School Shutdown

The skies are sunny, and the breezes are warm.

How can it be that it is the middle of the worst Jiu-Jitsu week of the year? It is time for the local school’s yearly shutdown.

There are no classes for two weekends, and all the days in between. Such a stretch of time normally contains three advanced classes, and I’ll be missing them all.

I also train in Vancouver on Saturdays, so I’ll still be getting those two sessions.

There is also a little study group that meets on Sundays, so that’s two more.

That means that both of the aforementioned weekends will have training every day, but that still leaves all the weekdays in between.

Except Rob and I got together to work on the second-level technical exam material on Monday, and then did it again on Tuesday.

That still left 3 days with nothing scheduled, so I decided to bite the bullet, and go into Vancouver for 2 extra days there. The classes are fine, but I have to leave home before any normal person is vertical (5am) and don’t get home until 13 hours later (6pm). I like doing it once a week, but more is certainly a strain.

That’s why I was so happy that our instructor asked if I would work with him on his 4th-level technical exam material today. I got a top notch session without any of the travel.

That leaves just two days that have neither been filled nor scheduled. On Friday, I suspect it will be a Vancouver day.

Thursday? No idea, but even if it sits empty, it will be the only such day of the entire shutdown.

I suppose it isn’t such a bad Jiu-Jitsu week at all.

Sugar Vapour

Vaping has been in the news a lot lately. There seems to be some health problems popping up that proponents are desperately trying to deny.

I figured there would be problems way back when the vaping first started.

Anytime you put anything in your lungs other than air you are asking for trouble.

I suppose water vapour has to seem the safest thing to use, and is actually a component in air.

Even water vapour has issues. There are a number of health conditions where humidity can be a problem. Tuberculosis and asthma spring to mind. Notice that we’re talking about ordinary humidity. Vaping takes the concept of humidity up to a ludicrous extreme.

It is much more concentrated than any kind of natural fog.

Heck, high humidity in hot weather makes breathing harder even for people with no lung conditions at all.

Probably any vapers out there will have jumped on my argument already, but pure water isn’t even my main concern.

Let’s say we accept the idea that if fog isn’t a problem for most people, and even that the idea of breathing water vapour considerably more intense than fog is a fine activity, that isn’t what vaping is all about.

The idea is to use the vapour as an agent to get other substances into the lungs. These include, but are not limited to, flavours, nicotine, glycerin, propylene glycol, and cannabis. And don’t forget about the presence of unintentional contaminants.

Let’s consider the safest seeming of this list, which are the flavourings. Some manufacturers refuse to use several commonly used substances as unsafe, but others do. Cinnamon is common, and tastes great, but it certainly shouldn’t be introduced into anybody’s lungs.

Surely you remember the stupid cinnamon challenges of a few years ago. The reason there were challenges at all was people trying to handle a spoon of cinnamon in their mouths. The difficulty lay in the extreme drying characteristics of the spice. Do you really want to introduce water vapour and a hideously drying substance to the delicate surfaces in your lungs at the same time, simply to enjoy the flavour?

How about oils derived from fruit? Plants are great to eat, but do they really appeal to you as a lung coating.

I don’t want oil introduced into my lungs, or concentrated water vapour, or spices, or sugar.

The argument that vaping is safer than smoking doesn’t hold much water with me. Both are stupid.

If anything, smoking has less of an impact on me these days than vaping does. Smokers seem to understand that they have no right to inflict their toxins on other people. Vapers? Not so much.

I can’t even remember a recent incident of a smoker practicing their habit near me.

Yesterday, at a crowded bus stop, three individuals openly vaped near the waiting passengers. I’m sure they felt that their little cotton-candy-papaya-mango clouds were harmless, but are the rest of us supposed to just take it.

It could just as easily have been home-made, strawberry-flavoured cannabis, with nicotine, extra glycol, and only a little cross contamination from the users chicken burrito dinner the night before.

Why do they even want to inflict their habit on others? Perhaps it is a hold over from the olden days when smoking was seen as sophisticated and cool. Perhaps they have always wanted to breathe smoke and fire like a dragon.

A vaping dragon.

Masculine

A while back a new term popped into existence. I instantly knew what it meant, and found it a useful tool in describing certain negative characteristics and behaviour within our culture.

I also found it strange that there was an almost immediate backlash against it.

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with some men.

