the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

whether MA is your profession or a hobby or interest, what are some of your other interests or hobbies? surely you guys/gals do other interesting/fun stuff?

I mainly love soccer/football. Been getting into table tennis and pickleball some. Also learning modern web dev and a bit of data science.

I paint crap, write crap, blog about crap movies, play pool games occasionally. And I've started to learn how to play the piano because my son takes classes. That's about it.

I'll try to look if I have some crappy painting to show. Maybe later

That's a lot of creative work! I learned some piano and guitar before but definitely "crappy" is a good word for the level I got to.

I played the sax for years but with music it demands a lot of time which I don't have but I do miss it. I have been reading a lot more because I think my country has been taken over by people who believe in "simple solutions" and if they read more I doubt we would be in this situation. For example; http://americannewsx.com/politics/trump ... l-country/

I garden a ton using martial arts as a model I know how important the details are and I take it as seriously as martial arts training. All organic of course which requires more work but in return the soil does the work for you. Here is a veggie garden of mine.



I would like to take up surfing again. I surfed as a kid but stopped when I realized I was not a strong swimmer and it could be dangerous but now I am a stronger swimmer and would like to be a old dude surfing someday.

Hobbies are what life are for.

Looks like a very lush garden!

Nice garden G.,
but
didn`t noticed any sacred plants, dough

My main hobby/interest in the past was couple different facets of the arts - music /I like to play piano and guitars, but follow my own rule sets only /, art restoration is my main profession, however I made quite lot of my own >style< paintings/graphs, aka "consecutive art studio".
Anyway this time is passing by,
`cause
/forget m.a./,now what I like the most is:

https://youtu.be/B-Wd-Q3F8KM

It's really interesting to find out what you "familiar strangers" are up to besides MA and posting on RSF. Sounds like a creative group. I find that inspiring because I don't consider myself creative (much more analytical).

Hobbies are what life are for.

This is an interesting philosophy. Just thinking that makes me more interested in some of the other activities I've just sort of picked up. Your garden looks great. I killed some weeds using vinegar the other day (trying to keep everything organic), but I can't really grow vegetables yet. That is on the list. I don't really have any "survival" skills in case of zombie apocalypse in the sense of feeding myself or my family. Picking up a stick to fight isn't the issue since I'd be starving, lol.

I think my country has been taken over by people who believe in "simple solutions" and if they read more I doubt we would be in this situation. For example; http://americannewsx.com/politics/trump ... l-country/

This is interesting because you get to a certain age and see certain shit and you realize "I hated history" in school but WTF. People really need to study it. A professor on the radio said politics is understanding and arguing about the past and how we got here, and what we want to do about it to affect the future.

It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. – Federalist Paper No. 1

This American experiment seems to rely on somewhat educated, "enlightened self-interest" in the voting populace and political representatives that is lost. People don't know what they don't know (about MA or whatever). That is the worst possible threat. It's hard to see a solution. Maybe going through a bad time with idiots in charge makes people learn the hard way.

Woodworking and metalworking, mostly. Some leather work when the need arises.

Being doing this pattern for a bunch of years. I call it, 'Closin' Time'. It's in the styling of the Randall #1. I made this one for my youngest son for xmas. The blade is D2 and the guard and pommel are 316 stainless. The spacers are made from loonies I hammered thin. The wood is hickory and the scabbard has a simple leather loop.




I got this rifle as just a bunch of parts a little more than 5 years ago. It was formerly a MAS-36 French infantry rifle. Golden State Arms in California brought a bunch of different mil-surp rifles into their factory back in the sixties and 'sportered' them for whatever reason. The MAS-36 had their barrels shortened and restocked at the forearm, and dubbed the "Santa Fe Model 49". Somehow, one them made it to a gun show in Northern Canada and that's where I found it.

A light (7lb), compact camp gun with plenty of hitting power.

I made the butt stock from cherry wood which I laminated 3 layers. The forearm is cherry slabs on a rock maple core.







