Combat Sports Historian and Martial Artist
Posts about martial arts concepts and history.
On April 7, 1939, Twentieth Century-Fox released the seventh of eight Mr. Moto “B” movies. Mr. Moto in Danger Island begins with Mr. Moto on a ship headed to Puerto Rico. Mr. Moto, played by Peter Lorre, and several passengers are watching a wrestling match. Twister McGurk, played by Warren Hymer, is wrestling Sailor Sam, played by Ward Bond. Mr. Moto
Despite its worldwide popularity and it’s rank as the most popular martial art in the United States, (TKD) is beginning to lose some of it’s luster due to its perceived lack of success in Mixed Martial Arts. (MMA) is the biggest thing to hit the martial arts world since Jigaro Kano decided to go to a colored and black belt system to denote rank within his school,
Orange Rank is the next step on the path to obtaining a 1st Degree Black Rank in the Zimmerman Self-Defense System. You will continue to learn new techniques and start to figure out what you are naturally good at and what you need to work on more. Orange and Green Ranks sometimes trouble students because the novelty of training in
Sam Hill, a Seattle businessman, brought Professor Yoshiaki Yamashita to the United States in 1902. Professor Yamashita intended to help spread Dr. Jigoro Kano’s relatively new martial art of Judo. Accompanying Professor Yamashita was his student Mitsuyo Maeda. Maeda would go on to teach Carlos Gracie in Brazil. The Gracies modified the techniques into the art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Over
Spike TV began to broadcast a show that would put mixed martial arts on the mainstream map. 16 fighters lived in a house and competed in a tournament to see which two fighters would win a six figure UFC contract. The Ultimate Fighter would change television and the UFC for good. At one point during the Finale, ten million households
When I first started martial arts with a Shotokan karate class at our local junior college, the instructor handed out an article for everyone to read. The article covered a study with statistics. The study found that out of every 10,000 martial arts students only 100 would go on to earn black belts. Most beginning students quit after six months
Anderson Silva, widely recognized as the greatest mixed martial artist of all time, lost his rematch with Chris Wiedman for the UFC Middleweight Title on December 28, 2013. Wiedman had defeated Silva for the title on July 6, 2013. It was Silva’s first loss in seven years with the Ultimate Fighting Championship. He was the middleweight champion for over 6
In the sixth of eight Mr. Moto films released between 1937 and 1939, Interpol police officer Kentaro Moto pursues a group of international saboteurs. Twentieth Century – Fox Film Corporation released Mr. Moto’s Last Warning (1939) (affiliate link) on January 20, 1939. Peter Lorre returns as the cerebral but deadly Mr. Moto. Ricardo Cortez plays Fabian the Great, a ventriloquist,
Georges St-Pierre has been the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s (UFC) Welterweight Champion since 2007 and has been fighting for the title since 2005. While he is only 32 years of age, the grind of being world champion has caused him to relinquish the belt and step away from the sport for the time being. Some pundits have speculated that he is
A common myth in martial arts is that a master studies for 40 years, develops an almost superhuman understanding of self-defense, creates the perfect system and turns out generations of unbeatable fighters. Prior to the popularity of mixed martial arts, many of the magazines such as Black Belt were full of stories about which martial art was the best. If you polled