Transcript: Yesterday my cousin said that my rooster wasn't a real rooster. He said he's a Walmart rooster. *chicken noises* Does this not look like a real rooster to you? *chicken makes a sound again* Sure, he's small, but he has feelings.
important context this person looks and sounds like theyâre gonna cry
I have never felt so validated in never having given up on Tumblr.
"This is hilarious. It appears that Twitter is DDOSing itself. The Twitter home feed's been down for most of this morning. Even though nothing loads, the Twitter website never stops trying and trying. In the first video, notice the error message that I'm being rate limited. Then notice the jiggling scrollbar on the right. The second video shows why it's jiggling. Twitter is firing off about 10 requests a second to itself to try and fetch content that never arrives because Elon's latest genius innovation is to block people from being able to read Twitter without logging in. This likely created some hellish conditions that the engineers never envisioned and so we get this comedy of errors resulting in the most epic of self-owns, the self-DDOS. Unbelievable. It's amateur hour."
So he artificially limited the number of tweets you can see per day with a "free" account.
Once you hit your limit, it stops you from loading the page. But it also doesn't know WHY it isn't loading, so it keeps TRYING.
Twitter is literally hitting itself in the face ten times per second per user.
This is so completely amateurish it's unbelievable. It's like putting your car in neutral and slamming your foot on the gas until your engine redlines and then wondering why it's making a horrible noise and a terrible smell but not going anywhere.
Not to be #cute on main but I simply will not rest until the Supreme Court as an institution is nothing but ash and soot underneath my feet đđđĽ°đĽ°đ
Whoa guys check out this #cute pic I found online đĽ°đĽ°đĽ°
Vajira Gunasekera
Red-backed Flameback
(Dinopium psarodes)
At Handhala Wattela, Sri Lanka
Yup I can see why they decided to say it twice
that is very red
july is disability pride month !! so, hereâs a reminder that respect isnât something disabled people should have to earn or fight for, but something that should be given naturally, this month and every month.
there is still so much ableism not just in the wider society, but in queer spaces and communities, even amongst other disabled people - as a person with autism, i am part of the disabled community, but i know that that i still have more privilege than people with physical disabilities who are harmed by the unaccommodating design of our buildings and public spaces; or more stigmatised metal disorders and disabilities such as psychosis, schizophrenia and dissociative disorders.
so, this disability pride month i urge not just for more respect in the wider community, but within the disabled community itself. celebrate your own disability/ies, but make sure you celebrate other disabilities too and never put someone down for being âmoreâ or differently disabled than you.
happy disability pride month from your local anxious autistic girlie <3 itâs a time to celebrate
Happy Disability Pride Month! This is how I set up my continuous feeds for my feeding tube! Also if you wanted to follow me on Instagram @ paralyzedguts for more disability posting that would be cool đ
Video description: Dave setting up their feeds on a Kangaroo Joey pump, set to the song âFruit Saladâ by The Wiggles. In line with the steps describing the salad, Dave goes through the steps of their set-up.
They first show a Refreshe water bottle. They show themself mix 1/8tsp of potassium citrate from Bulk Supplements and 5 Klaralyte sodium/potassium capsules into a bottle of water and then shake it well. The video pans to 3 cartons of Kate Farms Peptide 1.0 formula and two bottles of water. The next frame is of the filled feed/flush bags, then it pans down to the pump, which is priming. The next frame shows Dave hitting ârunâ on their pump, then the video ends with Dave showing their G and J ports connected to the running feed. /end description
Matilda (movie) remake where Trunchbull looks like one of those hyper feminine bleach blonde Republican women you see on talk shows as the token girl/eye candy. And then Miss Honey is a soft-hearted, handy, tie-wearing Butch.
