(no subject)

[fredxmertz]

Flipping channels last night before SOUTH PARK reruns, Miss Nuxie caught a show on OPB with the Israeli Shotokan team.  At first it seemed like it was just about Karate competitions, then it seemed to focus on Israel / Palestine relations: The Israeli Coach (Sensei) asked the Palestinian Coach if he wanted to have their clubs train together.  The Palestinian Coach was fairly courteous in saying, 'relations are not normal, you are asking us to treat things as normal between us and they are not.'

Then the focus shifted to a particular young Black Belt on the Israeli team, who called herself an 'Arab-Israeli' - she burned all kinds of bridges in the blink of an eye, it seemed.  When she won a match, she wrapped herself in a Palestinian flag, and her team mates were not very happy with that.  Then after losing a match to the IRISH (!) competitor, she ran out crying, and her coach forced her to bow out - the whole Israeli team would have been banned from competition if she didn't bow.  In all fairness, it looked to me like she beat the Irish girl,

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/shadya/qa.html

One of the most suspenseful moments in the film is when the Israeli karate team meets the Palestinian karate team in South Africa. Do you think that competitive sports can transcend politics? What was happening as you were filming that moment?

Danny Hakim: Competitive sports can transcend politics if you have the basis and will to respect the other person. The original script of the film was to film Israeli and Palestinian children doing karate together using the virtues of karate-respect, self-control and harmony. This was actually agreed upon by myself (the Israeli coach) and Khalil (the Palestinian coach). However, the Palestinian coach changed his mind and when Shadya was upset by the way the Palestinians did not want to accept her, the direction of the film changed to documenting Shadya. There was one incident where Shadya had such an identity crisis (in being Arab and Israeli) that she sat with the Japanese team.

 

I mentioned the show to Sensei, and he asked if i taped it.  He's used to talking to Chris, who tapes everything he thinks Sensei might be remotely interested in.

I dont tape nothin.

Anyways, I 'd started heckling the kumite and kinda ripping on Shadya, then it shows her getting married and her relatives were really brutal.  they all chain smoked and put her down and I felt sorry when I heard the brother talking smack, 'Your husband said he will not let you practice Karate when you're married' etc.