Investments in Singapore

I've been speaking to a money manager over the last week. I will say that I am completely underwhelmed by the investment product offering in Singapore. For one, the product offering shown to me by that money manager (who will remain anonymous) consists largely of managed funds with high front-loads, high rear-loads and high expense ratios.

I have several objections to this.

The first is that I am not paying good money to have people make my financial decisions for me. I will pay some money for being able to get a diversified portfolio with only a few choice picks. I will pay for the convenience of someone administering my money for me. I will even pay for the convenience of not having to remember to get my trade every month, and to make sure my money is locked in for the long term. These are things I will pay for. Not for my decision making process to be taken from me by the same financial engineers yahoos responsible for the current hullabaloo in the markets now.

The second is that my investment on returns, no matter how good the mutual fund is, WILL be eaten away by the outrageous fees charged by the fund managers. An expense ratio of 1% means that the fund needs to perform at least 1% better than average to give me average returns. Excuse me?!

The last is that I get the impression that the money manager wasn't listening. I told her I didn't want managed funds. I told her pretty explicitly. I don't blame her for trying. I just told her that these guys don't seem to be carrying the products I want for my investment.

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For those of you who haven't already figured out, I'm a believer of index fund investing. The problem is FINDING an index fund in Singapore worth investing in. I can hardly believe that some of these funds in Singapore dare call themselves index funds.

Lion Global Investors, I'm looking straight at you when I say this.

Let's take a very simple product offering - the Infinity US 500 Stock Index Fund. It is better than many funds out in the market today. When I say better, I mean "less of a ripoff". Its front load is a lowly 2%, and its expense ratio is 1.17%. Which sounds pretty okay compared to a 5% front load and an expense ratio of 1.75% right?

Wrong. Take a look at this - the fund that the Infinity US 500 Stock Index Fund is supposed to be mirroring. Yes, you saw right. The expense ratio is 0.3%, without a frontload. This flies in the face of every index fund principle I know. Infinity is supposed to be mirroring an index. The whole point of an index fund is to reduce the expenses to a minimum, and bet that the stock market on the whole will do well over time. What is this nonsense about a 2% upfront?! Why are you charging a spread of 0.77% over the US 500 Stock Index Fund for blinding following the S&P 500 index?

I cannot blame people for wanting to earn a living. I can understand earning a living. I cannot understand people wanting to earn a living through exploiting me less than the competition.

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I'm going to take some time to highlight what I think is the only nugget of gold in index-based investing in Singapore - the iShares S&P 500 Index Fund. It's essentially like an index fund that is traded like shares on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

The reason I like the iShares is that it essentially tracks the S&P 500 for about the same expense ratio as a true index fund would, at 0.09% expense ratio. It also doesn't have a front load, which is great. The only catch is that it trades like shares on the stock exchange, so you have to pay brokerage fees, so there is a hidden "front load" of sorts, and there are clearing fees of 0.05% up to $200. However, brokerage fees range from 0.25 to 0.5 % in Singapore (depending on volume traded). That means my front load is 0.25% to 0.5% + 0.05%, and my backload is the same, which makes this FAR less than the Infinity US 500 Stock Index Fund, which is its closest competitor.

Look. I can't do math that well, but even I know that 1 or 2 percentage points compounded over 25 years (which is the timeframe for investment I am looking at) is a massive difference.

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Now all that I am short of is finding a financial institution that will essentially do what I tell them to and STFU about their over-engineered financial products. I am looking for a bank or brokerage that will take a fixed amount every month and buy whatever they can of the product portfolio I tell them to buy, every month, on the month, on the dot.

In short, I'm looking for a system that forces me to be responsible, disciplined and act as my prosthetic memory. The reward for this (which is a pretty simple job if you think about it) is my brokerage fees, on the month, every month for 25 years, longer if I happen not to need the money after that.

Any takers?

Guilty Pleasure

First person that came to mind when I saw this was Ilkka. The man who considers training for three hours three to four times a week the minimum necessary to retain his skill.


Demotivators

Salut!

This Blog

I've been reading Pat Law's and Cowboy Caleb's post on the Singapore blogosphere.

I find it sad that a blog allows us to write about anything in the world, yet so many of us chose to write about ourselves. Is human nature that shallow, and the world that fragmented that we need to literally put ourselves out there for all and sundry to view?

I am not going to take the high road - I'm guilty of some of the sins that Pat Law and Cowboy Caleb have set out. Recently, too, my posts have been irregular and of pretty crappy quality. It is with this in mind that I'm going to try to set out what my blog is.

