The Scorpion and the Frog
Drive:
I know this movie came out a while back but I’ve been thinking about it lately and it’s relationship to Budo so I thought I would share my thoughts.
To summarize, Ryan Gosling plays an unnamed character referred to as kid or driver. He’s a professional wheel man for hire who lives by a code and when he vows to protect a family, he effectively breaks that code and things begin to spiral out of control setting off a chain reaction of events that propel the film forward.
Driver: “If I drive for you, you get your money. You tell me where we start, where we’re going, where we’re going afterwards. I give you five minutes when we get there. Anything happens in that five minutes and I’m yours. No matter what. Anything a minute on either side of that and you’re on your own. I don’t sit in while you’re running it down. I don’t carry a gun. I drive.”
Much like a samurai, he earns a living being hired for his skills. He never deviates from his code of ethics. He swears to protect the ones he loves and is willing to die for that promise.
Gosling’s character in Drive is always present and in the moment. Not thinking of the future or past or the consequences of his actions, he simply reacts in accordance to the way that is natural to him.
He has a quiet calm mixed with a sociopathic quality and a singular focus on completing the task at hand.
The violence in the movie is explosive and almost always completely unexpected. This is how sword work should be done. Calm, relaxed and subtle but perfectly timed to give your opponent a sense of security but never revealing or telegraphing your next movement or true intent.
The scorpion and the frog:
I have always been fascinated by the timeless parable of the scorpion and the frog and driver makes reference to it at the end of the film and also it is also personified in the embroidered scorpion on the back of his jacket.
It’s a short yet powerful warning about the often immutable nature of certain beings. In this case, the deadly and incontrovertible nature of evil.
As the story goes, a scorpion asks a frog to carry it across a body of water, since the scorpion cannot swim. The frog then rightly asserts that doing so would put its life at great risk, as the scorpion is known to lethally sting other creatures, sometimes without provocation.
To counter the frog’s argument, the scorpion insists that by stinging it, both of them would drown – therefore, logic would dictate that harming the frog would be definitively self-damaging and counterintuitive.
Satisfied with the scorpion’s reasoning, the frog agrees to the tenuous proposition.
As the two reach the mid-point of their journey across the water, the scorpion reneges on its promise, and indeed stings the trusting frog, resulting in their mutual demise.
After the scorpion injects the frog with its venom, the frog asks it why.
The scorpion famously replies: “Because it’s my nature.”
The original warning to the Frog was turned into a lesson for the Scorpion: Do not expose your true nature, and others will always underestimate your capabilities.
Allow me to reintroduce myself…
I’ve thought about writing for a longtime. I don’t know what’s been keeping me from doing it for so long. I often think about who would end up reading this and who I’d be writing for; myself, my friends, my students, my past loves, or my future love, or a son or daughter I have yet to meet. Regardless, the fact that I’m doing something that I’ve promised my self is the important part. The audience can come later.
Keeping the promise is the most important thing to me.
At some point you will be my audience and maybe I’ll find out who you are and what our relationship is. Maybe my thoughts and inner ramblings will change. I hope they do. I hope I get better at this thing. I think the only way to find out is to just do it.
This year has brought about so much change. I started a new job, I lost a great teacher and I ended a relationship. If you know me, you know that much of my life ends up here (the internet) for the world to see. I often wonder if I share too much but I have dear friends that appreciate it and if you’re not a fan, turn me off, tune me out or just change the channel. It doesn’t matter to me.
Choice is one of the most powerful things we have and I’m trying to exercise that muscle more these days. I don’t know about you, but I often choose the difficult paths. I always have. I don’t know why that is but I’m so happy with my life and who Jason Nip is. I’ve learned through experience that I typically land on my feet so I’ve gained the confidence to trust myself and know that everything will be ok.
Martial arts and my life:
One of my earliest memories of martial arts was asking my uncle to show me Kung-fu. He demonstrated some movements and I tried to copy them as best as a 5 year old could. To this day, I don’t know if my uncle even knew Kung fu. He might have just been trying to appease a little boy. We were never close. We aren’t now and I’ll never know if what he was showing was “real” or just play.
Growing up as a Canadian born Chinese kid in Mississauga I was often teased by schoolmates. “Do you know Karate?” I didn’t. It seemed important that I at least learn more but I never went looking for a school or asked my mom if I could practice a martial art.
