Runcible Blog

What was the first word you spoke today? Do you ever pay attention to that initial bit of wind tickling your vocal cords? Maybe it's more significant than we consider.

After thinking about it recently, I believe my first word is usually "hello." Sometimes I sing when I wake up or during my commute, but more often than not, my mornings are silent until I arrive at work. If I buy breakfast in the cafeteria, I might talk to Mark, who works there. Usually, though, I just say "hello" or "thank you." He says "have a nice day," and I say "you too." But by then, the first words have already passed. If I don't buy food first, then I say hello to whoever is in the office at the time. Most often, it's simply "hello" to start the day.

There are days when the first word doesn't come until late in the afternoon, if at all. That's when I'm most conscious of the first word. I sometimes imagine that my words are just bottled up inside, and that when I finally get around to speaking them, it'll be some kind of epic moment. Or I think that if I don't speak for a long time, the first word will come out cracked and sound alien. I might even forget how to make the sound I intend. But of course, it never happens that way. I say, "vegetarian burrito" or "rigatoni with sauce and cheese" or something similarly mundane. I might pause slightly and think, "hey, my voice still exists! It's the same as before, and nothing impeded its articulation."

It's really quite amazing how seamlessly we are able to transmute the voice of our constantly-buzzing thoughts into a physical manifestation as pressure nodes through air. No wonder speaking becomes such a trivial, mindless effort — when the capacity to excrete thoughts into the physical world arises so naturally, what prevents us from spouting off every half-thought that dribbles through the brain?

Part of the answer is that we need to make sense of the proto-thoughts before they're even able to be communicated. If you try to snatch the typical stream of thoughts in your brain and immediately speak them, they probably sound like gibberish, or at best, tangential and fragmented. We're just so good at congealing the stew of thoughts into communicable packets that we take for granted the computation involved and just how messy the thinking realm is compared to the speaking realm. Speaking is the act of temporarily decreasing the entropy of the mind, and as such, every speech increases the entropy elsewhere: in my mind and in yours, or through the air, knocking some far-off butterfly from its path and setting a typhoon in motion.

Often, the part of my brain that speaks lags behind the rest. I struggle to vocalize the stew of proto-thoughts. Either they seem incapable of ordering correctly, or too many thoughts appear at once. This can be very frustrating, especially when someone else is counting on my ability to communicate. If somebody asks why a program misbehaved, I might understand immediately and intuitively why, but putting the understanding to words takes much more effort. It's like preparing an airplane for landing — you can't just flip all of the switches and cut the engines at once; you've got to be meticulous to transition from the flying world to the ground world. Someone who doesn't practice landing enough is going to have a tough time putting the plane down smoothly, just as someone who speaks infrequently may have trouble expressing his stew of thoughts.

It's important to try not to be frivolous in thought or speech, and even though one's first daily utterance doesn't need to be something profound, I think that being aware of one word can help carry an awareness throughout the day. At the very least, recalling the first word could be an intriguing experiment of self-discovery. Do you wake up and swear at your alarm clock? Do you turn over and greet a lover? What is the intention behind the word? How present are you in that moment the word leaves your lips? That's the key: by being completely present in this one, first word, you might make a difference in someone's life. Then, be present during the next word, and during the next thought. Finally, treat every moment with the same respectful awareness until the effort falls away and the clarity of your speech matches the clarity of your thoughts.

Hey, I might try that!

In my fourth week since starting kickboxing, I decided to experience a new set of aches and pains by learning Jiu-jitsu and grappling. I've been going to the gym almost every day and have gotten used to the ebb and flow of different specific injuries (tendonitis in my foot, blisters and cuts on my feet, strained groin or hip), but wrestling is showing me an exciting and unpredictable level of hurt. Today, my lower back feels like one big bruise, and I'm walking around like I've got a peg-leg.

The range of skills I've been learning outweighs the immediate discomfort, though. In the general grappling class, we do falls, throws, takedowns, and free sparring, while the Jiu-jitsu classes teach specific submissions and footwork. The free sparring is the most exciting and frustrating part for me. As a beginner, I'm usually in a defensive mode where I have to squirm around to prevent the other guy from getting into a dominant position. I've found that I'm reasonably good at defending against people more knowledgeable or slightly bigger than I am, but when it comes time to capitalize on all of that squirming, I don't yet know what to do and end up losing any brief advantage I had. Jiu-jitsu emphasizes using your opponent's force against him, whether that force comes from a strike or from his own joints (most submissions are simply achieved by pulling a limb in an unnatural direction; by aligning it correctly, one needs hardly any force to do serious damage). Similarly, every position or attempted submission has a corresponding escape. Even if someone is sitting on top of you with his weight on your torso — probably the worst place for you to be — there are ways to turn the situation around and end up in a more neutral position. Or if you're being choked and the choker doesn't have quite the right position, he can struggle forever without succeeding because you can move your body to alleviate the pressure. That's why the mantra is "position before submission": Jiu-jitsu is like a chess game, in that if you put all of the pieces into the right places, the outcome plays itself out effortlessly. What makes Jiu-jitsu more complicated is that the entire time you're thinking about the body mechanics and trying to find the right opening for a submission, your opponent can be punching you in the face, pushing on your liver, or generally being very distracting.

