It's my martial arts world

[Drunk Monk]

Is that a euphemism?

Shaolin Experience ™ is clearly a euphemism. And a trademarked one at that.

[thatguy]

https://gizmodo.com/youtuber-resolves-fr...2000737954

YouTuber Resolves Fraternal Disagreement With Excavator and Hilariously Large Sword


But mom, he started it!
Tom Hawking
Published March 28, 2026, 8:00 am ET

Handy Geng sword machine © Handy Geng / YouTube

If you’ve just lost to your brother in a fight that involved you both dressing in Ned Kellyarmor made from barrels and swatting each other with absurdly large weapons, do you honorably admit defeat and step away… or do you escalate things by fabricating a comically large sword, strapping it to the arm of a construction excavator, and driving up to his doorstep to demand a rematch?

Such was the dilemma facing Hong Kong-based YouTube maniac Handy Geng. Geng specializes in constructing, let’s say, idiosyncratic machines. Some of his more memorable recent projects include “Handmade Revolver Lithium Drill” (a power drill built to look like the sort of hand-cannon that’d put Marty Robbins to shame) and “Homemade Alpaca Sausage Grill Machine” (exactly what it sounds like). So there was only ever really going to be one outcome here, and happily for those of us who enjoy watching people build very silly machines, he chose… violence.

The result, inspired by the sword wielded by a character in the manga Bleach, is one of the most impressively deranged things we’ve seen on the internet for quite some time—and we’ve seen some pretty ridiculous things of late. (Come to think of it, Handy Geng would have fit right in with the good folk at Survival Research Laboratories.) I mean, the blade must be a good 15 feet long:
© Handy Geng / YouTube

It’s fitted to the excavator arm by way of a custom-fabricated sheet metal fist, which is honestly a really impressive piece of work, not least because it also includes a speaker for blasting “intimidating music.” Geng is clearly very proud of the finished product, cackling happily as he slices and dices his way through a succession of unfortunate objects—he starts, inexplicably, with a watermelon (“It sliced very well!”), before progressing to two water barrels, a couple of derelict cars, and finally his unsuspecting brother’s three-wheeled rickshaw-type vehicle.



The brother in question is, understandably, nonplussed by the appearance of a 10-ton death machine on his doorstep. “Isn’t this basically cheating?” he asks—which, y’know, fair point. Geng, of course, has no time for such quibbling, and the video closes with brother and excavator locked in mortal combat. Who will prevail? Watch this space!

(We should add that this is all good-natured fun, and that you should absolutely not try things like “unleashing a gigantic and potentially lethal weapon upon my unsuspecting brother” at home. No matter how much he pisses you off.)

—tg

[King Bob]

Every Frame a Painting discusses The Blade:

[Drunk Monk]

---

[thatguy]

HIDARI

https://gizmodo.com/keanu-reeves-gets-hi...2000759735

Keanu Reeves Gets His Samurai On with Stop-Motion ‘Hidari’ Film
Justin Carter

---

Do you like movies with stop-motion animation, samurai, or Keanu Reeves? If you answered “yes” to either, you may be interested in Hidari, an upcoming stop-motion movie that just landed Reeves in the lead role.

Directed and written by Masashi Kawamura, the film is a feature-length version of his 2023 samurai short film about Jingorō Hidari. In real life, Hidari was a man of many talents during Japan’s Edo period, including an architect, sculptor, and comedian. Kawamura’s film is loosely based on Hidari’s legend and will portray him as a man out for revenge after the death of his father figure and fiancee and the loss of his right arm. Having replaced his lost arm with a variety of mechanical prosthetics, Hidari and his wooden Sleeping Cat companion will hunt down those responsible and learn how it all connects to the reconstruction of Edo Castle.

“From the proof of concept to the developed script, the [Hidari] team has created something truly extraordinary,” said Reeves in a press release. “It has all the makings of an exceptional film — one I’m excited to see and eager to be part of. I believe this project has the potential to bring something very special to audiences worldwide.”

Likewise, Kawamura is “super excited” to team with Reeves on his film. “When someone with his experience and creative vision watches your proof of concept and says, ‘I want to be part of this,’ it’s an incredible feeling. He’s not just lending his voice to Hidari — he’s helping us shape and expand this world, and I can’t wait to see where we take it together.”
Look for the Keanu Reeves-led Hidari to hit theaters in the near future.

--tg

[Drunk Monk]

HIDARI

https://gizmodo.com/keanu-reeves-gets-hi...2000759735

Keanu Reeves Gets His Samurai On with Stop-Motion ‘Hidari’ Film
Justin Carter

---

Do you like movies with stop-motion animation, samurai, or Keanu Reeves? If you answered “yes” to either, you may be interested in Hidari, an upcoming stop-motion movie that just landed Reeves in the lead role.

