How to Escape a Viper

This is kind of a dumb post.* I like to use the viper package for emacs, which mostly works just fine.  I’m in the habit of using C-[ (hold-down control, press '[') instead of <escape> to back into command mode.

Sometimes I run emacs on Mac OS X (be it a Carbon port, in X11, or through a terminal).  Unfortunately, various Mac-compatible emacsen interpret C-[ as Meta and not as <escape>.  So instead of backing into command mode, I see "ESC-" at the bottom of the screen.  I can wait forever and emacs will never parse it into an <escape>.  If I try again, I see "ESC-ESC-".  If I try a third time, the command completes but does nothing, except causing me to scream in agony since I'm still not in command mode.

Fortunately I found that adding a simple (setq viper-ESC-key "^[") to my ~/.viper, where '^[' is literally the <escape> character (i.e., ASCII 27)**, fixes everything (viper-ESC-key is set to "\e" by default, which is supposed to be <escape> but whatever).

And there you have it.

* ... but this took me months to figure out.  I'm posting this so that maybe someone searching for "mac os x emacs meta escape viper fails" finds the help they need...

** If you're editing in emacs, type C-q C-[ to get a literal '^]‘.  If you’re editing in vim, type C-k C-[ to get a literal ‘^[‘.

The Last Lecture

Dr. Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture is a pretty good read.  The highlight for me is his description of higher education not as “learning to learn,” which is the accepted cliche, but as “learning to judge yourself.”  In other words, developing your own internal feedback loop so that you know where you stand in life—both in your own mind and as others perceive you.

Some comments I’ve read criticize Dr. Pausch for spending time on a book instead of with his family.  To me that’s unsympathetic:  “acute as well as terminally ill patients frequently prefer to be surrounded by persons and possessions that are familiar” [1].  So why not a familiar task?  After all, here was a hardcore academic who spent his life writing furiously to meet deadlines.  Here, he didn’t have to pretend to be someone else—and he created a lasting legacy for his kids.

judo

Ne waza last night was awesome.

I managed to “puppet” a heavier black belt around in my butterfly guard, almost sweeping him a couple times.  Ultimately he pinned me but I think I overheard him telling another black belt that “there’s no messing around” in randori with me, so I’m, like, totally gushing.

I also got to fight against one of the old hat blackbelts.  He’s 50 years old and lighter than me but he massacres me.  The last time I fought him I was a white belt—this time I was actually cognizant of what was going on, but I didn’t do much better.  I have so much respect for the “old” guys:  you can’t help but feel a lifetime of experience behind every move they make.  A couple interesting things he did:

• While trapping me in full mount, he “frogged” his legs up and held my hips with the balls of his feet.  It seemed unorthodox but effective.
• While he had me in his guard, he grapevined only one of my legs and swept me over that leg.  I had to run this through my mind a couple times before I realized what he did.

Standup was pretty good too.  I got a couple fireman throws in, one of which was on a black belt.  In the face of much practice, my breakfalls are also improving. 

And since I’m tooting my own horn, I’ll mention I got 10 sets of 10 with 45 lbs plates on bench on Monday.  GET TO THE CHOPPA!

Datapoint

Weighing-in consistently at about 76.5 kilos with my runners on.  Pushing towards 45lbs plates on each side for Germans (10 sets of 10), but I’m not quite there yet.  A couple weeks ago I felt confident about being able to achieve 20 chin-ups in a row (16 is easy) but my energy levels are suffering due to a cold.  I’ve been neglecting cardio—occasional stair-running and judo is all I’ve managed to get in.  I special ordered a new pair of runners for my funny feet so maybe those’ll kick me back into high gear.  Left ankle is at about 85% and not a concern: e.g., saiza is easy when I’m warmed up.

Starting to get 3D veins in my right biceps (left biceps is already quite prominent), calves, thighs but I’m sure the holidays will help with that.  Bruises on my hips and shins from falling and having my legs hacked at in judo never seem to heal.  I look like the victim of an unending butt-kickin’.  I privately enjoy being one of the people at the gym that actually looks like he applies his fitness.

Groundwork: been developing my butterfly guard since I purchased Marcelo Garcia’s book on the X-Guard.  Typically doesn’t work well against larger opponents who instead flatten me, but comparable/lighter opponents are becoming easier to control, sweep, puppet around.  I’ve been making poor attendance to jiu jitsu and reasonable attendance to judo, mostly due to the cold weather.  Might cancel jiu jitsu til the Spring.

Standing:  while I had aspirations of developing my forward throws earlier on, I think I’ve more generally geared myself towards developing “kuzushi” (i.e., off-balancing uke).  Pulling up, pulling in.  Made a bit of progress last week, as I felt like I was controlling a (quite exhausted) black belt’s weight.  Of course I didn’t throw him, and he ragdolled me when he felt like it.  These movements involve muscles that aren’t necessarily as developed as I’d like, so even if I don’t manage to perform a throw, I think the repetition is good for me.

Agalloch is blowing my mind.

Options from the Sleeve

Sumi gaeshi is a throw I often attempt and fail, ending up flat on my back.  But sometimes it works beautifully.  Typically I grab uke’s left sleeve with my left hand (especially after ‘baiting’ with my right hand extended) and attempt the throw with that weak connection.  But it’s important to put more effort into breaking him down, reaching far across his back, and to straddle his shoulder with my armpit.

If you do that, you’ve probably got sumi gaeshi.  But maybe not.  So you can fake an uchi mata (successfully executed, this’d drive his face into the mat—not bad in a street situation, suboptimal in competition).  He’ll correct his balance, which makes turning and completing the sumi gaeshi that much easier.

