Badness on the Web #2

Quick admission, I am a fanboy of the 'cult of Japanese swords.' I find them pleasing to look at, marvel that the lousy natural materials available could be turned into a tool of this kind, and quite enjoy watching chanbara and jidai geki swordplay*. They weren't the 'ultimate weapon', but they are attractive, and some ingenious methods of use sprung-up from the 15th to 19th centuries.

So of course, watching the refined kenjutsu (sword tactics) of Tenshinsho-den Katori Shinto Ryu, the sublime Kuroda Bugei, or the surprisingly subtle (if odd at first blush) Jigen Ryu on youtube is an awesome gift. But that is not what brings us here today, is it? You can find good stuff on your own- you come to me to find the awful, and I don't want to disappoint.

So here are three nuggets to whet the appetite:

1) This young man was taught wrong and now wants to share it in this 'instructional video' from Expert village. Here is a dirty little secret- just because you train in 'karate' does not mean that you know the first thing about how to use weapons, so what in the world makes people feel competent to teach 'em?!?!- Swords, spears, etc. (ya know, not 'repurposed farming implements...) have their own internal logic and what is shown here does not reflect safe practice at all. In particular, this notion of 'blocking' is, well, dumb. Why would you 'block' a cut, rather than countering? That and the piss-poor uchitachi (with the wrong hand on top), and his unforgivable lower body work... ah well, we're all young once, ne?

2) Some lads enjoying themselves 'sparring'... dangerous, stupid and not a good idea to do w/bokuto... oh, and it's bad too. Enjoy these two (one of whom never received the memo about which hand goes on top... a critical bit of information). Music is rockin' (in 1984) and the name of the school mixes kunyomi and onyomi (yawara and do don't mix- yawara [no] michi, or judo, sorry, try again).

3) Lest it look like I'm only beating-up on only males, here is a girl doing... something with a naginata... yes folks with 20 - 60 # of armor, you too would do chest-height kicks, yeah? Kime? Not important. Loads of 'kiai' at inappropriate times? Check.

Before anyone wonders why I'd go and get my knickers in a twist over use of weapons that have been out of vogue for a long, long time- outmoded by much more efficient tools for destroying each other- let me say this: outside of preserving extant arts, why do swordwork at all? Yeah, they are cool, but what is the point? Co-opt something else, but when you extrapolate modern rationales for combat that we can't test, the whole thing is an exercise in redonkulous....

I have deliberately not put the worst here to start... we gotta save something for later... why buy the cow and all that.

Peace unto all.

*Yeah, I know, the sword was never a 'first' weapon on the battlefield, yes, I know, kyu ba no michi... uh-huh, spears, and naginata, bow and horse before the introduction of the harquebus by the Dutch in the 1500's... M'kay, the role of the sword didn't take primacy until after massed warfare had ended, then became a 'gentleman's dueling weapon', just like everywhere else in the world... dang, killjoy.

Badness on the Web #1

Part, clearly my favorite, of what one group of friends does involves finding bad footage (often of combative arts) and sharing. Thankfully sharing sites have democratized the production and display of lots of amateur footage, lots of it amazing, some, for not the right reasons.

A couple of important notes-

1) Just 'cause I think it is silly, doesn't mean jack. Most of what I do is ridiculous looking. That said, fraud is fraud, but more often than not for these, we'll be highlighting dangerous/stupid displays. Just because your video appears here doesn't mean that I would want to scrap, just that I don't wanna be you when I grow up, m'kay?

2) As both a student of this stuff and a videographer, there will have to be some choices made about aesthetics... sorry, just the way it is.

Here is a beaut-

'Grandmaster' Stefano Surace- a self-appointed 10th dan (degree black belt). Jujutsu can take many forms, from ethereal, fake looking, to pleasing rough and tumble... this isn't anywhere on that spectrum, just ugly. Brute force taking the place of finesse or technique? Seems an appropriate place to begin this part of our adventure. Without further ado, please enjoy this youtube link.

