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 ‘^[‘.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

The breakdown…

1. This was my first match and I was wired.  He was a little bigger, but only a yellow belt, and turned out to be fairly timid.  When the match begun I approached slowly and he backed away.  So when he was within reach I exploded, messily taking him down for a koka.  I think my suddenness startled him, so after we were stood up I kept the burner on, feinted a step-in which caused him to tense, then ipponed him with sasai.  This ippon also led me into a good position for an armbar, which I didn’t have to use.
2. By far the most brutal match of the day.  He was a short tank (orange) that favored double-leg takedowns.  I defended these fairly well, and we ended up in newaza a couple times.  I came out of one scramble with an armbar (juji-gatame, with him on his side) but felt I didn’t have anything in my toolbox to pry him open with (except brute strength, which I was running short on).  Clearly I need to study armbar breaks.  So I let it go and we were stood up.  Eventually he ippon’d me with a forward throw.  I landed hard on my head and almost blacked out.  After the match I was warned that I shouldn’t let go of the armbar—”let the ref restart it, don’t YOU restart it when you’re in a good position.”  I was also warned about leaning way too far back when I throw my sasai, but a lot of the time I find that’s the only way I can get my opponent moving.  Unfortunately that’s the worst thing you can do against a small opponent.  I need better posture and body choreography to get the kuzushi.
3. Probably the heaviest guy in the group.  He was winning the match and threw me down (koka) but I managed to catch his leg in half guard.  With both my legs and one hand controlling his leg, I got the ref to stand us back up.  During another scramble I took his back (hooks in) while he was turtled.  Even in this dominant position I didn’t know what to do. I heard my corner telling me to stretch him out, so I pried him open, exposing his neck, but didn’t get the choke in time and we were stood back up.  Once again he took me down (koka) but I scrambled into a sloppy kesa gatame.  I felt like I couldn’t improve my position without losing osaekomi so I held on for dear life with substandard grips.  Somehow I managed to keep him down to score the ippon!
4. Nice and quick, just how we like ‘em.  He was an older guy, lighter than the other guys (so closer in weight to me), but ranked blue.  Early in the match he threw a hard leg sweep at my safely grounded leg (*thump*).  After a bit more dancing I responded with a sasai.  Now this was cool:  time nearly froze and I distinctly remember the experience of having him floating in front of me.  I even felt like I had time to steer his body in the air, and pushed him down onto his back for the ippon.  He complimented me on the throw afterwards, and a spectating friend told me it was “beautiful.” 
5. Because of double elimination rules, I had a second chance against my opponent from match #2.  I benefited immensely from some coaching a black belt from my club gave me.  In particular, I need to stop treating shorter opponents like they’re tall and push them into the ground—bury them.  Using this advice I felt like I had more control and wasted less energy.  Eventually it went to the ground and, in a scramble, I took his back.  I only had one hook in, but it was the perfect opportunity for a hell strangle.  I twisted, grabbed his leg, and quickly I got the tap!  Man, was I ever happy.  I didn’t think I’d be lucky enough to sink a choke in the high-speed setting of a judo tournament.  Winning this match meant I had a chance to fight for first place.
6. At this point I had to pee, and didn’t want to wet myself if I went unconscious in my next match (not joking).  With two more matches to take place on my mat, I decided I’d have time… but they were calling my name and the guy was already on the mat when I got back.  Totally embarrassed.  Anyway, we started.  While an orange belt, this guy was heavier than me and overall more experienced.  It was a very long match, going the full five minutes.  He threw me down once but I managed to get him with a figure-four “lockdown,” and I stretched him out, just holding onto it.  It seemed like it took the ref a long time to call matte though, and resisting him made me ridiculously tired.  I think my conditioning is one of my strong points, and figured he should be tired too, so I kept the pressure on.  I reached into my bag of tricks, attempting a sweep-reversal where I bait my opponent by standing perpindicular to them (everyone at my club expects this from me, but this guy’d never seen me before).  He took the bait but unfortunately I was too slow/tired to reverse him.  Throughout the match I had more problems with overcommitting to sasai, often resorting to pulling him into my guard—I was warned I could be penalized for this.  At one point I had him in my guard and felt a scissor sweep would be perfect.  But I was just too tired to even lift myself to perform the sweep and we got stood back up.  Early in the match I was ahead due to his two penalties (stalling, I think?).  But then he turned up the volume and threw me with the aforementioned koka.  We ran out the clock, and he totally deserved to win.

Overall a good experience!

Before the match, one of the blackbelts with my club was helping me warm up.  We did some forward throws and he showed me some important things that’ve probably been keeping me from doing a good forward throw:

1. You need room to turn.  If you have a high sleeve grip (above the elbow) and a high collar grip (closer to the crest of the shoulder) you limit the “give.”
2. Check your watch.
3. Get your lower body turned and then worry about your upper body.
4. When you bend down, get up on your toes, and point your heels out.  It’s awkward at first, but after you’re used to it you get superior balance.

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.

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.

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.

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.