancy, Precognition, Telepathy and Clairvoyance (Mediumship) have precious little to do with Empathy. They’re separate abilities that are actually elevated by being recognized as unique and different.
Empathy took on this magical (pardon the pun) relevance in peoples’ minds though when the whole idea of emotional intelligence gained popularity. Suddenly, to be cool, everything had to be tied to emotional awareness. It’s even gone so far as to start creating new and “extra special” types of Empaths based on what other spiritual gifts a person might have.
YouTube is literally overflowing with new experts on all of this, cashing in on the concept by teaching people all this misinformation and raking in payments for viewership. This brings up a whole other ball of bad karmic wax. An old but frequently overlooked aspect of The Laws of 3 and 10 is that if one tries to profit off of their spiritual abilities, it WILL come back and bite them on the ass HARD. Loss of abilities being very commonplace for starters.
Side Note: Just to show you how overlooked these principles are… I couldn’t even find any links to references for the Law of 10, which simply states that SOME things are so bad that karma will come back on a Wiccan 10 times over instead of 3 times.
The majority of the spiritual community looks down on “cashing in” as well. Wiccans in particular as this meme shows:
At any rate, the worst level of this sham is a “Heyoka Empath”, who has a wide array of powers that are all somehow empathic, like that earlier graphic, and was sent from above to straighten out humanity, or whatever similar drivel a particular site or YouTube video might be pushing.
There’s an attempt in the name to tie it all to Native American culture and the idea of the land being sacred. What it REALLY amounts to is such an egregious distortion and abuse of the term Heyoka as to legitimately qualify the term as cultural appropriation.
A “Heyoka” is a sacred clown in Sioux and Lakota culture. They are not any sort of shaman or medicine man, nor are they believed to be gifted with any sort of spiritual powers. Their role in their cultures is to act as a contrarian and point out hypocrisy, bad ideas, and other foolish thinking by mocking it. The closest thing Western Culture would have to the idea is a Court Jester who could actually get away with mocking the King for doing something stupid. The only place I’ve seen the concept portrayed reasonably well in entertainment was in the Longmire TV series. At any rate, their job of using satire and contrarian mockery to keep the village on the straight and narrow has little, if anything, to do with the way the title is being distorted today.
See, it’s not enough to be blessed and cursed with empathy… one has to be extra special on the level of the Justice League, and have a bigger mission than Luke trying to stop Vader and the Emperor singlehandedly. THAT is how one truly boosts up a fragile ego.
As a personal note, I could have picked on a million other examples besides empathy. It’s all getting butchered and micro-labeled. Empathy is personal for me though. This kind of thing cheapens what real empaths have had to deal with; drowning in others’ fear and hate. It reminds me of that old Chris Rock routine where he talks about taking a cab and having the cab driver (an African immigrant) tell him that he’s not an “original Black man”. I’ve had Black friends that have told me similar stories also, so Chris Rock likely didn’t make that up.
We should be beyond labels at this point. This is doubly true of the spiritual community with all it’s preaching of enlightenment, acceptance and tolerance.
Labels are Death and Stagnation:
Worded strongly enough for you? I hope so, because it’s true. The reason it’s true is because when you slap a label on something, you’re not only defining what it is (at least in your mind), but you’re also defining what a person or thing is NOT and can never become.
Hundreds of years later, Wiccans (who are actually pagans) are still synonymous with satanism because the early church improperly stuck that label on female folk healers. Granted, mainstream media has probably done far more than the Christian churches to cement that affiliation… The result continues to be a wall of suspicion and mistrust that doesn’t need to be there at all. And yes, one can accept somebody else having a different belief system so long as there’s mutual courtesy and respect.
So yes, to connect the whole mess together, being a “heyoka” empath is NOT a good thing. Not only is there the who cultural appropriation thing, BUT one is limiting themself in what they can and can’t do, and what they can and can’t grow to become.
Never label yourself in any way in regards to your personal development. All it does is limit your growth on every level.
Akira Toriyama Has Passed Away…
Famed Manga & Anime creator Akira Toriyama passed away March 1st at the age of 68.
Toriyama is known for his hit series Dr Slump and the international sensation that is Dragonball and it’s sequels (Dragonball Z, Dragonball GT, and Super Dragonball). Toriyama and his world as so popular around the world that in 2019, Toriyama was decorated a Chevalier of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his contributions to the arts. His Wikipedia page gives a great overview of his life and achievements.
His death was apparently the result of subdermal hematoma, that MAY have been a complication of a brain tumor that he was scheduled to have surgery for.
I couldn’t find any information yet regarding if anyone would be taking up Toriyama’s ongoing work on the Dragonball Super manga and anime.
Dragonball was (is) hands down my favorite anime, and I’ll miss Toriyama and his work.
Rebuilding Rob’s Critique of TikTok… Very Much Worth A Read:
He does a great job voicing many of the same concerns I have over the platform, including it’s glamorization of stupid & ego driven behavior, and it’s ownership by a Chinese company (news flash, there’s no such thing as a real privately owned company in China… It’s ALL under the control of the government).
Storming the Nexus!
Just a brief one here to brag. My Skyrim mods hit 30,000 unique downloads on Nexus Mods. I got lifetime premium membership for the achievement also
Actually looking at my content creator page, my mods are sitting at over 114,000 unique downloads. 👍😎🥳🎉
And that’s just at the Nexus. There’s also Bethesda Gaming’s own mods site to consider. I’m not going to check totals BUT I will brag that in February of 2018, my Scottish Broadswords mod was a featured mod of the month by Bethesda. 🙂
What is Skyrim ye ask??? Blasphemy!!!
