So I saw a lot of interesting stuff at lca last week, and had a great time of watching geeks in action ;-)
I did attend the morning session with the martial arts geeks. That was pretty cool. Everyone talked about their style for a bit and then did a little demo. Lucky for me, a guy volunteered to be my grappling dummy :-)
After it was done, someone put up a couple of pictures on the lca wiki page. Enjoy. Oh, and no bonus points for identifying the BJJer!
Showing posts with label other martial arts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label other martial arts. Show all posts
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
geeks and martial arts
I'm doing the geek thing at present:
Seeing it's right here in Ballarat, I decided to take some time off work and attend some sessions. It started today and runs for the whole week. Certainly, the talks at the miniconfs today were interesting. I went to some sessions regarding women in IT and programming.
As part of the whole thing, which attracts geeks and wannabe geeks (like me) from all over Australia, NZ and other parts of the world, there are lots of little side meetings and get-togethers. Someone is planning a bof (birds of a feather) session for martial artists. Only down side is the starting time: 06:30 on Thursday. Gawd, I don't function well at that time of night 8-)
But I've put down my name. So far, I'm the sole BJJ player. Would be so cool if another grappling type person turns up. Anyway, should be interesting :-)
Further to the geeks and martial arts theme... I was listening to some talks about the lack of women in technology type jobs, specifically FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) projects, and what could be done to attract and retain more of them. I see a parallel to the lack of women in BJJ. Obviously, totally different sort of thing, but some of the ideas offered at the panel discussion on the subject of attracting and retaining women in IT may also apply to grappling. The ones that struck the greatest chord with me were a couple of points made by one of the presenters:
1. talk to girls early (ie: at a young age)
2. don't tell girls/women that there aren't enough of them, that's like a guilt trip and it won't work. Instead, give them role models, show them women who do it (ie: IT/engineering/technical jobs) well, are respected, are enjoying themselves and are not necessarily trying to emulate men in the process.
Another presenter spoke of the need to make friends and have like a network for support. That is where for BJJ, groups like Australian Girls in Gi come in.
I think this could translate to BJJ/grappling. Food for thought!
Seeing it's right here in Ballarat, I decided to take some time off work and attend some sessions. It started today and runs for the whole week. Certainly, the talks at the miniconfs today were interesting. I went to some sessions regarding women in IT and programming.
As part of the whole thing, which attracts geeks and wannabe geeks (like me) from all over Australia, NZ and other parts of the world, there are lots of little side meetings and get-togethers. Someone is planning a bof (birds of a feather) session for martial artists. Only down side is the starting time: 06:30 on Thursday. Gawd, I don't function well at that time of night 8-)
But I've put down my name. So far, I'm the sole BJJ player. Would be so cool if another grappling type person turns up. Anyway, should be interesting :-)
Further to the geeks and martial arts theme... I was listening to some talks about the lack of women in technology type jobs, specifically FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) projects, and what could be done to attract and retain more of them. I see a parallel to the lack of women in BJJ. Obviously, totally different sort of thing, but some of the ideas offered at the panel discussion on the subject of attracting and retaining women in IT may also apply to grappling. The ones that struck the greatest chord with me were a couple of points made by one of the presenters:
1. talk to girls early (ie: at a young age)
2. don't tell girls/women that there aren't enough of them, that's like a guilt trip and it won't work. Instead, give them role models, show them women who do it (ie: IT/engineering/technical jobs) well, are respected, are enjoying themselves and are not necessarily trying to emulate men in the process.
Another presenter spoke of the need to make friends and have like a network for support. That is where for BJJ, groups like Australian Girls in Gi come in.
I think this could translate to BJJ/grappling. Food for thought!
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