Self Defence for Crips, Queers & other Minorities Part 2: Jeet Kune Do, Wing Chun & Kung Fu

A continuation of Self Defence for Crips, Queers & other Minorities.

Index

Disclaimer (page 1)

General Principles (page 1)

Karate (page 1)

Judo (page 1)

Jeet Kune Do (this page)

Wing Chun (this page)

‘Kung Fu’ (this page)

Recommendation Synopsis/FAQ: (page 1)

Jeet Kune Do/Jeet Kun Do

Type: Striking & Grappling. Mostly Striking.

Availability: Medium (many cities will have classes running; less so small towns, university clubs, etc)

Structure: Varies, some classes use grades, others don’t.

Weapon Defence: Yes, though the quality of the techniques varies wildly. Caveat emptor.

Sparring: Yes.

Practicality: I have a lot of time for JKD, possibly too much given my opinion of many of the techniques commonly taught under the term. Despite this, I would not recommend it as a self-defence martial art. The core problem when analysing Jeet Kune Do is it’s strength, the fact that it’s not a set school of techniques; JKD is more of an overall mindset for approaching martial arts as a field of study, self defence and athletic performance. What many teach as ‘Jeet Kune Do’ is their own preferred set of martial arts techniques, or ones similar to those used by Bruce Lee. The former varies wildly in quality and is impossible to cover in such a brief article, so the latter is what I’ll talk about here.

The major problem I have with JKD is its reliance on high kicks and its sideways stance. The latter (if you’ve ever fenced, it’s similar) always strikes me as leaving your back and leading leg extremely vulnerable. Many will claim that this isn’t the case, and that you can twist and use various counters to compensate for this. But then, why not just use a 45 degree stance in the first place? I know the general arguments here, including those Lee proposed (less telegraphing of attacks with the leading side, smaller profile to defend), but I personally don’t think they’re worth making half your presented area harder to defend. When your opponent knows what they’re doing, a sideways stance will make your leading leg an easy target, and your kidneys/back much more difficult to defend.

On kicks.. Kicking above the waist is a bad idea. This is a rule of thumb; there will be situations where it’s worthwhile. But I think JKD uses it past that limited remit, and that makes me disinclined to recommend it to anyone as a first port of call for self-defence. Kicks above the waist are high-commitment, usually quite telegraphed (though one of JKD’s strengths is minimizing this) and easy to counter (sidestep/backstep block, grab leg, topple person).

I’ve read Bruce Lee’s founding text (The Tao of Jeet Kune Do), and initially found it frustrating; the text is riddled with contradictions when read straight as a teaching manual. Do not think of good and bad techniques, then later “here is a good punch” (paraphrased). There are many instances like that throughout the text. But I think that this is fundamental to the point Lee was trying to make; He doesn’t want to teach a set of moves as the ones those following in his path should adopt. Jeet Kune Do is a philosophical approach to martial arts, and the interpretation of the text I came away with was that the techniques were presented as an example, with the reader left to consider them but ultimately make their own. Lee is showing us examples of his Jeet Kune Do, not The Best or The One Jeet Kune Do.

In short, The Tao of Jeet Kune Do is like a drawing manual. You shouldn’t take the drawings as “These are the best drawings ever, copy them and you will be a great artist”. They’re examples of an approach, presented for you to learn from and develop your own art with.

This is all pretty heavy stuff for an article that’s stated aim is a quick and dirty guide to self-defence classes, I know. This is why I wouldn’t recommend JKD as a go-to martial art for learning to defend yourself. It’s more a monastic philosophy of developing yourself as a martial artist, and developing your own martial art.

Atmosphere: n/a. I’ve never been to a JKD club, nor have I heard from others about them. I should poke my nose in the local group sometime, and will give an impression if/when that happens. It’s often stated that Wing Chun was created by and for women, so potentially there may be more and a more welcoming atmosphere to women as a result.

Wing Chun/Wing Tsun

Type: Striking & Grappling. Mostly Striking.

Availability: Medium

Structure: Usually graded.

Weapons Defence: Often included. Haven’t seen any WC weapons drills/defence, so can’t really comment there.

Sparring: Usually.

