{"id":4370,"date":"2007-04-24T16:10:23","date_gmt":"2007-04-24T21:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=4370"},"modified":"2007-04-24T16:07:59","modified_gmt":"2007-04-24T21:07:59","slug":"my_yoga_is_unst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2007\/04\/24\/my_yoga_is_unst\/","title":{"rendered":"My yoga is unstoppable"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was younger, I was always jealous of the other Asian kids. Why? Because they had kick-ass unarmed martial arts. A Chinese kid could say “Hey, don’t mess with me – I know Kung Fu like Bruce Lee!” What was I going to say in response – “Well, I know Ahimsa like Gandhi?” <\/p>\n\n

And it wasn’t just the Chinese kids. If you were Korean, you could say you knew TaeKwanDo. If you were Japanese, obviously you could claim to know Karate. Sure, India does have martial arts<\/a> like gatka<\/a>, wrestling<\/a>, and Kalaripayattu<\/a> but nobody had heard of those and I couldn’t even pronounce “Kalaripayattu.”<\/p>\n\n

In fact, the physical activity that India is most known for is Yoga. I like Yoga but it’s not very macho<\/a>, and how on earth are you going to use it to defend yourself? <\/p>\n\n

In fact, this amazingly paneer filled clip from Yoga vs. Kung Fu is the only time I’ve seen Yoga used in a movie to beat somebody up:<\/p>\n\n

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[Yes, it’s dubbed into French. IMHO, that just makes it all better.]<\/p>\n\n

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Of course, you could always try to sell Yoga as the perfect adjunct to a more bloodthirsty activity, like shooting guns:<\/p>\n\n

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You shoot better when you realize that your soul is a leaf falling through time, and that work shouldn’t equal struggle. And yoga never aligns you with the universe better than when your forearm is still tingling from the buck and recoil of a .357 bullpup.
Someone needs to open a combination shooting range and yoga studio. I’m serious. Maybe I should do it. Hose off a few clips of Glaser safety slugs, then see how deep you can go into Warrior II. The murder rate would go down. No, wait — it would stay the same, but people would realize it’s all part of a bigger plan. [Link<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n

Maybe that’s the best way to make Yoga more effective as a tool for avenging the wrong done to your master – do Yoga softly, but carry a big Dandasana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Update<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n

HMF has reminded me (how could I forget?) of Dhalsim from Street Fighter:<\/a><\/p>\n\n

Dhalsim is the original long-range fighter of fighting games. Dhalsim’s intense training has given him the ability to contort and extend his limbs in ways that are physically impossible; he can project his arms and legs outward in order to deliver attacks that would be out of the range of normal limbs… Due to his reach advantage, Dhalsim has both very low offense and defense, making it vital for him to avoid sustaining too many blows from a strong fighter…

Dhalsim can project from his mouth a rapid, immobilizing projectile known as Yoga Fire<\/font>, and a stationary spread known as the Yoga Flame; later games incorporate the anti-air version known as the Yoga Blast. According to the English language Street Fighter II manual, eating spicy Indian curry gave Dhalsim the ability to breathe fire<\/font>, but this was rewritten to being a gift from Agni, the Indian god of fire. [Link<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n

All I can say is that, as with Spiderman, that fire is coming out of the wrong place, man.<\/p>\n\n

<<\/p>\n\n

p><\/p>\n\n

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<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was younger, I was always jealous of the other Asian kids. Why? Because they had kick-ass unarmed martial arts. A Chinese kid could say “Hey, don’t mess with me – I know Kung Fu like Bruce Lee!” What … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,1,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4370"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4370\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}