Directed and written by Masashi Kawamura, the film is a feature-length version of his 2023 samurai short film about Jingorō Hidari. In real life, Hidari was a man of many talents during Japan’s Edo period, including an architect, sculptor, and comedian. Kawamura’s film is loosely based on Hidari’s legend and will portray him as a man out for revenge after the death of his father figure and fiancee and the loss of his right arm. Having replaced his lost arm with a variety of mechanical prosthetics, Hidari and his wooden Sleeping Cat companion will hunt down those responsible and learn how it all connects to the reconstruction of Edo Castle.

“From the proof of concept to the developed script, the [Hidari] team has created something truly extraordinary,” said Reeves in a press release. “It has all the makings of an exceptional film — one I’m excited to see and eager to be part of. I believe this project has the potential to bring something very special to audiences worldwide.”

Likewise, Kawamura is “super excited” to team with Reeves on his film. “When someone with his experience and creative vision watches your proof of concept and says, ‘I want to be part of this,’ it’s an incredible feeling. He’s not just lending his voice to Hidari — he’s helping us shape and expand this world, and I can’t wait to see where we take it together.”
Look for the Keanu Reeves-led Hidari to hit theaters in the near future.

--tg

Cool. Poaching this for KFM

[Greg]

I don't know how much you follow the NBA, but Wembayama is one of the leagues rising superstars. You can read more at ESPN. https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/4881...wembanyama

MASTER YAN'AN HAS trained at the Shaolin Temple in the Henan province of China since he was 6 years old. He has climbed the roughly 1,500 stone steps up Wuru Peak to the Bodhidharma Cave thousands of times. None of the steps is the same size or height. Some are narrow; some are tall. During the day, tourists who visit the temple usually take one to two hours to reach the peak. It is not advised to climb at night. There are no lights along the trail, and one wrong step could send a hiker tumbling down the steep staircase.
But Master Yan'an had an unusual student last summer. San Antonio Spurs All-NBA center Victor Wembanyama was looking for a challenge that would test him in ways he'd never been tested before. He wanted to build his inner strength alongside his already prodigious physical strength.
His goals, he said, transcended mere athletic glory.
"I told him: You play basketball, and I do kung fu. If you want to be great, you have to do things that other people can't do," Master Yan'an told ESPN. "There are two parts to climbing the mountain. The daytime is for your body. Your endurance, your strength. The nighttime is for your mind. Your awareness."
Wembanyama understood.
After darkness fell on the sixth night of his retreat at the Shaolin Temple last summer, he joined Master Yan'an and a group of monks for a hike to the Bodhidharma Cave.
"There were no lights anywhere," Master Yan'an said. "You can't see anything. The only way to go is step by step. Listen to your breath and listen to your heart. Feel each step with your foot. Use your awareness."
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Two staffers from San Antonio who had accompanied Wembanyama expressed their reservations. Master Yan'an worried, too. He'd been entrusted to train a global icon, a generational talent, and they were about to embark on a treacherous mountain path in total darkness.
"He's really young, and he has a really great future in basketball," Master Yan'an said. "He's also very tall, so he hit his head on some of the trees along the path and had to lean forward to go under them." But the entire point of this training, he said, was to free your mind from fear and trust your awareness to guide you.
The group walked and climbed for about an hour, a moving meditation in darkness and silence.
Throughout his time at the monastery, meditation had been the most difficult aspect for Wembanyama to embrace. It's hard for someone 7-foot-4 to sit cross-legged at all, let alone silently for up to 90 minutes, without moving.
But he kept at it. Each night he slept in three single-size beds that had been pushed together to accommodate his frame. Each morning he rose at 4:30 to train. The monks would have him run through the forests near the monastery or along an uneven 200-meter hillside track, doing frog jumps, sprints and one-legged hops uphill and downhill to build his balance and stamina.
They taught him the Shaolin 13 Fist Form -- one of the two basic forms of kung fu meant to teach efficient weight shifts, stability and striking principles.
Master Yan'an said he designed Wembanyama's customized martial arts training to emphasize controlling his center of gravity, which would generate force from different positions and resist external forces, to mimic the double-teams and physical play he'd face from NBA opponents.
Several times a day Wembanyama meditated with 100 other monks, each session's length determined by the length of the wick of incense that burned in the center of the room. Thirty minutes was doable. But sometimes the incense burned for 90 minutes, and it was agonizing for the then-21-year-old Wembanyama to sit that long.
"I knew he could do it," Master Yan'an said. "Because when he trains, he always tries again and again until he is the best."
Master Yan'an recognized then what the basketball world is recognizing now: that Victor Wembanyama has perhaps the most unprecedented set of skills and untapped potential anyone has ever seen, and that he requires a similarly unprecedented training regimen to realize it.
This is the story of how 34 generations of Shaolin warrior history trained a once-in-a-generation NBA superstar -- helping to build the player who not only dominated the league's best team in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals with frightening ease, but who also looks poised to do so for the rest of his nascent career.

[Drunk Monk]

https://forum.kungfumagazine.com/t/shaol.../42189/163
This happened last year

[Greg]

ESPN is a little slow.

