Jet Li

I love Jet Li. I really do. I think he’s the best martial arts actor since Bruce Lee in terms of martial arts ability, and he’s also one of the best actors in the martial arts genre (which Bruce Lee wasn’t, although luckily he didn’t really have to play any complex roles).

But I like more about him than his sweet moves and hardcoreness. There’s something else that Jet Li does which I find highly admirable. What is it, you ask? It’s that Jet Li promotes cultural openmindedness. Let’s look at two movies of his that I just watched:

1) Fist of Power. This was essentially a remake of Bruce Lee’s Fist of Fury. The plot is simple: Chen Zhen (Bruce Lee; Jet Li) is a martial artist and he returns to his school to find that his master has been poisoned and the competing Japanese martial arts school is harassing his school. Bruce Lee’s movie was very pro-China and anti-Japanese, black and white. Jet Li’s version has the same plot, but it’s much more open-minded.

First, look at what happens to Chen Zhen. He’s studying in Japan, and he has a Japanese girlfriend (that he wants to marry). After the master dies and he returns to China, his girlfriend comes eventually, and his own school refuses to let her live with them and demands that he choose between his school and his lover. And he chooses her. (Note: in Bruce Lee’s version, not only is his girlfriend Chinese, but he chooses to defend the honor of his school despite her objections [she knows he'll die].) Then, the girlfriend recognizes how important the issue of his school is to him so she returns to Japan to wait for him.
Next, look at the general attitudes of the minor characters. In Bruce Lee’s film, the Japanese are clearly the aggressors and the Chinese are oppressed. There’s no question of Chinese blind hatred of the Japanese possibly being wrong, and there’s no question that any Japanese might not be so evil. But in Jet Li’s film, he shows that the Chinese wouldn’t accept any Japanese — they strongly objected to Chen Zhen’s wanting to marry a Japanese girl (even though the new master of their school was marrying a prostitute). Some of the people in the school were willing to accept her but most of them were not. And Chen Zhen couldn’t get a room for him and her in a Chinese hotel either, they wouldn’t allow a Japanese to stay there.

On the other side, most of the Japanese were what you expect: cruel oppressors. But there are exceptions. The uncle of Chen Zhen’s lover, a Japanese martial arts master, likes Chen Zhen and tries to help him. The Japanese ambassador in Shanghai was horrified by all of the violence and repeatedly intervened to stop Japanese from hurting Chinese. (This doesn’t mean that he didn’t think Japan should control China, but he didn’t want violence at least.) And the master of the Japanese martial arts school that was in conflict with Chen Zhen’s school wasn’t bad either. He was more of an “old-fashioned” villain. He was a complete ass, but he was at least honorable. When Chen Zhen challenged him, he told his school that there should be no revenge if he died. And when he found out that the reason he won his fight with Chen Zhen’s master was that the master had been poisoned, he was very upset: he would have preferred to lose a fair fight than to win dishonorably.

So while Jet Li’s version of the film doesn’t downplay the badness of the situation with the Japanese at that time, it is much deeper and has many more complex characters than Bruce Lee’s version. In all, I think it might be the best martial arts movie I’ve ever seen. It has a classic and simple plot, but still manages to have interesting characters; the acting isn’t terrible; the martial arts is amazing.

2) The One. I have much less to say about this movie. The only thing I wanted to point out was that in this movie, Jet Li’s wife is a white woman. And she talks to him in Chinese a couple of times. At one point he speaks about her in a way very reminiscent of Eastern philosophy. So again in his movie he has characters crossing cultural boundaries (and being happy as a result). Oh, also, when the multiple universe thing is being explained to him, he is told that in other universes the guy who is him is sometimes married to a different woman, or to a man. And in his universe he’s a policeman but in another he is a criminal. In a subtle way this suggests that everyone is capable of a lot of very different things. But maybe I’m reading too much into it (after all, Jet Li’s character reacts negatively when Statham says he was gay in an alternate universe).

I also watched War recently. In that one Jet Li is the villain, and he’s very secretive also, so there’s little to say about his character. But it’s an awesome movie too. (More of a Western-style shoot-em-up action than a martial arts action movie, although Jet Li gets in a cool sword fight near the end and he has some other sweet moves interspersed throughout the movie.)

In conclusion, Jet Li is awesome.

How to be good at soccer (football!)

Being physically fit and practicing your skills will make you good at any sport. But sometimes you just don’t have time to practice, you’re just not a very physically adept person, or you are already good at that stuff and want to know how to get better. So you need to learn to think soccer. By the way: my apologies to the rest of the world, who (most reasonably) refer to this sport as football.

Some of these tips will actually apply to any sport, but I’m thinking about soccer as I write this. I’m not a very good soccer player myself, but I am a thinker and I’m very observant, so I think my advice will be good anyway. (Coaches are sometimes not very good at the sport they coach; it’s knowledge of the sport, not skill, that really matters.)

If you’re an “advanced” player (on a college team, or high school varsity maybe, or if you follow professional soccer sufficiently avidly), this stuff will probably be old hat.

