My Shaolin Style Defeats Your Monkey Style, and Three Manhood Goals

So I got this punching bag with money from my birthday and . . . it . . . is . . . so . . . AWESOME!
(Seriously, how many of you expected me to move from baptism to a punching bag?) I'm trying to put a picture of it on my blog, but the computer won't recognize the URL link, so if you're curious, you can look here: http://www.fitnesssource.ca/product_info.php?cPath=28_59&products_id=1979 (That's actually me in the karate suit modelling right there.)

I'm not a violent or aggressive person: ask my wife. If anything, I tend toward an unfortunate timidity. However, having made the aforementioned exceptions and nuances, and bearing in mind all possible circumstances, be they fortuitous or cloudy . . . well, it is extremely cathartic and therapeutic to come home at the end of a day and punch and kick the crap out of that thing. And it is fantastic exercise; only basketball competes for how out of breath I get doing it.

I wanted to put up a video of me doing a spin kick I learned, but Erin thought it would be inappropriate for a professor to put up movies of him working out. Doubtless she's right. So for now, celebrate with me that I've found a therapeutic way to exercise and remember . . . my shaolin style defeats your monkey style.

More posts on personal combat to follow.

Oh, and I guess I should say - well, this is a little embarrassing, but my understanding of what it means to be a man has really changed after having kids. OK, stop laughing; don't take that in a Freudian sense. All I'm saying is that I didn't have any clear idea at all as to what it meant, just a web of good instincts from my own father, but nothing I could really put into words. But necessity and providence have been teaching me that a real man provides and protects and nurtures and tries to put others first even when the tank has been empty for months - something I am very much still learning. And I guess I find doing simple punch-and-kick combinations sort of a helpful parable about that. I mean, I seriously, seriously doubt I will ever actually put into use a punch-punch-roundhouse-spin kick combination in real life. But something inside feels very good knowing I could basically defend myself and the people around me if I needed to. I guess I always felt a bit strange being ridiculously over-skilled in Ugaritic and typological interpretation but not knowing how to paint a room and barely knowing how to make a fire. So my three goals are: (1) improve self-defense skills (just as a parable, not really for their own sake) (2) learn how to repair a house more (3) learn outdoor wilderness and hunting skills.

Erin laughs at me every time I tell her, but I'm serious about it. I'm tired of being over-balanced in being ridiculously overskilled in a few areas and clueless in others.

OK, this is all more than I wanted to say, but part of the reason for this blog is to keep a public conversation going, and this is what I'm excited about right now. More later.