Strangest video of the day. Senator Ted Stevens participating in martial arts tournament in 1973.

Here is the description:

Nine minute, 23 second, color with sound film clip of a Jhoon Rhee martial arts tournament held in Washington, D.C., or Maryland, probably in 1973. The film depicts a competition between three Republicans and three Democrats, which ended in a tie. Among the politicians featured are Representative Tom Bevill, Senator Quentin Burdick, Representive Flyod Spence, Delegate Walter Fauntroy, and Senator Ted Stevens. This film clip is excerpted fromTSCM-1970-1 of the Ted Stevens Collection held by the Alaska Film Archives, a unit of the Alaska & Polar Regions Department in the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Wow does watching that take me back or what?

I actually had my first competition in 1972, when Alaska martial arts were still in their infancy.

This 1973 competition was clearly an exhibition, where it was predetermined that there would be no declared winners. Which I am sure is the only way they could have coaxed three Democrats and three Republicans to participate.

It is painful to watch these men attempt a sport that they are clearly not well trained to compete in. The lack of balance and flexibility is especially distracting for me. 

Still I have to hand it to them to put themselves out there like that. Could you even imagine this kind of thing happening today? Somebody would undoubtedly get killed.

The officiator is Jhoon Rhee, who EVERY martial artist from the seventies and eighties knows all too well, because we were all forced to use his Jhoon Rhee Safe-T-Chop gloves and Safe-T-Kick footgear in order to compete. I HATED those crappy things, and must have ripped or split at least six or seven pairs of them over the years. (I once punched my way right out of a pair of Safe-T-Chops during a competition.)

I just have to add that during this time, even though I was only twelve or thirteen, I successfully competed against full grown men, and I would have DESTROYED Uncle Ted Stevens in a competition. I'm just saying.

(H/T to the Alaska Dispatch.)