I write this blog for various, evolving reasons. In the past, this blog was a dumping ground for the dissatisfaction I felt for Singapore, and by extension, my life. This post "The Singapore Condition" I wrote 3 years ago remains one of my favourite, and one of my reader's favourites as well.

But life being life has taken a huge unexpected turn. I never expected to be back in Singapore, under those circumstances to boot. Things have changed. I have changed. My blog has also changed.

I stopped writing about my complaints about Singapore, mostly because I find myself with very few complaints. Singapore has improved. It is a long way from being ideal, but the lesson I paid blood to learn was this: you do what you can, and let God sort the rest out. Being impatient for change changes nothing.

This is my blog now. It is a collection of posts which generally falls into the following niches:

(1) Historical European Swordsmanship. I write about this fairly often of late because it is my interest. My fellow swordsman, Kenneth, maintains a nice blog for the techically inclined. Tome takes cool pictures. I don't want to reinvent the wheel here. My niche of a niche is to write about swordsmanship in a way that is hopefully understandable to the non-swordsman. I don't think there's enough of that around, and I hope that this blog would at least give a non-swordsman a glimpse of what we actually do.

(2) Inner Space Articles. A dear friend once described these posts as my version of Chicken Soup for the Soul. I write a lot about hope and love and renewal. That is because these are things that I've given a lot to understand, and I am beginning to gain a glimmer of wisdom about these things. I write these to firm up my ideas, and to hopefully allow readers some insight into some hard-won lessons of life.

(3) Current Events. I tend to focus more on US based news than Singapore based news these days. I also tend to be a bit more picky about the current events I choose to comment on, mostly because I am sick of the same tired arguments being trotted out by the Singapore blogosphere. So unless I have a fresh spin on things, I'll keep quiet. Assume that I have libertarian-liberal leanings alright?

(4) Interesting events in my life. I promise to write only when something genuinely interesting happens in my life and not write for the sake of writing.

One last thought. I've never written for the sake of traffic. I write for the sake of being read. And I hope that you will continue reading.

A Note from Future Self to Past Self

Tor,

I know the blog title is a bit dramatic. Nevertheless, that's how I feel when I speak to you, even intermintently, even if it is through this clumsy medium of my blog.

I've been putting off writing this message for a long time, not because I didn't want to say anything, but because I didn't know what to say. It's the sense of having a feeling but not knowing how to express it well.

You've commented often that you see me as what you could possibly become. I feel the same way - I see you as a younger self if things had gone the way I wanted them to. It is no secret that I regret my inability to read law in England, or journalism in the US. In you, I get to live a vicarious life of how I would have lived if I had my way.

Or perhaps not.

You see, in spite of everything that I feel I have done wrong, every event I regret the necessity of, and every missed chance I cursed at, I never regretted the chances I did take, and the life I did lead. In you, I see the person I would have become even if my choices were different, the same essential person. To use your words, pompous, opinionated, hopelessly anal-retentive, paranoid, genuine, interesting and self-aware. In that sense, you offer me some hope, that these are parts of me that stick with me regardless of the occassionally fucked-up life choices I make.

You are right, of course, that self-absorption is alright only if it becomes self-awareness. No, it wasn't to cushion the impact on a fragile teenage ego that I didn't tell you. Some things you just have to find out for yourself. You wouldn't have believed me if I told you. I know I wouldn't.

Six years on, I offer you, perhaps, a modicum of hope that you may become less anal-retentive, pompous and opinionated. Life and age have their way of polishing away your rough edges. These days, I daresay I've become not only self-aware, but self-reflective, and I hope that you will eventually become the same.

Your Friend,
Anthony

Dagger Training

I'm going to spend a bit of time writing about dagger duels in the context of the martial art I practice. For those of you not interested, there's a nice video of Jon Stewart taking a piss out of the GOP here.

We spent most of yesterday training with daggers. The daggers we use are wooden, about a foot long and look like glorified icepicks. For those who know what i am talking about, we train with rondels.

Because we primarily train with a piercing weapon, we do train for some things I would not even imagine using on modern knives, i.e grabbing or slapping the blade. Nevertheless, some of the stuff we do IS applicable to a modern knife fight, which brings me to my thoughts, which are

1. Speed kills
2. The default for a knife fight is a mutual kill
3. Let the other guy see what you are doing (HT: Chris Blakey)
   

Let me explain each.

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Speed Kills

This adage is generally true to varying degrees. Acting and reacting faster than your opponent generally gives you an edge. This is especially true in dagger fights because of several reasons.

