It's crazy isn't it? Seems like Version has arguably the largest collection of lethal weapons of various kinds (which is particularly scary cos you imagine him thinking "Hmmm, shall I finish him off with the cleaver or the chainsaw?" - it's gone way beyond self-defence obviously). I'm definitely gonna be watching how I respond to him in future. You might say you can get away with it cos it's on the internet, you live in different countries and he's got no idea what you look like, but to me this clearly reveals that he is the vindictive kind of psycho who actually might track you down - one day I'll be drunkenly walking home and a sinister figure will appear in the alley leading into Rua Sao Francisco Xavier wielding a battleaxe and say "So what is you think about Paul Thomas Andersen again?".
And now he's put a sinister laugh emoji on my comment. I'm hearing it like Richard Widmark
Legitimate way to get reverse swing (oh I thought you said ball so that doesn't work).
Having done a few odds and ends of martial arts over the years, something I find interesting is that while learning martial arts for self-defense is mostly a terrible idea in terms of cost / benefit - like, realistically the basic cardio-vascular fitness is far more likely to save your life than the ability to fuck someone's shit up in single combat - and I've always understood that I'm basically training for the fun of it, one condition of it seeming worthwhile, even on those terms, is that it does basically "work" to the extent that it claims. So I wouldn't mind doing some form of traditional Uzbek wrestling that assumes that you'll start off in a clinch gripping the back of your opponent's belt and trying to throw them, but I would feel somehow cheated if you never got to test whether this or that throw would actually work against someone who was really trying to stop you within the rules of the sport.
Ah, I thought that you meant could they go beyond that very specific context. Bur surely if they are the holds made for that sport then they must work in that sport? If the sport's moves don't work in the sport and no-one was able to actually affect the other person it would be a pretty dull spectacle wouldn't it? Unless - which is I suppose is possible - it's a sport which is built upon a handicap of deliberately useless moves which are so ineffective only an absolute master can actually use to cause any harm at all to an opponent. So Uzbek wresting would be kinda like one of those games you see at fairgrounds where you have to play table-tennis looking only in a mirror or whatever? But that would make it quite unlike most other types of fighting sport which I believe tend to originate as either a) an advanced way of fighting which gives its practitioners an advantage or b) a codification of rules to make it fairer and more honourable with fewer injuries (like for example boxing).
I feel as though I hit (no pun intended) on something in my comment above though. Maybe it's obvious but I've never really thought about it before, but now I am thinking that there are two types of martial-art, or two philosophies or something.