Analysis of data from dozens of foraging societies around the world shows that women hunt in at least 79% of these societies, opposing the widespread belief that men exclusively hunt and women exclusively gather. Abigail Anderson of Seattle Pacific University, US, and colleagues presented these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on June 28, 2023. A common belief holds that, among foraging populations, men have typically hunted animals while women gathered plant products for food. However, mounting archaeological evidence from across human history and prehistory is challenging this paradigm; for instance, women in many societies have been found buried alongside big-game hunting tools. Some researchers have suggested that women's role as hunters was confined to the past, with more recent foraging societies following the paradigm of men as hunters and women as gatherers. To investigate that possibility, Anderson and colleagues analyzed data from the past 100 years on 63 foraging societies around the world, including societies in North and South America, Africa, Australia, Asia, and the Oceanic region. They found that women hunt in 79% of the analyzed societies, regardless of their status as mothers. More than 70% of female hunting appears to be intentionalâas opposed to opportunistic killing of animals encountered while performing other activities, and intentional hunting by women appears to target game of all sizes, most often large game. The analysis also revealed that women are actively involved in teaching hunting practices and that they often employ a greater variety of weapon choice and hunting strategies than men.
These findings suggest that, in many foraging societies, women are skilled hunters and play an instrumental role in the practice, adding to the evidence opposing long-held perceptions about gender roles in foraging societies. The authors note that these stereotypes have influenced previous archaeological studies, with, for instance, some researchers reluctant to interpret objects buried with women as hunting tools. They call for reevaluation of such evidence and caution against misapplying the idea of men as hunters and women as gatherers in future research. The authors add, "Evidence from around the world shows that women participate in subsistence hunting in the majority of cultures."
The relationship between subsistence activity and gender was compiled by reading ethnographic reports of foraging societies. A list of potential foraging societies along with their location and type of subsistence activity was first constructed using D-PLACE, the Database of Places, Languages, Culture and Environment [17]. This database is based on the ethnographic atlas by Lewis Binford [18] and contains detailed information on over 1,400 human societies. In order to reasonably sample across geographic areas, 391 foraging societies from around the globe were chosen to investigate further. Of the 391 different societies the continent, location, ecosystem, and primary subsistence activity were obtained from D-PLACE and recorded. Each foraging society was then investigated by searching through the original references cited in D-PLACE [17], Binford [18], and by searching digitized databases and archives. Multiple reports featuring the same foraging societies were read to ensure accuracy and reliability. Of the 391 foraging societies, explicit data on hunting was obtained for 63 of the societies (Fig 1; Table 1).Â
Data used for this study included reports on what, when, and how hunting occurred in the cultural group. Ethnographic reports needed to include explicit information, in the form of tables or sentences that females went on hunting trips, and were involved in tracking, locating animals, and helping with the killing if applicable. Given that there is a difference between the phrase âwomen went huntingâ and âwomen accompanied the huntersâ it should be noted that we were looking for phrases along the lines of âwomen were huntingâ or âwomen killed animals,â not references to the idea that women might be accompanying men âonlyâ to carry the kills home, though obviously this does happen as well (e.g. [19]). Specific contributions such how much killing took place, and total calories from female-only kills were not written about frequently enough to warrant their assessment here.
If women were hunting, it was further investigated to see if the hunting was done purposely, whether women would go out with the intention to hunt, or whether women were hunting spontaneously (i.e. âopportunisticallyâ); this might occur when women may have been doing a different task but if the opportunity arose, they would kill an animal. This was determined by explicit statements in the published literature or by a judgment based on the descriptions. Womenâs involvement in hunting was determined by written documentation explicitly stating that women were hunting in that particular foraging society or were excluded and in some instances even forbidden to hunt. The most important subsistence activity was also compared to the relative frequency of women hunting. Additionally, the type of the game hunted was assembled into three categories of small, medium, and large. The type of game was defined by the relative size of the prey, hunting toolkit that was used, or if size was explicitly stated in the literature. For example, when looking at the Tiwi society of Australia, a study reported that Tiwi women regularly hunted small animals while the hunting of large game was a manâs activity, suggesting that women were involved in hunting small game only [20]. In instances where the type of game was not explicitly stated, it was determined from other clues in the report. For example, accounts of the Matses from the Amazon state that the women would strike their prey with large sticks and machetes, which would account for large game whereas other societies had documentation of small digging sticks or the killing of rodents, suggesting the prevalence of small game hunting [21]. The prevalence of women hunting with children and dogs was also recorded and analyzed based on statements in the literature.
Compiled data were analyzed to determine the frequency of females hunting, the type of hunting accomplished, as well as the relative size of game.
Data were compiled from literature on sixty-three different foraging societies across the globe. These included nineteen different foraging societies from North America, six from South America, twelve from Africa, fifteen from Australia, five from Asia and six from the Oceanic region (Fig 1 & Table 1). Of the 63 different foraging societies, 50 (79%) of the groups had documentation on women hunting. Of the 50 societies that had documentation on women hunting, 41 societies had data on whether women hunting was intentional or opportunistic. Of the latter, 36 (87%) of the foraging societies described womenâs hunting as intentional, as opposed to the 5 (12%) societies that described hunting as opportunistic. In societies where hunting is considered the most important subsistence activity, women actively participated in hunting 100% of the time.
The type of game women hunted was variable based on the society. Of the 50 foraging societies that have documentation on women hunting, 45 (90%) societies had data on the size of game that women hunted. Of these, 21 (46%) hunt small game, 7 (15%) hunt medium game, 15 (33%) hunt large game and 2 (4%) of these societies hunt game of all sizes. In societies where women only hunted opportunistically, small game was hunted 100% of the time. In societies where women were hunting intentionally, all sizes of game were hunted, with large game pursued the most. Of the 36 foraging societies that had documentation of women purposefully hunting, 5 (13%) reported women hunting with dogs and 18 (50%) of the societies included data on women (purposefully) hunting with children. Women hunting with dogs and children also occurred in opportunistic situations as well.
Here we investigated whether noted trends of non-gendered hunting labor known from the archaeological record continued into more recent, ethnographic periods. The descriptive sample described here is sufficient to warrant the conclusion that women in foraging societies across the world participate in hunting during more recent time periods, a finding that makes sense given womenâs general morphology and physiology [16, 80]. The prevalence of data on women hunting directly opposes the common belief that women exclusively gather while men exclusively hunt, and further, that the implicit sexual division of labor of âhunter/gathererâ is misapplied. Given that this bimodal paradigm has influenced the interpretation of archeological evidence, which includes the reluctance to distinguish projectile tools found within female burials as intended for hunting (or fighting) [9, 10, 81], this paper joins others in urging the necessity to reevaluate archeological evidence, to reassess ethnographic evidence, to question the dichotomous use of âhunting and gathering,â and to deconstruct the general âman the hunterâ narrative [6, 7, 80].
Based on the data supporting the existence of female hunters, certain skills and practices within foraging societies allow women to be successful hunters. Of the 63 foraging societies with clear descriptions of hunting strategies, 79% of them demonstrated female hunting. The widespread presence of female hunting suggests that females play an instrumental role in hunting, further adding to the data that women contribute disproportionately to the total caloric intake of many foraging groups [15, 28, 82, 83]. Additionally, over 70% of hunting done by females is interpreted as intentional, meaning that females play an active and important role in huntingâand the teaching of huntingâeven if they use different tools and employ different acquisition strategies. For example, among the Aka, womenâs participation in net-hunting was required, whereas menâs participation was not [28].
