From Wikipedia:
Shinya Aoki born on the 9th of May 1983 is a Japanese Mixed Martial Arts fighter and grappler from Japan. Shinya Aoki is the current Shooto Middleweight (167lbs) champion in Shooto after defeating the former champion Akira Kikuchi in Febuary of 2006. In August of 2006 he made his Pride debut in Bushido 12 by submitting american fighter Jason Black in under two minutes with a triangle choke.
Shinya Aoki holds a black-belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Yuki Nakai and also a black belt in Judo. He works as an instructor at Paraestra Kasai but represents the Paraestra Tokyo head-school when competing.
Fascinating sport. Interesting Champion.
One of the things I've learned over the past several years, both watching events surrounding the GWOT and commentary about it, as well as Doc's stories is how easy and difficult it is to kill someone. Even watching YouTube reminds me that there are people on this planet who devote themselves to truly arcane and mindblowing skills. I am thinking not only of the martial arts but of trivial mastery, yoyos, street climbing, bmx, card tricks, close up magic, pen twiddling and the like. It gives us a thousand unknown reasons to respect those we don't know. And so it goes for the skills of combat, of which very few of us are acquainted. Shooto has rules, and it is by purusing those rules that you get the outlines of the things that keep it a sport and not actual combat. It takes a lot to really hurt someone, unless you know what you're doing:
The aim in a shooto match is to defeat the opponent by a knockout (to which a 10-count is applied) or a submission, but fights can also end in a referee stoppage or by a judge decision. Legal techniques include general grappling, chokeholds, joint locks, kicks, knee strikes, punches, takedowns and throws. Illegal techniques include biting, elbow strikes, eye-gouging, forearm strikes, hair pulling, headbutting, pressure point techniques, kicking or kneeing the head of a downed opponent, small joint manipulation and strikes to the groin, spine or throat.
When I was a kid, like most kids raised on Westerns, it was difficult for me to believe what Bruce Lee could do. We had Superman and Batman, Batman more realistic. It seemed inconceivable at first that Kato could whoop the Green Hornet, but we knew it was true. Suddenly, all the old fistfights seemed ridiculous. I imagine that there are many such revelations in store for Americans, dainty as we have become.
When I was in Sydney in 2000 at the games, I was struck by how few Americans attended the wrestling events. They were superb and some American contestants did well, but the Eastern Europeans were dominant. It was refreshing to see such a pure sport and its devotees, a welcome relief in my eyes from the yuppie affections of the American chatting classes. I might even go as far as to tie this back to John Kerry's ill-fated remarks of the prior week - the distance we have gotten from the rough and tumble of common men.
If there is anything to the Republican revolution that goes right past the eyes of the opposition unnoticed, it is the actual ingredients of the the common man who cares little for the patronage of political correctness. We are not a nation of pretentious sophisticates, in fact we are a nation of simpler folks all trying for a bit of upward mobility. We're still mostly Protestants and most of the Protestants are not Evangelicals or Pentecostals. We're still mostly urban, car driving people who aren't interested in buying a Prius, rather a good truck that will last for 10 years. And I think most of us have a passing acquaintance with the violence of contact sports tied directly to our basic humanity, and our appetites for that are not nearly as proximate to moral oblivion as some would have you believe. This is still a football nation, and we still love a good tackle. We know the difference between a clean and a dirty hit.
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