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Kung Fu Roland followed through and sent over a few pictures of his injuries.

Disclaimer: neither of the following pictures is absurdly nasty, but you are looking at an injured Roland and some of his splattered blood. So if you’re not comfortable with that, don’t open the pictures.

This first picture is of Roland with a nasty black eye he received from a kick that trended upward and hit him in the face. (the angry face was simple for effect… in actuality Roland’s a very nice guy).

This second picture is of his bloody uniform after getting punched in the face with a cross on Tuesday.

Thanks for the pictures Roland! Also, a formal congratulations on your brown belt promotion!

At Kung Fu there’s a sparring opponent who is particularly intimidating. He’s extremely talented and accurate with his strikes, but they definitely have some umph behind them.

I have mixed opinions when it comes to fighting him. It’s great for my abilities, because it very much forces me to block better, strike faster, and be aggressive… but at the same time you can pretty much expect to get a beating - And it’s very hard to play hard when you’re anticipating damage.

Last night I sparred with him and it went okay. He landed about five or six strikes that knocked me back or out of balance enough so that if it were a match he’d immediately be declared winner. But I got in one or two good strikes of my own including one sweet jab to his head which caught him off guard (though to be honest it was probably more luck than skill).

Kung Fu Roland fought him next. KF Roland is extremely fast and has great fundamentals and flexibility which tend to yield positive results in a sparring ring. I didn’t see much of the fight, but I know it ended with Roland on the receiving end of a very bloody nose. When he came out of the bathroom, nose gauzed up, his kung fu shirt was splattered with blood.

It looked really really hardcore.

So here’s to you Kung Fu Roland. I hope your nose isn’t broken and that next time you’re the one catching his kicks.

Last night at Kung Fu I took a class from Master Tat-Mau Wong. Master Wong is the head of our academy and quite the martial artist. He is coaching the American Kung Fu Olympic team and was the chosen Kung Fu teacher (with students) to perform a demonstration at the recent opening of the movie Kung Fu Panda.

He’s totally intense. At one point during the seminar as he talked about inner power he said “If I needed to, I could shake this building with my chi.”

It was heavy.

The second half of this posts title is to commemorate my awesome Birthday which will be this Sunday (twenty seven!). I had an idea for a birthday adventure. I’m thinking about making a bunch of silk screened MSPaint logo picture MikeDiDonato T-shirts. They’d probably be pretty awesome. If you wanted a t-shirt I could make and ship one to you. I’d need about $5 (plus shipping) to cover costs but if you wanted to donate more than the five dollars all additional donations will go directly towards the purchase of a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier Amplifier.

In this way you can get a sweet shirt and at the same time help contribute to the rock.

Leave a comment if you’d be interested in participating. If I got enough people, I’d probably make 4 or 5 different shirt styles to really boost the levels of awesome.

Last night I had my first night of teaching as a Kung Fu assistant instructor. It was pretty fun. I hope I kept the students engaged and entertained. I definitely need more practice. One of my instructors, who recently received his black belt, saw me walk in with my new satin digs but without the obligatory gray belt. Non-black belt instructors at my academy wear gray belts in order to increase mysticism. That way you never really know how hardcore your teacher is. So, Sihing Matt noticed that I was wearing my red belt and promptly disappeared into the back room. He reappeared and handed me his old gray belt. It was quite an honor. As he handed me his belt…

Sihing Matt: “wear this one. it’s lucky.”
Mike D: “because you made it to black?”
Sihing Matt: “yup. just don’t get the debilitating knee injuries that I got.”

sweet.

June is pretty unique this month because there’s a tournament in CT. While I can’t make the actual events, Master Wong (the biggest of the big in our kung fu family) will be coming to town. He’ll be teaching a few classes and I have to try and plan my schedule so that I can make it to as many as possible.

Whoa! The shiny new Satin Uniform has arrived! Check it out!

Rock!

I’ll be retrieving my satin Kung Fu instructor uniform this week.

On it will be embroidered the words “Sihing Mike D.” in gold. When I get it, I’ll take pictures.

In Cantonese, Si means ‘teacher’ and Hing means ‘brother’.

There’s a rumor going around that jonabad.com, the original internet, is coming back and that it’s going to be better than ever. Jon’s been working on it this week. Right now you won’t find anything more than a clip from Jurassic Park there… but Jon’s been tinkering. And when Jon tinkers, the world gets psyched.

In Kung Fu News….

Last night I was invited to warm up our Kung Fu class as an assistant instructor. How fun! It was great to get up there and get the class moving and stretched out. Afterwards, we had a great class. Unfortunately, I had pre-gamed with a monster steak and cheese sandwich, so there was definitely some ‘ugh’ in my ‘umph’.

We ended the class with my favorite body conditioning exercise where you stand opposite your partner and swing your arms together in a 3, or 7 move combo. It hurts like heck and this morning I have some sweet black and blue souvenirs on my arms to show for it.

Tonight it’s more Kung Fu and some much needed paper-writing for economics. Blast! I’m still without topic.

have been progressing along my kung fu training quite steadily, and I am quite proud of my accomplishments so far. Last night in the dojo, our sensei told me something very exciting — that I have been selected to train with Shaolin Monks in China for 4 months! This opportunity is not bestowed upon many kung-fu students, and I must say that I am very honored indeed.