Practicality: Wing Chun is the subject of a lot of controversy on the ‘net, so you’ll find a lot of wildly divergent opinions on this. My personal opinion based on a small amount of personal experience and the usual visual analysis is that it’s not very good. Arrow punching, one of the core techniques, is not very effective. The trapping techniques are often only of use when you consider it in the context of other Chinese martial arts. All too often it seems to be a stiff flurry of quick blows which a sufficiently confident or experienced opponent could shrug off or plow through. The kicks at least seem to be fairly sensible, with Wing Chun refraining from the lavish high-kicks that characterise some other Chinese martial arts. The rolling struck me as awkward and clumsy in comparison to Japanese martial arts, but for self defence rolls are only really practical as a way of quickly rising into a defensible position, so this isn’t as big a problem as it seems. Again, Wing Chun focuses a lot on kata, which I’ve explained my problems with in the prior article. I don’t have any experience with the grappling, so I couldn’t really offer an opinion there.

I’ve been told that the silly dancing that Wing Chun is infamous for is only used in training situations to gain a proper stance. This seems unwise to me, though it’s infinitely better than going through the whole riguramole every time you need to fight. Ideally, you should practice with an eye to self-defence; If you practice going into your stance in a convoluted manner, that will make it all the harder to assume when you need it.

This video sums up a lot of the problems with Wing Chun (hilariously pliant uke aside, which is a problem a lot of martial arts have). Stiff stance, focus on quick punches without any real power to them, relying on the flurry of blows to overwhelm their opponent. The heel thing on the ground.. Just, wow. I don’t think I can sum up the problems with that in words. The two things that don’t make me wince at the impracticality in that video are the leg grab counter to a high-kick; that’s fairly hard to mess up. Elbows to a floored opponent do work, but risk various horrible injuries that will be difficult to explain to a jury.

Overall, not recommended.

Atmosphere: Depends on the club, as ever. The (University) class I attended was fairly open/casual, but your mileage may vary.

‘Kung Fu’/'Gung Fu’

Type: Striking & Grappling. Mostly Striking.

Availability: High

Structure: Varies, usually graded.

Weapons Defence: Usually, wildly variant depending on class.

Sparring: Varies. Kung Fu is the most frequent abuser of the “It’s too deadly to spar with!” excuse. This is rubbish. Spar without the ‘deadly’ techniques, use soft sparring, etc. There are ways around this, and it doesn’t float.

Practicality: It’s hard to post a synopsis of Kung Fu. The reason I put it in inverted commas in the title is that Kung Fu isn’t one martial art; it’s a Chinese term for a subject of study, which has since been assumed as a term for any and all Chinese martial arts. Many classes that call themselves ‘Kung Fu’ classes will end up teaching one specific variant with it’s own name and traditions (Wing Chun, for instance) or a mishmash of various different styles.

In general, Kung Fu suffers the problem many Traditional Martial Arts (TMAs) have, which is that they haven’t aged well. Often they are developed within a specific cultural context, or as a counter to styles popular at the time, and in a contemporary setting are suboptimal. For example, many Kung Fu schools teach practice with weapons you will never, ever meet in a real life situation short of a fight breaking out in a museum. Many have adapted to sell on their flashy techniques, such as butterfly kicks, flying kicks and the like. While these draw crowds of students, they’re not very practical (see the Jeet Kune Do section for my stance on the impracticality of high kicks, apply it in triple strength to this type).

If you want to learn flashy kicks and beautiful poses, Wushu is a school of Kung Fu that is designed specifically for this. Competitions are graded on it, in fact. It doesn’t pretend to have modern self-defence applications, and so I have a certain respect for it because of that as a sport.

If you go to another Kung Fu class, expect wildly different experiences and quality of techniques depending on the style in question, but often a stern approach to tradition and reluctance to change mean that Kung Fu has ultimately fallen to the wayside in terms of self-defence. That said, it’s one of the most frequent users of crotch and eye attacks (depending on style), which is a point in it’s favour in my opinion. Overall however, not recommended.

Atmosphere: Depends on the club, as ever. The (University, again) class I attended was fairly open/casual, but your mileage may vary.