With very few exceptions, it seems good to have an opponent broken down.  Besides the obvious application of sacrifice throws, another “throw” I played with on Saturday is a somersault choke.  I slipped my right hand deep into uke’s right lapel (cross grip), broke him down, then leapt across his back in a somersault motion: this tightened the choke and generated enough momentum to knock him over, but I need to practice it against more resistant opponents.

Another option from a left-handed cross sleeve grip is to pull that sleeve under your right arm, across your body, and to clamp down on it with your right arm.  Get your right leg behind their left foot and connect yourself to uke.  He’s pretty much hosed.  (todo: name this throw.)

You can also pull the sleeve across—as with sumi gaeshi—and do a very aggressive o uchi gari, pulling your opponent down onto the same side as the arm whose sleeve you’ve got.

Finally, a couple words on lapel chokes from the back.  Once you’ve got your over-under, you can use your under to straighten uke’s lapel and choke up on (heh) your over-the-shoulder grip.  From here you can pull down on the opposite lapel with your under grip and straighten the wrist on your over grip hand.  But once you’re deep with your over, you can also trade that under grip for a half-nelson, which removes his arm from play while enabling you to push your fist into the back of his neck to tighten the choke.  If you’re really flexible (if I’d've been warmer I can see this working) you can use your leg to apply the half-nelson.  Maybe it’s unnecessarily fancy, but the result is incredibly strong and truly hopeless for uke, assuming your collar grip can keep up with the torque you’re creating.

Judo Tournament

The jist:  I got second place, winning four of six matches.  My two ippons came from sasai, a really simple and basic throw—but having some other throws in my arsenal would’ve definitely helped.  The other two matches I won on the ground, by hold-down and submission respectively.  Quoth the organizers: “Wow, no serious injuries this year!”  All I suffered was a bit of matburn and a bruised shin.

Crushing Turnover, Revisited

A while ago I wrote a judo post that included a turtle-turnover:

A technique to roll a crouching uke into juji-gatame. You stand over uke, facing the same direction he does. Then, you link the crook of your left arm into the crook of his right arm, and rest your left hand on your right knee. Next, you’ve got your left knee planted to the right of his neck, and you’re lying next to him on your left shoulder (facing his feet). His arm is trapped and you’re at liberty to use your whole body to submit him or roll him into juji-gatame. This one needs practice.

One detail this description is missing is exactly how you’d go about “rolling him into juji-gatame.”  It can be ridiculously hard without the right technique:  The description above leaves your right arm unoccupied, but you can use it to grab uke’s ankle/cuff.  Use this grip to ‘cartwheel’ uke on top of you. This redistributes his weight on top of you in a manner that’s hard to resist, and it’s then that you can use the strength of your whole body.

In another judo post I had kept notes on my newaza:  (1) I need to be more active when I’ve got someone’s back, and (2) Had some success with a side-control pin-to-rollover where I reach over and grab the guy’s pantleg. I’ve been addressing (1) with a variation on jigoku jime that I’ve heard called a “hell choke” and “bow and arrow choke” in different circles and it’s been working well.  I need to get that hand in faster though.  And  (2) netted me a small victory last night when I was able to roll a guy that normally massacres me into a crappy kesa gatame—but I rolled him nonetheless.

F-29 Retaliator (1991)

Retaliator is a cool game that I used to play a lot of.  Actually it’s the only flight sim I’ve ever enjoyed.  Its gameplay involves cruising around on a small map (settings included ‘Pacific’ and ‘Middle East’) and destroying labelled targets and enemy aircraft in the area (splash one lizard, yo).  Its 3D engine is simple but remarkably smooth for its time.

What really makes the game fun is its head-to-head modem play.  The slower modem we typically used ran at 2400 baud, which meant choppy updates but otherwise a very playable experience.  The only problems came up when trying to fly in formation: a slight change in trajectory could cause your opponent to slam right into you.

Typical of the genre, Retaliator supports multiple views: the standard cockpit view, various views taken from outside the plane, and one looking “behind,” shown on the right.  Hm.  Is that you, or the copilot?  I’ve only ever seen one parachute come out of an airplane…

When you are shot, different parts of your plane stop working: radar, fuel lines, weapons. This is kind of cool—your sensors can get damaged and you can keep flying around.  But if you’re damaged badly enough, your engines will intermittently fail and your plane will start to nosedive. You can pull up, prolonging the inevitable, but eventually you must eject. Oh, and while your engines aren’t working, Retaliator plays the most horrible alarm out of the PC speaker.  Possibly one of the worst noises I’ve ever heard in my life.  Cool MIDI soundtrack, though.

A Spectre of Forgery

Arts & Letters Daily is one of my favorite ways to get cultured.  Today they link to a New Yorker article about Han van Meegeren, forger extraordinaire.  The author criticizes forgery:

“The spectre of forgery chills the receptiveness—the will to believe—without which the experience of art cannot occur.”

This struck home with me.  I’m no connoisseur of fine art, but I’ve experienced this effect first-hand in other media.  For instance, comedy is so much funnier when it’s happening in front of you instead of on a TV set; fighting is similarly much more brutal.  I think in part it’s due to the possibility of video editing, TV’s very own spectre of forgery.

Gator Roll

Last week we talked about kata guruma some more and introduced a cool new combination.  Say you go in for the fireman and they sprawl their legs back.  If you did the entry right, you’ve still got their arm: so you can just gator roll to ippon them.  Very cool.