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Essential New Word of the Week: moonhut
(definition hint: cyclical)
Traditionally, the new year is a time to make resolutions. In other words,
weak-willed individuals decide that their drinking, smoking, or
nymphomaniac behavior will be more easily remedied in 2006 than in 2005.
Some resolutions are noble, but most are unrealistic. I, for example,
will likely continue my hard-drinking, chain-smoking, seal-clubbing
ways, but I do vow to become the Ultimate Fighting Champion.
Becoming the Ultimate Fighting
Champion may sound like an ambitious goal coming from an
out-of-shape, largely uncoordinated individual such as myself. But
just the other day, I saw a motivational poster in which a kitten
hanging from a branch assured me that anything was possible, if I
hang in there. And adorable kittens never lie.
If you’ve never seen the UFC, then you don’t know what you’re
missing. The sport itself is called “mixed martial arts,” and if
you’ve ever seen the movie Bloodsport, you’ll know that when
martial arts mix, some sumo guy is going to have Jean-Claude Van
Damme’s fist buried in his crotch. I think I learned everything I
ever need to know from this movie. It has a sassy female reporter,
Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds, and lots and lots of JCVD doing the
splits. As for the fighting, the best thing I learned is that there
are no rules. Sure, there’s a referee, but he’s only there to
express shock and disapproval whenever the bad guy kills someone in
the ring. I don’t know if that’s allowed in today’s competitive
environment, but it never hurts to be prepared.
"I wasn’t particularly strong or anything, but I
was kind of spaz. That was detrimental for things like tetherball
and talking to girls, but in a fight, it was a noticeable
advantage." To survive as an Ultimate Fighter, I’ll have to turn
my hands and feet into deadly weapons. No other form of self-defense can
help me. Pepper spray has a better chance of making my burrito delicious
than taking down Ken Shamrock. And Tito Ortiz is almost sure to dodge
any laser-based attacks I might mount. So, it’s time to take stock of my
record as an amateur fighter and see where I need to improve.
Growing up, I was trained in grappling by my older brother. By
“trained,” I mean him kicking the shit out of me, and by “grappling,” I
mean on a regular basis. As a fan of pro-wrestling, my dear brother
would pummel me in countless different ways, but at least it was not
without a sense of theatrical flair. I may have received a bruised
spine, but I was the only kid on my block who had his own theme music.
Since my brother was so much bigger than me, I soon learned the
value of fighting dirty. Now, I couldn’t reach his eyes to poke
them, I didn’t know enough about human physiology to go for the kidneys,
and to this day I remain reluctant to make any kind of contact with any
of my relatives’ groins. So when I say “fighting dirty,” I’m really
talking about faking injuries and squealing. I don’t think it was ever
his intention to really hurt me, so faking a broken finger or a detached
retina was usually a good way to buy enough time to make my escape. This
skill could prove valuable in my quest to become the Ultimate Fighting
Champion. Referees will usually step in if one guy looks like he’s
sustained serious injury. Of course, that would mean that I’ve lost the
battle, but not necessarily the war, which is where squealing comes in.
Squealing was the most powerful
weapon I had in my arsenal. If I told my parents my brother was
beating me up, he’d get in trouble. This didn’t hurt him in a
physical sense, but revenge still felt good. Now, I doubt your
average cage fighter’s mother will be inclined to hear me out, or
even be in a position to suspend her son’s privileges, which is why
I’ll have to rely on the grown-up version of squealing: litigation.
If a referee does stop my fight prematurely, I’ll call in my
lawyers, and maybe get the whole decision overturned. I may never be
able to kick a guy in the neck, but I guarantee you I’ll have the
best damn lawyers in the world all over him.
In spite of the beatings I took at home, I represented myself far
better on the schoolyard. I was kind of a loner, and I never looked
for a fight, but there were a few times I had to
defend my young honor. One time an Indian kid pushed me into the
snow from behind, and I got up and punched him so hard that his eye
kind of turned upside-down. That was cool. I literally rearranged
someone’s face. Thank god this was many years ago; today, that sort
of thing would be a hate crime.
Another time, I managed to throw a guy to the ground and stomp him a
dozen times or so, even after he pushed my head into a concrete
wall. I wasn’t particularly strong or anything, but I was kind of
spaz. That was detrimental when it came to things like tetherball
and talking to girls, but in a fight, it was a noticeable advantage.
Like some kind of mythological creature, I could strike with all my
limbs from directions no one expected. Also, I would tend to hiss
and spit a lot, adding to the whole “mythological creature”
metaphor.
Of course, when high school rolled around, the schoolyard fights
ended and video game fights began. For what it’s worth, I could
usually kick ass at Street Fighter. You remember Street Fighter,
right? It’s the worst ever video-game-turned-movie, and if you’re at
all familiar with that genre, you know how malicious it is to make
such a claim. In any case, unless my future Ultimate Fighting
opponents can discharge sonic blasts from their arms, or electrify
their hairy green Brazilian bodies, I don’t think this will really
help when it comes time to enter the octagon.