The grappling classes seem to have more serious students than the level 1 kickboxing classes. You can take kickboxing only for the cardio workout or be content to work on technique by kicking a bag thousands of times, but grappling requires a bit more of an investment. The folks I've met in the grappling classes seem to know each other's names and are willing to help each other improve, while many people in the kickboxing classes might as well have headphones and blinders on. I'm sure that the fact that Jiu-jitsu involves close physical contact (like this [which is a good example of a "rear naked choke with hooks". she'll have a tough time getting out of that one...]) compels people to get to know one another, but it's an interesting social difference to note. Also, there are no women in the grappling classes and only a couple in the Jiu-jitsu classes (which are slightly more geared toward self-defense). From a self-defense perspective, that's a little disappointing because I would think that women, in particular, would want to know what to do if they're pinned by someone stronger. Kickboxing is pretty much useless when someone is sitting on top of you.

I'm still working on finding a good training schedule with a mixture of kickboxing technique, conditioning, and grappling. The classes complement each other well — kickboxers without ground fighting skills are likely to lose in a real fight because most fights end up on the ground, while Jiu-jitsu fighters who focus on wrestling have sloppy or weak punches and kicks. Of course, I still don't know whether or if I'll ever use these interesting skills in real life (it's funny that Jiu-jitsu instructors seem to have found themselves in lots of street fights over the years, while I've never been in such a situation and don't intend on looking for any bar brawls. go figure.), but my curiosity and fascination haven't waned yet. Plus, there are still parts of me that remain to be injured.

pet peeve: using the word "crash" as a euphemism for "sleep."

Substituting crash for sleep doesn't make the act of sleeping any hipper, contrary to popular usage. Why is it acceptable to say, "I partied so hard that I had to crash at my friend's house," while it would be awkward to say, "my grandfather usually crashes around 6pm, after eating dinner and watching the History Channel"? In the former case, there's at least some tenuous relationship to the original definition of "crash," but people also try to stretch the meaning to apply more to situations like the latter example. For instance, if I invite someone over for tea and crumpets, and my guest is too tired to go home, he'd be silly to say, "hey, dude, may I crash here?" There's no crashing in that situation. I'm sorry. Unless you come stumbling into the door, knocking things over and peeing on the floor, you're not crashing. Perhaps you're settling in for a long winter's nap, resting your eyes, having a bit of a doze, or paying a visit to winkin' blinkin' and nod. But you, sir, are not crashing.

Instead of worrying about using the euphemism tastefully, just don't use it at all. I don't want to hear about anyone crashing unless we're talking about airplanes or automobiles. While it may not be as edgy just to sleep, the word works perfectly well on its own.

In general, I'm irked when people hijack usurp commandeer words and misuse their alternate definitions. So, knock it off, you dig?

(tune in next time for the complete list of words that Dave does not speak because they make him feel uncomfortable to hear out loud)

I just finished my first week of kickboxing at Redline Fight Sports, and I'm feeling good. At first, I felt completely wrecked all over after an hour-long class, but I'm gradually recovering quicker and feeling like I got a work-out rather than a hurt-out. Kickboxing works all sorts of muscles that I never use; I had a mysterious soreness in my hip flexors that caused me to want to walk around hunched over because it was painful to straighten myself. Surprisingly, the pain went away after a couple of days of stretching and more kicking. Already, I can see an improvement in balance and flexibility.

Redline primarily teaches Sanshou/Sanda, a derivative of Kung Fu, I guess. It's very practical, with no "flying dragon" or "drunken monkey" moves and no emphasis on "qi" or anything like that. That practicality appeals to me, especially when the instructor explains the mechanics behind the technique (for instance, roundhouse kicking is all about maximizing torque from the hips and pivoting leg, not flailing the shin around). In the first class, because I didn't even know anything about absorbing a kick or punch (there's no sparring in level 1, but we pair up and hit pads), I became exhausted getting pushed off balance every time. But this last class I started to get the hang of how to hold my legs to send the force of the blow down into the floor instead of into my lower back.

I picked this martial art because I wanted to be motivated to get into shape, and running just wasn't cutting it for me. I've always lacked the motivation to run, even when I was competing. And forget about lifting weights — I feel totally foolish pushing heavy metal things around. I'm fascinated by kickboxing (and hence, motivated to continue) because it's so demanding of correct technique. I'm learning about my body in addition to training it in very specific ways. With running, technique is important, but you can get by with the worst form (and probably hurt yourself, eventually). You might even be lucky enough to run quickly without correct form. Martial arts are different; even basic punches require attention to every limb. Continually learning how to control myself keeps me interested in all of the boring stuff (push-ups, crunches, squat jumps — stuff I'd never care to do otherwise).

It might sound silly that I'm just now seeing the value of learning a martial art, but I guess I never knew the point before. On the one hand, it would have been valuable to learn something like this when I was a kid, but on the other hand, there's a high likelihood that I would have been running around in a white suit, collecting colored belts, and learning how to bow to the sensei. Besides, as a kid, I didn't care about learning how to shape my mind and body. Who does? (Hell, for a while, I used to eat at McDonald's every day after school. Yikes!)

Just about the only things I have going for me now are a history of endurance training and naturally strong legs. It will take a while to work on flexibility and building up my feeble arms, but even gradual progress is exciting to see after being used to a sedentary lifestyle. Although I'll probably never be serious enough to compete (even sparring is kind of worrisome only because I'd have to remove my nipple rings, which would be very inconvenient after almost 7 years of having them), I'd like to be good at Sanshou. That's always my advice to myself: work hard enough to be good at the things you do, or don't even bother.

I'm so glad that Barack Obama has ended racism in America.  I can't wait to see him eliminate poverty, solve global climate change, and bring peace to the Middle East.  In his second term, he'll cure aging and bring us faster-than-light travel to the stars.

Barack Obama, you're our only hope!