Tag Archives: quality

Jiu-Jitsu = Live Action Katamari Damacy

Posted on by
1

In my last post I mentioned that I was taking Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. I also stated that I had an epiphany about Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and its striking similarity to something else that is wicked fun.

I realized that Jiu-jitsu is really, essentially, live action Katamari Damacy. Sure, just like anything else that is a live action version of something, it is not exactly the same.


We cannot be a katamari though we wish we were. Katamaris are too great, powerful, and magic. However, we aspire to be more like the katamari. Jiu-jitsu can help with this.

Let me help you understand the things that lie at the core of both Katamari Damacy and Jiu-Jitsu with four main points.

1. You roll.

If you roll with someone in jiu-jitsu, it means you’re sparring with them. It essentially ends up looking like a human katamari is coming at you. There is no kicking, no punching, no eye poking, just grabbing on and rolling the other person up. This is exactly how it works in Katamari Damacy as well. Sure, in Katamari Damacy you roll up other things, but other humans and other katamaris are part of that.

2. The goal is to not be rolled up, but rather to roll up.

In Jiu-jitsu, the goal is not to get passed, swept, or essentially, rolled up by your opponent while trying to do as much to them. If you end up in a position where they are still rolling around but you can’t move, this is bad. It doesn’t mean things are over- you can break free and try to roll the other guy up, but it means that you’ve already lost some points.

…just like in Katamari Damacy.

3. You’ll lose if things don’t stick to you.

When we watch a katamari, it so effortlessly picks up the things around it. It rolls, things stick to it, struggling and there to stay unless thrown off. If you roll a person up and they come off, it means you got to go roll them up again. This is true both in jiu-jitsu and Katamari Damacy.

The effort of rolling up is greater in jiu-jitsu. The best comparison to Katamari Damacy is two player competitive mode. An important difference is that size, speed, and skill in Katamari Damacy means the difference between rolling up and being rolled up. In jiu-jitsu, skill and endurance are even greater factors.

4. There is a time limit and a point system.

In Katamari Damacy, points and winning are based on how much you roll up before time runs out.


Jiu-jitsu is not so different, however points are based more on how well you roll the person up within a time limit. One of the biggest divides here is a question of quantity versus quality. A katamari can roll all willy nilly over the earth while in jiu-jitsu, form is very important. Being the dominant roller is key, as you get points for moving into these dominant positions.

Also different is that you can use submissions to make the other person quit (tap out) in jiu-jitsu. That is illegal in Katamari Damacy and might get you arrested. Sure, a controller cord choke is kind of like a gi choke, but it is not acceptable in the gaming community. In jiu-jitsu, not only is it accepted, it is expected.

Self Improvement’s Guise

Posted on by
1

If you’ve been reading this blog, chances are that you know I’m all about self improvement. I’d like to take a moment to make what I think is an important distinction, which I don’t think is always clear.

By being an advocate of self-improvement, I’m not saying that the Celes of yesterday was so flawed that a new me is needed. There seems to be the theme among people who are into self improvement that you need to hate yourself to want to be better. I don’t think improvement works well this way, nor do I think that improvement is about being better each day, every day.

I try to improve myself and my life, but I do so with knowing I will never reach level 1000. Life if not like some games where you’re gaining all these experience points and leveling up and leveling up until you’re at level 1000+ by the time I’m seventy-eight years old. As much as I wish it were, life just isn’t like that, my friends. Everyone whose self improvement is a linear picture of reaching perfection will be sadly disappointed in the end.

We as people, and life itself, go in cycles. You can’t always be happy or healthy. The best you can do is try to extend the times you are and minimize the times you aren’t. If anything, learning to deal with the times when things are bad in the best way possible is self improvement. To try to reach a state where you never trip, never falter, and never stray from the best of the best is not only an impossible goal, it’s a step backwards. To improve you first have to realize that you’re not horrible the way you are now, you’re never going to suddenly morph into that butterfly or swan or whatever, and you’re going to make terrible mistakes and have horrible things happen to you on your journey.

You are you, with your own faults and particular qualities. To pledge to make slight changes is one thing, but to act like some day a Honda Civic is going to become a Hummer is delusional and sad (about as sad as that metaphor).

Today is as important as tomorrow, and as much as you should be working towards something, you need to realize, accept, and live in the moment of who you are today as well. Do it because there may not be tomorrow. Do it because to really improve you have to love and accept who you are now. Do it because tomorrow, whether or not you like it, you will still be you no matter what you tell yourself. Do it because even if right now sucks, it is part of you and your story, and only you can do something with it that makes it worth having happened.

I know some things about myself, others I’m sure I’m still learning. By knowing I am a certain way, I can embrace and express that in ways that I am increasingly more comfortable with. Faults are not always faults, and finer qualities not always so fine. To focus on ‘changing the bad things about yourself’ is to place a black and white value on a part of who you are and either try to cut it out or replace it like some kind of Frankenstein graft. To see both sides to a coin is to admit the world is flat on only has two sides. Consider the many sides to the tetrahedron, or other polyhedrons that are the building blocks of life, and try to find how each piece can fit together.

I try to be realistic. Combine slight tweaks with strategies and meet yourself somewhere in the middle before you fall off the edge. If you hate who you are now and set an impossible goal for tomorrow, you will fail in the worst way. Don’t kid yourself into thinking you’re not who you were, because you will always be some version of yourself. Accept it as everything you were has made you today, and will make you every day after until the end of this life. All things shape us, the best we can do is try to take some control over how they do and accept the things we cannot so we can move past them.

Acceptance is the biggest piece to the puzzle I think most people miss. You have to accept yourself, your life, and the general way of life, that it is not a perfect pearl or even an oyster, before you can move on.

And move on to what? What do you really want? Figuring is as much part of the journey and figuring out how to get it.

I want to be better than yesterday may seem like a the daily goal to strive for, but in the long term it makes little sense as it is a generalization, a judgment on the unquantifiable, and an impossibility.

More than self improvement, I think of this as learning to live by living. This involves thinking and introspection as much as it involves getting out there, taking chances, and doing.

Quantity VS Quality

Posted on by
Reply

This is somewhat in response to the Twitter spam ‘discussion’ between Scoble and Badera.

There’s a lot of cliches that begin with the phrase ‘there are two types of people’. Though the world is not simple enough to classify everything as one or the other, there are dichotomies in this world and people especially.

When I look back on why certain relationships with people have failed, I think it has to do with a fundamental difference in values. I’m not talking about religion, I’m talking about people who are about more about quality and people who care about quantity.

A quality person is someone who values the intangible essence of something over the actual amount. They would rather have one moment of true revelation that a million okays. They actually believe that the thought is what counts. They are someone who’d rather hang out with a few people and have in depth discussions. Quantity people can deal with being wrong, losing a game, or considering other viewpoints, because they aren’t keeping score.

Quantity people are all about keeping score. They are worried about numbers of instances over the content of the instances themselves. They’d think the better gift is money rather than a well thought event planned by the giver.They’d go to a party at someone’s house advertised on a flier and try to say hi to as many people there as possible without really getting to know anyone. People like this are about life as a competition and being right.

There’s nothing wrong with that type of person, it’s just not me, not how I view the world and go about things. I think the unquantifiable things are what make life worth living. One real connection means so much more than a hundred passing hellos.

That’s as much true on the internet as it is anywhere else. I’m prefer my little online community any day of the week than a bunch of faceless, passing, generic comments.