The first is that a dagger, as compared to unarmed, IS a situation where the first good strike will kill or disable, and your target area is almost the entire body, even if you are wearing armour. Contrast this with unarmed. A fist generally doesn't kill or disable with the first strike unless you are hitting somewhere pretty specific. If you want to disable someone while you are unarmed, you generally have to break their structure first before you throw/lock/break/disarm, which involves working your way into a position where you can do that.

The second is that, compared to a longer weapon, like a sword or poleax, the dagger has a much shorter tempo. It's almost as fast as moving your hand around unarmed. Contrast with a sword or a poleax, which trades some speed for a lot more power and measure.

In short, because (1) getting the first strike CAN lead to victory and (2) dagger use lends itself well to quick strikes, speed especially kills with dagger strikes.

(Note. Speed gives you an edge. It doesn't win you the entire fight. I've won dagger and sword bouts with someone I judge about half again as fast as I am. I've lost dagger and sword bouts to people half as slow as I am. It's more important to do things right than to do things fast. Doing things right AND fast generally kills though.)

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The default for a dagger duel is a mutual kill

What happens in a dagger duel is that both sides will be wanting to strike first with the dagger, for the reasons I mentioned above. The first good dagger strike ends the combat, so there's plenty of incentive to move in for the kill fast. Because both people are thinking like that, it's likely both people will try to attack first. Baring massive disparities in speed, both are likely to inflict a killing or disabling wound. Both die.

Hence, the default for a dagger duel is a mutual kill.

Having that in mind, what we train for isn't maximising the speed of the first strike. That leaves a lot to chance, i.e it depends on having an opponent that is slower than you. What we do train for is to strive for control over the weapon, then launching a counterstrike.

That is to say, the key to winning a dagger duel is controlling the opponent's weapon.

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Let the other guy see what you are doing

This is something brought up by Chris on Sunday's training, and I agree with him. There's no point attacking if the opponent cannot see what is happening. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but hear me out.

Recall that the most reliable method of winning a dagger duel is to control the opponent's weapon?

By controlling your initial attack and making it visible, you have (1) limited your opponent's options for defence down to the most appropriate response and can therefore (2) predict the counter-remedy ahead of time. What's more (3) if your opponent commits to his defense too early, you can change your line of attack fairly quickly and get him where he's not defending.

Moreover, making your attack committed and visible is it's own defense. You stop yourself from leading before your dagger covers you, which is the worst mistake you can make in a dagger duel, and often ends with you walking into the point of your opponent's dagger.

Chris demonstrated this for us during one of the bouts, and I believe him. I also tried this in one of my bouts against Robin, which lead to a very nice feint.

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The one complaint I have about myself for dagger is that I've not been able to get into my head and muscles the proper counter-remedy measures. Because it's a fraction of a second (during the interrupted attack) of a fraction of a second (during the defense and remedy) I just kind of go into a spastic spasm when I'm supposed to execute a counter-remedy.

The only way to remedy this is more training I suspect. Anyone else encounter this?

Bandwagon Jumping

My biggest objection to Sarah Palin isn't the fact that she's a neo-con, or that she wishes to impose her views on Creationism or reproduction rights by way of political machinery (HT: Tym). No, it's the fact that her appointment represents the worst political practice of all: bandwagon jumping.

If you are in political office, or have political aspirations, please take note. Don't insult the intelligence of your consituency. Someone will pick up on your bullshit. Have some conviction please.

Thank god the US has Jon Stewart. (HT: Zach)

Employment Day 1

I know it's a bit of a shock to go from "Unemployment Day 1" to "Employment Day 1" but there you have it.

I generally don't write too much about my work, seeing as most of the stuff I work on tends to be confidential (professional hazard) and even the stuff I -can- write about, the context is confidential. Hence, I'll stick to writing about incredibly shallow things about my new job.

1. My new workplace is incredibly close to my home. It's about as close as one can get from my home, given the way Singapore's residential areas are zoned. That means I can get up at 8 in the morning, change, drive, park, walk to my office and still be in time for work at 9 with time to spare.
2. I have an office. This is the second time in my career I've had an office, the first was when I was a lowly peon-associate at my old law firm. This office is set up much more nicely than my old office too, with nice shelving and a big ass table I can actually hold meetings with.
   
3. My new office laptop is literally twice the size of my old office laptop with 3 times as much RAM. The only problem with it is that it has an European keyboard. No biggie, since I had some practice in Finland typing with it, but it gets annoying at times.
4. My new office is tiny. There's about 10 people located in Singapore, as compared to the hundreds at my old workplace. I enjoy the solitude, to some extent, but I do miss the hustle and bustle of the old workplace.

That's all for now.