Self Defence for Queers, Crips and other Minorities: Part 1

As someone who is new to martial arts, the wealth of different schools and conflicting opinions can be overwhelming. This, combined with an atmosphere that can often be hostile to people from minority groups, can lead to many of just giving up, or ending up confused or misinformed. As we are vastly more likely to be attacked, either by total strangers or by people we thought of as lovers, family or friends, this seems more than a little unfair, and in this article I hope to rectify this a little by providing an overview of the most common martial arts available, as well as the standard advice I’ve picked up through my travels.

King of Fighters XIII, and what it says about SNK’s views on women and minorities.

So, I’m updating for the first time in ages. Is it the much-needed dealing-with-DLA post? Is it a protest update?

No, it’s rambling about videogames. Which, fuck, may not seem that important on the surface, but the way that people are portrayed in media shapes the audience’s ideas and behavior. If you disagree with that statement, I’m not going to spend pages arguing the point. There’s a wealth of information out there on how bigotted representations in media affect people’s ideas and behavior. I highly recommend you Google it before you form a response.

Anyway. There’s recently been a fair amount of controversy over sexism in the Fighting Game community. Looking at the most popular fighting games around right now (Street Fighter, Tekken, King of Fighters, Blazblue) it’s fairly easy to form an idea of how this would come about. But to say it’s a problem in fighting game fans is missing the point; it’s a problem in videogames in general. Women and minorities are treated like shit in the majority of mainstream games, regardless of genre. Resident Evil 5. Bayonetta. Batman: Arkham City. World of Warcraft. There are multiple examples in any genre. I’m not here to say fighting games are the worst, I think that’s a fairly pointless conversation. But King of Fighters XIII? Yeah, it’s one of the worst I’ve ever seen.

First off, I have really, really wanted to like this game. SNK have been lagging behind Capcom for a while now, and I have little love for the latter. I got into King of Fighters on the recommendation of a friend after having played Street Fighter on and off for years, and the more fleshed out characters (Street Fighter’s roster are cardboard cut-outs, participating in a plot you’d expect to find on the back of a cereal box) and deeper gameplay system drew me in. So, I was eager to see XIII get a release date, and when it came out I quickly went out and bought it. I’d heard there was racism in XII, but I shared the hope that this (amid XII’s various other problems; not a loved game by the community) would be fixed.

Oh boy. What a treat I got.

Two of the strong, independant female characters (Yuri & King) had been given ‘special’ animations upon their defeat. If you beat either one with a special move, their tops get ripped off, exposing their breasts and underwear. Oh, joy. While blatantly wheeled out for the male gaze, they had precedent within the series, leading to many defending them as a callback to their early days as characters.

Truly a golden time. I can see why any company would want to bring back such memories for their fans. Beaten foes are depicted in many ways in videogames. Angry, hurt, despairing, defiant, disbelieving; What’s creepy is when this is used with female characters to make them sexy.  Because heck, when’s a better time to oggle a woman’s titties than when you’ve literally beaten the clothes off of her, right?

You would have hoped that during the 20 years since Art of Fighting, SNK might want to show how far their characters have progressed. But, no. Under the paper-thin guise of reminesence (seriously, you’d want to reminesce over misogyny in your old games by adding new, similar misogyny to your new ones?), characters who’ve gained depth and meaning over the past two decades are reduced to delicious female objects for the ‘loving’ gaze of the fanboys.

Then there’s Mai. Mai.. Has always been a fanservice character. I’m really not sure what to make of her. Words fail me, so hopefully a picture will do.

Yep. Those are breasts.

Honestly, in a game where there was more equal graphical ‘love’ given to the men, I wouldn’t mind Mai so much. Obviously in contemporary society male and female representation and objectification are hugely unequal, but it would have been easier for me to swallow if, say, Ash Crimson or Benimaru were given similar levels of fanservice. It would have been at least a nod to SNK knowing that women are people, and that they have fans outside of stereotypical male gamers; Drooling virgin post-adolescent straight men. I know plenty of guys who find this kind of thing uncomfortable, not to mention embarressing to play. But apparently the fanbase that SNK seek to cater for are those who enjoy this kind of fanservice, and would feel strange and uncomfortable emotions if they were presented with the possibility that a male could be portrayed similarly. To compound the problem, many of the male members of the cast spend their time slut-shaming Mai for how she acts. So; let’s dress our character up to be a slut, then shame and demean her for it through the voice of our male cast. Women should only be sexy when they’ve been beaten up, right? The image SNK holds of their fanbase is looking to be a pretty fucking unpleasant one.

