This weapon is your life.

Well today I have discovered one of my greatest wishes has almost come true. Someone has built a working lightsaber.

OK, I realise its not a real lightsaber as in the weapon of the Jedi and all that, But it will set fire and burn flesh and objects. Its portable & hand held. So I think its heading in the right direction. And I want one.

I want one.. Give me one NOW!!!!!!

Some Technobable! (more…)

Attack of the Deadly Dancers

This weekend I had a meeting with a representative of a local troupe of Belly Dancers (OI! get your mind out the gutter, I was not booking them for a private showing!) I was there in the guise of a possible “consultant“.belly-dancer

Now I can imagine lots of good consultant roles in relationship to belly dancing, for example :- Checking things shimmy as they are supposed to, Making sure the costumes do not cover too much up, and a load of other sexist stuff I could come up with but will resist, (Which considering the consultant request is a wise choice).

The consultant role they wanted from me was that of “Escrima Instructor.” Yes teaching them Filipino Martial Art Stick Fighting. This was not due to my first thought of keeping the viewers back, or dealing with any amorous fans.  NO! they are considering incorporating it into their dance routine.  Apparently there is a school of belly dance that uses sticks as part of the show, and these girls decided if they were going to do that then they should do it somewhat special.

So as a conscientious kind of instructor, If I agree to teach these girls escrima then i really need to know roughly what kind of styles they need to learn. So I believe some research is needed. For this reason I may be slow replying to people for the next week or so as I force myself to watch hours of videos of scantily clad women shimmy and dance. Its a hard life but someone has to do it!

Fencing: The Art of The Sword

Well tonight ended my stint as Stand-In Instructor for the Full Circle Academy Fencing Class. Well that sounds a lot more efficient than it actually was. I basically Let the Other Student practice any of the weapons/skills that they felt they wanted more practice on, and was just there to offer help, advice, and instruction as and when it was needed.

And tonight an extra half hour sat by the heaters chatting..

But on the positive side, I did start work on developing a version of the 5 count box set using two swords. I believe it can easily be done. There’s just a block or two where I’m unsure. Like the block against the stab attack, Is it better to change the block for a opposite to normal block, or to use one sword to block as you would with a single sword, and use the other to slice open the opponant’s arms?

I just need some madman to work it out with. Volunteers please?