Watched on Fast Forward

Opps, just a bit of housecleaning- this premise is straightforward, find a 'free' film and FF through it. In lots of cases you can make it through most of the movie, only needing to stop at moments that seem full of portent. Some though, are so godawful, I have been compelled to rewatch the whole thing, soup to nuts. Multiple times. And share. The next Watched on Fast Forward will be on one of these.

Watched on Fast Forward #1

Okay, with that out of the way, some movie 'recommendations'-

Ninja Vengeance (1988 available On-demand for those w/Comcast)- first actual post has to start with this bit of the lovely. For those of us who fondly remember the Sho Kosugi movies of that era and expect same from this based on title and production dates alone... not quite, unfortunately, the title is rather misleading. There are clear connections, the most marked- denizens of this movie are so acting averse it can only be the 80's, and a ninja movie.

Although featuring Stephen K. Hayes via flashback/training montage sequences in what feels a series of mash notes to the bearded, black-clad one- the bulk of this piece (probably written and produced by students of Hayes') revolves around one lone 'ninja' (with a penchant for rolling) who due to mishap, ends-up in a little town with a huge (at least proportionally) KKK presence and corrupt yet inept police department. So this young feller happens into town and witnesses a murder and befriends a woman who was close to the victim. Okay, so far, so good, yeah? Uh, No. This can't seem to make up its mind: is it a Nice Guy (with secret super abilities) Pushed Too Far action film? A meditation on the role of 'martial arts' student in modern society*? A request for tolerance and decency? None of the above really, not by a stereotypically racist, backward country mile...

So where were we? Oh yeah, so, Our 'hero' (if that word translated from Greek means, 'one who rolls') goes on the lam with his 'woman friend.' The people responsible for this murder must be brought to justice, and who else can do it? Hint- not the main character. Can he take a beating? Heck yeah, he can even roll a lot while doing it. Can he dish one? ...well, this is part of the problem. The kanji (Japanese characters) shinobi means to 'endure hardship'. Nothing about being able to fight; this is a good thing because with few exceptions, he gets chased and beaten, but a least there is lots of rolling.

There was nothing convincing about any portion of this movie, not the acting or the motivations of the individual characters to do the things that they did, with one exception- I believed that the protagonist needed to roll. 100% sold, signed, sealed and delivered.

I don't wanna rate this film, but it was bad enough to watch in FF while not quite hilariously bad enough to be actually watchable (that said, the experience may be enhanced greatly with the creation of a drinking game... I'm thinking drink every time the hero gets hit or rolls, golly, good times).

So why start with a review of a 'should miss'? 'Cause that's how I roll, beetches. Seriously though, when you can watch a movie for free, in fast forward, reducing the experience from 1.5 hours to just under 24 minutes and still get it the whole thing with time left over to actually work, life's pretty good.

*Let's just go OT for a moment. Any movie that highlights combative arts is bound to go for style over substance- informed viewers have to go in with a willingness to suspend disbelief about some stuff. It is also refreshing to see little bits of philosophy injected into stories (provided it isn't so hamfisted or wrong as to be embarrassing). The producers of this film go out of their way to offer the overly romantic 'ninja' (read: Takamatsuden-as-filtered-through-SKH) philosophy, to the point of silliness.

Welcome, weary traveler

New blog- great, just what the web needs, another snarky, over-opinionated jerk hiding behind his keyboard... yeah, well, here it is anyway.

The Grand Vision for this blog is simple- I have a propensity for finding things that are bad; movies, writing, etc. I am also unemployed (which has increased the amount of time one has to look for terrible things online exponentially). Now you may be saying to yourself, WTF? Why should I peek in on this timesink? Other than offering some humor, I dunno.

In closing, many folks encounter badness, but I look for it, revel in it and garner such a deep and abiding satisfaction from sharing, it may border on pathological- let me help you find the things that you didn't know you didn't want to see... no wait... er... or some such...