Birthday Birthday

Yesterday, my age incremented as I completed my 28th year.

On the drive back from Atlantic City, I spoke to James, a friend with the same birthday (and birth-year).

He said he recalled that, when we played Street Fighter 3 back in college, I liked playing as this guy.

Yun: skateboarding, baseball cap-wearing teenage kung-fu savant.

It's true!  Even though there were multiple endearing characters in the game, Yun was my favorite.  He gave the impression of being incredibly easy-going, until the exact moment when he wasn't.  As the fight began, his normally relaxed posture would contort and coil into the steel spring you see above, and when his moves were unleashed, they were balletic in their needle-like precision in the application of force.  And the clothes!  You can't tell as much without his skateboard, but this guy was Hong Kong come to life, where the august traditions of history meet the vibrant energy of youth.  Everything hopeful and awesome about Asia.

James said that there was that one move of his that I liked the most, that I called "Movement Without Stepping."

It's true!  Though by current standards my education in martial arts fiction had barely begun, I was already enough of a snob/enthusiast to feel as if I recognized the move in question: Yun (as pictured above) would throw a left straight while simultaneously pushing forward off his right foot to make a step/skip/leap that at the higher levels could cross the screen at speed (apparently, Yun's achilles tendon is the strongest part of his body).  I forget where I got the name, but it seemed right; a paradoxical phrase seeming to refer to a logical impossibility, in fact referring to a flabber-ghasting level of physical development.  See also: the No-Shadow Kick, the Iron Vest, etc.

Saying all this, James further said "That's what I notice about you: you move, but you step too much."

I needed a few moments to take that in before the conversation could continue.

Later, he asked me if I had any birthday resolutions (apparently, without discussing it, we had both thought it made more sense to consider ones own birthday as a "new year," rather than January first).  I said, "Yeah, to become independently wealthy."

So let's see how that goes.