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I've done kajukenbo or kung fu for the last three years. And I love thrillers! Therefore, Haywire looked like it was right up my alley. It stars Gina Carano, a real MMA star.

Ha! All the best parts were in the trailer. (In fact, I think there were parts in the trailer that weren't in the movie). Let me count the problems with the movie:

- When the main character is on the run, she somehow manages to get her hair cut from past her shoulders to a stylish angled bob. Yeah, that would be top of mind for me when everyone wants me dead. The color doesn't change, so it's not like she's trying to throw her pursuers off track. Later, she shows up in cornrows. Cornrows I don't think she has enough hair for. And who braided it?

- Speaking of changing colors, when the the MC is being chased down city streets, running through restaurants and stores and vaulting over fences, she continues to wear a white hat. So much for being an expert. The first thing you should do when someone is tailing you is to change your appearance. Ditching the hat would have been a great first step.

- The character played by Tatum Channing is a bit of a rookie. He nearly screws things up and has ideas no one agrees with. Yet at the end of this section of the movie, the MC is kissing him and undoing his belt. Why? It seems beneath her to have sex with him. The reason is revealed near the end, when he dies. Gives her the opportunity for a flashback scene and a moment of sadness.

- The character played by Ewan Macgregor is shown putting a gun in the back of his pants. Then he fights the MC on the beach. A fight, it is clear, that won't end until one of them is dead. Yet he never pulls his gun. Isn't that guy familiar with Chekov? "If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired."

- They re-dubbed the actress's voice, so it sounds different from take to take.

- If you don't trust someone, would you let them have full access to your stuff while you took a shower?

- There's a plot point involving a brooch being planted in a dead man's hand to cast the blame for the murder. It was like something out of Agatha Christie. A brooch! In his hand! With no signs of a struggle or threads caught in brooch to explain how he supposedly managed to yank it off his killer.

- The high-tech spies use - wait for it - Blackberries! How much did they pay for product placement?

This is definitely the last Steven Soderbergh movie I see. Contagion also sucked, but for different reasons.

On Tuesday, I spent another eight hours getting filmed. (This is for a project being funded by an offshoot of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The goal is to interest 9th graders in reading and writing). Since they were mostly just filming B-roll (illustrative footage that is shown on screen while someone is speaking - to avoid the whole “talking head” phenomenon) - they just sent a cameraman/producer and another cameraman who served as an extra pair of hands.

The first thing they did was to film me typing in various sections of books that I had previously read. That will give them the possibility of showing the words appearing on the screen as my voice reads them aloud. How well do I type when someone is filming? Not that well. So each of them took about three takes.


Nick

Then we were off into the world. One section I read from a book called Finish Her Off that won’t come out until 2013 takes place in a woods. Were there woods nearby, they asked?

I remember that Gabriel Park had a wooded area, and it turned out to be even more authentic looking than I remembered. They filmed me from behind, from the side, and from two different areas where I appeared from around a corner or over a rise and walked toward the camera. And again. And again. Waiting for breaks in the rain or people with dogs. Trying to look thoughtful, like I was plotting, when really I was more worried about plotzing because the ground was super muddy.

At the Hoot Owl Market (which is what my husband calls a “food museum” - because it has one of each food item on display) I purchased peppermint chewing tobacco, the smell of which provides a key plot point in Girl Stolen. The owner, a Chinese immigrant with a limited command of English, at first took our explanations of “it’s for kids” and the video camera as evidence that we were conducting a sting operation for stores selling tobacco to minors. I’m not sure he ever did understand what we were doing, but we won him over.

We also went to a coffee shop where I tried to make my typing look real by working on an email to dlgarfinkle. And when we needed a dog to show how a dog might have inspired a scene in Girl, Stolen, we ended up at the house of lkmadigan where her husband lent us the use of DJ and Pepper. No actors, the dogs showed interest in everyone but me. Salmon treats concealed in my hands made everything a bit better.

Somewhere along the way, they showed me the rough cut of the video. It looked really good. My Kajukenbo sparring wasn’t even that bad.


Gabriel

Editing a video must be a really interesting process. You’ve got all these sounds bites, all these films - and you have to take those hours and hours and create something that makes sense, that moves along, that holds interest. I told Gabriel, the main camera guy, that writing sometimes reminds of quilting

My Kajukenbo class is the most challenging - and yet fun - physical activity I have ever done. I grew up uncoordinated, the girl who pulled straight As except for Cs in PE. I could not dance to Winchester Cathedral. I nearly broke my knee on the pommel horse. I was so skinny that I sank rather than floated in swimming. I once managed to swing the bat in front of the softball I had just hit so it bounced back and hit me in the eye.

One of things we do in class is practice getting out of all kinds of holds and grabs. I'm starting to wonder how long it will be before someone hands me a card for a women's shelter.



Last night Kajukenbo instructor tried to get me over my fear of sparring by putting me in the bullring with every other person in class - one after another.

I actually landed a few punches and kicks. Probably wincing the whole time.

But watch out world, I'm learning. Better not mess with me.

I took Muey Thai for about three months, and then for the last 18 I have taken kajukenbo. (Wikipedia says it combines western boxing, Judo, Jujutsu, Kenpo Karate, Eskrima, Tang Soo Do and Kung Fu. I'll take its word for it.) Last night our instructor was given a third-degree black belt. The teacher of his teacher came, and ended up teaching part of our class. He brought with him a half-dozen of his students - all male.

As part of that instruction, he brought out a 10-foot-long wooden dowel, about two inches across. He told us to stand in a circle, shoulder to shoulder. And he stood in the center, with the dowel about eye level and began to slowly spin inside the circle. One by one, we were supposed to crouch just enough that the dowel missed our heads.

"Do not be fearful," he said at the beginning. "Do not think."

I am all about being fearful and thinking. I tell myself that's the smart way to be. But what he wanted to teach us was that in a physical confrontation, we'll only be slowed down by fear and by thinking.

I wanted to run out of the room. There were 17 guys in this circle and only 4 women. I knew I was going to get whacked on the side of the head. I was afraid. I was going to fail, and it front of an audience. Plus I would probably be hurt. He began to spin faster and faster, occasionally changing directions. A few times I felt the dowel whiff my hair (which is curly and sticks up), but I did not get hit.

Then he began to whirl it at ankle level, whipping it faster and faster. There was no time for thinking, no time for fear, just waiting and watching and judging when the rod would be there and we would be hopping.

And when someone - not me! - stumbled on the rod, I learned what the teacher meant by saying we all succeeded or failed together. Because it was down to the floor and give ten push-ups. Hands and toes pushups. With one leg raised up in the air behind you. And then back on our feet and the wooden rod whirling at our ankles again.

It was a great learning experience - that I could react, that I could get out of my head and solely into my body - but I'm glad I'm not doing it three times a week.