Stickman Escrima T-shirts now available!  The silk-screened mandala image started as a photo of an array of training knives for an escrima club; the fist and stick were done by renowned rock 'n roll artist John Seabury, one of the featured artists in the book "Art of Rock".

Ballistic Punching

Recently I've been reading up and watching video of Systema, a Russian system that's becoming more popular in the West. I see a lot of similarity with things I do, incorporating some of the concepts I've learned over the years from Aikido and Tai Chi as well as Escrima. One is something Val Riazanov call "ballistic punching", a term I've used as well to describe the idea. It involves relaxation, not tension; more like firing a bullet than pushing a car. Extreme examples, but to get the idea ... Here's a simple example of how it works. Punch your fist into your opposite open palm. You can do it like a baseball player pounding the palm of his glove, just putting it in there so it sticks. Now keep doing this: stick, pull it out, repeatedly. Now throw one punch that's faster but not "harder" or deeper, just faster. Let it snap back on impact. Feel the difference in energy? There are specialty spark plugs that have capacitors. This takes the incoming electrical charge, stores it for a millisecond and then discharges it in a much shorter but more intense burst of energy, resulting in a hotter spark. Just another analogy.

Vallejo's Pistahan Festival sure appears successful. I say "appears" because I couldn't get in! It took maybe 15 minutes to drive there, then I spent longer than that looking for parking. It didn't help that there were dozens of cars ahead of me, circling block after block and double parking in hopes someone would leave. I finally gave up and went home. My consolation prize was stopping off in Hercules on the way and picking up some Filipino food. Choko's Cuisine had dinuguan today ... not bad!

Somehow LinkedIn is posting update digests here that have nothing to do with Escrima or any activity I have (haven't had) on their site. I need to figure out how to shut that off. It's irrelevant here!

Public Safety Video About Kitchen Oil Fires

This is a 30 second public service announcement about kitchen oil fires that I've had on my website for several years. It could save a life!