And for those who are on my Facebook, yes I did actually get attacked by a one-armed, one-legged, one-eyed monkey in Tioman.

Off on Holiday

Response may be patchy. Will be back next week.

Unemployment Day 1

7 am - got up, ran some errands.

8.30 am - parked car at Tanglin Mall, hoofed it to American Embassy.

9.30 am - took my attorney's oath, headed for breakfast at McDonalds while mucking a bit on the PSP.

10.30 am - headed home to change to gym clothes.

11.20 am - met friends at Jurong East Sports Council gym, was disappointed aerobics studio was not covered by gym admittance fee, worked out on treadmill, weights and incline board instead.

1 pm - headed out for lunch, yakked with friends over tea. Noted that today was like we were 13 again.

2.30 pm - headed for mom's home with friends in tow for an impromptu game of Dark Heresy.

5.30 pm - friends headed home, played with PSP some more.

8 pm - had dinner, watched Prime Minister's Rally, laughed my arse off.

9.30 pm - headed home, blogged, chatted online.

12 midnight - sleepzzzz

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I could get used to this, except I know I won't.

I've always been somewhat envious of people who know what their direction is. The best I can say about my life is that it is a series of unanswered or half-answered questions, like a infinitely divergent fractal pattern.

Part of the issue with me is that I do many things sort-of-well, but nothing truly exceptionally well. I love singing, except my voice is okay but not fantastic. I love acting, but I'm not tall, nor exceptionally pleasant-looking. I love debating but my mind moves faster than my mouth. I love writing but I've got more ideas than words to express them with. I love reading but each page I read just gives me more questions.

If you are clearly good at one thing, it's pretty darned obvious what you should be doing. If you do a million things sort of okay, then how do you decide what to do?

If you have only one burning question that you want answered, it's pretty darned obvious that the answer should set you in the right path. If you have a million questions to ask, which one do you ask first?

What should you do, if you can do anything? Is one choice really better than the other?

Google Interview Questions

Found this on the net.

Since it's my last day at work, I thought it'd be fun for me to answer as many interview questions from Google as possible, in hopes that someone from Google might see this and whisk me away to the Googleplex.

1. How many golf balls can fit in a school bus?

By sheer guesstimation, a golf ball is a roughly spherical object an inch in diameter. A schoolbus will be assumed to be a 10 foot by 5 foot by 5 foot box (which I'm guesstimating as rough dimensions of a bus). Assuming I get perfect control over the way I stack spheres in a schoolbus, That would make (10 x 12) x (5 x 12) x (5 x 12) golfballs in the schoolbus. That makes 518400 golf balls.

Also, if I could do math, I would have been an accountant not a lawyer.

2. You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and your mass is proportionally reduced so as to maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?

I am about 66 inches tall. A nickel is about half an inch in diameter (which I assume what the question is asking, cos "height" could mean the thickness of the nickel). I weight about 160 pounds. I will weight 0.134 lbs or 2.1 ounces when I am shrunk down.

That's about the weight of 10 nickels, for perspective.

I would probably be able to generate enough force to really screw with the blades so that they won't even work, cos blender blades are actually pretty flimsy when force is applied perpedicular to the business end. Plus, most blenders have anti-locking mechanisms, so screwing with the blades will cause them to lock, which will in turn stop them from spinning.

3. How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?

It depends on how much it would cost me, how many other people can wash all the windows in Seattle, and how much the people in Seattle want their windows washed in aggregate. I can plug in some numbers but it will pretty much be making shit up.

4. How would you find out if a machine’s stack grows up or down in memory?

Say what?

5. Explain a database in three sentences to your eight-year-old nephew.

(a) Imagine every book you could ever want.

(b) Imagine all of these books stored in one place.

(c) Imagine a librarian to assist you to finding any book you want.

6. How many times a day does a clock’s hands overlap?

23 times, once an hour, except for midnight (or noon if you are callibrating from that point). Yes I know this is the wrong answer, but I'm being honest here.

7. You have to get from point A to point B. You don’t know if you can get there. What would you do?

I use Google maps, and follow the directions.

8. Imagine you have a closet full of shirts. It’s very hard to find a shirt. So what can you do to organize your shirts for easy retrieval?

I use my laundry as an indication of how used a set of shirts are. 4 washes a month means that shirt rises to the top of the pile, and get the most accessible area. Fewer washes go down the pile progressively. Shirts I never wash, I never wear, so that goes to the bottom of the pile, and into the least accessible area.

The unwashed shirts go to salvation army. The exception is winter clothing and suits. I will keep a set vacuum sealed and packed away for when I need it.