When I started playing, the first thing that leapt out at me in XIII was the jungle stage. Instead of improving and getting rid of the racism in XII (Chinese people are given all the dignity of a yellow menace propoganda poster), they’ve taken it to even worse extremes. I mean, wow. A jungle full of squat, half-human black people in loincloths, skirts and tribal paint, with pot bellies, puffy lips, blank, unintelligent eyes and.. Fuck. You get the idea. This left me floored when I first saw it, as to how any developer in 2011 could take that design and go “Yeah, this is a really good idea for our game”.

Classy.

There’s some debate over whether these people are even supposed to be human or not. Some of them seem to have tails, whereas from their use of clothing and tools, they seem pretty obviously meant as having human cognitive abilities. If this is meant as a screen to defend against allegations of racism, it’s a piss-poor one. It doesn’t matter whether they’re meant as human or not; they’re a mess of some of the worst stereotypes of people of colour, and making them inhuman if anything makes that worse.  The confusing part of this being, King of Fighters has a rich history of characters of various ethnicities, who are usually treated as fairly as any others. So it seems like here SNK have specifically created a species to encapsulate their perception of ethnic minorities. People have tried this approach before. It doesn’t work.

So, yeah. I’m not sure how much I can say on this point; I’m not a member of an ethnic minority group, so I can’t speak about how this directly affects me. While it makes me uncomfortable to see such demeaning portrayals, I can only percieve it from a white perspective, and call such instances when I see them. Which is probably why I was able to ignore this aspect for a while and still play the game.
Don’t worry though, everyone! King of Fighters XIII has enough fail for all of us to enjoy!

How about some transphobia? The 5 o’clock shadow ugly transwoman is a comedy classic, after all! C’mon, let’s wheel that one out.

It’s fairly hard to see here, but those two at the leftmost side of the girls group have been given beard-shadowing. As we all know, trans women are all ultra-feminine, but we always leave our faces covered in shadow for comic effect. Looking closer, they’ve been put at a distance from the other female bystanders, and are the only ones who’ve not been given the ‘classic’ female facial features exhibited in the ones to the right.

The power of zoom compells you!

Again, people might argue this one. But then, why would SNK make the colouring on these two’s faces markedly different in the beard area, then seperate them off from the other girls, then give them more masculine facial features (brow, jawline)? I think anyone who argues that they’re still not meant to be trans at this point is looking  more than a little desperate. But hey, let’s look at how SNK treats overtly-trans people! That’ll give us a bead on how to read this, right?

Oh.

Oh god.

Excuse me while I go headdesk a bottle of whiskey.

So; The same portrayal of trans people. Feminine clothing, overtly male build (compare the two in the stage screenshot to their companions to the right; one looks similar to this example, the other fat enough to be androgynous), masculine features, 5 o’clock shadow. In this scene, Andy and Terry are both embraced by female members of the King of Fighters cast. Joe is instead embraced by this trans woman, who chases him down and kisses him, which apparently horrifies Joe enough to leave him an emaciated husk, with his ghost drifting up out of his body as he tries to pretend this hasn’t happened. His teammates look either disgusted/concerned or amused.

Yes, we do devote our lives to forcing ourselves onto poor, innocent cisgendered men, either through ‘trickery’ or brute force. In fact, our whole aim in life is to evoke disgust and revulsion in others. Our only redeeming trait is that we, by inflicting this horrible fate on others, may induce some humour through schaudenfraude. Laugh at us. It’s all we’re good for.

Or, that’s a sickening stereotype that should have been taken out and shot long, long ago, but is kept alive by shitty writers who can’t be arsed to come up with fresh material, and so trot us out as a cheap and easy shot because they’re bigotted fucks,  and instead we’re actual human beings. Along with other women. And ethnic minorities.

