The first rule of  fight club is you do not talk about fight club… the legendary dialogue from the movie Fight Club. Hollywood has made some  really cool and awesome movies on Mixed Martial Arts… Fight Club, Never Back Down, Red Belt, each of these leave one awe struck!

All the awesome workout sessions, your head automatically has the Rocky Balboa, “Eye of the Tiger,” playing…  Shootfighters have all of these amazing training sessions, that would transport you to any one of these flicks… strengthening exercises, conditioning, free- running… all of that you can ask for!

But there is a catch! When it comes to Shootfighters, there is more than what meets the eye… there is always something new and exciting to be offered by Shootfighters… While speaking of MMA, we have, taken this term very seriously and to the point!

Ashwin has been practising martial arts for over 2 decades now… and these arts range from Karate, Kickboxing, Brazilian Jujutsu, a bit of Sambo, Taekwondo, Aikido, Jujutsu, Kalaripayattu, Tamil Kalaripayattu, Wing-Tsun, Kenjutsu, Garadi, Vajramushti, Judo, Tai Chi, Baghuazhang, Various types of Kung Fu- Eagle Claw, Tiger, Snake and a bit of Manthis… and each of these forms have been blended in Shootfighters…

This unique blend makes the classes, complete fun and totally exciting. Martial Arts has a huge history, and there are wide array of arts… each place has adapted and taken an art form to suit their own needs and requirements. Thus, the existence of this melting pot of so to say, martial arts under one roof… makes it a complete martial treat!

“One needs to enjoy what they teach… and I would personally find only striking pretty boring… after sometime plain old kickboxing without grappling, take-downs… gets very boring. It is not even practical in a real fight, where you are grabbed, pushed, clawed, slapped. Also, in most cases, you are up against more than one opponent… where one person does the hitting, while the others do the holding.” Says Ashwin.

Hmmm, only strikes and kicks seem like so much of a constriction here… one needs to know different techniques and ways to get out of any attack situation. Shootfighters Inc, takes in all the useful martial arts and makes it a part of their course curriculum.

Sounds fun right! Different martial arts, being blended and taught with some really cool moves… but behind all of this is a serious effort made, with tremendous hard work, and passion for Martial arts.

Ashwin has been in constant touch with different people in the world of Martial art, making friends, getting to know their art forms. Many masters do not teach you some art forms that easily… they need to know whether one can handle it. Ashwin had to go through years of patient waiting before he was introduced into numerous arts.

“It is a complete course you need to go through, most teachers do not teach you what part you want and leave the rest… you need to wait it out patiently and get the useful information out. Every martial art has some very useful and amazing techniques, and some may not work.”

With real-time experience of numerous fights, Ashwin knows that one needs to have a multitude of techniques that work.

“My instructors like Siddarth are very good fighters, because they have only learnt techniques that work and nothing else.” Adds Ashwin.

The most tough to capture have been the Indian Martial Arts… these seem to be very well hidden and shrouded, many have been lost and left only to a chosen few., as they need to make sure whether one can wield the power given by the arts.

The organization is doing a lot to preserve and document lesser known Indian martial arts such as Garadi, Vajramushti, Varmakalai, Silammbam so that they don’t die out entirely.

“I had this curiosity to understand and know, why an agriculture based civilization would need Martial Arts. Hunters and gatherers, it is understandable, but Indus Valley Civilization, the first civilization to develop a deep cultural setup of Martial arts was something I wanted to learn about.” Says Ashwin.

The great sages of India like Agastyar, Thirumular, Boghanathar… all of them have made huge contributions to Martial Arts, also incidentally the word ‘Chi‘ is derived from Chivaya (a tamil way of saying Shiva). The insights provided by them in Martial arts is very profound and deep. It set a base for the growth of martial arts all over the world.

“Martial arts, is about being strong, self-defence and all of that… but then there is more to Martial arts… it has a deeper ethereal meaning. When many students had signed up for self-defence or fitness, they continued classes even after achieving fitness and self-defence. Out of sheer curiosity I enquired, and found out that they felt a sense of achievement and strong confidence while be a part of our classes.” Says Ashwin.

Thus, martial arts works directly on the mind of the person, which in turn reflects in the body. “Martial arts is like Kundalini Yoga, where the aim is to achieve enlightenment, thus sages like Agastyar practised the arts. In order to see a mental change, physical vigour need to be done, once there is a mental change it is seen in the spirit… all of them are interconnected. “ Adds Ashwin.

The best part about these arts are, they are very nicely blended and gelled in to make a perfect school for martial arts- Independent Shootfighters Inc.