9. Every man in a village of 100 married couples has cheated on his wife. Every wife in the village instantly knows when a man other than her husband has cheated, but does not know when her own husband has. The village has a law that does not allow for adultery. Any wife who can prove that her husband is unfaithful must kill him that very day. The women of the village would never disobey this law. One day, the queen of the village visits and announces that at least one husband has been unfaithful. What happens?

One of two things can occur - no one talks, or everyone talks.

In a situation where no one talks, no one does anything. This is because the queen of the village's information does not add anything new to the table. Because every married couple has cheated on his wife, and every woman knows when a man other than her husband has cheated, each woman knows that 99 of the men in the village has cheated - which corroborates what the queen has said. Because each woman cannot PROVE that her husband has cheated, no one dies.

If any one woman asks any other woman the magic question "Did my husband cheat?" and gets an honest answer, then every man in the village dies. ONE woman executing her husband signals to the rest of the wives that she knows her husband had cheated. However, since every woman knows that every other husband had cheated except their own, the fact that one husband is executed MUST mean that every husband in the village has cheated. Once this is established, all husbands will be executed.

10. In a country in which people only want boys, every family continues to have children until they have a boy. if they have a girl, they have another child. if they have a boy, they stop. what is the proportion of boys to girls in the country?

Dammit. I know this is an "infinite series that tends towards 100%" question but I can't remember the math.

11. If the probability of observing a car in 30 minutes on a highway is 0.95, what is the probability of observing a car in 10 minutes (assuming constant default probability)?

I can't even begin to figure out the math of this.

12. If you look at a clock and the time is 3:15, what is the angle between the hour and the minute hands? (The answer to this is not zero!)

It's a quarter of one-twelfth of a full circle. That's 7.5 degrees.

13. Four people need to cross a rickety rope bridge to get back to their camp at night. Unfortunately, they only have one flashlight and it only has enough light left for seventeen minutes. The bridge is too dangerous to cross without a flashlight, and it�s only strong enough to support two people at any given time. Each of the campers walks at a different speed. One can cross the bridge in 1 minute, another in 2 minutes, the third in 5 minutes, and the slow poke takes 10 minutes to cross. How do the campers make it across in 17 minutes?

Have 10 minute dude hold the torch and walk across while 5, 2, and 1 walk across in sequence. Here's the math.

5 and 10 minute dude start. 5 minute dude outpaces 10 minute dude, but 10 minute dude has torch pointing forward. Illuminated, 5 minute dude finishes and 10 minute dude is halfway across the bridge.

At this point, 10 minute dude must stop and point the torch backwards. 2 minute dude takes 1 minute to reach 10 minute dude's location and another minute to cross the bridge. In the time it takes for 2 minute dude to cross the bridge, 10 minute dude would have waited 1 minute, and progressed another one-tenths of the bridge. He's now at the 60% mark of the bridge.

Then comes 1 minute-dude. 10 minute dude must wait 60% of a minute, or 36 seconds, for 1 minute dude to reach his position before being able to continue forward. 1 minute dude finishes the remaining distance in 24 seconds but that is irrelevant because 10 minute dude still needs another 4 minutes to complete the journey.

The total time taken to cross the bridge is 10 minutes plus wait time which is 1 minute and 36 seconds, for a total of 11 minutes, 36 seconds, well before 17 minutes.

14. You are at a party with a friend and 10 people are present including you and the friend. your friend makes you a wager that for every person you find that has the same birthday as you, you get $1; for every person he finds that does not have the same birthday as you, he gets $2. would you accept the wager?

No, because statistically, you will need to find 2 birthday matches for every one non-birthday match there is in order to break even. Because the number of pairs for birthday matches is far less than the number of non-birthday matches, you will not find the critical mass you want no matter how many people there are in the room.

15. How many piano tuners are there in the entire world?

You know, I'd answer this question but McKinsey asks the same question. It's basically a bunch of numbers, assumptions and looking at the assumptions. I'll bite though.

There are 6 billion people in the world. 1.2 billion people live below the poverty line, and are too poor to buy pianos. 4.8 billion people remain. Since they are above the poverty line, it is fair to assume 5 people to a household (since large families tend to be associated with subsistence level living). 960 million families now.

Assuming a figure of 10% of these households have the inclination to own a piano. That's 96 million pianos worldwide. Assuming twice a year tuning, thats 192 million tunings a year. One piano takes a day to tune. Assuming 320 work days a year on average, it will take 600 thousand piano tuners worldwide to tune the pianos.

Assume also commercial piano ownage is negligible in light of this.

