Fighters these days have the pleasure of learning backwards. In the day, people would learn by just doing things. Eventually they would find more and more efficient or more and more powerful forms for specific situations, and add that to their pool of abilities. Those powerful forms became techniques. One who could find an extremely effective technique would become feared. Those fearful techniques would be passed on to the next generation, and to the next. We don’t have to spend our time figuring out what the strongest of strikes are, nor would we risk fighting all day to learn it.

Now, we have the current system. People start out learning how to do those specific strong techniques, and start out trying to defend themselves from those strong techniques, before they even know how to move around to get anything at all working. Instead of dealing with "What's something I can hit them with here?", they deal with "This hits them here, how do I make it happen?". Even sillier folk even think "I can do this, so I'm invincible" without batting an eye at the prospect of getting there. Some even think of things systematically "If this happens then this will happen and then they'll do this and I'll do that" and all that fun stuff. So, what most people are missing nowadays are the basics of the basics. We know the movements, but we do not understand them. We use them, but we do not know why we use them. We slice through the air with our forms, not knowing what it is truly meant for. We are blind. With this, an art becomes just that, an art; a simple pile of nice moves to deal with other nice moves. A natural fighter would learn flow then form; now, we learn form then have to figure out the flow. The art is a weapon to supplement your natural strengths.

This is probably due to the nature of passing things down. Example, perhaps one person is very good at throwing extremely strong hits. Someone else gets good at blocking, evading and countering to respond. A response to this could be to start using quick light shots to avoid being countered and blocked and throw a quickly moving person trying to evade off balance. Eventually the style passed down will be that of the quick light hits in their "perfect" form, after being made to respond to evasion in their greatest forms and so on.

The result is a multitude of styles that nobody knows the reason behind. Instead of learning what to do, we know what to do but have to find the reason for them, or when to use them.
When Lee Hsiao Lung came in, nobody knew how to deal with him. Everyone had believed in specific styles, he preached "style with no style" and attacked in a very streamlined manner that was seemingly impossible to deal with.  He would do things people would not think of.  He was feared because he not only knew the strongest forms, he had an understanding of them, and understood how far he could deviate from them and still be effective.  The crowning piece was that he built himself a fantastic body. 

Then you have the modern prize fighter, they fight in an extremely streamlined manner and will often win by sheer force. The methods of dealing with such a manner have fallen out of favor due to the lack of understanding behind it, and it becomes "useless fancy fluff", so it becomes a contest of head butting with strong techniques, and the winner is the one with better body and reaction. Well, understanding will come eventually perhaps. Eventually it will all run full circle. Let's try hard to push shall we?

Yeah.

http://tenhou.net/0?log=2009110520gm-0049-0000-x2873eb47acb4&tw=3

Greatness is a great mountain.

Masses gather at the the foot, and look to the endlessly high top with awe.

A brave few begin to climb the path, and the masses will look up scorn.

The reason is that it shows them humans just like themselves can climb it.   It is a reminder that others are after that which they have given up.  It is a matter of pride.  They think highly of themselves; They think, "If I could not climb, why do you think you can?  What makes you so much better than me?".  They cannot stand the prospect of just another person being greater than they.   That humans are not weak, only they.

As one continues to climb, the scorn may no longer reach.

The air becomes thin, one begins to breathe the thickening envy and expectation.
Burning determination boils the blood.  The hot blood moves the body through the anguish.

Even higher, the path becomes thin, one begins walking upon the thick of competition.  One clears their path by shoving others over.

Stain the flesh with blood and sweat.  Continue on, and even the strongest can no longer reach to pull one down.

Continue further.  Envy becomes awe, competition becomes respect, and blood and sweat become trophies.  One's position becomes the dreams and will of the next batch of brave few.  One becomes legend.

Recently I have seen that even legends may be overtaken.  Perhaps you could only call it a god.

Time will tell; may even gods be taken down?

Took videos of the Tora! Tora! Tora! performance and the F-22 raptor demo. Fun stuff.

F-22


F-22 again


Tora! Tora! Tora!


The video isn't the best, hardly does it justice. The F-22 was especially interesting. It'd run around in ways planes shouldn't be allowed to, haha. Flies like Shameimaru! Tora! Tora! Tora! was pretty surprising. Just sitting there getting some Icee's then bam explosion and a load of planes doing swoops over the ground. It was fun though, worth the hour drive and 3 hour wait in the 20 mile long line of cars. Was worth the tanlines too. Yeah.

I decided the first thing I'd draw should be a lead-up to a pretty important duel in the line. For a reference I wrote out how it played out to give me an idea of what it'd look like when I drew it, so here it is, Mikasi vs Misae, double keris vs custom keris.

- -

“What the hell is that?”

“That’s my new weapon. When I was overseas I put in the order for it.”

Misae unwrapped what was in the box and there was a monstrosity of a Keris.

“Welp, this thing took up a year’s pay.”

“Amazing.”

“Yep, well, let’s work with it a bit. It’ll help prep you for your next match too.”

“What? A match?”

“Someone from the Vita refuge. Train your hardest for this one”

“Alright. What should I expect?”

“Physically …average, skill far surpasses yours, and likely has a far greater understanding of martial arts. But this person saw your last match and was really interested. You were itching for a match lately, and I thought you'd learn from this one, so I accepted.”

A greater understanding of martial arts; seems like I really will have to be careful here.

“You’ve met this person once before. The weapon we use is fairly similar. Have fun with it, and learn well.”

“Ok.”

Did I meet any fighters in the vita refuge?