Getting the time off work should be no problem. I have a huge amount of vacation and comp days banked up from the past few years, and my employer said I could even work from China, supporting the factory in Dongying!

This sounds like a perfect opportunity to both drastically further my kung-fu skills, as well as live in an entirely different culture for an extended period of time. While I’m really excited about it, after a long period of soul searching, I’ve decided not to do it. Why not? Well, because studying with the Shaolin would require me to shave my head.

My whole identity would be gone! Just imagine…how would I MSPaint myself?? I don’t think I can do it, readers. I just don’t think I can do it.

This is cute.

From Mom D.

My Kung Fu academy is has an open house coming up. It’s the Tat Wong Kung Fu Academy in Middletown CT. If you’d like to try it out, let me know! It’s fun and if you happen to come to this particular open house you can get two free weeks of kung fu instruction.

Let me know if you’re interested!

Last night at Kung Fu, I fought Ben. Ben… is really ridiculous.

Ben is younger than I. He trained in China for a number of months in a Kung Fu variant that is highly acrobatic and very aggressive. Right now he’s training for a full contact fight in a tournament down in Florida. Whenever you fight Ben it is a test of nerves. Ben will win. It’s just a matter of how.

This fight was on mats. And Ben was allowed to throw.

The fight began. I circled quickly to my right threw a faux kick and a right hook. Ben blocked. From there the fight became a bit of a blur. Ben wasn’t being very aggressive. He was just taking my hits and occasionally jabbing me in the face or throwing a precise kick. There was one kick which literally, clipped my nose. That doesn’t mean I dodged it, it means Ben decided not to extend his foot the whole way.

His successful jabs were bothersome. In an attempt to push him back, I threw a side kick. He caught the kick, twisted, stepped forward, and swept my other leg out from under me.

I jumped up and charged with a crescent kick… he caught that two. I went down again.

It was fun, but humbling.

Clearly, I still have a lot of Kung Fu to learn.

I hit up Kung Fu last night. I’ve only been able to go to class two times in the last three weeks… and boy have I fallen behind. I’m going to have to practice more chain of death at home. Perhaps I will start each day with a chain of death.

Speaking of the HoR, tomorrow will see the move in of a fifth rocker. His name is Michael and he’s an IT guy. This move will fill the House of Rock to its capacity. In order to get Michael in, I moved to the small room (see vimeo tour here), Liz moved to my room, and Michael will be taking the ‘L’ room on the first floor.

It’ll be nice to have the place full again.

New House of Rock roommate Brian has a set of kettlebells.

Kettlebells are a Russian weightlifting tool that basically look like cannonballs with handles. They exude and aura of extremeness. Brian lent me a few DVD’s that cover the basics. Provided Brian’s willing to share the bells, I’m hoping to start in on a rough routine this week. It has the potential, I think, to rock me back into a fitness drive.

In other fitness news, I had my first 2 hour kung fu class last night. It was really unique. We spent the first hour working technical drills and the second hour on sparring. I was very tired by the end.

That said, the beginning stages of a new belt level are always a blast because you get to learn new stuff. For example, last night I started learning the first moves to the chain of death.

Chain of Death.

How hardcore is that?

This week… things change.

For one, classes are starting back up. I’m taking Conduction on Wednesdays, International Operations of Fridays, and Service Operations Management every other Saturday.

There’s nothing entirely unusual about this class schedule… but now I have an added commitment.

On Saturday, I am proud to report that I was promoted to blue belt in kung fu.
Looking at the following Kung Fu Belt Progress chart, you’ll see that I’m inching closer and closer towards the coveted black belt.

What does this have to do with added commitment? Well, blue belt and up is considered ‘advanced.’ This means that the class times will increase from one to two hours. This doubled time commitment will increase my weekly training from 3-4 hours to 6-8 hours. I also suspect the classes will get a bit more vigorous and I will be expected to reach new levels of fury.

It’ll be interesting to see how all this plays out.

In other news, keep your eyes open in the features section for a follow up on last night’s amazing roller derby bout.

This weekend was perfect.

Friday night I had a very important kung fu session and I’m pleased that I went. Sijeh Shannon was running class and critiqued my forms to a level beyond any other. It was extremely helpful.

Saturday Dave Susco and I hit up Main Cliff in the early AM. I started with a quick Broadway lead (5.8). Then Dave led a two pitch route: Jessica (5.8+ R). In actuality we never meant to have him start up an R. I was looking at the book, got confused, and we started up the wrong route. That said, it turned out to be the best climb of the day. The top was extremely tricky, and despite it being an R (this means rare gear placement) Dave threw down 6 pieces of protection in 20 feet. And this was absolutely necessary. He ended up taking a pretty big fall right before topping out. I would guess that he fell about 12 feet. It was wild.

The gear held without a problem. The top ended up requiring three consecutive sharp crimps and some creative footwork. It was a blast.