I started to receive some real training when I
lived in Japan. Hell, karate is a way of life over there. I
couldn’t go two minutes without some wizened old guy trying to teach
me to catch flies with chopsticks or something. But two experiences
really stand out. I took a Shorinji Kempo class taught by my town’s
chief of police. There, I learned all kinds of crazy throws,
punches, and pressure points. Oh, did I forget to mention it was a
class for children? Well, since I was learning through a language
barrier, everyone thought it best if I attended the most basic
class. For practical purposes, this meant that I had to spar
against, and I shit you not, 11-year-old girls. I’m telling you, you
don’t know the meaning of “moral dilemma” until you have the police
chief screaming at you to punch a little girl in the face. I don’t
know if Ultimate Fighters can be bribed with Hello Kitty
merchandise, but it has to be worth a shot.
Occasionally, some ancient cadre of Shorinji elders was brought in
to test our progress, and even though they looked pretty fragile,
they knew their stuff. They could grab my arms, throw me to the
ground, and choke me out long before I could figure out the Japanese
word for “surrender,” which I later found does not exist. And make
no mistake, they loved torturing the big, smelly, hairy gaijin. To
these old-timers, I imagine my body represented a chance for revenge
for the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima. I brought them all some maple
syrup in the hopes that they would realize I’m Canadian and go
easier on me, but no such luck.
Another notable thing about Shorinji Kempo was that its logo was,
for some reason, a swastika. A great big old honking swastika. It
seems pretty unlikely that my Japanese hosts were white
supremacists, so I chose to believe that the symbol had been in use
before Hitler came to power, and they steadfastly refused to change
it. That’s all well and good, but it didn’t help me explain the
patch on my uniform to the nice security officer who
checked my luggage when I came back home.
 The
other valuable experience I alluded to is sumo. I happened to live
in a city that was close to one of Japan’s traditional arenas, where
I was fortunate enough to see an event and briefly meet Musashimaru,
which is Japanese for “enormous man-boobs.” We drank some tea, and
he was kind enough not to body slam me into a crater. Needless to
say, he was an impressive individual. But never in my wildest dreams
did I think I would ever get a chance to enter his arena. How wrong
I was.
You see, this arena I lived near was part of a shrine, and one of
their yearly activities was an amateur sumo event that was open to
all, even foreigners. My buddies and I were fairly big guys, so we
decided to go for it. I heroically managed to miss every single
training session, so when the big day arrived, I was not exactly
confident. Of course, this lack of confidence might have been caused
by the fact that I was wearing only a mawashi, or as it’s commonly
known, a sumo-diaper.
If you’ve ever stood completely naked in a damn parking lot on a
cold February morning, and you have to hold your penis to one side
while a gap-toothed old man puts you in a diaper, and girls are
giggling at you as they pass by, well then, you’ll know how I felt
on that day. Pervert. But even though it was thoroughly humiliating,
it was also valuable. If the UFC allows me to compete in my
traditional mawashi, then I know the sight of my pasty, hairy
buttocks might
scare my opponents into submission. Maybe I won’t do such a
thorough job of wiping in the days leading up to my match. Then, at
the very least, they’ll be reluctant to touch me, which is really
all I can hope for.
As for my sumo matches themselves, I was quite pleased with the
turnout. My first match was a long, competitive struggle that I feel
I could have won had I not accidentally stepped out of bounds. My
second match was against a really short but fat guy who clobbered me
over the head and left me dazed. My third match was against another
Canadian guy named David, by coincidence. He was quite a bit older,
and a whole lot bigger than I was, in spite of my
beer-and-potato-chip regimen. Seriously this dude had arms that
resembled legs, and legs that resembled really huge legs. I went for
his knee, but he sent me sprawling.
My final match however, was a thing of beauty. I did my best to look
intimidating as I got into the ready position. He was about my size,
but I could see fear in his eyes. It was a moment of mutual disdain,
like Clubber Lang saying “dead meat” to Rocky. The ref started us.
He flew at me like a man possessed, but I caught my arm under his
arm, and I was able spin and use his own momentum to throw his ass
out of the ring. He landed pretty far away too.
That’s the kind of skill that the UFC is going to have to be ready
for when I make my debut. And so the training continues. At this
very moment I’m probably learning the best way to bruise someone’s
testicles. I’ll have transformed from a weak and scared little boy
into a barely-contained whirlwind of karate annihilation. And when
that happens, UFC, look out.
Note: Please be careful with
the karate knowledge gained from this article, and use it only for
karate justice.
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Essential New Word of the Week: |
 moonhut
\‘munhUt\ n: A small isolated enclosure designed to house a
girlfriend during her special time of the month. I don’t want to
be indelicate, but guys don’t really know a lot about cycles and
such, and that’s kind of the way we like it. We’ve also kind of
noticed how the women in our lives go apeshit bipolar every time
they play banjo in Sgt. Zygote’s Ragtime Band. After much
deliberation at the Secret Men’s Council™, it was decided that a
simple avoidance strategy is the best way to go. Hence, the
moonhut. We’ll stock it with cramp medication, episodes of
Sex in the City, whatever you need. Just ride out your
dishonorable discharge from the uterine navy in seclusion, if
you please. |
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