Posts about martial arts concepts and principles.
On Thursday, January 31, 2020, Grandmaster Pat Weseman promoted me to 4th Dan in Taekwondo at the Advanced Class. When I started classes with Grandmaster Weseman and her husband Art, I did not foresee reaching this milestone. I originally started taking classes with my nephew Jim in Spring 1995. After getting married in 1996, I stopped taking classes for several […]
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At our fantasy football draft this year, one of the other owners asked me who I thought was the best mixed martial artist of all time. I told him that based on skill, the greatest mixed martial artist of all time was Jon “Bones” Jones. However, Jones’ frequent problems outside of the Octagon would keep him from being considered the […]
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On May 7, 2016, my daughter Caity returned to Taekwondo competition for the first time in eight years. As her dad but also her coach, I tried to dissuade her from sparring until we had a few more months but she was adamant about sparring at the tournament. Caity likes forms but she always preferred sparring. Reluctantly, I agreed. I […]
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A few weeks ago, my second foray into the martial arts came full circle. My daughter started studying Taekwondo again after more than five years away from the sport. It is actually Caity, who brought me back to martial arts in the summer of 2000. After my natural father passed away in July 1999, I went on a year-long fitness […]
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In the distant past, one of the new holders of a teacher’s certificate in a traditional martial art brought a wheel barrow with round wheels for approval to the head of the style and his top two instructors. Previously, the wheel barrow had square tires and was referred to as a square barrow. The student waited with expectation as the […]
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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 […]
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When I was a kid growing up in St. Louis, the only martial art that I had heard about was Karate. Taekwondo was considered Korean Karate. I did not know about any of the grappling arts at that point. However, KPLR Channel 11 ran a series of films on Saturdays for a month featuring Mr. Moto, played by Peter Lorre. […]
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3 times over the last 150 years, martial artists created more modern versions of older martial arts. Unlike many prior systems, the innovators of these modern martial arts chose to share this information with outsiders and spread their arts around the world. Jigoro Kano’s dissemination of Judo is the best case study for how to develop and spread a martial […]
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I have spent a lot of time studying different rank systems. The rank system seems to be a modern concept started by Dr. Jigaro Kano, an educator, who wanted a system of grading to separate students. Over the next century, numerous styles adopted the belt rank system but the only commonality was the belt systems meant what the creator decided […]
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On November 12, 1993 at the McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, Colorado, a fourth degree black belt in the little known art of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu (commonly called Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in the United States) cut through an eight man style versus style martial arts tournament. Royce Gracie would turn the martial arts world on its head. After his walk through the […]
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