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Re: [OM] 135/2.8 and Martial Arts

Subject: Re: [OM] 135/2.8 and Martial Arts
From: "Richard F. Man" <richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2002 19:38:19 -0700
At 01:14 PM 4/14/2002 +1200, Brian wrote:
Hi folks,
...I stand to be corrected, but my assessment of Richard Man from what he
has said and the web-site he and his lively wife have put up, is that he has
an impish sense of humour and a quick wit, sharpened no doubt by the
speed, rough & tumble of MA. I took his *challenge* to have been said with a
wide grin, just to get a similar *bite* in return from Skip.

Cheers, Brian

Well said! I am so bad with words that I'm glad you put the right words out for me!

And now to photography and the 135/2.8 which I didn't find a use for before.... Today we went to a Push Hand tournament (*details later after the photo stuff), and I brought the 50/1.4 and 135/2.8. We did mainly video taping, but in the beginning of the day, they have a lion dance demonstration, AND the distance where I was able to move in, was a perfect shot for the 135mm! The lion dancers fill the frame really well. I am looking forward to develop the film to see how it comes out.

Thanks to whoever that "provoked" me to try out this focal length. Otherwise I would have bought my 90mm so it would have been just a wee bit short. The 50/1.4 was great for close up shots of the competitions as well. Although I was too cautious with the 1.4 stop and the ASA800 film. I think I can get away from the 50/2 and ASA 400.

*** now the boring MA stuff , delete now if you are not interested ***
OK, for those who cares, this is the Regional Wushu competition where Tai Chi and Push Hands are part of the events. I have been doing Tai Chi for over 8 years and am an assistant instructor in our school. One problem is that I am a small guy (137 lbs) so usually there are not a whole lot of competitors in my weight class (typical class breakdown is <141, 142-175, 175-205, and > 205) Last year I had only one competitor, and the gold I won was somewhat meaningless because of that. This year they *thought* there is going to be 3 people in my division, and they figured that they would combine some divisions to have more rounds but still have the final rankings based on the original divisions. So they combined the "advanced" lightweight (my division) with the intermediate medium weight (142-175). I won my first round against a 145 pounds guy. We traded a lot of note afterward since his main thing is Bagua (another internal martial arts). Then they put me up against a 171 lbs guy! We ended up with even score but he had more warnings against him so I won that! On my final round, there's this guy that is like rock solid body builder type, and they said he's in my division. I wasn't too sure since he is at least two inches taller than I and there's no way those giant muscle only weigh less than 4 lbs more. Anyway, this guy doesn't move, he is just like a rock. I lost to him by a pretty big margin.

Later on I found out that he is 152 lbs of pure muscle (he is also at most early 20s vs. my old creaky bone of soon to be 40). That makes a lot more sense. However, since my two competitors never did show up, they didn't bother to differentiate by the original division and awarded me a silver. It was a great day nevertheless, I learned a lot from it! Other competitors in our school won several medals, including a bronze from my wife, Chris.

Actually, Chris really is the macho chick, and I am a liberal pacifist. There are quite a bit of "role reversal" in our household :-)


// richard http://www.imagecraft.com
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