Phrase of the Moment:
¤ Phrase: "Alone... alone... alone..."
¤ Usage: Repeat the word repeatedly as soon as you are left alone in a room, even if someone else can be found less than ten feet away.
¤ Origin: We've got Dusty to thank for this one, since it's his habit. Whenever he's restless, or whenever both Malaya and me change rooms, leaving him alone in the living room or bedroom, he wakes up, looks around and begins sounding in a sonar-like fashion, as he repeatedly meows, each yowl at exactly the same pitch and tone.
¤ Notes: He's not actually saying "alone" of course, at least not that we know, but since he only does it when he's suddenly alone, either due to his wandering or our movement, it seems a reasonably translation, based on the context. Since I made up the "alone" joke, whenever Dusty wanders off and begins yowling pathetically in the otherwise-empty bathroom or bedroom or living room, Malaya and me amuse each other by saying, "Alone, alone, alone..." over and over again, in the same pitch that Dusty uses.

Hey, it beats, "Shut up!" which is what we used to yell, which had about as much effect on the cat as you might expect. -- August 16, 2004

CNN / GALLUP POLL ON WHO WON DEBATE
Kerry: 53
Bush: 37

CBS POLL ON WHO WON DEBATE:
Kerry: 44
Bush: 26
Tie: 30

ABC POLL ON WHO WON DEBATE:
Kerry: 45
Bush 36:
Tie: 17

  ¤ On my continuing, "who on earth actually supports Bush for 4 more years?" quandary, I found this article informative. 

More than half of those polled by the National Annenberg Election Survey didn't know President Bush alone favors allowing private investments of some Social Security money. Nearly as many didn't know that only Democratic candidate John Kerry proposes getting rid of tax breaks for the overseas profits of U.S. companies.

Importing drugs from Canada? That's a Kerry issue, but nearly half either didn't know or thought Bush also supported changing federal law to allow for drug imports from Canada.

Making abortions more difficult to obtain? Nearly one-third of those surveyed didn't know Bush alone supports more restrictions on abortion.

Eliminating the tax on estates? Two-thirds didn't know that's a Bush proposal.

o, martial arts. Kali is the discipline I'm training in (if once a week mostly for fun can really be considered "training") and it's a Filipino style honed over the centuries. It's performed largely bare-handed, but also includes a lot of work with short sticks, knives, swords, and staves, though it's very adaptable; you can really use anything as an effective weapon, once you know what you're doing. The local master (one of the very few masters anywhere in this discipline) has advanced classes at his home in which he regularly turns out very odd tools. Shovels, rolled up newspapers, garden tools, etc.

What I enjoy most about the art is that it's not all pretentious or regimented. It's the antithesis of those strip mall karate classes where you see a dozen 8 y/o's dressed in their cute little Karate outfits, standing in lines and punching the air while shouting in unison, like very young Tae Bo students who lack music. Kali is also not high impact on your body (unless you get hit, I suppose); it's not jiu jitsu or some other art were you're doing cartwheels and spinning kicks and need padded mats, lots of leaping ability, and knee surgery to compete proficiently.

Kali is all about practicality. You don't wear a special outfit to class, and you don't spend a great deal of time practicing forms, learning how to bow correctly, memorizing foreign names for complicated moves, etc. Your first class you are right in there, learning practical things like how to block and hit, how to keep your balance, move with your correct feet, counter attacks, and more. You get to use weapons immediately also; dulled knives and staves right from the start, and it's fun. There are all sorts of spinning techniques that look like showing off at first, but that you soon find out are essential to the art. You could just hit and hit and hit with your stick from different angles, but if you know how to spin the stick some in between strikes it's a great rhythm breaker, throwing off your opponent, confusing them about the direction from which you are coming, and setting your timing for your next strike.

Almost all of the techniques are learned in twos; the teacher shows you something new, and then everyone pairs up to practice it, taking turns. Thursday night we were working (for part of the class) with a drop punch sort of technique that's hard to describe in words, but which was executed after the basic check/block technique (with which you turn aside/dodge a punch and then counterattack). Basically you move like you're doing a normal punch, but with your fist just a few inches from the target you fall downwards a bit, letting your legs go loose, and use the momentum from that to turn your short little punch into a hammer. It seems absurd, but after we tried it a few times (and I felt the gura hit me with it) I realized how useful it was. Not that that's the first thing I'd do in some hypothetical/mythical street fight, but it's a way to hit someone ten times harder than you could otherwise, in that sort of situation, and it's applicable to many other types of maneuver.  With the punch (which we were all taking turns hitting each other with, pulling them short of course) we then learned to add a sidearmed shove/hit sort of thing that looks like it couldn't bruise fresh bread, but when done properly will shove you several feet sideways. Literally; I "hurfed" and staggered when the gura demonstrated one into my low back, and she wasn't even trying.

