Ok, here goes...

Tonight I was thinking about why I love mixed martial arts so damn much. I realize that I guess the big reason is how the mind-body problem plays out in it. The way I think about it, broadly, is that there are two major influencing factors, as expected, the mental game and the physical game. When trying to analyze the sport, you look at all these mental facets, like gameplan, knowledge of the art, so called "heart"; and then the physical: conditioning, sparring and training, etc... But the thing about these is that they all work in combination, seemless so to speak. The whole is greater than the sum of it's parts. Also, each part isn't strictly mind or body, knowing a martial art requires training of ones muscles to have strength and move in a certain manner. So it's really kind of a sliding scale of proportion for each identifiable part of a fighter. But the unknowns truly are how he interacts with the other fighter. I think there is no greater challenge, and therefore greater physical demand than having to face a fellow person with all that you have, your body and mind.

I know I use the sliding scale to describe things quite often and some of you may wonder why. I see it as a logical deduction if either you don't have a clear path, or the path discrete and quantifiable. I think of it the Real Number Line, where if you had a infinitely thin knife and were to try to cut it, you'd run into a point every time. It's one of the bigger types of infinity, and that should cover everyone's qualms about not having enough space or choices.

Speaking of the physical body, I'm finding more and more about myself. When you work out, you have to roughly develop your body using various techniques. It's not an exact science, kinda rough. But as you train more and more, I find it really interesting to watch how there always seems to be a new weakest link in the body. This is true with any network, try reading Six Degrees. Anywho, right now it is my wrists and hands, as I have only done very specific grip training. The hands are very complex and as a result we have many different types of grip strength. The ability how hold something heavy is different than clamping a spring/whatever together is different from pinching something together. It's crazy. So here's a good article on it for whomever is interested: http://www.grapplearts.com/Grip-Strength-Training.htm

I saw "The Insider" the other day, a really great movie. I highly recommend it. The discussion that they did do on cigarrettes themselves was actually scary to me; because I realize it's actually happening. The reason for the chemicals is to a controlled release (i.e. as fast as possible) of nicotine; a nicotine delivery device.

The semi-colon is the new comma.

Having a hobby is important, gotta improve yourself in some way.

More later,

Joshy Poshy