16. You have eight balls all of the same size. 7 of them weigh the same, and one of them weighs slightly more. How can you find the ball that is heavier by using a balance and only two weighings?

Grab any 6 balls. Weigh 3 per plate. 2 results can happen.

(a) Both sides are equal. You then weigh the remaining 2 balls and find the heavier one.

(b) One side is heavier than the other. You grab two balls from the remaining pile and weigh them. If one is heavier, that's your ball. If they are both equal, the remaining ball is the heavier one.

17. You have five pirates, ranked from 5 to 1 in descending order. The top pirate has the right to propose how 100 gold coins should be divided among them. But the others get to vote on his plan, and if fewer than half agree with him, he gets killed. How should he allocate the gold in order to maximize his share but live to enjoy it? (Hint: One pirate ends up with 98 percent of the gold.)

Start with the end in mind.

In a situation where there are only 2 pirates left, the fourth can either give everything to the fifth pirate, or the fifth pirate will vote no and the fourth will die. Hence, the fourth pirate will either die or live, but get nothing. He will be playing to avoid that situation, so he -will- vote yes to one gold coin, which is superior to all other alternatives.

If the situation reaches the third pirate, how the fifth votes depends on whether it is possible for the fifth pirate to force the third pirate to be executed and lead matters to the aforementioned situation with the fourth pirate. However, since the third needs only 1 vote, and since the fourth will vote for 1 gold coin, the third will divide the gold coin as 99 to himself and 1 for the fourth, securing his vote and making the fifth's vote irrelevant.

Hence, by the time it reached the third pirate's distribution, the fifth will get nothing. Hence, from the first to the second pirate, the fifth will vote yes to one gold coin, since it is impossible for the fifth to get a single gold coin if the third wants to ensure he gets away with the lion's share of the wealth while securing a vote.

Hence, the first pirate can give a gold coin to the fourth and fifth pirates, and keep 98 for himself. The fourth will accept one gold coin because any distribution prior to his own distribution that gives him one gold coin will result in a gain for him. The fifth pirate will not get anything by the time the third pirate distributes because the fourth pirate's situation will compel him to accept the offer of one gold coin from the third. Because he gains nothing by the time the third pirate's distribution comes around, he will accept a gold coin from anyone before the third pirate's distribution and make a gain. Two votes pass the resolution.

It isn't necessary to discuss the second pirate's situation anymore, since the second pirate's situation is identical to the first, but with a smaller pool of candidates. The second still needs 2 votes to secure his distribution, and he can essentially use the same solution as the first pirate.

What do you remember?

Obtained this from the Alchemist.

If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, even if we don’t speak often, please post a comment with a memory of you and me. It can be anything you want — good or bad. When you’re finished, post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people remember about you.

Choices

My RSS feed currently looks like a self-help book. Of special note are Mr Wang's recent articles on regrets in choice of education and excerpts from the ever-inspiring Adrian Tan's commencement speech. Then I read Kenneth's entry on honouring hard choices.

I have this to say.

Life is organic. It takes you in directions you never expect to go. All throughout it you will face choices, directions, paths, routes, sidetracks, railroads and all manner of distractions, subtractions, attractions and simple traction.

I think that the classic dichotomy of "the road commonly travelled" and "the road less travelled" is absolute bollocks, for two reasons. First, it presumes you know the difference between the two as clearly as Robert Frost did. The second is that it assumes that life is nothing but a series of mutually exclusive choices.

(In fact, a bit of searching reveals that "The Road Not Taken" has in fact, two interpretations - one classic-inspirational, the second ironic, and cautioning against hindsight, but I digress)

This is my take - recognise that each decision is a sacrifice, a price for which you have no real price tag for until you've paid it. Know that the future is unknowable. Respect that every man has to make that sacrifice, and pity those who don't recognise that.

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I don't make it a secret that my reading law was, in fact, not my first choice. Somehow, though, I've made it work - I recognise that it affords me enough financial and social slack that I can pursue things I truly love. It is a price I gladly pay.

On the other hand, I know that because I pay this price, I pay another, which is the price of dabbling. And, yes, I am a dabbler. I've chose not to afford the time commitments to do what Ilkka or Kenneth or Greg does, because there are other things I want done, and because I pay the price for preserving my independence.

I don't strive for greatness, brilliance or to be remembered, respected or honoured in any way. It is something that other people get to confer on me if they choose to. I don't care if I am average, so long as being average is something I've chosen, not fallen into.

So here I am. I'm an average swordsman, an average lawyer, an average son, and probably a rather average writer as well. I'm glad I'm all of those things because I can't imagine me being one at the expense of the other.