Food Fridays – Reblog: Meat Shopping Tips
This is the second time I’ve reblogged this article. It was originally written in 2019, and then reblogged a year later. Sadly the situation with using nitrogen and / or food coloring to sell meat past it’s prime is even worse than ever. With that in mind, I felt it was a good time to repost this as a part of Food Fridays.
I’m going to change gears here a little. EARLY on in the blog here, I made it known that cooking is one of my other loves. 🙂 Anything from near competition level Southern BBQ to baking cakes and cheesecakes. Am I world class? No, not quite, but I’m darned good.
Apologies to any non-carnivores here, but since I run into the problem of finding fresh cuts of meat, I thought I’d share some info for readers.
First, let’s address the obvious question; what does it matter? High end steak houses age their steaks a long time, right? Yes, they do. It’s a special process that is different from just leaving food to sit in a store or home refrigerator though. The final part of that process also involves scraping and trimming mold off the surface of the meat also. Some folks are OK with that, but the idea of eating meat that used to be covered with mold is gross to me. What the dry aging process also does is take moisture out of the meat to concentrate the flavor of the remaining meat and juices. You’re taking the steak part way to jerky for the sake of flavor.
I’m getting a bit off topic though. My point is it’s a different deal getting an aged steak at a restaurant and having something sit around in the store forever. I will quickly add that if you’ve ever had freshly butchered meat, there’s a world of difference between that and store bought or aged meat.
Hopefully the stores in your area are better than the ones in my city, but using food coloring or nitrogen to make meat look fresh longer is getting to be a very common trick as grocery stores try to stretch profits. You can potentially end up with something that looks good on the surface, but is brown and starting to rot inside.
The above picture was meat I was going to cut up for fajitas… Until I saw the brown in the middle. What you have there is food coloring, probably injected as well as surface dunked. Hence the weird ring of brown
Food coloring is easy to spot. When you’re inspecting the meat, does it look to be a natural color of red? That meat above was borderline on looking right color-wise. One of the most blatant examples I personally found though was this:
No, you’re not seeing things, that $18 a pound filet Mignon IS indeed fire engine red… Even the fat! So are the beef kabobs next to them. Talk about food colored to death. That’s the meat counter at Sprouts; a supposedly upscale grocer that prides itself on fresh and natural. Lesson for the day; even “high end” grocery stores can try to pull a fast one on you.
Food coloring is getting to be out of favor though. There’s a new technique used by grocers and meat distributors; spraying the meat with nitrogen gas.
Contrary to how that may initially sound, it’s not inherently a bad thing. Nitrogen will slow the natural oxidation of the meat, which is a big part of what makes it spoil. It’s similar to the reasons athletes and body builders use nitrogen based supplements and some places put nitrogen in car tires instead of air.
The problem comes when grocery stores ignore and refresh the pull dates because the meat still looks good on the surface. Nitrogen won’t penetrate all the way through the meat so the center decays while the surface looks good. Since the nitrogen is also rarely applied to every square inch of the meat, careful examination can turn up brown spots before you buy:
Now, note that is a USDA Prime cut of Brisket, which is the highest quality available. More there in a bit. This Brisket was also being sold by Costco, which used to pride itself on high quality and doing right by it’s members. Does that big stripe of brown look quality to you? It’s an indication that there’s more brown under the surface though.
So how do you find good meat if it’s all treated with Nitrogen? It still comes back to color. Nitrogen chases the oxygen out of the tissue and fluids, and oxygen is what gives meat it’s red color when it’s fresh. SO, when it’s still early after it’s treatment, the meat will have a bit more of a pinkish color but still look fresh. After it’s sat a while, the meat will get permeated by oxygen again, and turn more of it’s natural color:
THAT is probably a good tri-tip. It’s red, the color is even and where the color varies, it’s more of a pinkish color like the bottom center.
What you want to look for and avoid is this:
See how it looks red at first glance, but the steak that’s second from the top is showing brown in the left 2/3 of it? The steak right below that one is faintly showing some brown also. A discerning eye can save you some heartache and even more stomach ache.
If you have any doubts about the quality of the meat when you get it home and open it, cut a small slit in it and look inside. Yes, you may lose a bit of juices when you cook but it’s better than eating iffy meat. Better safe than sorry.
To be fair, meat like those Sam’s Club steaks above may not be far enough gone to present a health risk, particularly if you have a reasonably strong system. With steaks costing $10 a pound though, don’t you deserve to get reasonable value and the most flavor for your money?
One last thing. I mentioned above I’d talk about the differences between the USDA’s grades of meat. This won’t apply outside the U.S. but many other places have similar systems. A quick internet search can turn up info for you
In the U.S. we have three grades of meat:
Prime is the highest grade, and is the the most tender with the best marbling of fat. It’s also the most expensive. Typically it’s only found at better quality restaurants. Real butcher shops and a few places like Costco will also have it usually.
Choice is the mid grade of meat. This is what most grocery stores and low to mid quality restaurants typically carry. While not quite as tender as prime and not having quite as even a level of marbling of fat, it’s still a good quality of meat, especially in the hands of a good chef.
Select is the lowest grade of meat. It’s edible but won’t be as tender as the other grades, and will have less fat or more uneven fat marbling, meaning a higher potential for it to be dry after cooking.
A Spam Record Tied!
And here I thought I was done blogging for the day, LOL.
Lo and behold though, along cam an ambitious spammer who tied the single blogger hit and run spam record for me; 17 likes in under a minute!
And they pushed my current deleted emails total up as well from my last post:
Would it really have killed them to read just ONE of the posts?
AND Yet Another WordPress Bug:
Anybody see an inconsistency in the picture below?
Here’s a spoiler: The summary shows my readership shrinking, and the bar graph shows the proper totals.
Silk Chatters 