Li Yun noticed that Fatty Fang had been a bit depressed after his meeting with the sanda club captain and invited him out to the bar.
“Just start a new club,” Li Yun advised as their drinks arrived. “I don’t think we have a mma club yet, with your ability, you can easily start one club.”
“But it’s not like it’s a bad club, but the captain is an ass,” Fatty Fang replied. “He keeps ganging up on the other club, it’s like they are a bunch of hoodlums.”
“Sort of like us?” asked Bufu.
“Hey, we stood up for the little guy. We don’t go around criticizing all the wushu and taishi clubs,” said Fatty Fang. He disliked the mentality of attacking other forms of martial arts. Fatty Fang naturally felt that as sanda fighters, they have a natural advantage over most single styles of martial arts. Unfortunately, that sense of superiority made a lot of the members arrogant. It stemmed from how underappreciated they felt, and they were overcompensating it by bullying the other clubs.
“Do you want me to pretend I’m in the wushu club and beat them up?” asked Li Yun.
Fatty Fang frowned and swallowed down his cheap gasoline-tasting liquor. He took a brief moment to think about Li Yun’s obviously stupid idea. Most of the guys in the sanda club had forgotten about Li Yun, so it wasn’t the most ridiculous plan. However, no matter how tough Fatty Fang looked, he was the softest of the three friends and didn’t want to get into an unprovoked fight, “Forget about it.”
During the next club meet, Li Yun attended the club with Fatty Fang. At the beginning of every meeting, the captain demonstrated the basic stances and moves to the other club members by asking for volunteers. As usual, he didn’t call Fatty Fang to assist, but called up someone who looked like a newbie.
“Oh hey, you’re a newbie?” asked the captain. The new guy looked familiar, but since the captain didn’t remember the name, it must be a noob. “Why don’t I show you the basics?”
“Uh? You want me to help? ” Li Yun acted dumb and pointed to himself. He was only there as moral support for Fatty Fang, and didn’t think he would be automatically targeted. He guessed that the captain wanted some newbie to make himself look good in front of everyone. “Sure.”
Fatty Fang wasn’t aware what Li Yun was up to, but he prepared himself for the worst. The captain gave Li Yun a pair of mitt gloves.
“We are going to practice jabs, and your task is to catch as many of my punches as possible,” the captain instructed. “I’ll perform a few forward steps and then forward jabs.”
As the captain was demonstrating, he was showing a room of over a dozen people how to perform a proper stance. Li Yun thought it was amateurish. The captain’s feet weren't evenly balanced, which made his forward step look slow and awkward in his eyes.
“Ready?” asked the captain. “Let’s do an easy one, a left jab.”
However, instead of doing the left jab, he did a right jab. To his surprised, Li Yun blocked off it off easily.
“Ah, you caught it,” the captain wasn’t prepared for that. He wanted to make a fool out of Li Yun since it looked like he was a friend of Fatty. “I meant your left, but it looked like you have good reflex.”
“I also thought you meant my left,” Li Yun responded with a smile, but secretly rolled his eyes at the captain’s obvious lie.
“Okay,” the captain replied, but internally he was cursing. Shaking off his previous failure, he looked at the other members. “All right, we will try another left jab.”
Captain turned to Li Yun and prepared for a left jab. However, instead of hitting straight to the face as he had demonstrated, he lowered his body and targeted Li Yun’s stomach. As the captain reached for Li Yun’s stomach, he exposed his head within Li Yun’s striking distance. After Li Yun evaded, he would be a fool not to take the easy counter and attacked.
“Grasp!” The spectators reacted as they saw the captain’s bloody nose.
“F***!!” The captain roared out.
“I just did the left jab?” Li Yun asked innocently.
“You f***** idiot! That was intentional!” The captain roared out and began to charge at Li Yun.
Li Yun didn’t evade, but as the captain grabbed his waist, Li Yun grappled the guy into a chokehold, blocking off the carotid arteries. He kept his knees balanced and dragged the captain down as he continued to tighten his arms in a figure-four position.
“Ah! Ya! Help!” The captain cried out to his lackeys.
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The three of the captain’s closest allies prepared to jump in, but Fatty Fang attacked quickly and kneed them in the gut. They were all knocked down by the sheer force of a single blow. The college administrators and police got involved.
****
“It wasn’t that bad,” Li Yun responded after quickly reminiscing about college. “Everything ended up fine.”
“Yeah, but you used up your trump card pretty easily,” said Bu Tao.
Bufu had acquired videos of the college administrators at an illegal drug party. They were planning to use it just in case one of them got into trouble, but they didn’t expect to use it during their freshman year. It wasn’t difficult to convince the captain either, who had a bunch of victims from the other clubs and was afraid of expulsion. In the end, the university released a notice in the university forum that everything was just a publicity stunt to get more members for the sanda club. Everything was swept under the rug.