After eventually finishing that route we headed over to Vector and I led that route without too much difficulty. The crux was a thin off width that required a 4 cam. Unfortunately, I’d already used it so I had to run out about 12 feet of rope (not ideal). But I never felt very nervous… I think I will soon be ready for my first attempt of YMC - Main cliff’s infamous 5.9.

Some day I will be leading 5.10s. And that will be a triumphant day.

After climbing Dave and I shared some martial arts knowledge (he does Bando*… a thailand fighting style). It was fun.

Sunday, Shaun L. and I cleaned out the fridge (it was very dirty), I finished my cleaning of the downstairs bath, and we hit up the grocery store.

Good times. Very good times.

*SEE COMMENTS

In Kung Fu on Wednesday we did break falling and rolls. These classes rarely treat me well. Typically we’ll set up some mats and take turns diving and falling to the ground. I have a high tendency to tense up my neck when practicing this and the result is extreme soreness. Even today, two days later, it hurts to rotate my head. I’m sure once I get the maneuvers down I’ll loosen up a bit.

So much about Kung Fu requires looseness. Many of the wrist grabs and pressure point stuff can’t be completed if you try and throw in some muscle.

It can be frustrating.

In House news, I’ve finally completed the work on the downstairs bathroom. It took well over two weeks of restructuring, painting, caulking, and cleaning. I’m mostly pleased with the result - though the tub is stained and I’m not sure how to clean it. Anyone have any surefire methods to shine up a tub?

I got a staff in the face last night at Kung Fu. What a bummer!

We were doing our first ever staff strikes. It was awesome! Bow staffs flying through the air. The impacts making a distinct “CLACK! CLACK!”

There were two rolls: attacker and defender.

This probably calls for some MSPaint.

First, we have the attacker (on the left) making a low sweeping move towards our defender. He defends with a ‘La’ a swift upward bow flick.

The attacker then switches sides, and tries to sweep the other leg. Our target swings his staff back with a ‘Pa’ and falls into a cat stance.

Now what should happen, is that the defender takes advantage of his position and swings the staff around in a half ‘Sa.’ The attacker then drops into horse stance with a ‘hohn’ and blocks the strike above his head.

But that’s not what happened. Instead, in all the confusion of switching back and forth between being attacker and defender… I got super confused and just stopped. I didn’t move at all. I just held the bow staff at my waist and stared in blankness.

Thankfully no damage was done and we all got a good laugh about it.

Please enjoy the newest Kung Fu Party Trick!

Special thanks to Irene for being such a fantastic helper.

Kung Fu Party Tricks: Volume 3 from mikedidonato on Vimeo

Volume 2: The Watermelon

Enjoy!

Kung Fu Party Tricks: Volume 2 from mikedidonato on Vimeo

We’re going to try and start a new series here at MikeDiDonato.com: Kung Fu Party Tricks.

My hope is that these videos will get more and more ridiculous as time passes. I’m hoping to have updated videos every Tuesday. My goal is a total of 10 episodes.

Enjoy our first installment below. Today’s theme is… Panther Pushups!

Kung Fu Party Tricks: Volume 1 from mikedidonato on Vimeo

Last night at Kung Fu, Kung Fu Roland and I were pulled aside and invited to participate in “instructor training.”

How exciting!

While I am hesitant to jump on anything that requires additional time commitments, being a Kung Fu instructor would be absolutely amazing. If it worked, I would likely start by training little kids and adult beginners in the basics. It’d be a great non-stop review of the beginner forms and it’d probably be extremely fun.

In other news, I’m hoping to move forward on some potential house purchases. Provided the House of Rock moves, new residence may not be all that far away!

Last night at Kung Fu we learned a unique block. An attacker moves to kick you in the chest with a roundhouse. You take your closest elbow, arm pointing to the ground, and in one motion turn it away from your body and then twist your hand like you were opening a jar of pickles.*

When you twist your arm like this, your radius slams against your attacker’s shin.

The pain delivered to the attacker is Intense.

As an example of this pain the head instructor asked me to kick him in the chest so he could demonstrate the move. I performed a simple roundhouse. He performed the block.

I reared away in pain! It was brutal!

One of the other students asked a question about the technique, so the instructor asked me to kick him again.

And I couldn’t do it. After one kick I had already been conditioned to believe that kicking him lead to extreme pain. I brought my leg up and performed the most pansy kick you could ever imagine. It was pathetic.

If anyone is interested in learning this move, I’ll be happy to share. It’s pretty simple, and quite effective.

*the pickle analogy is right on. In fact, they use it to explain the move in class.

UPDATE: Ryan made the astute observation that if you’re performing the move with your LEFT arm, you’d actually be tightening the pickle jar.

I got palm struck in the face last night at kung fu. It didn’t hurt so much as completely stun me. My attacker actually stepped forward and grabbed my arms to prevent me from toppling over.

How strange it is getting palm struck in the face.

We were doing an exercise where I would jab at my opponent. He would block and then palm strike in the direction of my face. Except, he didn’t stop in time and plowed into my nose.

I was certain that it broke. But, a few minutes and nose blows later I was back in business.

It was a really strange experience though. Really strange.

In other news, check out this hilarious picture of how a backhoe can ruin your day.

Thanks Jes Saint!