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Saturday, November 24th, 2001 03:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robinturnerTo complement Bram's near-perfect day ...
I finished mid-term grading (see, I am learning American English!) in a great rush around 1.30 so as to get off to my self-defence class on the other campus. Mid-terms always take ages to grade because we try to standardise as a group, then double-grade in pairs. Usually the two markers agree to within a few points (out of fifteen, in this case) but there are always a few problematic papers, usually cases where the student has written a good but rather off-topic essay, or where most aspects are good, but they fall down badly on one (e.g. language). It's tedious having to argue minutiae like this, but I suppose we owe it to our students.
Anyway, this done, I got back to East Campus in good time for the self-defence class, which is just as well, since I was teaching it on my own this week, Philip having been coerced into attending a budget meeting (I was also supposed to be in a meeting, but managed to get out of it because, as Philip pointed out, I mainly work with Brits, while he mainly works with Americans, who seem to take meetings a lot more seriously than we do). Since I'm still more of a t'ai chi player than a hapkido-in, I gave the class more of a t'ai chi feel, with a lot of emphasis on relaxation, and an introduction to t'ai chi pushing. The technique was adapted from the t'ai chi "Fair lady works the shuttle" move, except that to start of with I taught it from a wrist grab rather than a punch. As I explained, doing techniques from wrist grabs is useful for two reasons: firstly it's easier to learn; secondly a guy attacking a fifteen-year-old girl is probably trying to control her rather than beat her to a pulp, so grabbing is to be expected. Conversely someone who grabs you is expecting you to pull back, rather than push him. While I was explaining this, I grabbed one girl's wrist, saying "Gel, yavrum" ("C'mere, baby). Of course, she shrieked and pulled back. "OK, this is what I mean about relaxation under stress!" As Lisa Sliwa (one of the first members of the Guardian Angels) self-defence is nearly all about attitude.
I also did some revision of paka-doligi (outward) turning - the kids had to walk up to the bamboo sword I was holding then turn round to the side of it as I did a thrust or down-strike. More shrieks and nervous giggles, though the only person who got hit was one lad who turned his body round the sword while throwing his hand directly into its path. After the exercise, I demonstrated the secret - that a bamboo sword is designed not to hurt people - by whacking myself on the head with the sword. They still didn't believe me until one girl did it to herself. Maybe they thought I'd done some secret skull-strengthening exercises or something.
Then home to cook a curry. Nalan didn't actually show up to eat it, as she got taken out to dinner by Uncle Erol (one of the saner members of my extended family) but what the hell, it was delicious anyway. Thanks to digital TV, I then got the treat of a concert from Prague with a mass by the little-known Jan Zelenka and, to my great pleasure, Bach's Magnificat. It's definitely my favourite of Bach's choral works - I know most people right the St. Matthew Passion more highly, but I find that a little dour and Lutheran. The Magnificat is Bach pretending to be a Catholic, and manages to attain that fusion of sensuality and spirituality that good church music should have (Monteverdi's Vespers is another prime example).
And after all this, a serious Quake session was called for. Frag, frag, frag!
I finished mid-term grading (see, I am learning American English!) in a great rush around 1.30 so as to get off to my self-defence class on the other campus. Mid-terms always take ages to grade because we try to standardise as a group, then double-grade in pairs. Usually the two markers agree to within a few points (out of fifteen, in this case) but there are always a few problematic papers, usually cases where the student has written a good but rather off-topic essay, or where most aspects are good, but they fall down badly on one (e.g. language). It's tedious having to argue minutiae like this, but I suppose we owe it to our students.
Anyway, this done, I got back to East Campus in good time for the self-defence class, which is just as well, since I was teaching it on my own this week, Philip having been coerced into attending a budget meeting (I was also supposed to be in a meeting, but managed to get out of it because, as Philip pointed out, I mainly work with Brits, while he mainly works with Americans, who seem to take meetings a lot more seriously than we do). Since I'm still more of a t'ai chi player than a hapkido-in, I gave the class more of a t'ai chi feel, with a lot of emphasis on relaxation, and an introduction to t'ai chi pushing. The technique was adapted from the t'ai chi "Fair lady works the shuttle" move, except that to start of with I taught it from a wrist grab rather than a punch. As I explained, doing techniques from wrist grabs is useful for two reasons: firstly it's easier to learn; secondly a guy attacking a fifteen-year-old girl is probably trying to control her rather than beat her to a pulp, so grabbing is to be expected. Conversely someone who grabs you is expecting you to pull back, rather than push him. While I was explaining this, I grabbed one girl's wrist, saying "Gel, yavrum" ("C'mere, baby). Of course, she shrieked and pulled back. "OK, this is what I mean about relaxation under stress!" As Lisa Sliwa (one of the first members of the Guardian Angels) self-defence is nearly all about attitude.
I also did some revision of paka-doligi (outward) turning - the kids had to walk up to the bamboo sword I was holding then turn round to the side of it as I did a thrust or down-strike. More shrieks and nervous giggles, though the only person who got hit was one lad who turned his body round the sword while throwing his hand directly into its path. After the exercise, I demonstrated the secret - that a bamboo sword is designed not to hurt people - by whacking myself on the head with the sword. They still didn't believe me until one girl did it to herself. Maybe they thought I'd done some secret skull-strengthening exercises or something.
Then home to cook a curry. Nalan didn't actually show up to eat it, as she got taken out to dinner by Uncle Erol (one of the saner members of my extended family) but what the hell, it was delicious anyway. Thanks to digital TV, I then got the treat of a concert from Prague with a mass by the little-known Jan Zelenka and, to my great pleasure, Bach's Magnificat. It's definitely my favourite of Bach's choral works - I know most people right the St. Matthew Passion more highly, but I find that a little dour and Lutheran. The Magnificat is Bach pretending to be a Catholic, and manages to attain that fusion of sensuality and spirituality that good church music should have (Monteverdi's Vespers is another prime example).
And after all this, a serious Quake session was called for. Frag, frag, frag!