* Learn to keep track of the other players. If you only know where people are when they’re in your line of sight, you’re vulnerable to attack from behind, and you might miss a key play when you don’t realize that one of your teammates is in a good position. When you last glance at the field, try to keep track of where everyone is, what direction they’re going, what they seem to be trying to do, etc. Then if you have to take control of a long pass or something, you won’t have to re-adjust to where everyone has moved to while you were looking at the ball. This skill is also really useful for making good cuts.
* Don’t get too close to your teammates. The only useful thing you can do when you’re really close to one of your teammates is screen, and that’s against the rules. If your teammate is in trouble, probably passing to you won’t help much — the two guys double teaming him will just switch to you. If your teammate isn’t in trouble, or if your teammate doesn’t have the ball, you aren’t helping by being near him either. You might be blocking his view, and you’re making it easier for the other team to cover both of you at once. Spread out. An opponent might move to cover you and give your teammate an opportunity to cut; you might find yourself open for a pass and a good play; you might be able to create a give-and-go opportunity for your teammate (he passes to you and runs past his defender and then you pass right back to him).

* Rest strategically. This is very important because soccer requires so much sprinting. You can’t just run yourself down till you’re exhausted and then half-walk, half-jog around for the rest of the game. You also shouldn’t go up on offense and then get lazy and refuse to come back to help defend when your team is in trouble. You can do better than this by optimizing your resting. When there’s nothing for you to do, even if it’s only a brief moment, that should be a cue for you to get a bit of rest. If you take every opportunity to recover your strength, you’ll have the energy to put pressure on defense or keep making good cuts on offense late into the game; if you do it strategically, you won’t cost your team anything during your rests, either.

* Don’t waste energy on worthless plays. This goes with the previous one. Too often I see players sprinting after a ball that they have no chance of stopping, or going all-out trying to make something out of a hopeless play. If you do this too much, you’ll expend a lot of you energy getting nothing for your team, and you’ll be too tired later on to capitalize on good opportunities. Don’t try to take on the other team’s entire defense by yourself. Slow down and let your teammates catch up. Don’t sprint when there’s no pressure or when a ball has gone out of bounds. Save it, and you’ll still have the energy left at the end of the game for that run half-way down the field for a miracle 88th minute goal. Or whatever.

* Be in the right place at the right time. A lot of times, a good play in soccer doesn’t have anything to do with technical abilities. It’s only to do with opportunity. Especially when there’s a break in the play or the ball is far away from you, you should be thinking about what opportunities you can create, or what opportunities you can deny the opponents. If you see an opening in the opponents’ defense, try to get near it so you’ll be in position to cut through when your teammate sees you and passes the ball up. That kind of thing can make a more effective play than any amount of ball-handling skill.

* Don’t compete with your teammates. Don’t double-team on defense if you don’t have to. Don’t cut and call for a pass right at the same time as one of your teammates. Don’t try to create an opportunity on the left wing if one of your teammates is also trying to make a play on that part of the field. This will help you save energy, for one thing. If your teammate is already doing something (which takes only one man), then you shouldn’t waste energy by running to do the same thing. Also, it improves your team’s efficiency. If your teammate’s cut doesn’t work, you’re ready to cut right as soon as you realize that. If your teammate’s cut does work, you’re not in the middle of your own cut when he gets the pass, so you can react faster to the new situation. On defense, if your teammate is running up to cover the guy with the ball, instead of “helping” you should be filling up an opening so that their other guy can’t cut through, or covering a guy who’s already up there so you can limit their options.

* Involve your entire team. It’s very tempting to always pass to the best player on your team. He’s the “playmaker”, the goal scorer, the guy who can juggle the ball indefinitely and do amazing tricks. Why not give him the ball as much as possible? (Or if you are that guy, why shouldn’t you have the ball most of the time?) There are several reasons. This strategy actually makes it easier on the other team. They know that they only have to focus on covering one or two “star” players on your team, and they can be more lax about the other players. They’ll have an easy time predicting your plays, etc. etc. Also, if all of your players are involved, then you can cover more space. One man on offense is almost never going to find a hole; he has to manufacture the plays on his own because the entire defense will be on him. But if you have three men up there, they can spread out, and maybe the defense will leave an opening for one of them to cut through — you’ll be able to pass to him and give him an open shot. If the opponents never know who’s going to receive the next pass, and they’re never sure whether the next move will be another pass or a drive to the goal, they’ll have a much harder time defending against you. (Also, making an effort to include less skilled players will make them more motivated to play hard. This is especially important in informal or low-key games — it’s no fun if you exclude the players who aren’t that great.)

* Don’t follow the ball. I’m often shocked by how great players fail to adhere to this basic principle. The ball moves faster than you can. Don’t even try! You’ll also often end up violating some of the other principles (don’t get too close to your teammates, and don’t compete with your teammates) if you follow the ball too much. This is especially a problem on defense. If you run up to the guy on the other team who has the ball, and he passes it, don’t chase after the ball! You’re leaving that guy wide open! You should trust your teammates to be covering the guy who just received the ball. (If you can’t trust your teammates to do that, your team needs to work on its D.) If the guy who just passed the ball isn’t doing anything and can be safely left, don’t assume that following the ball is the best alternative. Look and see if any of their other guys are still open. Look to see if there’s a hole in your defense. Think about what they’re likely to try to do, and get in the way of it. Running towards the ball might just make things easier for them. Similarly, on offense, being nearer to the ball isn’t always going to make it more likely (or a better play) for your teammate to pass the ball to you. Worry more about creating opportunities for good plays. Sometimes that means running away from the ball. It’s okay!