I fitted an SKS butt plate to the stock and made made the trapdoor functional with SKS cleaning kit to keep a pull-through and take-down tool:


SKS rear sling swivel. I made the sling from an old belt:


The rear sight leaf was broken so I made one kinda like the original from an old headsaw blade I keep around for making hardenable parts:


I made the front sight using a front sight base from a BRNO #1 and fashioned a blade from 1/4 x 1" steel.


Not a fan of the commercially available brass so I make my own from re-formed 30-06 brass, and reload for it with a variety of bullet weight and powders.



All-wooden Bows and 'hawks are also on the menu. I took these pics so a customer could see what my gluelines typically look like.

Top is a 5160 spring steel hawk head fitted to a handle of hickory slabs on a purpleheart core.

Below that is a 55lb reflex-deflex. It has tempered bamboo bellies and bamboo backs with a tapered canary wood core and rock maple riser. It's partially backed with rawhide. I make the strings from different kinds of fishing line

Next is a 65lb reflex-deflex made from canary wood bellies and hickory backs with a purpleheart riser.

Last is a 70lb d-section longbow with padauk belly, bamboo back and ebony/purpleheart knocks.

Beautiful woodwork, BruceP. Using purpleheart and padouk gives a really cool look.

Very impressive Bruce!

wiesiek wrote:Nice garden G.,
but
didn`t noticed any sacred plants, dough

I don't but I meet those who do but usually that is all they grow probably because of the money.

I will try the vinegar on weeds. I usually just pull them but it is good to have more tools than one.

As to history that is true. Politics is pretty much looking back at history and seeing what did and didn't work. For example, I had a soldier tell me that the US should do to Afghanistan what it did to Japan but obviously that situation was completely different. Yet it goes to show that if people don't know history they won't understand that.

This is interesting because you get to a certain age and see certain shit and you realize "I hated history" in school but WTF. People really need to study it. A professor on the radio said politics is understanding and arguing about the past and how we got here, and what we want to do about it to affect the future.

Yow, BruceP! That is seriously impressive work. Is this your profession or side project/gig? I need to get so much better at all my hobbies. Man. I know nothing about them, but I love the bows. Beautiful just to look at the pictures.

BruceP and grzegorz, now I know who from RSF I need to recruit during the zombie apocalypse. Vegetables + weapons will be needed. Not sure what I'm going to do. My slow motion tai chi fake fighting skills that aren't even used in sparring will need an upgrade. Haha.

Great work Bruce! Looks awesome.

everything wrote:That's a lot of creative work! I learned some piano and guitar before but definitely "crappy" is a good word for the level I got to.

A lot of creativity... yeah, I guess so. I like to create and produce things. My major is actually film studies and I went to a film school. But I did other things instead of trying to make movies. Frankly, back then 20 years ago, I couldn’t handle all of the nuts working in the film industry here. Most of that people are more or less insane and somewhat in need of treatment and medications... Maybe I could do it better today. But if you are going to succeed, you need to have full control of what you do. The main reason why I chose to start my own business instead of working for others is to be able to finance some film projects in the future, at least partly. I don’t know if that will ever going ro happen, and I'm not getting younger. But nothing is impossible I guess.

Anyway, here’s some examples of art works as I more or less promised, not really anything finished I want to show here, but you’ll get an idea about what I do:

Drawings:


Digital sketches:

Thanks, guys.

Steve, I'm bettin you're no slouch yourself. Yeah, purpleheart is a pretty wood and it's nice to work with - strong, stable and carves like walnut. It's hard on tools, though. But so is padauk, and the splinters are toxic.

Nice garden, Greg. The gawds favor the grower.

everything, I sell the odd bow if I think it's up to snuff. Not prolific enough to break even on materials and labor, though. Haven't sold a blade since the 90s. Mostly just gifts and trade items. All three of those bows have been hunted by friends and have made meat a couple of times for each of them. I don't sell to friends and don't eat red meat so they usually give the bows back in lieu of venison. As for a zombie apocalypse, Greg and I would have you up to speed in no time.

Wiesiek, art restoration - that's gotta be one of the coolest jobs ever.

Bao, I like the subtle plays on symmetry/asymmetry. Thought provoking, leastwise.