[thatguy]

Fencing is becoming light sabering...

On Saturday, April 25, at the World Fencing League held at The Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, the collaborative project “Fencing Visualized” by Rhizomatiks and Dentsu Lab Tokyo will be introduced in live competition.

At the venue, the system will track and visualise the movement of the fencers’ blade tips in real time during actual matches. The system was previously used on-site at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and will be presented in the United States for the first time.

This system captures the motion of the blade tip without markers and renders it as dynamic trajectories. By implementing this system, audiences can experience the advanced techniques of athletes competing on the international stage from a new perspective.

*Images shown are for reference only.

--tg

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

I really like the visual. The spectacle still needs very good commentary, but those visuals are great.

[thatguy]

I notice the one with the green light (light side of the force?) IMHO was swinging pretty wide. I like that I can see that...

--tg

[Drunk Monk]

After spending some 7 hours disassembling a cedar onsen hot tub and moving it from Menlo Park to Svale, I took a quick shower and made it for the 26 anniversary of Saigon Seafood Restaurant off Lawrence in Svale, owned by a Shaolin brother I've known and befriended since he came over maybe two decades plus ago. It was quite a gathering of the wulin, many friends I missed over last weekend when there were two tournaments held whilst I was at Cali Roots. 

It was a classic Chinese banquet (yes, I know Saigon is in Vietnam - I have no idea why it's called that). It started with an insane lion dance that filled the hall with gunpowder fumes (nothing stirs an appetite like that smell), then a ton of speeches by various dignitaries and announcements of various VIPs (no I wasn't announced), then a karaoke singer dressed in some traditional stringed instrument (I think it was a sanxian) until he shifted to odd canto pop song and sort of dance, then a face-changing act, then I lost track. The food was good - coconut walnut prawns, seaweed salad, baby octopus (I abstained from that), jellyfish, baby abalone, fried lobster, steamed carp or some carp like fish, somme kinda soup, fried rice with bacon and shrimp (another abstain), beef vegetables (abstain), almond and mango gelatin, probably missing a few... There was coke, sprite, a cab that smelled ok but had no taste, green tea beer (not good, nope), and zhenaiyisheng, a baijiu (white liquor) that was astonishingly smooth and 54% alcohol plus lots of healing herbs. 

Yanran was there - the SF disciple of the abbot.

Oh - I should mention that the abbot got sentenced yesterday - 24 years for bribery and embezzlement. 

I really wanted to talk to Yanran. We pulled him over towards the end. I told him that if he wanted to make any statement, I was open to him, and if he didn't I totally understood. He was shitfaced drunk. I must abdicate my Drunk Monk moniker to him for the night because he's a genuine Shaolin monk and he was so drunk, huge, 'I love you' drunk. Turns out he's the importer of the beer and baijiu - or at least that's what he told me between hugs and sloppy 'we are Shaolin brothers'. He promised me a case of the baijiu and we did several shots together. Lemme tell ya, when a drunk Shaolin monk grabs hold of you, there's no escape. Yanran is strong, thick, with an iron grip. 

Y'all know me. I talk to a lot o inebriated people. I've even talked to inebriated monks and masters before. My drunken style is still strong. 

It was great - a deep dive into the wulin - one of those drunken fist moments that I cherish and haven't had in a while, more extreme than the TCEC after parties. I love my life. And I brought home a bottle of that baijiu. Hope Yanran remembers about his case promise. It's' the best baijiu I've had so far. 


I need to rehydrate and crash. Gonna be sore tomorrow from hot tub deconstruction and drunk monk hugs. 

Ok, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

[Drunk Monk]

www.neatorama.com/2026/03/23/Fitness-Trend-Sword-Yoga/


--tg

---

https://www.instagram.com/theweaponup/

Don't get PPFY or me started on WeaponUp.  

It's a tragic tale.

I'm just imagining you going to and from your yoga sessions armed...katana across the back...dead stare at all passers-by. Maybe pushing a small dog in a vintage stroller...

--tg

Truth be told, my yoga center and iaido dojo are close to each other - on either side of the Crepe Place. I could take a yoga class and then scoot over to iai, so it might've been if I had that much juice, but I don't anymore...

This just made the NY Post - https://nypost.com/2026/03/23/lifestyle/...-over-nyc/ 
Am I going to have to interview Sabina Storberg?

Sabina interviewed over drinks at Haraz coffee (which makes a very satisfying latte). 

She's a lot to unpack - fascinating, intelligent, skillful and beautiful woman. I am impressed and so jealous about what she's doing. If only I was a fascinating, intelligent, skillful and beautiful woman* then I could fill workshops across the nation. 

More to come...



* I know y'all have fantasized this about DM. And there's proof, specifically scars left by PPFY on DM at Castle Highland.

[thatguy]

If only I was a fascinating, intelligent, skillful and beautiful woman* then I could fill workshops across the nation. 

Have you considered plastic surgery?

--tg