Yeah, SNK can go fuck themselves. I’ve tried to like them, as they’re one of the few alternatives to Capcom in the 2D fighting market, but they’ve gone out of their way to alienate, objectify and ridicule anyone who strays from their target audience, taking the cheapest, most outdated stereotypes and portrayals and making it seem as if the past 20 years in videogame progression had never happened. The ‘ideal’ fans they seem to be catering for are apparently a group of sexually-repressed straight white cisgendered guys, who see ethnic minorities as subhuman, women as objects and trans people as beings of scorn and disgust. Anyone who isn’t a member of this elite crowd is going to be left feeling very uncomfortable by many of the aspects in this game.

Fuck you, SNK. Fuck you.

Signal Boosting an Excellent Article on Welfare Reform: “The Square Root of Nothing”

http://lartsocial.org/benefitcap

On Guilt and Surviving

This post is for all those disabled people who feel guilty for not ‘doing enough’, even when they’re scraping by on benefits/unofficial support networks, and often living on the edge of financial, physical and psychological ruin on a regular basis.

You don’t owe anyone your life. That doesn’t just mean a plate of bread and a glass of water, that means the things you need to get by. The things that aid you in ways that others may not comprehend. The time you spend with friends. The money you spend making your life bearable. The treats you cherish because they make wading through the daily shitpile worth it for a little while longer.

I know how much it hurts when you see others throwing so much into fights that you know to be vital. The self-hatred that comes creeping round when a dozen threats are looming over you and those you care about, and you can’t be there to raise your voice with the rest. The feelings of inferiority that comes when others are ennobled for giving the energy you never had. What I’m trying to say is that that guilt is misplaced. You are not lazy for not burning yourself out on the bonfire of activism. You are not greedy for spending money making your life bearable, or even enjoyable. You are not less for not being dealt a hand full of aces. And you are not guilty for not giving what you need to The Cause.

This part is just as important to remember. By doing all those things, by surviving, you are fighting, too. It would make it so much easier for those in power if the disabled did not exist, or just curled up and died. By resisting that, by living, you are fighting them. It may be a way so small as to seem insignificant, but it still matters. You are another cripple on the street. You are another disabled person on their registers. You are another stain in their pristine uniformity that won’t come out no matter how hard they try and wash you away. You exist, and thus you contribute to that same fight. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

If all of this sounds like excuses for not being brave, for not being noble or just or great, then consider the noise in the background. We live in a society where we are constantly barraged by the idea that everyone has the same chance, that everyone can do whatever they want with some elbow-grease and some goddamned bootstraps. This is a lie. Meritocracy and all it’s rhetoric comes apart at the seams if you look hard enough, and while it may be ubiquituous in it’s broadcast, that doesn’t make it right. Great people were more often than not dealt great hands at the start, and they always had ones that they could build up with. If you find you can only scrape by with your own, that doesn’t make you a lesser person.

Letter to the Panorama Team at the BBC, in Response to “Britain on the Fiddle”

“Hello,

I am writing to you to express my disappointment with your program, specifically it’s portrayal of disabled people. You consistently misrepresent the facts (eg: Lumping together fraud & error statistics to make the former appear larger) and paint disabled people in Britain as nothing more than scrounging parasites. You present participation in sports such as sailing or cycling as scandalous evidence of lack of disablement, which is not only a clear error (which highlights the lack of research done by the program makers), but is also an extremely dangerous one to make, as it actively contributes to the atmosphere of violence which is directed towards disabled people in this time of economic hardship. Your program has severely cut short my own attempts to return to the sports I enjoy, as I worry that if I do so I will be at risk of violence, harrassment and institutional persecution. This is a direct result of the misinformation spread during your program.

I had hoped that a program with such a history of journalistic integrity would strive to live up to it’s heritage. I see now that this hope was ill-founded.”

Anyone who wishes to join me on this can contact the Panorama team at: panorama.reply@bbc.co.uk

Signal Boosting: Journeys with Autism Reply to SBC

An extremely well written article taking apart the assumptions made by Simon-Baron-Cohen in his book on autistic people and psychopaths (“Zero Degrees of Empathy” or “The Science of Evil”, depending on where it’s published). Isn’t it comforting to have this guy as one of the leading professional voices on your mindstate?

http://www.journeyswithautism.com/2011/09/19/my-reply-to-simon-baron-cohen/