Because I am all those things, I cannot imagine why one would be more important than the other.

Elbows and Wrists

Recovered from a bout of diarrhea, which explains my lack of updates.

The only training session I attended this week was Wednesday, where we practised First, Third and Ninth Master of Dagger, which brings me to my point of this post.

How does one train accuracy when aiming for the elbows and wrists with hands? With a sword you can do pell work to improve your cutting form, or train opposite a person to train your stroke.

You obviously can't do the same thing with an unarmed frontale because (1) the elbows and wrists are extremely small targets and (2) build and positioning causes this to vary even more than it normally does, in contrast with fendente cuts.

I'm asking this because I can't figure out a good methodology to train this apart from doing it over and over again - and even that seems to provide limited gains because of different sizes of training partners, different positions for hands, wrists and elbows when striking, etc.

Some help anyone?

Syllabus Form

Given my crappy excuse for a schedule this week, I've resorted to training by myself. This means many many reps of Syllabus Form.

My observations:

1. There's a very fine balance between thinking of Syllabus Form as a set of responses to attacks, and thinking of Syllabus Form as a 38-step program. The issue is this: thinking of the Syllabus Form as a set of responses makes me artificially panicky, and my form suffers, BUT, if I think of the Syllabus Form as a 38-step program, my form is wonderful, but my flow suffers. I don't think I'm supposed to think of Syllabus Form as either and just execute it, but I've not reached that stage yet where I can execute every move in the Form flawlessly.
2. I notice that the more I execute Syllabus Form, the sloppier it becomes. I think this is a symptom of a bigger problem - when I get tired (not physically, but bored, distracted etc) my form suffers. I need to keep myself motivated.
3. There's a weird annoying lag in my footwork, more so than necessary to account for not leading with the face and hands. I don't quite know what's wrong. Maybe it's a familiarity issue.

Comments?

WARNING! RANT INCOMING!

I am sick of whiny players. No, really, I am.

I do not know what is it about Dungeons and Dragons in particular that brings out the worst in a player, but it does. I am not talking about hack and slash. I can tolerate that.

What I am upset about is how ill-behaved a Dungeons and Dragons player is when a rules call goes against them. Especially where there's a challenging encounter.

Here's the context. It's the last game I'm running for a while. I wanted to pit a young white against a number of new characters. I expected it to be a slaughterhouse. I've communicated it to them that I expect it to be a slaughterhouse, exactly because I know that they are not prepared for this PLUS they've expended resources reaching this point in the game that I thought was a really bad idea. For those in the know, they've expended their dailies.

So this group of experienced players, wanting to win, pull out all the stops. They get fairly creative in trying out new things that are not a part of the game system, which I try to quickly reward by improvising rules.

At the end of the fight (which ends in a slaughter, as predicted), the players start bitching about the rules calls that went against them and ONLY the rules calls that went against them, and that they could have beat the dragon IF the rules calls went their way, not taking into account that:

1. All throughout the fight, there were rules calls that were clearly wrong but in the players' favour that influenced the fight to their advantage.
2. I was clearly lenient in favor of creativity, but the bulk of the bitching was in the portion of the improvised rules encouraging creativity.
3. I get very irritated when someone selects bits of physics and rules to come up with the most advantageous rule set applicable to the situation. You either argue real world physics in its entirety or rulesets in their entirety.
   
4. IF I had wanted to make the fight unfair, I'd have had the dragon circle the top of the cavern blasting them with dragon breath after dragon breath once their only ranged attacker had been turned into mush.

Henceforth, I'm going to save myself player aggro and not run Dungeons and Dragons. Ever.

Training in Singapore

Attended training for the first time since I've returned. Officially anyways. Unofficially, I've been heading to the Botanical Garden and been doing the "plank" as regularly as I can manage - which is to say, irregularly.

The first thing I noticed about going back to do my drills is how cramped I'm perceiving the training space to be. I know that's not correct - our training hall is only slightly smaller than SESH's training hall in Finland. Yet somehow, it feels a lot smaller than it should be. My guess is that it's the line of bags strewn over the sides, and the line of chairs that make things smaller than they need to be.

The second thing I noticed is that my form has suffered during the week - again. Weirdly enough, when Chris and Greg call me out on my mistakes, I tend to know what they are going to say before they even say it. Not breaking structure on the cover for First Remedy of First Master of Dagger, check. Not swinging high enough to be a proper fendente cut, check. Volta Stabile when I'm not supposed to, double check.

It annoys me that I know what I'm supposed to be doing and yet not being able to do it consistently.

