[Blarg]

Yours was an awesome post, and I thank you for the effort, though I can't pretend to have understood all of it perfectly. And I haven't the slightest idea of what "going electrical" could possibly mean.

One of the things I like about fencing is that the initial critical hit can be so important in any kind of fight, and it seems that at least some form of that is recognized clearly in at least some forms of fencing.

The martial art I studied furthest was Bruce Lee's transition between classical Wing Chun and his eventual very personal and hard to nail down style of Jeet Kune Do, as put together by James DeMille, one of Lee's first assistant instructors. Experiencing the "forward energy" of the style's sticking hands exercise, which seems to me to have great similarities to tai chi's "growing energy," seems to me to fold well into the idea of the "stop hit," which I understand is a concept in fencing. Lee's brother Robert taught him some fencing and fencing concepts, and they appear to have completely revamped Lee's original wing chun style and added the importance of the lunge and active intention to land the first blow and/or to "stop hit" opponents either when the opportunity presented itself or by drawing.

This has always struck me as the core of reasonable fighting theory and one of the huge insights western fencing has to offer to Asian martial arts. The attack on preparation, the use of drawing, the use of rhythm and partial beats, the stop-hit, the desire to basically always be attacking unless there is a solid reason not to be (yet without in the least pushing an advantage one does not have), strike me as the core of fighting systems most likely to succeed and, simply, make sense. Being a beat ahead is always better than being a beat behind, trampolines and camera tricks notwithstanding.

So when I think of fencing, I think of the lunge, the stop hit, the attempt to steal time from the opponent, the use of rhythm -- even the hypnotic use of same -- and relate that to unarmed fighting, where the first blow may not so clearly decide the battle as a pierced heart or a decapitation, but where the first clean, sly strike -- brazilian jiu-jitsu notwithstanding, and I'm a 3rd degree jiu-jitsu man -- can be as good as the last important strike of the fight.

When I think of fencing, I think of the primacy of the first motion, which I envision as a stab to the heart or a blinding, but also think of the Filipino concept of "defanging the snake," that is, crippling the weapon hand, rendering someone helpless. I am not proud about targets or their beauty. I would just as soon someone bleed to death while I ran and climbed a tree. I feel this is a very practical sort of cowardice. I guess I feel that every target should be valid and nothing need be clean, and that fighting is an extremely dirty, cold-hearted business. I wonder which set of rules would annoy me least and match me best.