Here's an email I sent to OLN regarding thier Dakar rally coverage.
To: feedback@olntv.com
Subject: Incredibly annoying dakar coverage.
I was forced to turn the channel, switching away from your dakar rally coverage. This is unforunate, as I was really quite interested. Unfortunately, your coverage, consisting mostly of spliced 1.25 second clips back to back, was maddening to "watch." Please not that I use the term "watch" loosely. You cannot watch subjects that are changing at that pace. There's no coherent subject to see.
Please have your producers take note that all of America does not suffer from attention deficit disorder, and as such, can remain focused on a subject for more than 1.25 seconds.
Charleston, West Virginia
Saturday, January 28, 2006
The Judo Thing... Revisited
The year is (roughly) 1985. The place is geography class. Coach Todd catches me leaving class and asks "hey, how much do you weigh?"
"Um... about a hundred pounds, why?"
"We need a wrestler at 105lbs, you ever do any wrestling?"
"No, I haven't."
"It's ok. Practice starts at 4 in the cafeteria. Be there."
"Uhhh, I'll have to ask my dad, but ok."
Flash to the first wrestling practice where coach Todd says "You guys who haven't wrestled before, you're going to be sore in muscles you didn't know you had. This is not a sport for wimps. Spraw drills. gogogogogogogo *SPRAWL* gogogogogog *SPRAWL*"
Well, coach Todd was right. I was sore in muscles I didn't know I had. Now, that was 20 years ago. I thought I was done with wrestling practice. Bzzzzt.
See, before last week, I didn't really know what Judo was. Yeah, I've been practicing Tae Kwon Do for quite a while now, but I had no clue about Judo. I mentioned in a previous post that at my dojo it's now ... er... well... required? ... It's at the least, highly encouraged within the TKD system to have Judo and Aikido skills. Well, now I know what Judo is at it's essence. It's "japanese wrestling." Or at least that's what it feels like. I thought I was done with that kind of soreness back in high school. Well, it's back.
I have honest to god mat burn on my ankle. Real mat burn. Just like wrestling practice mat burn. My ribs are sore and it hurts to laugh. I guess that happens when you're tossed on the ground (thank GOD I know how to fall, or I'd really be hurting) by a 220lb dude. And what's interesting, is that it's not getting tossed around by the big guys that hurts. It's getting thrown by the little guys that'll wake you up.
Some of the more senior guys in the class tell me it takes about six to eight weeks to get up to speed physically. I can believe it. It's so physically demanding that I was asking for an oxygen bottle at the end of class. Keep in mind that I can run 3 miles in about 26 minutes. I imagine part of why it's so physically demanding is that I'm doing it wrong. I'm probably staying too tense, too wound up when I need to just relax and use technique.
We'll see.
"Um... about a hundred pounds, why?"
"We need a wrestler at 105lbs, you ever do any wrestling?"
"No, I haven't."
"It's ok. Practice starts at 4 in the cafeteria. Be there."
"Uhhh, I'll have to ask my dad, but ok."
Flash to the first wrestling practice where coach Todd says "You guys who haven't wrestled before, you're going to be sore in muscles you didn't know you had. This is not a sport for wimps. Spraw drills. gogogogogogogo *SPRAWL* gogogogogog *SPRAWL*"
Well, coach Todd was right. I was sore in muscles I didn't know I had. Now, that was 20 years ago. I thought I was done with wrestling practice. Bzzzzt.
See, before last week, I didn't really know what Judo was. Yeah, I've been practicing Tae Kwon Do for quite a while now, but I had no clue about Judo. I mentioned in a previous post that at my dojo it's now ... er... well... required? ... It's at the least, highly encouraged within the TKD system to have Judo and Aikido skills. Well, now I know what Judo is at it's essence. It's "japanese wrestling." Or at least that's what it feels like. I thought I was done with that kind of soreness back in high school. Well, it's back.
I have honest to god mat burn on my ankle. Real mat burn. Just like wrestling practice mat burn. My ribs are sore and it hurts to laugh. I guess that happens when you're tossed on the ground (thank GOD I know how to fall, or I'd really be hurting) by a 220lb dude. And what's interesting, is that it's not getting tossed around by the big guys that hurts. It's getting thrown by the little guys that'll wake you up.
Some of the more senior guys in the class tell me it takes about six to eight weeks to get up to speed physically. I can believe it. It's so physically demanding that I was asking for an oxygen bottle at the end of class. Keep in mind that I can run 3 miles in about 26 minutes. I imagine part of why it's so physically demanding is that I'm doing it wrong. I'm probably staying too tense, too wound up when I need to just relax and use technique.
We'll see.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Boy am I gonna be sore tomorrow.
So, I'd done about a year of Tae Kwon Do training in my teens. I then took, oh, 15 years off for the marines, getting a career started, and various other stuff. During that fifteen years I maybe trained a total of two months. But I digress.
At my dojo, proficiency in multiple arts is... well, not only highly encouraged, but apparently mandatory. There's now a sign up in the dojo basically saying "Tae Kwon Do students: You must have basic judo and aikido skills to test for advanced belts." I'm paraphrasing, but the point is, you have to know basic judo and aikido to attain the higher tae kwon do belts. I think these requirements are new. But again, maybe they've always been there, and I'm just noticing.
So, in accordance with this policy, I took my first formal judo class this evening. It has left me with an impression I feel I should share. Judo is hard. I mean, (so far) it's not particularly hard technique wise, but then again, I'm a total beginner and I'm just learning basics. But the class is really really physically demanding. It felt like wrestling practice. I haven't been to wrestling practice in something like fifteen years. After class, I felt like I was going to die. My god what a workout.
I'm probably going to be hating life tomorrow.
At my dojo, proficiency in multiple arts is... well, not only highly encouraged, but apparently mandatory. There's now a sign up in the dojo basically saying "Tae Kwon Do students: You must have basic judo and aikido skills to test for advanced belts." I'm paraphrasing, but the point is, you have to know basic judo and aikido to attain the higher tae kwon do belts. I think these requirements are new. But again, maybe they've always been there, and I'm just noticing.
So, in accordance with this policy, I took my first formal judo class this evening. It has left me with an impression I feel I should share. Judo is hard. I mean, (so far) it's not particularly hard technique wise, but then again, I'm a total beginner and I'm just learning basics. But the class is really really physically demanding. It felt like wrestling practice. I haven't been to wrestling practice in something like fifteen years. After class, I felt like I was going to die. My god what a workout.
I'm probably going to be hating life tomorrow.
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