“I’ve already had a practice weapon molded, so we can start right away.”
It’d have to be some kind of monster to use a weapon like that well… guy must be strong.
-
“Alright, give it a try.”
I drew my practice weapon. Then Misae took two steps back and pointed the tip of her weapon to my neck. I did the same. The weapon was roughly half an arm’s length longer than mine, and fairly heavy. First thing I noticed about it was that she used two hands to hold it, which gave me an odd sense of unease. I tried to bait a reaction to get a read, as I’ve become accustomed to doing over the years. I tapped one side of her blade. No response. I made a quick step-in and tapped the other side. Nothing. She really was giving me nothing to go on. I have the shorter range, the attack is on me. I’ll have to use force, despite my worries.

I beat the blade down and went in; she circled her blade around while sidestepping, then took a downward cut at me. I redirected it to the side, then went in for a cut to the head. A miss. It seemed my form was off, and I was throwing my cut sloppily and slowly. Perhaps this was a bad day? No…Being close in, I circled my blade around to strike again, but my hand was stopped by Misae’s left.

Then she swung her blade at me, very slowly with her right hand. I released myself from her left and went to block it, I wondered if she wasn’t used to the weapon yet. I didn’t really want to do it this way, but this would be my first victory against Misae. Stop the blade, then make a cut to the arm. It should be simple. As expected, I stopped the attack, and grabbed at her wrist. But I clutched nothing but air, and instead of arm, I ended up beating down her blade. That hit was pretty heavy. That blade has to be at least 4 times the weight of mine. It seems the weight is throwing off my counter attack form, how annoying. On top of this, my positioning is all messed up. The way she’s moving while striking is really getting to me too.

How the hell am I supposed to deal with it…More commitment to my blocking?

A swing came from my left side. I stopped it handily, but my sword would just not listen afterwards. It’s behaving completely different from normal; I can’t predict where it’s going when we make contact. This is really annoying… what’s going on?

I need to calm down. Once my blade is steady I can just run in, her blade is still very close to my body. If I move in now, she’d have to pull away to cut me, due to the weight and length of her weapon. Meaning, the second I go for a strike with my right, I’ll be stopped by her left hand. So the answer is to feign with my right, release the blade lock and cut her left arm as it comes out.

I went for my right, and there was no reaction, but it still stands that the blade on my left could hit her with no retaliation. I went for it. I saw her motioning to lower herself and retreat, but my blade was sure to strike her head. Why would you be doing that? Stepping back would do nothing here. Perhaps this was the first time I saw her afraid of being struck. My blade swiped cleanly through the air, and a hot feeling shot through my body. What the hell happened?

I’d think it was a round kick, but her right foot was towards me, it would be impossible even for Misae to generate that much force, especially stepping back. As I fell over, I had realized I had been hit with the keris. What the hell is going on?

I get it. It’s like against that pike wielder. She stepped backwards and pulled in the weapon, held it steady with her left and dropped her body weight onto it with her right. The combination of the back step, the wave on the blade, and her body weight put a tremendous amount of force through the weapon, much like the technique pike wielder used to throw me off balance.
But… I drew another keris with my right hand.

“Let’s try again.”

“Aye, we’re not stopping till you get it.”

I already had a feel for how this was going, I went in. I attempted to move forward and beat her blade down, but she resisted and took large step forward, then turned around, her weapon never letting go of mine once. I couldn’t get a hit in with my other hand, and our distance was now the same as before, to her advantage. My side was starting to hurt pretty badly as well. That thing is much lighter and faster than I initially thought it to be. I’ll probably be wearing out way before she does. Another forward step, I saw her back up and get ready for a downward strike. On reaction my keris shot up, huge mistake. I was going to stop it too early, and very likely miss. Even if I hit my target, there’s no way the tip of my weapon would have enough leverage to stop it. I was going to get hit on the head. Then, I heard the sound of wood.

It stopped. The heavy hit was oddly light. What was going on?

Not enough time to gain momentum? Either way, it was my opening. I stepped in and made a cut.

Shallow, wouldn’t even have made it through the cloth. But at least I now know how to stop her attack. I have to disrupt the movement before it starts, otherwise it’d be likely to break through my guard, or put me at a worse position. Normally this would do more harm than good, but that weapon requires commitment, and its length limits the angles it can take. This means it’s easier to see where the attack comes from, and because of its range I need not worry about a foot or fist when defending.

I put myself back into her reach, and she quickly stepped forward. On reaction I stepped back, horrible decision. She then took a half step forward and made a huge sideways cut, just out of range, maybe the choice wasn’t so bad after all. I rushed, on reaction, then recalled the weapon was a large sword, not a pole-arm. A follow-up swing was coming. I put my left weapon above my head to stop a diagonal cut from above, and readied my right to thrust once I was in reach. But the oversized keris came back from the direction it went, which was luckily stopped by my right. But this was a good position; while her blade was locked I decided to make a full step in and thrust, and missed. I missed? This was really getting to my nerves, but luckily I was reminded I had another move while anticipating hers. I circled my blade around and pulled my arm in for a redondo cut. It was parried, and a clear redondo was made to my shoulder.

“And that’s it.”

“I got what you wanted out of that?”

“I think so at least. At this point, I can’t say you’ll win though. Your use of the keris has improved a lot, and your left handed control of one is just as good as your right. One problem is you’ve a keris in each hand instead of having two keris. On top of that, you don’t have much experience fighting weapons other than a straightsword, and due to inexperience can’t make guesses on how some weapons are used.”

Sounds important. I’ll remember it.

“Any drills I should pay special mind to?”

“There’s no such thing as a drill that will help you now, it’s up to you to piece this together.”

“Alright.”

Seems I’m really in for it this time.


-

I ran the whole picture through my head to get a feel for it, and amusingly that whole writeup takes up a total of 5 pages. Never have I felt so much envy for the folks who can shamelessly put down "She put out her hand and shot a ball of energy that ate the other persons ball of energy"