Ok so while exploring the underworld of sports, I rolled across parkour. Many people have heard of freestyle walking, but this is freestyle running. I guess people got tired of just plain running and decided to throw in some flips and spins. My take on this sport/discipline…Awesome! I have now been inspired to take-on a new hobby; thats right, jumping off of your car or house for fun. That’s how we do it! If you are interested in this, take a look at www.americanparkour.com. They have everything you need to get started.

Khonda

I’ve always been a fan of animation in general, if you are at all like me, you should really check this guy out. This film, “Khonda”, was made using 6000 individual paintings and took a staggering 2 years to complete. The idea behind the film was where ever you paused the film, you would see a picture. Anyway enough of that. The man has incredible skills, check him out.

http://vimeo.com/2074812?hd=1

PERO CÓMO NO NOS DIERON ESTE VIDEO ANTES!!!!!!

Videos aclaratorios sobre el tema:

A pleasant celebration of human movement if ever I saw one. Great to see all the sports rolled into one in this good edit by solomonjames1

I was production manager and I also operated/supplied the crane that was used in this video.

Dès l’âge de 4 ans, il s’intéresse déjà aux sports en débutant par le hockey.
Ses limites sont atteintes selon lui, mais arrive le skateboard qui lui apporte une sécrétion d’adrénaline hors du commun vu l’aspect technique et risqué de cette activité.
Devenu policier à la Sûreté du Québec en 2001, il continu à pousser son intérêt vers les sports extrêmes.
Suite à sa rencontre avec Yan Leconte et Mathieu Ledoux, membres de l’équipe Fast Motion, il commence alors à s’intéresser au monde du cinéma et des cascades. Ainsi débute sa passion pour la gymnastique, les arts martiaux et l’art du déplacement (parkour).
Il commence à pratiquer cette dernière discipline en ayant pour inspiration David Belle qu’il a aperçu sur le Web. Avec sa compréhension de ce sport et des valeurs qui l’entourent, il parvient à offrir un enseignement à des jeunes passionnés et rejoint les Yamakasi à Evry en France pour offrir des séminaires à des adeptes de la place.
Il rencontre aussi les membres de Parkour Generations et plusieurs autres traceurs expérimentés dont il tire profit. Suite à cela, il débute sa carrière de cascadeur professionnel en se rendant aux Etats-Unis pour collaborer avec les compagnies USANA et Bombardier. Avec l’intention d’élargir ses compétences, il s’adonne au motocross et au rollerblade (agressive in-line skating) tout en ne cessant de prôner l’entraînement par la méthode naturelle.
En somme, avec ses multiples habiletés et son intense désir d’inspirer les gens, Sébastien continu de construire sa voie de façon intense et passionnée à travers Fast Motion dont il est maintenant un membre à part entière.

http://www.fast-motion.tv

I’m too lazy to determine if I’ve posted on Parkour before, but I think I am. Anyway, it is probably the best thing to come out of France besides the food. If you saw Casino Royale, the contruction site scene has some nice free running. Above is a clip from District 13, a terrible French movie that has some pretty awesome free running/parkour action. Parkour is basically urban gymnastics and free running is doing it while on the move. Most parkour clips seem to involve cheesy techno and dudes with no shirts, so it is very European, but still pretty sweet.

I always knew that success at parkour involved some injuries and below are some painful looking fails. After the jump are some other sweet vids.

Parkour is sexy. ‘Nuff said.

A simply beautiful game.

Well not really but really, if you like the freedom of runnign and jumping thorugh an urban wilderness, listening to your personal hip hop playlist, spinning a few front flips and  perhaps falling to your death from  a five box high freighter.

Having being introduced to free running or “parkour” a number of years ago, but not “actually having participated in it myself,” I found this game by chance: turns out its not so easy to get hold of or something, but was pretty pleased when it turned up in Gamestation.

Admittedly the front cover showing a man sporting a fetching blue Adidas tracksuit is one of it lesser selling points, the inner game design is something else.

Visually it’s particularly appealing. As long as you don’t run into a wall, your movements are pretty smooth flowing. It takes a while to master the moves and movements, but it’s well worth spending the time to do on the three in depth tutorials. Once this is done, the “world’s your oyster.”

More tracks, clothes, moves and areas are unlocked as the game progresses, with each level having a number of challenges to complete in order to move on. But breaking from the traditional “finish one level move onto the next,” you could let’s say finish one level and this subsequently opens another challenge three levels back.

The variety of gameplay has kept me gripped until this point, where yes, I am stuck.(Not for long don’t you worry: it’s only been three months so far.”

