Friday, November 30, 2007

In Support of More Martial Arts Analogies

"I balanced a salad bowl on my thumb," my coffeehouse coworker, Jessie, announced to me the other day.

Obviously, her feat rendered me speechless. However, once I recovered from my shock, I informed her that this is the black belt test of barista-hood.

Jackpot! I believe I've just discovered a veritable motherload of analogy possibilities. Martial arts has a whole rainbow of belt colors. And there are different levels of black belts.

On Monday I announced to my students that we were in the home stretch--the 4th quarter, the bottom of the 9th--of the semester. Unfortunately--despite the motherload of possibilities--martial arts gets very little love in the sports analogy arena. Maybe I should start calling their final exam the Test for the Black Belt in College Algebra.

3 comments:

Astro said...

Interestingly enough, since our family did TaeKwon-Do together when I was growing up, I remember that my dad actually *did* make many analogies using the art. Life took perseverance, same a getting a black belt. Elders at church were like the 2nd and 3rd degree black belts that taught classes, and Yoda was, well, like a 9th degree black belt Jedi.

See why I'm a little warped?

snizzlephritz said...

Daniel, I knew you could appreciate a martial arts-inspired blog post.

jessie said...

thanks for the shout out..
i am quite impressed that you thought of me! i mean, other than the fact that on one palm i held a turkey apple brie and napkins, on the other palm was a chicken parmesan, and on the thumb of that hand was a side greek salad with dressing that never spilled.
and i remember their drinks too and what their daughter usually gets but that's getting a bit creepy...
:)