These data suggest that females not only prepare to hunt and actively pursue game, but also that they are skilled in the practice. This is supported by both the existence of a specialized toolkit, as well as distinct strategies compared to their male counterparts, potentially relating to different training regimes, as well as different cultural norms surrounding the hunting, processing, and eating of meat (e.g., [24]). For example, the tools used by Agta women from the Philippines are remarkably different compared to Agta men [21, 84]. Whereas Agta men heavily rely on a consistent strategy of bow and arrows [84], women are much more likely to have personal preferences and show variation. Some women prefer hunting only with knives, a few women use bow and arrows, and others use a combination of the two [84]. Among the Aka, women are also flexibleâcarrying nets, but also spears, machetes, and cross bows. Even when nets are primarily used in hunting, sometimes women will wield the nets and sometimes men will wield the nets [28].
In addition to weapon choices, women further employ a greater flexibility of hunting strategies compared to men. For example, women hunt with a variety of partners, including their husbands, other women, children, dogs, as well as hunting alone [7, 21]. In contrast, men primarily hunt alone, with a single partner (their wife), or with a dog [18, 22]. Among the Agta, women might hunt in teams, and largely hunt during the day, though they might also hunt unaccompanied [84]. Agta men predominately hunt alone or with one other person if they are hunting at night in the forest [84]. Further, dogs are important to Agta women hunters, while the men typically only are accompanied by dogs when also hunting alongside women; the number of available dogs is a crucial factor in determining the frequency of Agta women hunters, in which a minimum of three mature dogs are typical for success [84]. Among the Aka, the size of the hunting net and the range of travel can depend on what else the women are carrying, whether a child is present, and whether they also have a basket [28].
As might be expected based on both tool and technique specializations, females maintain specializations for certain animals. American Cree women hunt pelt-animals alone and in groups [24]. Additionally, Mbuti women from the Congo hunt using nets [7], and Aka women also hunt using nets, more than men hunt using nets. The difference between these two populations is that among the Mbuti, women usually are flushing out the game, whereas among the Aka, women are usually capturing the game [28]. The AchĂŠ and Ju/âhoan women participate in hunting by tracking [7]. The Peruvian Matses and Mossapoula Aka women actively hunt with their husbands in order to increase overall hunting yields [7, 75]. Given that social norms determine how tools are made, and by whom [85], these specialized skills warrant much more attention by the literature. This would allow information on exactly who and how the tools are made, as well as to whom and how skills are being disseminated, can be used to uncover the means by which tasks are taken on by all the members of a group [86].
Suggestions that children are put in danger by accompanying hunts [74] can be mediated with current literature on the numerous ways in which infants and children are carried during expeditions by parents and alloparents. The importance of infants remaining with adults (versus being parked) is an important part of our lineage [87, 88], with children accompanying the wide range of expeditions consistently evidenced in the archaeological [89], as well as the ethnographic record [90]. Data explicitly mentioning that infants are carried while hunting exist for the Aka [91] and the Awa [92], as well as for foraging bouts that might result in opportunistic hunting (e.g., among the Batek [93] and Nukak [94]). Among both the Hadza and the Aka, children (potentially as young as age three) accompany adults on over 15% of hunting trips [95]. The idea that women are hindered by childcare and thus cannot hunt is an area where increasing data collection and thoughtful interpretation is lending a much richer lens to our understanding of human mobility strategies.
Women in foraging societies across the world historically participated and continue to participate in hunting regardless of child-bearing status. The collected data on women hunting directly opposes the traditional paradigm that women exclusively gather and men exclusively hunt and further elucidates the diversity and flexibility of human subsistence cultures [96]. Because the hunter/gatherer paradigm has prevented the recognition of contributions by women to hunting, a new framework would enable past and future discoveries to be evaluated in the context of female hunters. Furthermore, the term âforager,â as suggested by Brightman [24], should be used to acknowledge the non-sexual division of labor concerning hunting and gathering, in order to develop an inclusive framework for understanding human culture [9].
I think one of the goals of society should be that someone who requires expensive medicine and a lot of care can live an amazing life, the longest life they possibly can, with dignity, even if they have no friends or family or anyone who cares enough about them to help. the goals of a society should be to make life better than if we are alone, society should want life to be as good as possible for as many people as possible, and those goals should account for people not having social support networks.
social life aside, the most hated or ignored person in town should be able to live as good and fair and just of a life as the most loved person in town. survival needs to stop being a popularity contest.