In my life I have been a victim of toxic masculinity. As a kid, I got picked on and bullied once in a while. I bet you can guess which gender every single one of my tormentors was?

Picked on by a girl, or made fun of by a girl? I suppose it would have been theoretically possible, but it never happened. Not even once.

Well, maybe I’m just some kind of weak, victim kinda guy. After all, my military service, and time working in a shipyard, and 38 year marriage, 30 years as a student and teacher of Shotokan Karate, and my 8 years training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu are probably all indicators of my lack of toughness, and therefore my lack of qualification to speak out about toxic masculinity.

Maybe you should say that to my face.

But I digress.

The argument that the term is somehow an attack on men is absurd. I am a man, and do not feel it attacks me. Does it point a questioning finger at some otherwise unquestioned behaviours and attitudes that I might have? I think it does.

Look at my argument where I listed some of my most masculine life experiences, and where I finished with what was clearly a chest-thumping expression of challenge.

What a ridiculous way to express an idea in a typed essay on behaviors that are both masculine and unacceptable.

Why would it matter if I am tough, or if I’m not, or if even if I’m male or not? However, I’m willing to accept that to a number of readers about this topic it does matter.

And therein lies part of the problem.

Not a problem with masculinity if we just do a little simple mental sorting. If I am correct in stating that there is a category of masculinity that should be labeled toxic, would that also not automatically require that there be another which should be known as non-toxic masculinity.

Let’s take a seemingly harmless example.

You are approaching a door at a mall at about the same time as a woman. You pull open the door and hold it open for her, with a smile. She smiles back and says, “No, after you.”

Do you hold your smile, accept that your attempt at courtesy has been courteously declined, and enter the doorway first, or do you insist that she pass the door ahead of you?

To have insisted would mean that you think you have the right to decide when a total stranger should have to pass through a doorway, and when they shouldn’t. They clearly stated that they didn’t want to pass before you, and yet it was more important to you that they honour your attempt to be nice than their right as an autonomous individual to move about freely.

You may well disagree that this is not what it means, but it certainly could to the woman in question, and for you to decide that it’s really all about you means that you are what many of us would choose to call an asshole. I agree that you would only be a minor asshole, but certainly one never-the-less.

How about if in the example, you try and insist, and she continues to refuse. Do you eventually give up, after several rounds of, “no, after you,” or do you finally get mad and display anger? Now you are a major asshole, of the first order; a Darth Vader of assholes.

I contend that you are now a glowing example of toxic masculinity.

If the confrontation had ended at her first decline, it would have been a fine example of non-toxic masculine behaviour.

How about another from the current news cycle?

An Irish UFC fighter, who acts like a douce towards other fighters, and fans, and people in general, and who is frequently in trouble with the law over it, goes into a bar.

We don’t know exactly what happens in the next part, but some older, grey-haired gentleman seems to have not been impressed. Perhaps words were exchanged. Somebody starts videoing. The older gentleman is no longer engaging with the young fighter, and is sitting at the bar with his back turned. The fighter approaches, and tries to pour the older gentleman a drink from a bottle of booze. It would seem that the gent refuses the drink, likely based on the athlete’s reputation as an asshole.

The fighter, who seems to have just been trying to mend fences and build bridges then proceeds to punch the older gentleman in the head, and is dragged away by bystanders.

A veritable shit-storm of behaviour that is clearly masculine, and is also totally toxic. Can you even imagine this same story sounding real if it were a female fighter involved?

And it isn’t simply that the character involved is an asshole, which he clearly is. He has been an asshole for a long time; at least for his entire public career. Society has applauded his antics, and egged him on. Not only has he gotten away with it, but has been rewarded with both adoration and applause.

Do we dare to be shocked when it turns out that he is actually exactly as advertised?

Why does it hurt anybody to call this guy an example of toxic masculinity?

Let’s keep the story equally masculine, and remove the toxicity. The fighter offers to pour the guy a drink, and when he is refused immediately returns to his own table and leaves the old guy in peace.

This new term is a great one as a descriptor for this kind of behaviour; much more accurate than the mere asshole label.

Turns out, that many of the men that feel attacked by the label react by denouncing it as a feminist attack on men. The implication is that radical, man-hating women are out to vent their hatred.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. The people that first started using this label, and others like it, were men. Does that matter? It shouldn’t, but it seems that it does.

The label arose from the work of a number of males reacting against the societal forces that promote and reinforce particular negative behaviours that western society labels as masculine ones.

Were these men also feminists? Who cares? Were they man haters? I seriously doubt it.

But let’s forget all of that for a minute, and focus on a few aspects of masculinity that are less than endearing.

If you flip back to my resume of manliness, you many notice that three of the five items listed carry a common thread. Military service, Karate training, and Jiu-Jitsu all are closely related to violence. Do you think that to be just a random fluke?

Why wouldn’t I have listed any of my other major life experiences? The answer is simple; I chose to use those that are the most masculine at a gut-reaction level. I have also attended university, taught history at a high school, and like to travel. While those things are not particularly female, they are not characteristically masculine either.

In both of my examples of toxic behaviour, violence is either implied (the angry door holder), or direct (hitting the elderly man).

Certainly, non-masculine individuals can be violent, just as they can serve in the Army, or be Karateka, or excel at Jiu-Jitsu.

I think a critical self-examination by men is long overdue, and it has nothing to do with feminism, or male-bashing, or hurt feelings.

Between 2003 until 2012 in the USA 88% of murders were committed by men. If you are a man and think that doesn’t matter to you, think again. 78.7% of murder victims worldwide are male, as are approximately half the victims of assault.

The evidence would also indicate that the problem isn’t one of genetics. It is societal.

Being assertive is considered a positive masculine characteristic. The meaner brother of assertiveness is aggression, and it is the first-cousin is violence. Men are often praised for being unwilling to take no for an answer. What an unpleasant characteristic? It is toxic.

People who are masculine are also expected to control their emotions. You shouldn’t ever show any emotion, but if you do, the only one that won’t get you shamed is anger. This is toxic.

If you don’t like the term toxic masculinity for behaviours such as these how about a somewhat less evocative label such as, “toxic behaviours that are not exclusive to individuals who self-identify as masculine, or present in all individuals who self-identify as masculine, but statistically more likely to be detectable in individuals who self-identify as masculine.”

I like the term toxic masculinity just fine, and understood instantly what it referred to when I heard it for the first time.

It isn’t an attack on me.

Small Training

It is a weird thing to be an old guy who trains in a martial art.

Training and experience makes a person a better fighter, but aging makes one worse. At some point, the downward slide begins.

It can be hard for anybody to recognize when this happens. Does it really matter?

There are days when I think I suck, but also times when I surprise myself at what I’m able to do.

I started training as a White Belt at age 55, and made it to a Blue Belt at 56. Purple followed in at age 59, and now I’m 63.

I would say that I’m still improving as a fighter. This doesn’t mean that age hasn’t taken a massive toll.

If up against an individual in their 20s, or 30s I’m faced with all sorts of disadvantages. Speed, strength, durability and endurance will all greatly favour my opponent.

If they also have as much experience and training as me then it really shows.

I rely on my training and experience to keep my body as effective a weapon as possible, and to give me the skills to counterweigh my deficiencies.

A funny thing is that there has been a huge shift in the type of training that makes me effective. Large classes are always great, but small-group work has become, on average, more important.

My group class training has been consisting of 4 sessions per week. It still does but, for example, this week I will also be spending even more time working within groups of from 2 to 4 people.

Sometimes the small groups will have somebody in the instructor roll, but just as often they won’t. By the nature of the dynamic, each student has to take more responsibility for their own learning.

I like that a lot, and it makes me think more. As even when we have somebody playing instructor, it isn’t with the certainty of a class leader.

With a group of 20 eager students, instructors tend to cover things that are not only suitable for the group, but that are also secure in the instructor’s knowledge base.

In our little groups, that’s rarely the case. We are forever figuring out what to do with that unused leg, or hand, and can the opponent find an easy counter for what we’re doing. It’s great.

A weird thing it that in order to pursue this fully I am holding back my progress in rank. My next step is to a Brown Belt, and in theory I could test anytime. In reality, it would take months of preparation.

To do that, I’d have to pull time and effort away from the training that I’m currently hip deep in. Test preparation would make me better, but not by as much what I’m doing now.

If I were a kid of 20, or even one of 40 this wouldn’t matter. There would be plenty of time for all sorts of things.

Instead, I am a geezer of 63. I have less years, and so need a more selective approach.

Rank will have to wait.