Dan Djurdjevic

Here is an excerpt of part of my interview (from around the 59:33 min mark) with Ken Gullette on his podcast. This excerpt deals specifically with the use of "uke" - ie. "receiving", not only in the sense of receiving techniques, but also in the sense of a wider meaning of "receiving intent" in order to diffuse conflict. Enjoy! *   *   * On receiving generally - "I win if I don't get hit" KG: I encourage everyone to read your blog. Just Google The Way of Least Resistance and you have excellent articles on there. And one of your blog posts recently about the  Ronda Rousey fight  actually triggered some practices of my own with my students where we were practicing basic slipping of a punch. Bobbing and weaving leaning and things like that for just basic boxing technique. One of my goals as a fighter, if I have been in a fight (and I haven't since I was eighteen), is I don't want to get hurt. I want to avoid getting head. ...

I was very honoured to be a guest on veteran US television and radio journalist Ken Gullette's Chicago-based podcast show a few weeks back. The interview ranged over a wide variety of topics and ran for 90 min. I didn't expect Ken to include all of it in the podcast, but he did! And I'm even more amazed that people are still downloading it and giving me positive feedback a week later! Most seem to have listened to it on a long drive or, in at least one case, on a flight, but I had a call from Melbourne from an old friend who stayed up to 2 a.m. listening to the entire thing - which is all deeply flattering! Anyway, here it is - I hope you find at least parts of it interesting. From around the 1:00 hour mark I talk about a young man who turned up to my front door late at night armed with a knife - and how I dealt with the situation.

In the arts, writing - particularly fiction - seems to stand alone as something for which (apparently) no particular training is required. As far as the many members of the public seem to believe, it's something you can either do, or can't do. After all, most of us can "write" stuff - can't we? We all write emails, reports, notes, CVs, requests and applications... Well I hate to break it to you: that isn't the same as writing  - at least not professionally. Like any art, writing (both fiction and non-fiction) is a skill acquired over many years of dedicated study and practise. Why should it be otherwise? Writers need to learn their craft, otherwise they remain nothing but beginners. In other words, writing well does not arise solely from some "innate talent", triggered by the mere fact that you have read some (or many) novels. Nor does it matter that you have been known to pen the odd humorous missive or even short story (perhaps one that has l...