A Thought on Christmas

            One of the unexpected consequences of no longer being single has been my relationship with my girlfriend’s son. Every day I see young men with their crotches down near their knees and their hats on backwards, bleating about “Respek” while dressing like clowns. It is nice to know that there are some young men of this generation that are smart and polite and will probably achieve great things.

            Currently I am reading “Red Mars” by Kim Stanley Robinson. There is a passage in this book where the psychologist reflects that most of his charges can be defined by a combination of the psychological categories of “stabile-labile” and “introvert-extrovert”. He muses that the various combinations such as “introvert-labile”, “extrovert-stabile” etc in fact correspond to the ancient system of four temperaments of choleric, melancholic, sanguine and phlegmatic. Interested in this I passed the passage on to my girlfriend’s son, knowing that it would interest him.

 

            He responded with a true pearl of wisdom that I will leave you to enjoy and reflect on this Christmas day:

“Woow, isn't this too much to think?”

            I think that is a question we should ask ourselves more often!

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The Books

Not being a Sucker and Avoiding Head Punches.

          Many times on this blog and in my book I have stressed the need for personal vigilance. Quite simply, pay attention to what is happening around you. Just because you think that a text is important does not mean the universe will rearrange itself to keep you safe! I know I may sound like a broken record here but the importance of awareness cannot be over stressed.

          A friend of mine sent me the following link:-

Trend of Sucker Punches in Vancouver

          The tone of the article suggests that these are acts of violence committed just of the pleasure of seeing someone fall. I’ve had personal experience of attacks motivated by this. It is a useful reminder that predation is not always driven by greed or lust. Anyone can be targeted for violence. Awareness and some of the other factors that I discuss in my book can reduce your chances of being selected as a victim.
          To be honest, I am rather surprised that we do not hear about more “sucker” attacks. So many people walk down the street with their eyes glued to their phones or music players, only marginally aware of their surroundings. A colleague of mine had her phone stolen. According to her a man simply walked over to her, slapped her and took it. As she is telling me this story I was acutely aware that there was some fact that she was omitting. Sure enough, it turns out she was using the phone at the time. Doubtless one of those long, drawn-out conversations with her son about precisely how to put a piece of fish in a microwave. Had the misfortune to overhear many of those while I was working with her and know well how oblivious she would have been.

          Your primary defence against a sucker punch is awareness. How close will you let another human being get to you, particularly if you do not know them, they seem drunk or furtive or there are few other people around? There are too many aspects of awareness to cover in today’s blog. Instead, I will briefly cover a couple of defences against a head punch. In other words you have become aware of a potential attacker but he has still got close enough to make his move. My book is filled with techniques you can use but today I will mainly look at Peyton Quinn’s outside and inside crane defence.

          Peyton Quinn wrote “A Bouncer’s Guide to Barroom Brawling”, one of the books I recommend for further reading in my own book. Quinn very kindly gave me permission to detail a couple of his techniques in my own work. Quinn observes that the head punch is a very common move in real fights so has honed a couple of techniques to deal with such an eventuality. (Injuries to the hand from head punching are also common!)

          The outside crane is best used if you can move to the outside gate. It is a fairly standard parrying move. Notice how the arm rolls the blow, leaving the hand in contact to detect and influence what the foe’s arm may do next. In the illustration a right to the head is intercepted with the right hand and as the punch is moved right the defender moves left, taking themselves out of the path of the punch.

          The inside crane is shown here against a hooking type punch. Both arms come up and body twist can be used to roll the attack past. This technique offers a large surface area against impacts so is a good defence against kicks to the head, should the foe be foolish enough to use them on the street. (Chances are he will rip a muscle without a warm-up and stretching!)

          The inside crane leaves you on the foe’s inside gate so he will probably follow through with a punch from his other hand. The next illustration shows a follow on from inside crane, in this case a source block against a punch with the left. White would be moving to his left. Notice that the position of the arm also helps deflect the punch away from the head. This leads us to a third technique.

          Western boxing uses a lot of punches to the head region so it is no surprise that simple and efficient counters to such attacks have been developed. The one we are going to cover is to simply place your hand on your head above the ear. The bent arm creates a large area to act as a shield. You will find that making this move on one side tends to make you duck to the other side, taking you out of harm’s way. This ducking action is also a good setup for a palm heel chin jab!

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The Books

Hybrid Societies and Incompatible Cultures

           It is comforting for us to think of many things as static and unchanging. Many readers of this blog will have read about various martial arts and encountered the opinion that “this set of move is XXX-jitsu” and “these techniques are YYY-style kung fu” and so on. The truth is that many things are in fact constantly undergoing a state of change. It is now much easier for the practitioners of a certain style to learn about other styles and inevitably new ideas are encountered and some are adopted. This is true of many things that we may wish were unchanging. Our culture, our language, etiquette and many other things are all ever changing. Things change, and this is not necessarily a bad thing. With change comes selection and this is necessary if improvement is likely to occur. 

