Monthly Archives: June 2010

Penn and Teller have a show on Showtime network called “Penn and Teller’s BS!” We all know what the BS stands for.
With my satellite service, I had a free weekend of Showtime and this just happened to be the episode where Penn and Teller were doing an episode on the martial arts. In an effort to stay relevant, I wanted to put my thoughts down on this while some people may have the episode fresh in their minds, and others may have not yet watched it.
I think the episode was okay. I still think their episode on the 2012 nonsense was the best, but this one was still good.
I think that they could have done better by including some work on the no touch knock out crowd, but perhaps they may one day do an entire episode on that.
I do like the effort to make some people understand that most of what is passed off as self defense falls into two categories – 1. Doesn’t work, or 2. Sends you to prison for a long time.
I did find it more than a little disturbing that the guy teaching “self defense” said he would be happy if one of his students killed someone using what he taught.
Why in the world would that make anyone happy. I would be happy if my students never needed to use what I taught them, as that would be a clear sign that they were paying attention to the underlying message of my teaching – awareness and avoidance are worth far more than an awesome side kick and the willingness to kill someone.
I would post a link to one of the many online postings of the episode, but there is a ton of bad language and some nudity in the episode, so I will not be doing that.
It was good to see that in addition to the very strange people they brought in, they also brought an expert – Marc MacYoung. I am sure that the editing done made the other “experts” seem more strange than necessary, but the idea is entertainment, and they did accomplish that very well.
Anyway, that is my $0.02

My workout yesterday was really quite basic, I did stepping front kicks around the track, two laps or ½ mile, whichever you prefer to call it. I call it half mile, and I call it weak.

Years ago, doing a mile of front, side, round and crescent kicks was just a part of my training. Me and a couple of people from the TKD school would meet up at the track behind Crockett HS in Austin and pick a kick to do for one mile.

Then we would do it, and go into the park for some no pads sparring.

Yesterday, some of these memories were rolling around in my head, and I decided to do a mile of front kicks. Well, it turns out that a mile is a little further than it used to be, at least to these old bones. I called it off at a half mile.

From the excuse department, it was 98˚ and I was wearing 14 oz. canvas. I do not think these are good enough excuses to say that the mile of kicks is out of reach. It is within reach, to be perfectly honest. I may be “doing miles” by the end of next week.

Old school RULES!