In the 80’s The Karate Kid hit theaters. It was the Rocky of my childhood generation. I was 9 years old. Anyways, I was I’m my bedroom practicing the infamous crane kick. Miyagi said “no can defend” and I wanted to perfect this technique. You know, beat the bad guy, make my teacher proud, and win the heart of the beautiful girl. While I was focusing on these life goals my father walked past my open door and look at me. I froze - standing on one leg with my arms outstretched feeling the embarrassment that only a young teen boy can. It was the martial arts equivalent of being caught my with my dick in my hand only I didn’t scream “shut the door!” My father just kept walking by. I doubt he even remembers that moment but the feeling of embarrassment is forever etched in my memory.
Aikido: My first introduction to Aikido was in a movie as well. Above the Law staring Steven Segal was ground breaking for its time. Here was a guy who was moving in a way no one had seen before. He was shrouded in mystery. Was he ex.CIA? All that was known for sure was that he had studied this mysterious martial art in Japan for many years that no one really knew much about. The idea of using your opponents power against them was very appealing to me; especially to a kid who was smaller than most growing up. The principles of Aikido always appealed to me but again, I never went looking for it.
1999: while working at Sharky’s (a bar/resto) in Oakville, I was talking to James, a big Korean doorman with an even bigger smile reminiscent of a living breathing Buddha. Somehow the topic of martial arts came up and I mentioned Aikido to which James replied, “oh, you should talk to Reg, he does Aikido”.
Reg worked with James guarding the door. He was ex military - Canadian Airborne. He had done high altitude halo jumps and tours in Africa and other places we don’t speak of and started practicing martial arts when he was just 5 years old. Dude is big, tattooed and not friendly looking but I asked him about Aikido and asked me if I wanted to learn. At 23 years old, I had found my first teacher.
So that was 13 years ago. Today. I still train in Yoshinkan Aikido with 9th Dan, Kimeda Takeshi Sensei. He is Reg’s Sensei and was the first practitioner to bring Yoshinkan Aikido to North America in 1964. At 71 years of age he is still teaching full time and is a force to be reckoned with.
(Source: swordsnsunflowers, via dgroundsel)
fate
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
the blossoms blossom
DREAMS
by Mary Oliver
All night
the dark buds of dreams
open
richly.
In the center
of every petal
is a letter,
and you imagine
if you could only remember
and string them all together
they would spell the answer.
It is a long night,
and not an easy one—
you have so many branches,
and there are diversions—
birds that come and go,
the black fox that lies down
to sleep beneath you,
the moon staring
with her bone-white eye.
Finally you have spent
all the energy you can
and you drag from the ground
the muddy skirt of your roots
and leap awake
with two or three syllables
like water in your mouth
and a sense
of loss—a memory
not yet of a word,
certainly not yet the answer—
only how it feels
when deep in the tree
all the locks click open,
and the fire surges through the wood,
and the blossoms blossom.
the centre cannot hold…
The Second Coming
-william butler yeats
TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
#marchphotoaday #sign (Taken with Instagram at Baby Huey’s)
You can grow your own way…
I think we buy local and organic vegetables for a few reasons:
One: We want to know where our food comes from
Two: We want to know that it isn’t genetically modified or that it contains harmful pesticides
Three: We want to support local farms and lessen our impact on our environment
Four: We want to eat the tastiest, healthiest food we can, and make sure our loved ones eat the same way too
Need to live here.
Project X : mini review
If you’ve watched the trailer you know what you’re about to see. 3 unpopular high school teens, parents leaving for a weekend trip and a house ripe for the most destructive house party ever captured by a shaky handheld camera.
What you don’t expect is just how far this party escalates and the number of “oh shit!” moments peppered with some laughs that carry the audience on a train ride to some unexpected dark places, keeping the genre fresh with a more realistic and less Disney like conclusion.
I half expected to hate the film and there are those who will but the bastard child of Superbad and Cloverfield works on most levels if you let it. It’s a ride you want to stay on till the wheels fall off and do they ever.
Project X hits theaters March 2nd.
http://www.projectxthemovie.com/
Jason Nip
https://twitter.com/JasonNipDesign
