On Fri, Dec 12, 2003 at 10:58:31AM -0800, Philip Hart <philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU> wrote: > On Fri, 12 Dec 2003, Chris Olson - SunPS wrote: > > Jot Powers wrote: > > > It is obvious that any movie on martial arts isn't going to be how it > > > is really practiced. 3 moves, fight over, just doesn't make for > > > interesting cinema. :) > > Combine that with the fact that movie fights are choreographed, > > and you'll get the general idea. > > I've seen martial arts tournaments (and participated in a couple, ouch!) > > and they're never like the movies. They usualy involve the > > participants circling each other, mixed with a flurry of > > blows, kicks, and blocks. And yeah, it can often be a "3-move, done" > > fight. <grin> > Is it Zelazny's book _Doorways in the Sand_ where we see a duel between > two expert swordsmen, the duel consisting entirely of the men circling > each other looking for an deadly advantage? I remember one dueler saying, > "You almost had me there" at some point, though nothing visible changed. I'm not familiar with that reference, though it's a common concept. Samurai were said to have duels that to an outside observer consisted almost entirely of staring contests -- complete stillness, but whichever samurai lost his focus lost the duel. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp