In regards to my last blog, I would like to point something out:

Study finds enjoyment of trash films linked to high intelligence.

Today I take a departure from my regularly scheduled complaining to talk about something I love with a passion uncontested.

-Part 1: Snappy One Liners- “It’s all in the Reflexes.”   “O K USA!!!”   “First SubZero, Naughow Plaayne Zero!”  “I’ve come here to kick ass and chew bubble gum, and I’m all out of bubble gum….” Hopefully you already know most of these lines and try to work them into your weekly office meetings as often as is appropriate. If none of the above lines ring any bells “I’ll be back” should be something you’re familiar with. They say punning is the lowest form of humor, so it makes sense that one liners are such an integral part of making an action movie work. Could you really imagine the Austrian Oak throwing a machete through that henchmen in Predator, leaving the guy stuck up on the wall, and then….. casually walk away saying nothing? Neither can I. The line “stick around” makes you smile. Or at least groan and smile slightly. These lines add an extremely light hearted feel to the films. They let you know that what you’re watching isn’t supposed to be a thought provoking, oscar winning political statement, but you’re about to have a good time… it’s almost as if these films were designed to be fun….

-Part 2: Low Budget Charm- Did you know that Aliens was made for $18.5 Million. Adjusted for inflation that about 42 million dollars. That’s roughly half the budget of Jack & Jill….  The Thing still has some of the best practical effects ever filmed and adjusted for 2017 dollars it cost about 40 Million dollars as well. Low budget doesn’t have to mean low quality at all. In fact a lot of the biggest franchises in hollywood started on a very modest budget. That being said, even if you can tell they were pinching pennies at every turn, it doesn’t actually have to effect the overall enjoyment of a film.  Remember that 120 million dollar 2016 Ben Hur remake? Don’t worry, no one else does either. Big budgets and making everything “epic” doesn’t translate to a decent film that makes you feel something. Sometimes budget limitations can add to a films overall package. In a lot of ways a low budget action film is like a comic book brought to life, and when the sets also look like something out of a comic book it’s actually more congruent with the themes and tone of the film.

-Part 3: The Action- This section is going to be very long, but it’s the area in which so many modern action films fall short. An action film having really good action sequences seems like it should be a no brainer, but alas it isn’t so. In today’s era of Marvel products, an “action scene” often consists of a pair of actors floating in place while suspended on wires in front of a green screen shooting CG lazers out of their hands. The irony being, though the computer animators put thousands of man hours and millions of dollars into creating the most fantastical backgrounds that a computer can make, it’s obvious by the actors movements that they are actually barely moving around, they are really on a very small set without a lot of room to move around, they are hanging in an uncomfortable harness, every shot has to cheat to hide the actors lack of mobility and make sure the harness is not seen. The human eye is hard to fool, and when the actors are restricted in this way something seems very ‘off.’ Anytime you’re in front of a movie screen, on an intellectual level you know what you’re watching  is make believe. It is the films job to trick your imagination into thinking these characters are fighting for their lives. We all know factually that Freddy Kruger isn’t really about to chop up these co-eds, but if suspension of disbelief is done correctly your heart rate is up to 120 beats per minute. Anything that breaks the suspension of disbelief is a net negative, no matter how much money is spent. It absolutely pains me to say this, but to be honest the modern uber crappy “actors on suspended wires green screen” fight sequences are on the better end of things. Beginning with ‘The Borne Idenitity 2″ someone figured out you could save money and not have to spend time choreographing a fight scene as long as you crop the shot SUPER close and violently shake the camera so the viewer can barely tell what’s happening. We’ll call this “Shaky-Close” from now on. This style of action doesn’t interest me and if it interests you, you haven’t seen Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David go at it in the underrated classic “They Live”  Again, suspension of disbelief needs to be kept up at all costs, we need to be able to tell what the hell is happening. It needs to be clear where all the characters are in relation to one another and where they are in regards to the terrain. Are they about to trip over a couch? If it’s 3 on one where are those other 2 guys? What is the physical state of the character, are they hurt? (no one could tell how injured Kylo Ren was and it made the lightsaber fight in TFA clunky and we ALL know it). The fight doesn’t even have to make a ton of sense as long as our brain can understand what’s happening IE the group of 5 henchmen that attacks the hero one at a time. The Shaky-close style fight scene has been getting worse and worse for the last decade or so, it just keeps getting closer and more shaky. Eventually the shot is going to just be a tight close up of the actors eyeball as someone swings the camera back and forth in a 90 degree arc. Below is actual video of how fight scenes were filmed for the Matt Damon turd “Elysium”If this doesn’t immediately strike you as a big sign somethings wrong I don’t know what to tell you. Even worse is that there is now an unholy culmination of shaky-close AND green screen CGI restriction: the Transformers franchise. Not one action sequence in these films has been even mildly decipherable, much less entertaining. You are watching cartoon robots breakdancing and then they call it a fight scene. Again this is done to save money. Light doesn’t reflect off the transformers correctly. They appear to not weight enough. Why isn’t the pavement cracking with every step they take? So instead of taking the time to do the fight scene correctly they move the transformers around really fast so you can’t tell what’s happening and you won’t notice how bad the effects are. Sometimes the old ways are just plain better. A well choreographed fight scene with some bad CG works better than expensive CG with poor choreography. A prime example of this is Blade 1. Every time Wesley “I shouldn’t have to pay my taxes” Snipes stakes a vampire the vampire melting effect looks pretty bad, but the scenes as a whole still hold up great due to the slick fight choreography. And why do we even need CG in a fight scene at all? I understand that sometimes it’s necessary for the story, but a lot of times it really isn’t. A clear cut example of this is Batman v Superman. The ending consists of a bunch of cartoons hopping around in ways that defy both reality and gravity. Batman is supposed to be a normal human, but the way he gets slammed around would snap the spine of any person. Your brain realizes that this characters can’t be hurt unless the plot wills it to be so, all tension is lost. You start checking the text messages on your phone, before the lady behind you starts yelling at you to put your phone away, to which you shout “Your kids have been talking through the WHOLE MOVIE!!!!” (not that this is a strangely specific interaction). Juxtapose the ending of Batman v Superman against the ending of another movie with the exact same super hero: the 1989 Tim Burton Batman. Batman Literally just fights some random henchmen that the Joker has hanging around, but this fight scene is infinitely more engaging than anything in any Transformers film or DC movie. It’s not huge and epic at all, but it keeps you on the edge of your seat. The Joker accidentally ruined Bruce Waynes life, causing him to be batman, and Batman accidentally mutilated Jack Nicolson, ruining his life and causing him to become the joker. The entire movie has built to this fight. There’s a ton of tension. Batman isn’t invincible, he’s bloody, when he gets punched he gets hurt and groans. Even with all his skills and equipment, batman is just a normal person like any member of the audience. If he makes a mistake he can totally die a normal death. The guys he’s fighting aren’t some bizzare CG monstrosities that looks like a wax action figure left out in the sun too long (cough cough Doomsday). The thugs batman fights in the bell tower seem like some actual scary gang members. They look like really rough dudes you could bump into at the parking lot of a Raiders game. It’s almost as if they’re REAL people and your brain can relate to that level of real world Threat. Even though there are some composite shots here, there is a large set the actors can move around in and they use ever square inch of space they have. When they smash into stuff dust flies everywhere. It feels like a real place, and as such it all feels real. The action needs to feel real and you need to be able to tell what’s going on. This means you’ve got to spend the time and money to get a well choreographed, visually interesting fight scene where at least a decent amount of the footage is shot in a medium frame. To have an action movie with lazy, sub par action sequences is equivalent to creating a musical where all the dance numbers are shot so close you can’t see the dancing and it is completely incoherent as to who’s singing to who and what’s even happening.

-Part 4: Charismatic Lead- Whether we’re talking about Mark Dicoscous or Dolph Lundgren, the lead will absolutely make or break these films. Oftentimes your lead can have so much “it” factor that it doesn’t matter if the rest of the film around them is terrible (Cough Cough Guy Pierce in Lockout cough cough). Attributes a lead aught to have: Being built like a marble statue definitely helps, but isn’t required (Charles Bronson, Bruce Willis). Having the physicality to perform some of the action without over relying on stuntmen helps a lot. The more you have to cut to hide the stuntman the more goofy shots you’re going to have to use, and consequently the more it takes the audience out of the moment. Van Damme once said “In a Dramatic film you act in the Drama, but in an Action film you need to be able to act in the Action”. While a lot of what Van Damme says can be brushed off as the incoherent ramblings of your old Belgum uncle, it takes a certain kind of comedian to sell Jim Carey esque physical comedy, and in that same way, it takes a certain kind of performer to sell the physical action. They need to be able to convey toughness, worry, and intensity all at the same time. There are plenty of great dramatic actors who can’t ‘action act.’ Again it’s a “I know it when I see it situation”. Something did strike me while writing this, most of these leads aren’t modern hollywood “generic model” good looking. Faimed fighter Renzo Gracie Once said that being a truly attractive man was about “A lot of Manliness mixed with a little bit of Ugliness” and reviewing most competent action movies has lead me to agree with this. Imperfection and ruggedness in the male face is a large part of what makes a man unique and attractive. While you definitely have some guys who look like they stepped off a runway (michael Beihn, Michael Dudikoff ) the majority of them aren’t beautiful as much as they are interesting looking. They just have a real likable quality about them. They are charming, and charm beats looks any day of the week. 

-Part 5: The Weapon- Any craftsman can only be as good as his tools. And if your trade mainly consists of viciously maiming henchmen and hired Jabonies, you don’t want to bring faulty equipment to the jobsite. Almost every action movie worth it’s salt features a distinct, bad ass weapon. This Weapon can be a firearm, a Melee weapon, flashy fight skills (usually Martial Arts), or even a vehicle. Quick, think about Arnold in Terminator 2. Did you think of Arnold on the motorcycle with the shotgun, or on the balcony with the gattling gun? The entire plot of the first Conan film is the fall out from James Earl Jones stealing high quality swords. In films where people are non stop trying to hurt each other the means by which they hurt each other becomes important. How would you feel if you went to see a Van Damme flick and he didn’t pull off the jump spin kick in slow motion while yelling “NNNNNHHEEEEAAAAAAAAA!!!!!” You’d feel short changed, sort of like you just watched ‘Nowhere to Run.’ Even Zena had that metal hulla hoop she threw at everyone. Giving your hero a distinct weapon can really cement that character in your head. I maintain that sales of the Tec-9 submachinegun are still receiving a boost due to being featured so prominently in Big Trouble in Little China. There are definitely first rate movies that are exceptions to this rule (Die Hard &…. that’s literally the only one I can think of), but by and large the Weapon is so integral to the hero that if you want the hero to be memorable, the weapon needs to be something memorable as well. The weapon needs to be an avatar for the protagonist. The Terminator is big, strong and blunt, so he doesn’t use a 38 special or a PPK with a silencer on it, he uses big strong blunt guns. In the absolutely bafflingly good Blind Fury, Rutger Hauer is quick and sneaky, you never suspect him until it’s too late, so his super sharp sword is hidden in his cane. Lara Croft is a skilled and methodical millionaire, so she uses precise, expensive HK USP Match 9mm handguns. Name of the film? Cobra. Name of our protagonist? Cobretti. What’s engraved on the handles of his custom guns? Twin Cobras. This tells us EXACTLY what type of movie we are watching. The Jedi are ‘knights’ who live in a fantastical universe, and as such use a fantastical knight weapon. On the flip side of this, for the love of god, if you give your protagonist a cool robot arm, make sure they use the robot arm to do something cool at some point in the film instead of doing NOTHING AT ALL with it (I’m looking at you Fury Road, you over rated pile of junk).

Because wardrobe is important.

Fade in, you’re entering your local grappling club to get your grapple on. It’s a typical Thursday evening, it’s a mild 75 degrees outside and you haven’t a care in the world. That is until you see the new guy. He’s stepping out of his car in the parking lot and something has gone terribly, terribly wrong. You can’t tell if he got dressed in the dark or if  he hired Stevie Wonder to pick out his training gear.   He’s wearing a rashguard with skulls, wings, and everything else that Ed Hardy produced in the early 2000s, with this he’s wearing completely clashing neon yellow shorts speckled with lightening bolts. He’s decided to top all this off with leggings that have an angry baboon on them. He looks sort of like ‘The Hot Topic’ vomited all over him. This poor, lost soul is an absolute train wreck. Blissfully unaware of the fact that he looks like Jered Leto’s Joker from Suicide Squad, he waives to you. Pretending you don’t know him, you slowly turn away.

“How did this even happen?”

The newbie is the victim of a fairly common pitfall for new grapplers. He’s fallen into the “individual item purchase” trap. For the purposes of clarity, let’s name this newbie “Newb McNewGuy.” He’s Scottish, and it’s a family name. It all started when Newb felt self conscious about continuing to come in to class training in his ratty “Getting Lucky in Kentuky” t shirt and the ill fitting swimming trunks he purchased 5 years ago while he was on vacation. He sees all the advanced guys wearing grappling specific compression gear, so he goes online and checks out what’s reasonably priced. Then something terrible happens: The HQ is having it’s rolling deals weekend.  He literally exclaims out loud: “At these prices, I can’t afford NOT to buy stretchy pants!!!” Newb then purchases a couple of tops, some spats, and a few pairs of shorts. Each of these items looks great by itself, but just as you learned in second grade when you tried mixing cole slaw and chocolate pudding, mixing together two great things doesn’t always make a better thing.

When people genuinely can’t tell if you’re dressed for a No Gi class or a Lucha Libre Cosplay convention, it’s time to reevaluate your life.

No joke, this is a serious problem for new guys. To be fair it’s not all Newb’s fault. There’s really no procedure for what you should or shouldn’t wear to a grappling class. It’s not like the government sends out pamphlets on how to do this correctly…. though they probably should. The modern trend in grappling wear is very colorful, compression gear with lots of cartoons on them. While this is fun and whimsical (and god help me, I am a huge fan of whimsy) you don’t want to end up looking like a Finish circus performer on laundry day. Also, after Newb finally realizes he has bungled his initial series of purchases, he also comes to another harsh truth of this uncaring world: he’s blown half of his paycheck on gear, but now he has to spend even more money on expensive gear just so he won’t look like a total clown.

So what to do? Where should a new guy get started? Don’t worry, your Crabby Uncle Lavvy has got you covered. The cure for the tatami fashion police is what I’ve started calling the grappling ‘starter pack’. Lucky for you, dear reader, this system is easy to follow and hard to mess up. As Shakespear once said: “Brevity is the Soul of Whit” Another translation of that phrase is “Quit wasting Crabby Lavvy’s time….” So without further ado, my two decades in mat sports have all lead up to this… Purchase the following:

2x  Rash Guards, All Black, Long Sleeve or 3/4 Sleeve. As few Logos as possible

2x Fight Shorts, all Black or black with dark trim, stretch panel in crotch. As few Logos as possible

2x Tights/Spats, all black. Full length. As few Logos as possible

For serious. That’s it. Genius sometimes runs to simplicity. Now here’s what new guys don’t understand: Buying new grappling gear will slowly become your weird, unstoppable hobby. It is a hobby absolutely rife with tons of impulse buys. You’ll end up purchasing all sorts of weird looking orange octopus pants, but not until after your credit card has been charged will you stop and ask yourself “what goes with orange octopus pants?”. The answer is Black. Black goes with everything. When you get those Anubis shorts, are you really about to pair them with your polka dot rashguard?  The all black outfits are your jumping off point for what will become an ever increasing wardrobe of goofy looking stuff. Pairing is important, and the all black outfits will leave you with something that matches your new piece of apparel at all times.

Gear specifics:

Rashguard: Something very important to keep in mind is the vast majority of MMA/BJJ schools use Swain Tatame 1m x 2m mats. Most schools that don’t use Swain use a knock off, copy cat brand. While I prefer mat covers myself, the Swain mats make tons of sense for school owners. They are easy to replace and they are preposterously easy to move if your school needs to change location. The swain mats are excellent, however they have some pretty serious grip to them. Grip is basically measuring where the texture of the mat falls. Mat texture runs anywhere between slippery as ice and rough as sand paper. It’s a catch 22, too smooth and the second people start sweating the mat feels like it’s covered in butter, almost impossible to stand on. However too textured and the mat is literally ripping the skin off peoples elbows and knees in horrific chunks. The swain mats in 90% of gyms offer a good balance, but definitely land on the higher grip side of things. This is a huge benefit when you’re driving for a guard pass or getting traction while chasing that takedown, but isn’t so great when your bare elbow is being raked across the cheese-grater like mat surface at high speeds. The main point of wearing a rashguard is to avoid elbow burn and if you don’t wear your rash guard…… THERE WILL BE MAT BURN.  Hence the long sleeves. Short sleeved Rashguards don’t protect your elbows, and are thus about as useful as nothing at all.  (I do wear short sleeved rashguards for kickboxing.) A big drawback to long sleeved rashguards is that both you and your opponent will both spend a lot of time firmly grabbing your wrist.With a rash gurad covering your wrist the sleeve will constantly be getting pulled and stretched and even tear. This is a great way to ruin an expensive piece of equipment. You want your wrists exposed but your elbows covered, making the  3/4 sleeve length to your benefit. You can also just get a long sleeve rashguard and hike it half way up your forearm (you’re basically making capris for your arms)

Spats: The function of spats/tights can be explained by taking the above paragraph and swapping out the words “arm” for “leg” and “elbow” for “knee”. The only difference being you don’t want 3/4 length leg spats (your ankles will be grabbed infinitely less often then your wrists). 3/4 spats look weird, and will give you embarrassing tan lines. Remember that sizing for spats has more to do with thigh and calf diameter than it does the actual length of your leg. Even if you are 5’6″ with short legs, if you never miss squatt day, you may have to purchase large sized spats.

Shorts: The need for stretch material in shorts should seem obvious, but make sure you get something with a stretch panel in the groin area, or 4 way stretch material all over. Try to get something that covers the velcro area near the belly button, exposed velcro here tends to scratch your stomach something fierce.

Lastly, get yourself a groin protector, mouthpiece, and some ear guards and you’re good to go.

Long story short, just as Cobra Kai figured out in the 80s, whether you’re the tannest autumn or the pastiest ginger, black looks good on everybody.

Oftentimes, people who have zero understanding of real life self defense attempt to tear down the abilities of people who actually train legitimate self-defense martial arts. When someone who doesn’t understand ground fighting tries to fight a grappler, the match is usually very short and painful for the non grappler. However, in an effort to save face the non grappler will usually dig up two absolutely classic critiques. Seriously people have been trying to discredit the importance of grappling for 25 years with these misguided arguments.

Apparently the streets are absolutely LITTERED with corpses, because according to these triggly puffs pretty much everything will get you “killed in the streets” I’d like to point out that the people making these claims usually look like they’d get winded if they leaned over to tie their own shoelaces and often do their “self-defense” training wearing a costume not unlike Dolph Lundgren in “Showdown in Little Tokyo”

Why wraps?
In fighting sports, hand wraps are one of the most misunderstood pieces of equipment. Trainees at boxing gyms seem to do EVERYTHING with hand wraps on. But then there are people involved in fitness boxing, or training at an MMA facility don’t seem to bother wrapping their hands at all. What gives?  I’ve come to this conclusion: hand wrapping provides tons of benefits with no real downside, and if you aren’t doing it you’re just being Lazy. Boxers have been using hand wraps since the ancient Olympic games in Greece 3000 years ago. This is a piece of equipment that has really stood the test of time. Below is a list of Pros and Cons of wrapping your hands:

3-  “Won’t wearing a wrap make my hands weaker?”  This is a bit of confusion on the part of people who’ve done weightlifting in the past.  It is a misunderstanding of the differences between impact exercise and resistance training exercise.  When you’re doing weight lifting you’re doing slower exercises to build up strength and a growth response in muscles, tendons and ligaments; you’re basically doing a heavy lift to build your body as a structure to move heavier weights.  The anti-wrap lifting theory being: If you wrap your knees during a heavy squat, for instance, the connective tissues in your knees will not become accustomed to stabilizing that heavy squat.  Whether or not this is true, this has nothing to do with impact exercise.  When you hit a heavy bag or a hard pair of mitts you’re not doing a resistance activity designed to increase the muscle strength in your hands.  What you’re doing is ramming some of the most delicate bones in your body into a resisting object.  The pressure of the wraps help your hands maintain proper alignment and provide the extra cushion needed for a hard punching workout.

2- Wraps will increase the life of your gloves. This one usually takes new people by surprise. But think of it this way: If buy a really nice pair of running shoes, but don’t wear socks with them when you run, it won’t be too long before those shoes become WAY too foul to even keep in your closet. Congratulations, it just took you a month to ruin a high end pair of shoes that should have lasted you a couple years. In other words, hand wraps are socks for your boxing gloves. You cannot effectively wash the insides of your gloves. However you can sweat into a wrap, and wash the wrap again and again. Moisture breaking down the inside of a glove and making it unusable is just as common as the padding of the glove wearing out. An $8 pair of hand wraps will save your $100 pair of gloves. Basically you can’t afford not to buy hand wraps.

The boxers of ancient Greece wouldn’t wear clothing but would still wear hand wraps… I feel like that says a lot. 

Dearest Odin, I don’t want to write this. This group has already wasted enough of the time of legitimate coaches and by posting this, I may only fuel their awful, awful fire. The average MMA/kickboxing/boxing hobbyist can often remain unscathed but if, however, you are an instructor, it’s very likely this is a person you have run into. Or more accurately, they run into your gym, annoying everyone until you firmly tell them to leave.

A long time ago, lots of people who didn’t have a lot of friends watched lots of TV. Some of these types saw Patrick Swazye in Roadhouse, and figured they now knew the secret of how to beat anyone in a ‘real’ fight. They would brag about the 500 street fights they’ve won (there were never any witnesses to these fights, as the witnesses are clearly all dead!)  They would spin tales about the time they “cleared out a room” full of tough guys who got in their way, or maybe they’d tell you all about the time they beat a “Navy SEAL who pulled a knife” on them. For a long time outrageous claims like this were made at bars, gyms, martial arts schools, quinceaneras, bar mitzvahs and family reunions. Unfortunately in 1993, along came MMA, and it became very apparent very quickly that most of these super ultra street fighters were actually just grown men playing make believe. MMA forced these fan boys to come to a HARD realization:  they would never achieve the Swayz’s fighting prowess, nor his fantastic feathered hair.  Most of them grew up a little and quit bragging about that time they knocked out two gang members at once with the same spinning hook kick. But there was a group of hard core hold outs that refused to accept reality. You see, there is very little in this world that hurts an insecure person’s ego more than thinking someone else might beat them up. To them this thought is unacceptable. They had to find some way to rationalize away the obvious fact that they couldn’t win a fight against a boxer/kickboxer/MMA fighter. And then, one day, one Shia Labeouf-ian message board dweller on the internet came up with the ‘bare knuckle’ concept, and an avalanche of other Labeoufs followed him. I also believe Brad Pitt’s character in ‘Snatch’ got this group riled up and somehow worked its way into their mythology.

There is no better example of what actual bare knuckle prize fighting looks like then Wanderlei Silva’s run in World Vale Tudo. What is this you ask? It was a bare knuckle MMA event back when MMA was called NHB. This is what all those bare knuckle fetishists have been waiting for: Skilled bare knuckle matches! Unfortunately for them, it looks exactly like regular boxing/mma and nothing like the baloney they’ve been spouting.  What puzzles me is even a casual google search of the words “Bare knuckle fights” will lead you to World Vale Tudo. Also, there’s Bando out in Myanmar, literally an entire sport of bare knuckle kickboxing and guess what? It looks 99% like normal kickboxing.

The internet age mixed with everyone having a camcorder in their phone makes a video of almost anything available. Google “monkey rides backwards on baby pig”. There are two different videos of two different sets of animals doing this. Do you understand how crazy uncommon it is for a monkey to ride backwards on a baby pig?! And yet it was filmed on two separate occasions. That is how much stuff is being filmed. Every time two middle schoolers get in a slap match someone pulls out a camera phone. Now try to find video of someone applying the goofy ye old boxing stance. I’ll wait. Not ONE video, huh? This stance ISN’T a real thing. This is confirmable. Even with common sense, video evidence, and reality disproving these men’s claims, they persist.

In a strange way, these men actually inspire me. This level of reality-defying confidence is tough to come by. If I had this type of confidence I think I would have grown up to become the president or something.  These basement dwellers really think that they are going to defeat a bigger, stronger, faster athlete, who practices nothing but punching and kicking against other guys who spend all their time practicing punching and kicking, armed only with super secrets that they discovered by looking at hand drawn illustrations from a time when people smoked cigarettes to “open up their lungs” 

Without a doubt this is one of the oldest (and by far silliest) debates in Jiu Jitsu circles. Both Gi and No Gi claim to be more effective for self defense, while usually declaring the other to have a glaring flaw that makes it useless in “the streets.” They are both right and totally wrong at the same time: