I believe, if I am not mistaken, that by now my nerd credentials are well established and I am above reproach in my declaration of nerdom. I am correct. I am not mistaken. Wanna fight about it?
What? Nerds can’t throw hands?
Okay, you got me… I just wanted to say “throw hands.” Moving right the hell along…
I’m the kind of nerd that has loved and practiced martial arts most of my life. Yes, some nerds can fight. In fact, fight-geeks are pretty frigging common, brah. For those of you scratching your heads, let me paint you a picture… You’re at the bar, or back in school or having sex in a hallway closet while some random dudes are talking about (usually very loudly and with lots of animated gestures) an MMA fight they saw.
*Note: MMA=Mixed Martial Arts
They’ll get very excitable and may start to demonstrate on each other the various holds, moves, kicks, punches, etc that they witnessed in excruciating detail. Those are fight-geeks. Some take a martial art, some do not. Most of the time they do or have or are planning on it.
"DUDE! Then he TOTALLY did one of these and... OUCH! OH FUCK! MY FUCKING COCCYX! I FUCKING BROKE MY FUCKING COCCYX!!!!"
I am not a fight-geek. I am a nerd who fights (or practices martial arts to be more specific–I’m a lover, not a fighter and I’m not interested in “Coming at you, bro”). I don’t really love to watch MMA or boxing or wrestling or movies about any of those topics. I liked them when I was younger; but even then, I wasn’t a fight-geek. I’ve always preferred to play sports as opposed to watching them. That was, until I came across something called “Fight Quest” on, yep, you guessed it, Netflix. Cue angelic music and slowly fly a red netflix envelope across a scenic mountain range.
So, Fight Quest is this show with these two dudes who go to a country to learn that country’s fighting style–or more specifically, the style most commonly associated with said country/country of origin of said fighting style… You know what the hell I’m saying; so quit making me qualify everything for crying out loud! Now let the nice man finish his blog…
Yeah, two dudes, go to a country. They have five days to learn the style. After five days, they have to fight a master (basically a black belt equivalent in that style–they’re not fighting like the grand master or what have you; BUT they do fight former champions so that shit ain’t a cake walk either). The two dudes in question are Jimmy Smith and Doug Anderson and I frigging love these dudes. They’re tough, personable and take it seriously and honorably.
Jimmy and Doug have it tough, man… Think about it. They have to go to a country and try to learn a system in five days with a bunch of random dudes who have studied that particular art or style or system for years–maybe even their whole life. For most of the episodes they walk away with the respect of the teachers and the students with whom they train. Fucking awesome man. Those guys are ace in my book. TRUST ME when I tell you learning a new system fresh is tough. Not only do you have old habits or ingrained muscle memory but those movements may be completely contradictory or even incredibly dangerous to the new style.
This is what happens when you use cat stance instead of a front stance... Still think kata is cool?
I have trained in several styles personally… Krav Maga, Tae Kwon Do, American boxing, Wing Chun/Jeet Kune Do, Hapkido and whatever grappling/MMA I could pick up from guys who trained in it before or fight-geeks over beers. Some of these styles I took longer than others; some I just picked up in passing during the various classes, books, training tapes, etc and so on. I’m currently taking Krav Maga classes–8 times a week, 3 days of two classes in a row–and I believe I have finally found the style that really works for me. I’ll write a blog on Krav Maga one day; but for now, let’s stay on Fight Quest.
The point of telling you my personal training history is to demonstrate I’m not just blowing smoke about other prior knowledge fucking you up in new styles. A quick example would be that TKD stances are absolutely inhibiting in Krav Maga… They’re too wide, the back foot is turned (in some cases) and if you try to kick an attacker to the head they’ll break you into kibble. Damnit… I’m going fight-geek now… Sigh…
Moving right the hell along…
Jimmy and Doug. Rock. Period. Guys, if you’re reading this, shame on Discovery Channel for canceling your show, bro-daddies. You guys were/are awesome. You gave it a great go and you did it with honor. It was a real pleasure seeing you dudes kill it like that. Hell, you got me off my ass and into Krav Maga classes–though, I’m in no danger of being taken out by extremists accidentally (Jimmy) or killed by my instructor (Doug).
"To learn the ancient art of the five-fisted, atomic velociraptor, I must first kill you... Then you will be ready."