The game’s downsides would be it’s challenge: not necessarily a downside, but doesnt make the game available to all PSP players. Some level of awareness is required, but could make for some interesting death sequences…Controls are an “art”, sort of, but once mastered, is like riding a bike.

All of this is made up for wholly in sheer atmosphere and fun. I mean, you knwo you always wanted to scale that five box high freighter and jump across to that precarious looking pole hanging over the edge of the sea…

Not for the faint hearted.

“Parkour is the physical discipline of training to overcome any obstacle within one’s path by adapting one’s movements to the environment.”  -official definition from the american parkour website

A couple years ago, I seen free-running or “Parkour” on the commercials for Nike’s presto line, (which I *Bee happen to mess with also.) I had to give this a put on after I seen it on MTV2…  I couldnt keep track of all the insane stuff they were doing. I cant even express the heart each of these gentleman exude, sooo…  ”Roll that beautiful bean footage!”

Print$: CGI? These guys ARE CGI.  They’re like friggin cyborgs.

Here’s some graphic design work, born out of boredom…

El de la absenta me mata!!!!!

… in der Stadt. Bäume, Beton – Umgebung ist nutzbar. (Video bei YouTube gefunden)

Digital Bross ha comunicado mediante una nota de prensa, que el juego Free Running en su version para la consola WII, llegará a finales de este mes.

Aqui teneis el comunicado de prensa:

La vida de ciudad supone atascos, aceras llenas, transportes públicos abarrotados… pero si tu quieres ser el rey de esta jungla de asfalto Free Running es para ti.

Free Running: (Nom.) Arte de la acrobacia urbana en el que los “Runners” se desplazan con gran rapidez por la ciudad, con espectaculares movimientos atléticos utilizando las estructuras de la ciudad y elementos del mobiliario urbano.

Free Running te permite desplazarte libremente por los espectaculares escenarios diseñados ex profeso para hacer acrobacias. Durante todo el juego deberás mantener altos tus medidores de Flow y de Sprint pero ten cuidado y no pierdas el ritmo a la hora de saltar, balancearte y correr. La física de Free Running ha sido cuidadosamente adaptada a las capacidades de la Wii para usar el mando remoto y el Nunchaku: apuntar, mover y girar los mandos en el momento adecuado es fundamental para hacer los trucos más espectaculares.

• 60 desafíos frenéticos, más de 10 niveles y 3 ambientes diferentes: Urban Jungle, Docklands e Inner City.
• 9 modos de juego, incluyendo individual y multijugador que incluyen ‘Race’ (carrera), ‘Trick’ (Truco) y ‘Target’ (objetivo).
• Libertad absoluta – ¡Ve donde quieras! ¡Salta lo que puedas!
• Desbloquea nuevos personajes, ropa, música, trucos y movimientos.

Si quieres ser el rey de esta ciudad empieza a calentar, Free Running para WiiTM llega a las tiendas el 29 de octubre de 2009.

Ryan Doyle Vs Damien Walters? There’s a video I’d like to see. Damien a background in Gymnastics and formally trained. Ryan with a background in Free-running (martial arts?) and self taught? (you tell me). Both are media darlings atm, and both can put on one hell of a show.

Check Ryan latest video, then go leave some love on his YT page:

And in case you’re one of the 4.5million people how missed Damiens 2009 video, check it:

Creating Elizabeth and her world was the most fun I have ever had writing a novel. I am so pleased to say that its finally finished!

Thanks go to Jackie for giving me permission to use her screen name ”Rebel Goddess” in the book and for her infectious enthusiasm for my idea of a smart and feisty pirate-hunting, teen fencer. Many thanks also to my nephew Alex who never tires of what I write. Edgar Award-winning author, T.J. MacGregor told me via email that my last novel, RAVENSTONE was a “cool book” and that my villain was “one nasty dude.” Well, I hope she gets a chance to read THE PIRATE VORTEX,starring Elizabeth Latimer, Pirate Hunter.

ELPH as I like to call the series is fun. Liz is totally in control. Even when she’s not, she always finds a way to outwit her pirate adversaries. In a world where men solve their problems by running a foot of steel into their enemies’ guts, Liz has few weapons at her disposal. The Universe has its rules—and Liz is bound by two of them. Number one: Don’t reveal modern technology to the pirates. Number two: Don’t kill anyone. If she breaks either of these rules, she’ll change history and alter the future. Worst Case Scenario? Liz and her family will cease to exist!

CHAPTER ONE

 Fight Like A Champion, Not Like A Wench! 

  Elizabeth Latimer was a pirate hunter. She wasn’t always a pirate hunter. But even before she hunted pirates, she was a freakishly awesome fencer. She was also an expert scuba diver and a seasoned catboat sailor. She spoke four languages: English, French, Chinese and Spanish, and she had an uncanny telepathy with animals.

