Another Thing I've Been Thinking About...

...is that Street Fighter 2 is a bit like boxing, and every good 3D beat-em-up is a bit like Brazilian Jujitsu.

To explain: in Street Fighter 2, there are six buttons for hitting people. You can press them while you're standing still, ducking, jumping straight up in the air or jumping forwards and backwards. Then you've got two or three special moves, but they're fairly easy to learn. After one glance at the move list, you can literally do any of your character's moves any time you like.

By contrast, Tekken and Virtua Fighter take ages to learn. Every character has about fifty very specific combos, along with twenty special moves that usually aren't at all memorable. It'll take you a good few hours just to learn them all, and then you'll probably forget half of them the first time you need them.

If you're not acquainted with boxing or (more likely) jujitsu, here's how they work. In boxing, you've got about six punches - jab, straight, left and right hooks, left and right uppercuts. You can do them while you're ducking and moving and stuff, but that's about it. Throw in some rolls to the side - which I'm not very good at - and some blocks, and you know how to box. What you don't know, obviously, is the infinite number of ways you can combine all of those things to make combos and flow from one move to another and distract the other person from what you're really trying to do and set up the thing you actually want to hit them with.

In BJJ, by contrast, there are fucking loads of moves. Even if you discount the stupid ones that nobody ever does in a really serious fight, you need to learn to do about twenty things really well before you'll stand even a vague chance in a BJJ match against, say, a blue belt. Then chances are he'll still pull something out of the bag and armbar you anyway.

I don't know why I bring this up. I just think it's interesting.

Look here's a picture of Guile:

I BLOODY LOVE YOU, JANE.

The UFC Game

Well, it looks okay, except that Chuck wouldn't ever go for a triangle choke like this on Rampage Jackson - he mainly works to get up off his back from half-guard. They've clearly copied it off 'Page's fight with Ricardo Arona. 7/10
I'm joking, obviously. The UFC game is going to be the best thing of all time. They've even nailed how Chuck fakes with a left before he throws an overhand right, and how he's a little bit flabby. As long as they put Fedor in it and have a better system than the old games for letting you counter armbars, I'm giving it a million out of ten.

Concept footage, obv.

Andy Bogard Knows The Score

At the moment, I am practicing every day. Well, most days. Well, Mondays and Wednesdays definitely, Thursdays usually, Fridays when there's nothing more fun going on at the pub and Sunday when I'm not viciously hungover. And I am getting loads better, but still probably not loads better enough to win any competitions. But I still find Andy's is a useful philosophy to have, whether you're trying to learn Japanese or lindy hop. Practice every day - even if it's just for twenty minutes - and it all mounts up.

Yes, I know that's obvious. I just like Andy Bogard.

On Getting Punched In The Face

It's been a while since I've done any serious boxing sparring. I kid myself that this is because I love jujitsu and would rather use my time to get better at that, but really it's just that I don't really like getting punched in the face.

Or do I?

The thing is, if you want to learn to defend yourself - really, properly defend yourself - you are going to have to get punched in the face. Probably more than once, and ideally by somebody who knows how to punch people in the face properly. Because the first time it happens you aren't going to know what the hell's going on, and that's not too bad if the other person sees you're rocked and backs off, but absolutely terrible if they want to knock you to the floor and then keep doing hurtful things to you. The amount of people - sadly, often girls - who tell me that they're confident about being in a fight because they 'did kickboxing' for two years - then explain that they never really sparred properly - honestly terrifies me.

Anyway, it's been a while for me, but tonight at training I did four things that I'd honestly recommend to anyone who wants to get used to being hit in the face. Maybe you can try them at work!

1. Spar with a tennis ball tucked under your chin. If you let the tennis ball drop, you're being too skittish.

2. Let someone punch you - very gently - in the forehead for a minute or so.

3. Spin around loads, then shadowbox. Not only is this fun, it gets you used to hitting people while dizzy.

4. Spar with someone eight inches taller than you, so that he clocks you in the face constantly.

Jesus, my face hurts.

The Best Film In The World

...is, of course, Fist Of Legend.

Fist Of Legend actually continues the story of Fearless, because Jet Li plays a student of the (real-life) character he plays in Fearless out to avenge the (spoiler!) poisoning of his master. Confusing, I know.

Anyway, it's also a remake of Bruce Lee's Fist Of Fury, but it's about ten million times better because:

a) It isn't nearly as jingoistic: Jet's got a Japanese girlfriend, and both master Funakoshi and the man who ultimately saves everyone else are Japanese...in contrast to FOF, where anyone Japanese is a total shit.

b) It's got a bit in it where Jet Li punches a man in the face twice with his left hand, then fakes like he's going throw a right, except that he just waves instead and clocks him with another left. It's more exciting than it sounds.

c) It's got a bit where Jet's former best friend trips him over and instead of falling on his head, Jet drops into what Capoeiristas will recognise as a flawless au batido, which I spent about two months trying to 'do'.

d) It's got another bit where Jet does a spinning tornado kick over a belt that's actually part of a chainwhip form that I really can 'do' - in real life and everything - which makes me very proud.

e) It's got the line, 'To say that Master Funakoshi is the best is to speak of his cultivation, not his expertise in killing', in it.

Watch the subtitled version if you can, by the way. The dub removes all the political undertones and sort of breaks it.

God I love kung fu.

The Second Best Film In The World

I'm a bit more cheerful today.

The main reason is that I re-watched Jet Li's Fearless. I've got no idea why it didn't get better reviews - the fight scenes are incredible, and even the bits where the pace slows down are a heartbreaking counterpoint to the main action. The first time I watched it, I thought the best non-hitting scene was the bit where Jet Li and his Japanese rival Takada chat about tea, except that it emerges that they're really talking about their philosophies of fighting: Takada likes rules and grades when it comes to tea, but Jet prefers to just drink the tea and decide whether he likes it or not, which is exactly the same as the way Jet refuses to regard any single fighting style as better than the rest. Beautiful.

Anyway, I was wrong: the best scene is before that, when Jet's yet to develop this peaceful philosophy and he's all about drinking rice wine and beating people up. His friend doesn't understand why he loves fighting so much, so Jet takes him out to the fight platform where he's been kicking people all day, and says:

"You've only watched from below. Can you feel the difference? When you're down there [in the crowd], life and death up here mean nothing to you. It's all entertainment. When you're up here, though, you have to win. Losing is not an option."

And his friend, who's a much nicer person than Jet Li at this point, says:

"But you can choose not to be up here."

...

So, yeah, I'm thinking of giving up fighting again.

Another Reason I'm Probably Sort Of Crazy

...is that before Street Fighter, there was Vendetta. Vendetta was a lot like Streets Of Rage and miles better than Double Dragon, but what it had in common with the latter, like a lot of games of the time...


...was that you were fighting to rescue your girlfriend. And restore peace to the city, but whatever. The thing is, I played these games for years, and whatever studies say about computer games not affecting you, I'm pretty sure there was a chunk of my brain, when I was a kid, that thought that if you were just good enough at fighting, then everything would be okay. That you could protect all the people you liked, and beat up all the bad guys, and the worst that could happen to anyone was that they'd be temporarily kidnapped but still there cheering when you fought the final boss at the end.

And, of course, that just isn't true. No matter how good you are at fighting, the bad guys carry knives, and are often bigger than you, and are often psychotic, and sometimes come in groups, and even if none of the above applies you still can't beat them up because you'd get sued and anyway it wouldn't really solve anything.

But that isn't even the worst bit. The worst bit is, that it doesn't really matter how good you are at fighting, because when the worst happens you inevitably aren't even there.

Sometimes, I feel like the grown-up world's let me down.


Fucking hell.