The trick of it is to use the momentum you gain by dropping down several inches and put that force/mass into motion with a punch or shove. So it's not just whatever your arm can muster, it's the weight of your entire body dropping six inches as you flex your knees, channeled into your fist. It's incredibly deceptive to watch and to execute; I didn't feel like I was doing anything, and the much more advanced student I was practicing with was taking two steps back from the momentum. (Not that he couldn't have sent me across the room if he'd wanted to, or that I was shoving him as hard as I could; the point is that by doing something seemingly simple a little maneuver was made enormously more effective.)

And no, that little trick isn't the basis of the entire art or anything like that, it's just what we worked on Thursday night. I am not experienced enough with Kali to comment on it at any depth; I can only talk about what I've done personally and how effective it seems to me.

The footwork was another thing we worked on a lot; when the experts move it's just amazing to watch them; they seem to be gliding, hardly moving their feet when they move, and yet they're always behind you, always moving around you faster than you can react, and always coming at you with the correct foot for their strike. The gura will show us something and it looks easy, and then we try it and it's thirty seconds of stubbed toes and missteps until we're like... "Okay, which foot did you step with first?" She doesn't even need to think about it, since after many years of training it's just instinct. Beginning dancers need charts of "left, right, right, left, right" type instructions; experts just go with the flow of the music and their partner, and everything builds on everything else; as we learn simple tricks and techniques and movements we see them included in the more advanced stuff the more experienced students are doing.

But for the footwork on Thursday, we were learning to do these sort of slide steps, keeping our knees bent quite a bit, keeping our weight centered and back on our heels, and keeping our heads still. Watching someone expert at Kali move is amazing, since they really look like they're on wheels, or ice. They just flow and slide, and they're almost silent doing it. No slapping of heels or toes or scratching of feet; it's like they're on cotton and the rest of us are wearing iron boots.  And they're always in the right place, always moving to counter or react before I can even begin to turn. So Gura was teaching us something about that last night, how to walk, how to move, and how it should feel. And when I got just a little bit of it right, it felt so different. Stumbling turned to gliding for just a moment, and I felt light and smooth. It's the same with other techniques; the proper way to swing the stick around (letting centrifugal force almost pull it, so you swing faster with far less effort), or spin it, or whatever, and when you do it right you can really feel it. It moves straighter, faster, and more smoothly.

I harbor no illusions that I could actually turn any of the theoretical combat knowledge and sparring experience into actual street survival skills, at least not yet, but since I'm not in junior high or drunk in the cheap seats at a Raiders' game, I hardly need to worry about getting into any brawls. For now it's fun to learn, challenging, and excellent exercise. Every class I come home with something sore, and as another guy in the class said, "Kali works weird muscles."  Thursday night with all of the footwork it was the thighs; Malaya was limping out to the car afterwards, and she does squats and presses and elliptical and such at the gym every day. Other times I've come home with the muscles on the outside of my shoulders so sore I could hardly lift them, or the backs of my arms, or my knees. Tonight Malaya and me both have bandaids on the inside of our right thumbs where we got healthy blisters from all of the stick work we were doing.  It's surprising just how many muscles you use doing punching, or blocking, or stick work that are different from the ones you develop in a normal workout.

I'm enjoying the class though, and it's not too expensive (I'd go more often if I felt like I could afford it.) and I learn a lot every time, so I'm glad we're doing it. Malaya is even more into it than I am, and goes to 2 or 3 classes a week, and yes, it's useful to have each other to practice with, spar with, remind each other of proper footwork and technique, and so on. I'd recommend Kali to anyone who thinks it sounds interesting, but it's not very well-known around the country or world and I have no idea where you could get qualified training in it other than in the Bay Area, so just look into some other martial art you think you might enjoy. As long as they don't remind you of the Cobra Kai or force new students to do a bunch of Kill Bill style "punch your fists to a bloody pulp" bullshit they're probably pretty okay. I just wish I'd started something ten years ago, since I'd be expert in at least one form, and could easily apply that to the Kali work I'm doing now.

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