* It’s not all about you. Often you have opportunities to do really cool stuff. Someone sends you a long pass and you could just kick it in the air instead of controlling it first and looking for a good shot. It would be pretty sweet if you scored the former way, but if you do the less fancy thing, you’ll be much more likely to score. Also, you shouldn’t shoot at every opportunity. Soccer is a passing game. If you have a bit of a shot, you should consider taking it, but you should also be aware of your teammates and you should check whether they might have a better opportunity. Also, if you’ve got the ball and a defender (or two) comes up to you, don’t let anything stop you from passing to your teammate who’s still open. You may be able to pull off some fancy footwork to get around them, and if you know you’re better than they are then it will be very tempting, but this is just not a good play. Your teammate is wide open. He might already have a shot, or at least a clear path to the goal, especially if you’re about to be double-teamed. Or maybe he can just hold the ball for you while you run past the defenders unencumbered. Really, in that kind of situation, there’s virtually no advantage to ball-hogging. Remember, there’s probably no one videotaping, so you shouldn’t feel an obligation to try to create YouTube-worthy scenarios with yourself as the hero. You’re going to miss the shot or lose the ball and look like an ass when it turns out that there was actually a much safer (but less fancy) play available.

* Remember that this stuff applies to you! Especially if you watch pro football, you probably know immediately that all of these things are good ideas. But a lot of my friends have watched plenty of pro matches, and they still don’t remember that these things they see on TV and read about in the papers are actually good ideas for them to do, too! So don’t just tell yourself “yeah, I know all of this, it was a waste of time to read this post” or “that was interesting, I feel enlightened now, next blog please.” In order to actually get better from this kind of advice, you need to actively think about it when you’re playing. Being good at a sport isn’t just about using your physical abilities. Turn on your brain too, and you’ll have a huge advantage over the players who don’t!

Well, I hope some of these tips are helpful for you. I wish the people I play with would follow these! We’d probably dominate our league if we did.

I guess I should admit that I don’t follow all of them perfectly myself. It’s not easy to behave like a pro player, even when you think you know how and you’re thinking about it during the game. It takes a lot of intuition, an ability to understand what’s going on across the entire field all the time, good judgment and foresight, and intimate knowledge of your own and your teammates’ abilities. But don’t despair! Though this advice might not turn you into a pro overnight, if you follow these tenets and apply good judgment, you’ll surely see your soccer skills improving.

First days in London

EDITORIAL NOTE: 1£ = $2, approximately.

So, our hotel makes us pay £3.50 per hour to use the internet. Ridiculous! I haven’t asked them if there’s a discount rate for multiple hours or if we can get access for the entire time at a reduced rate. It would be much cheaper to use an internet cafe (£1.60/hour), but I am more familiar with my computer, have bookmarks and passwords here, and have a lot of software that their computers won’t have. It’s annoying.

Well, let’s get to the fun stuff. Here are the places we’ve been so far:

Day 1
- The airport. Large. Boring.
- The London Underground. “Mind the gap!”
- The hotel. All of the women who work at the front desk are really hot. I have the rest of the week to try to talk to them, too! Hah, as if anything could possibly come of that…
- The Oxford Street shopping area. It’s much like New York.
- Piccadilly Circus. It’s much like Times Square. By this point, I was getting a bit annoyed — I didn’t come here to see a copy of New York City with older buildings.

(Amazingly, we slept for 14 hours last night. We missed the free breakfast in the hotel, but at least we got over the jet lag already.)

Day 2
- Tower of London. Awesome! Lots to see.
- The Tower Bridge. Also pretty cool. Nice view.
- The London Dungeon. Basically they sensationalize various events in London history that involved death.
- The Handel House. It’s a house.
- A bar. Lame. We saw the end of a none-too-exciting soccer game and drank some Bailey’s. That stuff tastes pretty good but it’s too expensive and too sweet (and too weak) to get drunk off of it.
- Internet cafe. I didn’t post anything because I hadn’t written anything yet.

Unfortunately, I haven’t written anything for either of my existing stories, because I don’t remember exactly where I left off and I haven’t been keeping copies of my work on my own computer. Now that I realized the folly of this, I’ve copied everything down, so between now and my next posting I’ll surely write some stuff. For those of you hoping to see the next installment of either of my stories, my apologies…

London is pretty cool, but I’m not really a big city type of person. I’d like to get out of town and see some other stuff, like a castle (less tourist-ified than the Tower of London, hopefully) or some actual natural scenery.

First post!

This is the first post. There’s no purpose here other than to put something on the front page. If you want to know what this blog is about or something, go read the about page while I figure out all of WordPress’ cool features. I might start angsting as soon as tomorrow afternoon!