Shawn, my martial arts teacher, should start a blog just for wacky things his family does. Shawn, after 15 years, recently mastered a Bruce Lee move called the 'one-inch punch'. It is so named because the arm travels a very tiny distance, so you wouldn't expect it to have time to develop speed, and thus develop power. I'm not exactly sure how it is done because Shawn demonstrated it on my poor husband at our private lesson last night. The victim holds a telephone directory to their chest for protection. The attacker puts his/her fingers to it, folds them into a fist, thrusts their full body weight into it as they punch.

Shawn showed it to his brother Matt.  Matt didn't like it (neither did my husband). Turns out, after their family Christmas celebration, the whole  family poured into the "pub" across the street to greet friends; his sister used to work there for goodness sakes (he tries to make it sound innocent because I'm sure it was). Soon, Shawn's sister starts to get loud. To his dismay, she is heard to say, "My brother teaches martial arts. He has a student who fights professionally and just fought in Japan!". Sure enough, an irritating person starts to tell Shawn that he's not so tough and he's sure he could take him. Shawn slaps him on the back, tells him Merry Christmas, he doesn't want to get into it fighting now, buys him a drink and send him on his way. No dice, the guy keeps coming back. Then, Shawn's brother, who has had a few drinks, tells Shawn to do the one inch punch on him. Shawn refuses. Luckily, Shawn doesn't seem to drink much; when he was a bouncer he saw how badly intoxicated people can act, and used to do amateur boxing in a bar, often against people who had been drinking. He says it's really easy to beat people who have been drinking. Anyway, the guy continues until Shawn finally decides to demonstrate the move. The guy holds up a phone book from the phone booth, and Shawn goes, "bam". The guy falls over backwards and the mop-up crew is called into action---I didn't ask! Shawn buys him a drink to show that there are no hard feelings and the guy doesn't bother Shawn again! Ay yay yay!