           Decades back I was part of various on-line discussion groups. One relatively new member had a habit of frequently introducing his pet topic/hate into discussions. “Isn’t diversity wonderful” he would sarcastically sneer. I think he might have been quite shocked if he had known just how diverse some of the other group members were. At least one was Jewish (!). A couple were even not American (!!). Yet another had some specialised (yet legal) leisure tastes, the details of which do not concern us today. Some of you will no doubt already be relishing the irony of a (presumably) white American complaining about diversity when the very culture he champions is itself a fusion of many others. 

           “Multi-culturalism” is a term that has been thrown about a lot in the last few decades. What is often ignored is that the multi-cultural societies that work best are in fact hybrid societies. Various communities may maintain their own identities but they are also willing to entertain the ideas and concepts of other cultures. We take what is best or most useful and make it our own. I am writing in an alphabet acquired from the Romans but perform maths with Indo-Arabic symbols. The language I am writing to you in draws on words from a smorgasbord of other languages. Our national dish is now curry and the little Moslem girls next door are just as excited about the fireworks on Bonfire night/Dwalli and Christmas as any other child in the city. The love of my life is a British Brazilian and has introduced me to many wonderful things from that culture. “Girl talk” between her mother and sisters is conducted in Portuguese, and that suits me fine, I am not expected to listen.

           The reason I am writing about this today is because it has occurred to me that there is a flipside to this. If we accept the biological analogy of a hybrid society then the logical implication is that there possibly may be cultures that are simply not compatible with some others. Observation of the facts seems to indicate that this premise is more than just theoretical. Many societies (supposedly) practice sexual equality with respect to gender or even sexual preference. Some cultures have a deeply-ingrained patriarchalism and/or misogyny as a fundamental component of their identity. Others not only include homophobia in their beliefs but advocate active persecution and execution of such. There is at least one cultural group that is actively parasitical or even predatory, wishing nothing from other cultures other than a one way flow of wealth and resources.
           I’ll refrain from further discussion along these lines since inevitably some fool will cry “racist” rather than trying to actually understand the concept I want the reader to think about. 

           It is nearly Thanksgiving in the US. A meme that some people have been circulating is that the Pilgrim Fathers were themselves refugees. Part of the folklore of Thanksgiving is that the Pilgrim Fathers were fleeing persecution. It seems in reality this is not strictly true and that many were a separatist minority whose main complaint was everyone else was not following their creed. Refugees are one of the topics of the day and some will have it that anyone who opposes the immigration of refugees is simply a racist. Perhaps things are not so simple. Some of the countries being criticised for reluctance are some of the most densely populated in Europe. Many richer Moslem countries are refusing to take predominately Moslem refugees. My recent meditations cause me to ask if certain new or existing cultural groups will contribute to our hybrid society or are they incompatible? Tolerance needs to work both ways. These are things that need to be recognised and intelligently discussed sensibly without knee jerk accusations of “racist!”

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The Books

Duodecimal Finger Counting: Counting to 60 on One Hand.

     Currently I am reading “The Last and First Men” by Olaf Stapledon. I’ve just reached the section on the third species of mankind. The third species have six fingers on each hand and Stapledon notes that they have a duodecimal mathematical system. By a manifestation of synchronicity I was watching “QI” that very night and a base twelve finger counting system they attributed to the Babylonians was featured. Using this system it was possible to count up to or display numbers of up to 60. 

      Investigating the topic further I came across a number of websites averring that the Babylonians in fact had a base-60 numerical system. Looking at their numeral system, however, seems to suggest a decimal system. Which of these is true is out of the scope of this blog. I thought it would be handy (pun intended) for readers of this blog to know about a hand signal system that can represent relatively high numbers. Many measurement systems are based on dozens, 24 or 60, after all. 

      The system is very simple. There are four fingers on your hand and each has three joints. The joint of the first finger nearest the wrist is “1”. The join of the little finger nearest its tip is “12”. By pointing at a joint with the thumb of your other hand you can indicate any number from 1 to 12. If you point with your index finger instead of your thumb the joints are designated 13 to 24. And so the progression goes on up to 60, which would be the tip of your little finger pointing to the last joint of the other little finger. Counting in dozens makes this technique even easier. For example, a count of “three dozen and two” can be easily converted to 38.  The illustration is labelled in “dozenal” notation so the upside down 2 (↊) is “ten” and the inverted 3 (↋) is “eleven” in base-10.

      That is the system. Perhaps you may find it of use sometime.

 Update.
      You can actually count to 144 on your hands! Use the tip of your thumb to touch the finger bones between the joints rather than the joints. You may find it more logical to start with the little finger for the lower numbers. For each dozen you count off you touch the corresponding bone on your other hand with your thumb. 12 x 12 =144. You can also do quick additions using this method. Shifting your thumb from a finger bone to the equivalent fingerbone on the next finger adds three, two fingers adds six and three fingers adds nine. On the other hand skipping a finger adds 36/three dozen. For more on dozenal counting see here.
      Using this method you can use your hands as a simple abacus in either base twelve or base ten. For the latter you just ignore the first two sections of your last finger.

The Books
         If you have enjoyed this article or it has been helpful to you please feel free to show your appreciation. Thank you.
The Books