Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to me! ~Jenn

Level Up!

Once again, Jenn has leveled up her ninja guy to Brown Belt!

Here are the highlights:

• The belly dance class did their first ever performance, and they were awesome!
• Mary did a clever mix between her belly dance performance and her black belt demo.
• Lots of fire element ninjas testing!
• Jenn does all kinds of stuff to get her solid brown belt. There's a rule there about solid brown belts: whenever one is in the dojo, anyone shodan (Black Belt) or above is allowed to attack her. Heh heh. Very interesting...

Good job, everyone! Image is Jenn choking poor Justin, 2/27/09. Good times.

Things Happening on Saturday

Two big Bonzuko Movement Arts things are happening Saturday:

1. Stage Combat Club is meeting to begin work on our podcasting project (1pm in ARTS 271 on campus). Details will appear here--it's pretty exciting!
2. it's Jenn's birthday.

If you're an Auraria student, come by and join in the now-official club activities. And at 9:35pm, toast Jenn's health.

I've found this image in several different places, and so don't know how to attribute it. If anyone knows who the originating artist is, let me know and I'll give proper credit.

Samurai Umbrella

Check out this new product offered by the gadget demi-gods at ThinkGeek.com. Now if only this lovely bumbershoot was constructed like the Combat Umbrella, it'd be worth gold.

Friday's Exciting Event

Well it's that time again--the last Friday of the month is nigh. That means it's Testing Night at the Boulder Quest Center!

Though the Demo Team has gone on a temporary hiatus, there will still be exciting black belt demos, and Bonzuko's own Jenn will be testing for her next belt!

Come see the testing, and stay after for potluck snax and a day-before-birthday salute to Jenn. :)
Boulder Quest Center Test Nite February:
5pm: Mighty Dragons (little weensy kids) test begins
6pm: Youth and Adult testing and Demos begin

Map and directions here. Image from Jenn's last belt test @ BQC.

My friend the author

In graduate school, I had a very good friend named Jason Malott. He was the first person I officially met there, and we were buddies all through my "prose ninja" stint there at Naropa. (The Prose Ninja story is a long one, and not for this post.)

I toast you, Jason M. with a homebrew at your first book deal. I know how good a writer you are, I'm just glad someone else who is in charge of a publishing company agrees with me. Jason's book will be out in 2009, so look for it, and buy 500 copies, as Emeril would say. After you've bought 500 of my book, of course. Kudos, Jason Q. Malott. ~Jenn

Maybe a review will appear here soon. Stay tuned.

Fight Clip Club

As much as I enjoy the Bond-ish ninja-esque-ness (!) of Jason Bourne, I find the fight scenes in the Bourne movies, though well choreographed, have way too many edits. See what I mean?

Nomination #5

While looking for fight blooper reels online of the famous Jackie Chan, I came across this 10-part documentary about his history of film fighting. I want to nominate Mr. Chan for our I've Got a Great Idea Awards, but I also really like this documentary. I want a stunt team! And a stunt lab!

Jackie Chan wrecks himself in his fights--wait till the credits on any of his films, and you'll see him getting hurt over and over again. This is why he's being nominated: he's an awesome fight performer, but gosh he rarely ends up in one piece!
~Jenn

All of You Need to Read This

This is Chapter 19 from the book Business and Legal Forms for Theater. It talks about liability and Stage Combat. If any of our IGAGI Award nominees had read this, they wouldn't have made it to our list.

All of you read this: Chapter 19: Stage Combat and Stunts

1930s jujutsu

Look at these delightful clips Jason found on stellar blog Boing-Boing. The martial artists are quite good, and it makes me wonder how odd it must have been for these women way back then to train. I mean, these are decent jujutsu moves, they all obviously know what they're doing! Note the gentlemen's wonderful break falling. I also love the "oopsie" gestures the second-clip woman makes after having tossed the dude directly into the floor. Very cool newsreels, thanks Boing-Boing, and thanks Jas for noticing! ~Jenn

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/11/jujitsu-for-the-weak.html

Yet Another Amazing Toy

OMG, have you lovely lurkers seen the new Nerf N-Force swords??? I want a set of these, really! And they're Nerf, so you know they're made for some serious safe play. Okay, my birthday's in ten days... ~Jenn

Look at Gizmodo's bit on these blades of soft-yet-sturdy fury: N-Force Awesomeness

Fight Clip Club

A classic in the realms of staff fighting. Another fight that needs no introduction, except maybe this: "A toll is a toll, and a roll is a roll. If we don't take no tolls, then we don't eat no rolls. ...I made that up."

Stage Combat Club News

We had elections yesterday for the MSCD Stage Combat club. Remember, you don't have to be a Metro student, you can be a UCD or CCD student to play with us. The new officers in charge of our staged mayhem this year are:
President: Nick B.
Vice-President: Scott M.
Treasurer: Nate T.
Secretary: Geri C.

Congrats, officers! Go get your paperwork done! And blog lurkers, keep your eyes open for our presence online even more! We heard whispers of podcasts, demo events, and the Spring Fling to name a few. And I forgot to ask you guys about T-shirts. We should totally get some made, wouldn't you agree? ~Jenn

Folks who met to pretend to beat each other up on Valentine's Day: Nick B., Nate T., Geri C., Aaron R., Roberto M., Tom G., Paul S., Scott M., Chris D., and of course Jenn was in charge.

Nomination #3

Since it's Darwin's birthday today, of course we have to post an "I've Got a Great Idea" award nomination. Today, it's:

Another stabbing. The infamous Dracula Stabbing in Texas, which opens Chapter One of my book. Anyone have any better ideas? post here or to any earlier nomination entries.

Fight Clip Club

More excellent fight scenes from professionals, local and otherwise. This clip needs no introduction. Jenn always shows this one the first day of Stage Combat class at MSCD, and nearly all the students know it. Part of its appeal is its simplicity--after having learned basic unarmed techniques, students see this scene again and are able to see what's going on. No wires, a minimum of edits, none of them rapid, and of course the fight stars Bob Barker. You can't go wrong.

Time Lapsed Violence

I'm watching the Discovery Channel show called Time Warp today, and they showed some behind-the-scenes of a couple different stunts. The premise of the show is to take high-speed cameras and film cool stuff way slowed down. I have enjoyed this show very much in the past, so to tempt you into catching it yourselves, I have posted three links to clips that have something to do with stage combat and/or the martial arts. ~Jenn

The first is a real slap to the face. Those of you who have read my book will remember the "Unlucky Thirteen" things that can happen to you if you allow your precious face to be slapped onstage. You can see even more clearly in this slow-mo slap clip (hey that's a VoWod!): Time Warp Slap

If you think the slap is bad, check out a punch: Time Warp Punch

And finally, a super-cool katana slice through rolled-up tatami. I believe this is the sword guy from Bugei: Time Warp Samurai

Nomination #2

I can't decide which of these knife debacles to nominate for the "I've Got a Great Idea" awards. Comment here and tell me which one of these two should be in the running:

Vienna Stage Knife Mistake

Et Tu, Brutal Injury?

Fight Clip Club

I was thinking about doing a version of the Fight Clip Club assignment from the MSCD Stage Combat class--the students are assigned to bring in what they see as the best film fight scene, tell the class why it's a good example of what we do, and show it. Parodies are also welcome. Here is my first Fight Clip Club entry: it's from Napoleon Dynamite, and I call it "Bow to Your Sensei." Enjoy, and let me know if yo'd like to contribute clip ideas to continue! ~Jenn

Ka'plah!

Is there a good reason why a thief would choose a fantasy replica sword to hold up a convenience store? Beyond that, this thief actually got money from not one, but two stores and is still at large. We were just writing earlier that cheap, brittle museum replica swords aren't useful for anything. Well, maybe we were wrong. No, this is wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.

~Jenn

I'm Good!

One of the Super Bowl commercials celebrates Pepsi by showing various men getting thwacked, smacked, electrocuted, and otherwise hurt, then declaring, "I'm good!" The best clip in this commerical IMO is the golf scene: look at the lovely swordplay as the guy on the left takes a shot to the back of the head and then the face with a golf club. He also does a killer back break fall. Good stuff.

Happy Birthday

Image is called "Triumph" from the Stage Combat book. Jesse celebrating after having head-slammed Jenn into the cold, hard floor. I've heard of siblings fighting, but...

Happy Birthday, Jesse! Have a wonderful day and new year! Blog lurkers, toast Jenn's brother Jesse's health today. DeBlurge! <-- that's an old Genki Kai joke.

Falling into the Endzone

Lisa Simpson called American football a "savage ballet," which puts it right into the movement arts category, no? I wouldn't be a true movement artist if I didn't mention the hundred-yard pass from the Super Bowl yesterday. But what I noticed most of all was the awful fall Harrison took as he landed in the endzone. They played the historic event over and over right after it happened, and you can see the crazy dive roll he took; it looks as though he landed right on his trapezius, or collarbone. I wonder if football players learn falling and rolling the way martial artists do. Something tells me they don't. ~Jenn

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoxSFBHbA80&feature=related

MSCD Stage Combat Club January

The MSCD Stage Combat club has begun again, and is better than ever. We had our first interest meeting of the semester on Saturday the 31st and had some really cool things to talk about and plan. Chris agreed to get the legal paperwork together and get elections for new officers happening (elections will be on Feb. 14th BTW); Paul is now our official event-collector, and we'll all help him plan for said events; Scott is a podcast nut, so he agreed to research how to begin one for us (so very exciting); and overall things are looking fun and bright for us. Our first event will likely be the Auraria Campus Spring Fling, so log on here often and we'll keep you posted.

Another highlight is the excellent news I received a while ago from Megan: the school is buying us 20 Denny Graves-made rapiers, for use in class and club functions!!!!!! Woo-hoo! I am ecstatic beyond description.

If you weren't able to come to the meeting on the 31st, but you'd like to join, show up at one of our future meetings: Tuesdays 2-3pm, and Saturdays 1-2:30pm. But remember, we're not meeting this coming week. We'll see you on the 10th or the 14th for elections. ~Jenn

Image is of Chris and Wee Katie performing their staff fight back in 2007.

Testing Night

On January 30th, a giant horde of To Shin Do students tested for their next belts, and then replaced their calories with potluck fare. It was hands-down the largest belt test I have ever seen. BQC folk, comment here and tell me if it's in fact the biggest test you've had.

Highlights of January 30th testing night:

• Martin's 'stache (well it was a highlight for me)
• Conrad's fierce zanshin in free response
• Jane Bright being really fricking amazing
• Simon also being really fricking amazing
• Jeff n Jenn name the members of the new Demo Team: Kobe, Jane, Keegan, and Justin
• Potluck yumminess afterwards. Yay protein!

Good job, everyone! Can't wait for the next Friday test the day before my birthday! ~Jenn

Images: the giant horde recites the Code of Mindful Action. Boaz gets a hon gyaku on Jenn