On a brighter note, I notice that during training, I'm swinging harder and which more emphasis on proper form. I go down lower on my guard positions and focus more on establishing structure than executing things quickly. I was especially proud when Robin tried to armlock me and didn't manage to. For perspective, Robin is one of the bigger and stronger guys there and his form is usually impeccable.

I also think that there are some endemic mistakes that we make over and over again because we're just so used to them. I'll be focusing on this aspect in training and my own self-training.

RIP Velvetedge

When I was alone, you were a great comfort to me. You believed in me when I didn't believe in myself. You remembered what I said when no one else even listened.

And now, you are gone. Gone too are my promises to meet up with you, to have those tapas and beers in California when I'd finally get a chance to see you in person.

Farewell, Velvetedge. World of Warcraft seems a much darker place without you.

Home

Just touched down 2 hours ago.

The news has broken, and I think I can write about this safely now. I've been promoted to full Fellow in PHEMAS. In practical terms that means I've moved from being an intermediate student to one of the more senior students in swordsmanship in one fell swoop.

I share Kenneth's sentiment here - I can only trust that Mr Windsor was not being over-generous with the promotion. In many ways, I feel like I've reached the point where I'm only beginning to grasp the basics, only to have the door open to the wealth of learning ahead.

And boy, what wealth it is.

I feel simultaneously overwhelmed and enlightened. If wisdom is recognizing how little you know, I am feeling incredibly wise now.

More when I get some sleep.

Day 2 of Seminar

Day 2 of the seminar saw some journalists down at the Salle to film us. Something about living history and that kind of thing.

Today saw a bit of abrazare, a lot of dagger work and some longsword for the crowd. I started the day incredibly low energy, and kind of sleepwalked through a lot of the techniques. My form suffered and it showed. Guy probably noticed as well - came over and corrected me a couple of times.

Second part of the day saw me get my second wind. Did better, got more learning in.

Again, I'm glad that some small but significant matters got corrected:

1. Apparently my stance is too wide all this while. Guy described it well - if one imagines a square, my feet are occupying opposite corners of the square. This is wrong - it should occupy both corners of the same side of the square. I gain about a foot or two of measure this way.
2. My pushing has been corrected. Instead of pushing against the chest and shoulders, go for the chin and head instead. When pushing encounters resistance, change the direction of the push. Push in the right place lightly beats pushing in the wrong place strongly.
3. Structure is all-important. Maintain your structure, break his.
   

I'm sure Kenneth will have far more insights than I do, but these are the ones I've managed to pick up and hopefully retain. Tomorrow's stuff is probably a dagger round up and sword work. Am going to get an early night to rest up for tomorrow.

String Theory

I learnt to fight with string today.

Apart from the obvious cool factor of that, I took a lot away from the first day of the seminar in Finland.

Once again, Kenneth goes into the pedagogical and technical aspects of the session; I don't need to belabour the point. I will go more into the personal development dimensions of the seminar.

I start with a somewhat suprising revelation - I may be passionate about the sword, but I am not entirely prepared to give up my life entirely for it. If the others here have a love affair with swordsmanship, I have probably a strong friendship with it.

That said, I've always been most interested in swordsmanship as a personal development tool, and that is what I shall focus on.

1. Our martial art comes off a 16th century manuscript. Note I do not say "based off" or "derived from" a manuscript. For all intents and purposes it is the same martial art taught off the manuscript - or as close to it as we can get to it. While I have learnt content from the book, I've never learnt it in the order that the book presented. This small difference in the seminar and the way I normally learn it makes a vast difference to me; it allows me a bigger insight into the historical way the martial art is taught and gives the thought processes behind using the martial art more structure. In short, there is value in keeping it real.
2. There are times where I am tempted to make things up when I don't know something. That is just ego. The irony is, the manuscript itself provides notes on variations, and possible applications. Often what I can make up is far inferior to what has already been provided and thought through by people who have a far more vested interest in the outcomes of these applications. In short, if you don't know something, check it up. Don't make up shit.
3. In the course of learning this martial art, mistakes creep in. These may be small mistakes like hunching when you should be extending, not raising your arms enough and the such. These small mistakes matter, and happen because the human body is inherently lazy. To make sure your body does things properly, you must train. In short, practice, practice, practice. Don't just think about it.
4. In the course of practising the martial arts, the simple moves work a lot better than complicated moves. The reason is that the simple can be executed without too much fuss. In the chaos of a fight, a simple move is more likely to be used and executed well than a complicated one. Do not mistake simple for shallow. In short, simplify, simplify, simplify.

That's all for now. Laptop running out of batteries. Will write more after the seminar.