In fact, for my Nashville peeps, let me link you the Nashville/Memphis Krav Maga link so you can come check it out. If you’re closer to the downtown location, come by any day and it’s likely I’ll be putting you in a fucking headlock. (of course, then you’ll learn how to bash my nuts and throw me to the ground right before you learn to curbstomp my brains into mash… yeah, this shit is brutal, yo) So anyway, it’s called Mid-South Krav Maga and it is worth every drop of sweat and every penny.
You can train as much as you want, the instructors are INCREDIBLE and all your classmates are cool as shit. I haven’t met a single ass-basket yet and keep in mind I’m giving a glowing review of people who routinely choke me, throw me around, bash me, elbow me, blind side me and generally account for most of the bruises I currently own–I had a few before I started; but those are because my wife is gangsta.
For the rest of you, I can’t speak for the instructors or the classmates; but I can link the website regardless. Go check it out. Lose some weight. Learn to protect yourself. Make some friends. Get confident. Trust me when I tell you that ANYONE CAN LEARN/DO/MASTER THIS SYSTEM. It was designed with the weak, small, old, stupid (D’OH! sorry, just being silly), scared, fragile and uncoordinated in mind. Anyone can do it.
Does it hurt? No more than Zumba or Slim in 6 or whatever the hell you do at home–excuse me, what you watch once in awhile and make phone calls instead. (much love to Zumba and Slim in 6, by the way–those are great products and they work. I’ll let Hollie tell you all about Zumba… You tell em, Hollie!) So get off your ass and check out a system that will truly teach you to protect yourself (right away, there’s no forms or katas or learning to tie your belt) while it erases those nachos off your ass. Nothing wrong with a nacho booty–but you need to at least firm your nacho booty. I did and my wife totally wants me to wear skimpy shit around the house WAY more often. I feel so pretty.
My lady dress me so fine...
But let’s get off the commercial blogging for a minute and get this shit back to real-jas-style-gangsta-shit… Yeah, blogging is gangsta, beyotch! Seriously though, I got way the hell off base on this one. I guess I just wanted to give some love to systems that have helped me and I TOLD YOU I was a nerd who fights (or enjoys practicing martial arts; don’t come at me, bro)–so this shit is close to my heart, ya dig?
Before you ask… Yes. I have done Zumba. No, I will not show you pictures (there are none) or video (are you fucking kidding me?) I let my wife pick the workout because she heard it was good. At the time, she was not my wife. We were living together in sin; so I guess that means we were Zumba-ing and Slim in 6-ing in sin. That just made me laugh. Ahem.
Yeah. We wanted to lose weight for the wedding so we got up every morning and did Zumba or Slim in 6. Laugh if you like; but I lost near 30 pounds doing that shit. Still laughing with your fat ass? Didn’t think so. Yeah, that shit works, brah. So, if you’re skeert of big bad Krav Maga or some other type of martial art, then dance that flab off yo’ ass! Or, do a helluva lot of squats and lunges and shit with Slim in 6.
BUT I WANT TO GET BACK TO FIGHT QUEST DAMMNIT!!!!
So I will. Fight Quest rocked. No if’s and’s or but’s about it. I have heard of other shows; but they are not streaming… I can’t fill up the mailing queue with random shit because my wife has her own fighting show to watch–Jersey Shore. (see what I did there?) You know, because all they do is fight and junk..? Shut up. Don’t make me go Krav Magod on your ass! Yep, I’m all Kratos with that shit… God Of Krav, baby…
Okay, yeah, I’m totally just being ridiculous. This is a COMEDY BLOG, remember? It’s all about fun.
So let’s get back to the topic.
Doug, Jimmy… You guys rock our faces off, brosephs!
Fight Quest lasted 13 episodes and you can stream them on netflix. They cover all kinds of styles:
Kung Fu, Kali, Kyokushin Karate, Boxing, Pencak Silat, Savate, Hapkido, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Krav Maga, Kajukenbo, Muay Thai, Kalaripayattu, Wing Chun
Yes, every episode is frigging awesome. Is it formulaic? Yeah, probably… Do I care? No. Because that shit is awesome sauce. Seriously, it’s fucking free, dudes and dudettes. Check it out on Netflix and give some love to Jimmy and Doug. Most of us couldn’t do what they did. It was a helluva good show and it definitely deserved more seasons than one and a couple of extra episodes. I guess we’d rather watch Steve-O dance with a ballerina than check out other cultures and how they beat people’s skulls in… pfffft. Whatever, dude.
He normally does this with donkeys, dudes or Aborigines; so Steve-O definitely came up a little bit in the world.
*Note: Steve-O, if you’re reading this… Dude! You rock, mayne! Fucking Wildboyz was nuts! Much love, duder.