I love to eat warm peaches bent over the sink like a werewolf. Summertime activity of all time.
Every second language self-study course starts off with a little speech about how beautiful and unique and expressive the language is. Which is very true, and true of all languages, except they always say it in a way that implies it's unique to that language.
So now I want there to be some EFL tapes that start off like "Congratulations on starting your journey to English fluency! To be honest, English is pretty mid. Like, yeah, it does everything you need a language to do, but it's definitely not the best."
from Art & Queer Culutre by Catherine Lord
[id: first image. a drawing on brown paper of a woman with bob-length hair reclining on a chair. sheâs wearing tight black pants, a black jacket, and a white shirt with ruffles that are visible at her neck and hands.
second image. the museumâs label for the above drawing. It says:
Leon Bakst.
âPortrait of Zinaida Gippius.â 1996.
Sanguine, black and white chalk on paper.
38 x 30 cm.
Though it portrays one person, this painting brings together a queer trio of creative subjects. Its sitter, Zinaida Gippius, was a symbolist poet and novelist exiled from Russia after the Revolution. In Paris, she became as famous for her androgynous style and rumored lesbianism as for her writing. The painter of the portait, Leon Bakst, was best known as the creator of scenic design and costumes for the Ballet Russes, including the exotic, daringly erotic costumes worn by lead dancer Vaslav Nijinkysy. Finally, Oscar Wilde, the witty and scandalously homosexual writer, provided the inspiration for Gippiusâs cross-dressed attire and dandified pose. [RM]
/end id]
Gays used to be better at boycotting shit. Like we boycotted orange juice and sent Anita Bryant PACKING, 50 years before "cancel culture" when gay sex was still illegal, and now in a time of unprecedented "visibility" Paris Hilton can still headline pride events even after saying "gay men are disgusting and probably all have AIDS," and every Connor and Tanner on the internet is still posting about how "homophobic chicken hits different đ "
Iâm sorry friends, but âjust google itâ is no longer viable advice. What are we even telling people to do anymore, go try to google useful info and the first three pages are just ads for products that might be the exact opposite of what the person is trying to find but The Algorithm thinks the words are related enough? And if itâs not ads itâs just sponsored websites filled with listicles, just pages and pages of âTOP FIFTEEN [thing you googled] IMAGINED AS DISNEY PRINCESSESâ like⌠what are we even doing anymore, google? I can no longer use you as shorthand for people doing real and actual helpful research on their own.
Time to drop some links again.
â https://searchmysite.net/ Search engine for the indie web, personal websites, digital gardens. You can also find them in websites like Neocities, Indieweb, Blogarama, and write.as. There is also a big list of personal websites.
â https://search.marginalia.nu/ Search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and promotes websites that arenât usually at the top of the list.
â https://www.worldcat.org/ Search engine for items in libraries (books, but also maps, articles, sound recordings, theses, etc.)
â https://scholar.google.com/ Search engine for scientific papers, reviews, etc. Itâs still google, but a lot better than the normal search engine counterpart.
â https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_search_engines A list of search engines sorted by subject, area, and more. If youâre searching on a specific area, it might be worth checking if there is one focused on that area.
â https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_academic_databases_and_search_engines A list of academic databases and search engines.
â https://tineye.com/ Reverse image search alternative to Googleâs. Also, P.S.: Please stop using Google, and start using more privacy focused search engines, like DuckDuckGo or SearchX (opensource; personally havenât used it yet, but it looks promising for privacy-focused users)
That Google and Meta can get away with this during an era of intense misinformation and disinformation signals that we cannot rely on large tech companies to provide reliable access to information and news:
Whatâs our new phrase then, âduck it to goâ?
your opponent is the most selected option. please don't spoil anything in the tags
We should reverse how we interact with rich people and homeless people
Rich people: ignore them. Walk past when they're asking for money (like their stupid giant stores and advertisements) blame their predicament on their personal choices because they've had every chance. If they want back up on their feet, they can do it themselves since they have "plenty of resources"
Poor people: listen to their stories. Give them a platform and money and gifts and attention they wouldn't have otherwise. Help them out of addiction or bad situations for free while accepting their reasons for why they got into those situations
I honestly believe the whole âadults require less sleepâ thing is honest to god probably a myth created by capitalism
It is.
i honestly believe that sleep deprivation is the biggest ignored/neglected root cause of health dangers that prematurely kill adults
ask me sometime about the role of sleep in the leptin ghrelin cycle and how its interruption destabilizes weight homeostasis
or about the new research showing that heart disease is not caused by fat, like we thought for years, but by inflammation in the circulatory system whose root cause is unknown but one of the prime suspects is, you guessed it, sleep deprivation
but nobody wants to hear that lack of sleep is killing people. employers donât want to hear it. and god knows that having sold their waking hours to capitalism to survive workers donât want to lose the only time they have left to them to live their lives, mostly stolen from sleep
i mean even i donât want to do anything about it and i love sleep, i just love overwatch more
this this this this this
our society places almost zero value on sleep
on enough sleep
on uninterrupted sleep
on regular, predictable, cycling sleep
all the evidence we have suggests sleep is really, really, really important to the processes of the human body, including both mental and physical health, and yet when was the last time you heard somebody suggest that people had a *right* to sufficient, regular sleep?
By this I donât mean âhumans shouldnât have 8+ hours of sleep a nightâ; I mean that we are supposed to sleep for four to five hours (ish), then get up and do something relaxing like reading for a half hour to an hour, then get another bout of four to five hours. This is what our bodies were designed for.Â
Sleeping the whole night through was a fad started with the advent of the lightbulb. Sleeping the whole night through is so recent (and artificial) that First Sleep and Second Sleep are mentioned in Dickensâ novels.
If youâre planning on getting little sleep or pulling an all-nighter, make sure to eat lots of fruit and veggies/take vitamins that day. Or even better, get yourself some bee propolis. Itâs a natural remedy used for thousands of years in Latin America and is insanely good for boosting up compromised immune systems (if you get the drop kind, put 3 to 4 drops in a spoonful of honey and mix well with a 2nd spoon to mask the strong taste). It has no side effects and is all but impossible to overdose on.
After babies, teens are the age group that needs the most amount of sleep. Puberty is exhausting, and the body needs time to recharge. Ideally, a teen should be getting between 10 to 12 hours of sleep at the bare minimum. Most teens are lucky if they manage to get 8. And thatâs a gigantic problem; not only does lack of sleep affect mood (which is extra significant when your hormones are already riding a rollercoaster to begin with), but also has massive effects on growth, which is kinda what the whole puberty thing is supposed to be about.
Night owls and morning people are an actual thing. Because weâre pack creatures, Nature came up with a clever way for our ancestors to always have someone on the lookout for predators and threats: make people naturally alert at varying times so that thereâs always someone alert to keep watch.Â
Forcing night owls to follow morning peopleâs sleep cycle means night owls live with what researchers have referred to as âpermanent jetlagâ.
â First Sleep and Second Sleep are mentioned in Dickensâ novelsâ
this is how hobbits can have two breakfasts
âpermanent jet lagâ sounds about right. No idea how to fix this.
One can easily distinguish a true veteran adventurer from the masses, for one doesnât fear those who show to the start of a dungeon with gleaming weapons and polished armor, but those who show up wearing casual clothing, looking like they just got done shopping in town not 5 minutes earlier.
This isnât fiction, this is just a real thing that happened to me, which this prompt reminded me of.
Since my 20âs Iâve practiced kendo, a Japanese sword art which among other things involves putting on protective gear and sparring with shinai, bamboo weapons meant to somewhat mimic the length and heft of a katana. Itâs pretty physically demanding, but itâs also one of the martial arts with the highest percentage of women to men, because itâs not all about strength; speed and precision and stamina are worth more than muscle is in nine out of ten interactions.
Anyway. I went to visit a friend in another city, and visited one of their kendo dojo. And the experience wasâŚbad. I attended the early-evening beginnerâs class, and stayed through the later advanced class (this is polite; itâs rude to only go for what you can get, and not what you can give the school youâre visiting, and out of respect to the people who pulled you up, youâre supposed to pull other people up), and I spent basically the entire time in a state of simmering irritation. âYouâre a woman, you donât need to move so fast.â and âYouâre a woman, you donât need to kiai so loudly.â and so on, misogyny after misogyny. âThereâs nothing wrong with your form, but youâre a woman, you donât need to beat the men.â Iâm small! Iâm not a bruiser, either, though I have vast respect for the women who are. My only salvation has to be speed and spirit, and a good round of kendo requires screaming; no one had ever told me to be quieter.
I had my sparring round with the head Sensei, and he spent most of the round literally looking away from me. Even though I was a guest, and thereâs some pretty strict reigi about the treatment of guests, he paid me no attention. I thought that I must have been imagining things, I must surely be misreading him or maybe I was being too egotistical and demanding, but the next week I went to the other dojo in town, and when I said Iâd gone to this one first, one of the women laughed and said âLemme guessâhe totally ignored you, right? He told me there was no reason for a woman to ever test past nidan. âUp to nidan, so you can teach your sons the basics, then give them to me!â â
He had a reputation, and his school had a reputation, and it was simply my bad luck to have landed there. But leaving a practice early is bad behavior, unless you have a good excuse, and âeveryone here is behaving like an assholeâ wasnât enough when I knew Iâd have to give an accounting of this practice to my own Sensei when I got home. I had to stick it out.
So two hours in, the door opens up, and in walks this guy in a brand new uniform. It was dark, dark blue, and shedding dye at his throat and ankles where he was sweating already in the muggy air; it had deep creases from being folded in its sale packaging. It had pretty clearly just been put on for the first time. And I thought, okay, this is a noob whoâs just got his armor, but he skipped the early class and heâs showing up this late to practice? Maybe he got stuck in traffic, maybe heâs an asshole, whatever. and the round ended, I bowed to my opponent and everyone in the room but the head Sensei rotated left, ready for the next fight.
And the New Guy looks around the room quickly, bounces in place a couple of times, loosens his wrists and ankles. His glance catches me, and his eyes light upâhe doesnât know me!â and he weaves between the other fighters to come stand across from me. We bow to each other, and heâs still rolling his shoulders a little bit as he drops down into sonkyo, the ritual crouch before standing up into the starting kamae. I have half of an instant to notice that his sonkyo is very fluid before he stands up and Iâm suddenly freezing cold in the hot room. Goosebumps wash over my entire body. And I realize that no only did the person I was supposed to fight just evaporate, but this new fellow has the easy six feet of clearance on all sides that you see martial artists in practice instinctively, unthinkingly grant to people who are vastly their superior in skill.
Basically, I got destroyed in the next match.
It was such a relief. A common saying is âFighting Sensei is like throwing an egg at a rock,â and it was true; I gave him 100% and all he did was laugh and challenge me more. He was never so far above me that I thought I couldnât hit him, in that fashion of a good teacher who keeps his level just beyond yours, and I got more from him in two minutes than Iâd gotten from the head Sensei in the previous two and a half hours.
I ended the match gasping and grinning and so, so grateful to have had this one good experience in three hours of bullshit. And then practice was over, and I got to go out into the sunlight and get myself an ice cream.
But basicallyâyeah, generally when you see someone in shiny new gear, it means that theyâre a shiny new fighter. Sometimes it means theyâve fought so hard that every stitch of their old stuff gave out.
