domingo, 13 de julho de 2008

The mousy girl screams "Violence, violence!"

In many ways, the following photo is the culmination of every bit of fightyness in my entire life up until now. In other ways, it's as clear an indication you could want that I've gone completely mental. It's also one of the things I'll want deleted if I ever get accused of anything 'wrong' and am hounded by the Daily Mail.



But it's mainly a photo of the day I went to the Bristol BJJ open wearing a t-shirt with the Street Fighter logo on the front, then choked a man out to take third place in the tournament. It can't be coincidence that, in the five minutes before I had to fight, I was visaulising the incredible moment in Street Fighter 2: The Animated Movie, where Ryu gets set to Hadoken a furious Sagat in the chest at full power, while the music swells and the wind blows the grass nearly horizontal. And if it was, then ask yourself this: how come I lost the second match, when I wasn't thinking about Ryu?

domingo, 6 de julho de 2008

Togetherness

Three miniature stories:

1. Several years ago, at the start of my freelance career and for reasons to do with me wanting to impress potential employers, I ask a large professional wrestler to smack me in the head with a STOP sign. After some coercing, he obliges, I get a photo of it and I go on to have a glittering freelance career which leads me, several years later, to Tokyo. I go to the Tokyo Dome area because that's where the arcades are, and on a whim, go in the official New Japan Pro Wrestling shop. The stairwell's covered in signatures of wrestlers who've stopped by, scrawls and kanji and unrecognisable signatures - but the one that I notice at eye-level as I leave, is Mad Man Pondo. The STOP sign guy. I smile, and it's probably only my imagination that my head twinges slightly.

2. Several weeks ago, in Las Vegas for the launch of the UFC game, I'm pounding Caipirinhas at the bar mid-afternoon when a Japanese girl asks if I'm English. I am, but I'm also dehydrated and drunk enough to immediately start rambling on about fighting and how much I love it. She, of course, turns out to be an ex-international judo tournament competitor, and we spend ten minutes talking about ko-uchi-garis and seoi-nages before I have to take drinks back to my friends. I walk away with a renewed determination to take up judo.

3. Yesterday, I'm training for an upcoming tournament in a near-deserted dojo when a little fat guy with no front teeth turns up, carrying a drum and looking for the owner. 'I do guided meditation with him,' he says, 'I'm a medium, and a spiritual healer.' I don't laugh because my mum raised me right, but then he starts talking about how he boxed in the army. He gave it up after he got a kicking from a lance corporal: 'There were three hits - him hitting me, me hitting the floor, and the ambulance hitting 90.' We have a Right Old Laugh.

The point? I don't know. Maybe - again - that fighting brings people together, because the things you know everyone in it has put up with convinces you of their worth as a person. Maybe just that I mostly enjoy the way my life's turned out, and that it's a good life if you don't weaken.

Next week: less bullshit, more CHOKING PEOPLE OUT. Promise.