 Her best friends were her fourteen-year-old sister, Lulu, who just happened to be a computer brainiac, and a talking parrot named CJ, which was short for Calico Jack. Her mom was the famous Tess Rackham, adventurer and treasure hunter bar none. Tess dug out pirate shipwrecks, salvaged cargoes and hocked the most valuable stuff to collectors. Four years ago, she was a prof at the University of Victoria where she researched sunken ships and taught a course called the Archaeology of Piracy. But then her husband, John Latimer, died. He was a fanatic of pirate history, a builder of model pirate ships and a sailing pro. He was also Elizabeth’s dad. He drowned in a sailing accident and Elizabeth never went sailing again.

 Elizabeth had no choice but to become a pirate hunter because Elizabeth, or Liz, as she preferred to be called, had the curse of pirates in her blood. But, in the twenty-first century, who, in their right mind, wanted to be a pirate hunter? Her supreme formula for life was to be an economics/commerce major and work in a bank when she finished school. She would then marry a lawyer and have a grand ordinary life, extraordinaire. It would be a life where parrots didn’t cuss and fourteen-year-old sisters didn’t hack into their school’s computers, where moms didn’t hunt treasure and dads didn’t drown while sailing. And animals couldn’t read her mind.

 But the day her dad died—four years ago—Liz knew the pirate curse was there to stay. So, she had to do something to remind herself of why John Latimer died. She painted one nail, her lefthand thumb, and she painted it blood red. In the centre of her thumbnail, on the bloody background, she drew a skull and crossbones in black ink. Liz knew that what had consumed her parents might, one day, consume her, too. And crying great big cartoon tears wouldn’t change a thing. It was only a matter of time . . . That time came, on a cool spring morning, around seven a.m., when Elizabeth Latimer entered the University of Victoria’s gymnasium door.

 On the fencing piste, Liz’s opponent was waiting for her, strutting his stuff. He had a cool, cocky attitude, a lean, powerful build and the spin-worthiness of a dancer.

 Liz drew on her protective glove with its white gauntlet and tested her sword hand’s grip. She waltzed onto the fencing piste and rolled her eyes. In answer, her opponent flexed his foil as though it were a cutlass. She snorted. Who did he think he was? Captain Jack Sparrow? Unlike her, he already wore his face mask. He wasn’t supposed to wear his mask until they were both in the start position. They hadn’t yet begun the bout and already he was BTR.

Well, if he wanted to break the rules, she would teach him some. She fastened her mask to the protective bib at her throat. She plugged the body wires attached to her form-fitting lamé jacket into the spools connected to the electronic scoring box and indicated for him to do the same. He hesitated for a second. She waited, then raised her hands in a ‘What gives?’ gesture. They had no referee.

 Laura Baeker, the fencing coach, wasn’t due to arrive for another half-hour. He was required to hook himself up. Without a ref, it was the only way to keep score.

 “What’s the matter?” she said, irritably. “Plug yourself in.” He looked down at the complex set of wires attached to the special conducting cloth that made up his jacket, then turned his eyes to her.

 His expression was concealed behind the mask. She rolled her eyes, reiterated, “You got a problem?”

 He shook his head, mimed her act of plugging in the wires, then stood back.

 Elizabeth tested the equipment against her lamé jacket which conducted the electronic signals. Lights flashed from ‘the box’ and she set the scoreboard to zero. She retreated to her en-guarde line and watched her opponent find his.

 Okay, mystery boy. Let’s see what you’ve got. She saluted him and he returned the gesture. She raised her foil and waited for the electronic voice to shout “Play!” She glared at him through her mask. He was tall and limber and deflected her blows with the sass of Captain Jack.

 The floor of the narrow fencing piste pounded with the shuffling of their feet. He lunged and she parried, feeling the sting of his foil. His dizzying footwork was priceless. Where had he learned footwork like that? He had superior balance, speed and athleticism. The way he accelerated, decelerated and switched directions had her dancing at a cataclysmic pace.

 They fenced for three minutes, then some lights flashed from the box and the electronic ref shouted “Halt.” The points sprang onto the monitor. Liz ground her teeth, stamped her foot in disappointment and returned to her en-guarde line. “Play!” the electronic ref shouted.

 The early morning sun shot through the gym windows, blinding her for a second. She blinked, lunged. Somewhere in the bleachers a voice shrieked—

Just over 3 mins of grey tracksuit bottoms has dropped on Youtube from the airborne crew. Mighty footage in lovely arty farty black and whiteness, now with 50% added slomo. Rocking: