My job is not so bad...

[Drunk Monk]

Be glad your vacation was only ruined by the particle because if it was ruined by God...

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Posting here as it is the closest to a "Doom Jobs" thread as we have.

Among other major life changes in August, i am no longer a Halberstadt Fencers Club coach. I've taught fencing there since 1986. I was an unrated competitor when i arrived, worked my way up to an "A" rating there, competing on the national circuit until 1992. i came there because it was the toughest fencing club on the west coast and because the new head coach, Peter Burchard, offered me a job as assistant coach.

I trained 6 days/week there, competed on Sundays in foil, epee, or occasionally sabre. Worked my way up to "local tough-guy" status, won one national medal (team foil bronze). i was head coach there for 4 years and my teams earned two natonal bronzes and lots of regional gold + silver. i learned so much about people, politics, and pettiness during those years. My life's goal since post high school had been to become a fencing master, to teach fencing for a living, and to be head coach of a major competitive fencing club. Halberstadt is where that all happened.

i also learned that you sometimes have to let go of your hard-won accomplishments. I learned that there are no-win situations. I learned that life goes on even after you achieve your dream. For me, "life" *is* fencing, in its glory and its small-mindedness, in the beauty of pushing to your physical limits, in the fear and the rush of putting it all out there on the strip fighting strangers one-on-one for no other reason than beating them. No money, no endorsements, all your time and money, all of your sweat, injuries, pain... the glorious pointlessness of trying to be the best at something that society knows nothing about. Working to achieve mastery and finding out that mastery is always over the next mountain, not the one you just climbed.

Halberstadt is where that happened. It was a forge, it was a pressure-cooker, it was a refuge, it was where the only other people who truly understood me were. It was where i was made, where i made myself. 27 years.
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Starting this week, I'll be Head Coach at the West Berkeley Fencing Club. It is only 3 nights/week in the club (my main coaching for the past 7 years has been with an intense elite junior program called the M-Team) but it is a big break with my past. i'm looking forward to the new club and creating new programs, but will still miss the old salle and the memories.

[Drunk Monk]

Has it really been that long? wow.

Sounds like you're going through a lot of late. We should try to get together for some fried eels or something and catch up.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Sounds like we both are. Any time you can make it over, lemme know. On Mondays I can meet you further south.

[Drunk Monk]

...of course, my schedule is more insane than ever right now. Hopefully, now that T is starting school, that will get sorted. But with my Dad's situation, it's week to week, day to day.

I might be in SF on the 21st and/or 28th, but not sure about scheduling yet.

Define 'further south'.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

I have a new (to me) motorcycle. If the weather is not too bad, that could mean "where ever you are".

[Drunk Monk]

you can use the commuter lane to get here.

[Drunk Monk]

He wanted DM to come up again the following day because DM told him he watched his new Tai Chi DVD on a mediocre stereo. He wanted DM to listen to it on his manager's laptop, which is fully loaded acoustically. DM had a lot on his desk and blew Lou off. DM regretted that later in the day when he cleared his desk. But yeah, DM stood up Lou too.

This is probably my greatest regret. I look back on it now and think 'Damn, I was an idiot to pass this up.' I remember I was insanely busy and exhausted, but I really should have gone just to get some one-on-one private time with Lou to just chat more. I never got a photo with him either. We hung out a handful of times, and I'm grateful for that.

[Drunk Monk]

So I just met with a video producer from YMAA, a major martial arts company that advertises with us. I'm working with them to be a talking head on a series of Shaolin DVDs for them. It's a cooperative company with ours and I'm friends with his master, Dr. Yang, having stayed at his amazing off-the-grid retreat buried in the CA redwoods near the Avenue of Giants. Their vid guy has been with their company for about a decade and a half and has been responsible for 70+ DVDs - good stuff, high end for martial arts. Upon introduction to my boss at Tiger Claw, he tells this story on how he got into Kung Fu and Qigong after he found one of the first Shaolin issues of KFTC in a truck stop in Idaho, read one of my articles there, and got inspired to pursue internal Kung Fu. Now he's a vegetarian and lives with a yogini wife in a geodesic dome in Cape Cod, and a career martial artist.

It was very gratifying.

[Drunk Monk]

So we get a lot of charlatans walking through our door.  Usually, I'm up to challenge them, but I'm really off my game right now - haven't been to Kung Fu practice in two months because my last master went back to China and adjusted to a new Rx regimen.  There are two other martial artists here.  This one is my good buddy Chris, who some of you know from the tournament (a KF bro of CF's and mine).

This master says he is a master of dian mai - the legendary death touch.  He claims he can strike you in such a way that you'll be frozen, "just like in the wuxia novels" (actual quote).  He's an older Chinese guy, and has good fajin (power emission, akin to Bruce Lee's 1" punch - generates a lot of power with little wind up or telegraphing).  I was planning to get the other martial artist but the timing worked out so he was at lunch.  So I got Chris.  He was game to do anything to get off the phones and away from his cubicle.

The master is describing his powers to Chris casually and then sucker punches him in the diaphragm.  Chris' reflexes held and he tightened up just in time to keep from getting the wind knocked out of him.  Me and the graphic boys are shocked.  Then he sets Chris up again and tells him to relax.  Then he sucker punches him again!  This time in the floating ribs.  Chris is shaken a bit but still standing.  Me and the boys are biting our lips to keep from laughing.  The master could throw a sneaky punch for sure, but I wouldn't call that dian mai.  It was a cheap ass sucker punch.  

Chris took two for the team.  I owe him a beer.  

That's Shaolin schadenfreude here at Tiger Claw.  

[El Dingo]

Sounds like you're in my neck of the bay,

Want to hit Rudy's for dinner?

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

How has "Shaolin Schadenfreude" not been used as a title? It could at least turn up as a fake movie in a real movie.

[Drunk Monk]

I'm in Fremont several days a week. Not quite your neck of the woods really.

Shaolin schadenfreude is a way of life.

[Drunk Monk]

I just got blessed by Grandmaster 'iron crotch' Tu.  

It involved sprinkling of water to purify my qi.

Wonder where he got the water?

Well, it doesn't matter.  I can sure use a blessing nowadays.  Can't we all?

---

And there's more.

Gm Tu just gave me a print of a Jerry Garcia painting.  WTH?  Apparently he does Feng Shui for Jerry's widow, his 1st wife Mountain Girl, and one of his daughters (I couldn't tell which one from the small photo on Sandy's camera).  He gave one to Patrick first, which was kind of silly as Patrick doesn't know the Dead from Phish.  So I was a little peeved. But then he produced a second one for me after I told him of my connection with the Dead.  

It's a small meadow scene - 489/500 - embossed with Jerry's handprint and sig.  I'm a little flabbergasted now.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Well, now, that is cool. You live an odd life, Mr. Ching -- aren't you glad?