After talking to Bu Tao, Li Yun headed to the archery club located at the edge of downtown Yide. He entered the front counter of the Yide Archery club where various bows were displayed on the wall. The clerk greeted him and asked him to check-in.
The archery club was the only place Li Yun could find online that had a wide variety of bow and arrows to try out. He wasn’t planning to practice, he was only testing out to see what bow he should buy.
There were simple reasons why Li Yun wanted to buy the bow and arrow. There were no legal weapons allowed in China that gave him a distance advantages like the bow and arrow. Guns were heavily restricted, and to be caught with one was like being associated with terrorists. Even crossbows, slingshots, and spray mace were restricted. In many gang fights, the preferred weapon was the knife. Someone with a gun was very rare unless they were cops and from organized crime. Unless he had some political power, he wasn’t going to be carrying a portable tranquilizer gun like Rouxi.
Bow and arrow did not have many restrictions. And if needed, it was something that could be constructed in the wild. He had plenty of space in the laboratory to practice with a target if he wanted to.
"Can I also register as a member?" Li Yun asked the clerk.
"Sure, are you a college student?" The clerk asked out of habit. The club provided discounts for students.
"Ah, no, I'm just using this for hunting," said Li Yun.
"Ooh, are you getting a hunting license?" the clerk asked.
Li Yun casually nodded, but the clerk knew that 90% of the people who hunted didn't care about getting a hunting license. So local officials didn't care about enforcing the wildlife law.
After he registered his name, he moved to the display case area to select three different bows available with various arrows. He saw a crowd of high schoolers with their instructor in front of him.
“The bow is made of two main parts, the limb and the bow string," the instructor explained. "Traditionally, the limb is made of wood, but modern bows use fiberglass and carbon fiber. As we draw the bow string, we exert a compression force on the string and the tension force on the limb. When we release the bow string, the combination of forces will project the arrow as far as the forces allow. So for a longer distance, you need a bow with a heavy draw weight.”
The highschoolers watched with interest. This was the closest they got to a weapon other than a knife, so they really wanted to try shooting as soon as possible. There were also some students who didn't pay attention and fiddled with their bow.
“The part in the center of the limb is considered the riser,” the instructor grabbed his left hand slightly below the middle part of the limb. “It is where we grip the bow, rest the arrow, and aim.” The instructor divided the class into three teams.“Okay, today we will practice with a recurve bow and longbows. Both have their advantages and disadvantages for beginners. Longbows are much simpler in design, lighter, easier to handle for long distances, and quieter. Recurve has better accuracy, smaller, easier to handle for short distances, and is faster. These pros and cons are also generalizations. Once you’re familiar with shooting, either can be accurate or easier to draw.”
Li Yun understood from research that the longer the bow, the higher the draw weight. However, the size of the bow made it difficult to traverse. Li Yun wanted something more portable. Every bow had a purpose, so a rabbit hunter would not want or need to carry a large bow meant for killing a bear.
Longbow, despite the name, didn't necessarily mean it was long. It was simply the shape of the bow and how it attached to the string at the tip without touching the limb. It was slightly longer than a recurve of the same length, but a recurve bow can also be long. Recurve bow, especially composite bow, was shorter due to the curved and swept tip, so it was often the preferred weapon of choice for mounted archery.
“There are other considerations like stability,” the instructor continued to explain. “A bow with a heavy draw weight required a person to exert a lot of energy. It takes away a person's ability to properly aim. Aiming with a bow and arrow wasn’t just aim and shoot, there were stances and release techniques that needed to be considered.”
Li Yun was more familiar with recurve bows as they were more prominent in competitions. Despite having sight, stabilizer and a clicker, competition-based bows were cumbersome when used for hunting. The additional items provided accuracy and stability, but were much more difficult to use in the wilderness.
It seemed like a contradiction, but many barebow archers fared better during hunts because they relied on experience and instinct to hunt rather than the extra equipment. It was only needed during competitions when aim was necessary for better points.
Li Yun grabbed both bare longbow and recurve bows from 360-400 Newton (80-90lbs) draw weight to test it out. Some of the regular club members were startled by Li Yun's selection.
"Who is this guy?" they asked.
"He's going to break his arm."
"Not his arm, he's going to break his body!"
"Let let him try, every newbie wants to test their draw weights by testing the largest bow available."
The typical draw weight for Li Yun's weight was closer to 270 Newton (60lbs). Li Yun ignored the whispering and filled his quiver with different arrows of different arrow weights.
The arrow weight was one of the more important aspects when determining kinetic energy. Measured in grain, the more grain the arrow processed, the greater the kinetic energy and shooting distance. However, a heavier arrow also reduced the velocity. By determining the kinetic energy, a person would be able to determine what bow and arrow would be appropriate for hunting.
With the bow and arrows selected, he moved to the target range area to practice. There were many people using the target range, but he squeezed into the only vacant spot available.