Combat Sports Historian and Martial Artist
Posts about martial arts concepts and principles.
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
One of the best thing about the martial arts such as Taekwondo is the ability for fathers, mothers, children, grandchildren and other family members to train together. You develop a mutual interest you cannot replicate by sitting in the stands watching your children play baseball, soccer, etc. Besides training with all three of my kids and my wife, who trained
A couple of years ago, I decided to stay at the rank of brown belt in Judo for a while. As a black belt in Taekwondo, I always assume that you keep going until you reach black belt in the art you are practicing. However, I began to change my mind about continuously trying to obtain a black belt
Why do traditional martial artists continue to despise the lessons of mixed martial arts? I am amazed that twenty years after Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) 1, some traditional martial arts still feel that they have nothing to learn from MMA. One of the Taekwondo tournaments, where I used to referee, has a submission grappling division. When I had a break, I
While many of the martial arts originated in Korea or Japan, the societies in these countries and the United States are very different. Yet, many American instructors continue to have students line up by rank and sex with men first, boys second, women third and girls last. While this line up would be normal and expected in Korea, it does
This article is the second of two posts, which detail the conditioning and martial arts workouts I performed from 2006 to 2010. I used this program to earn my second degree black belt in Taekwondo and a third degree brown belt in Judo. Martial Arts Workouts Monday P.M.: Judo Class Wednesday P.M.: Advanced TKD Workout Thursday P.M.: TKD Kid’s and
If you are confronted with a self-defense situation, two things will lead you to be seriously injured or killed. The two things are panic and/or hesitation. In my professional career, I have confronted two armed suspects. I am going to dissect one of the incidents to illustrate how it could have turned out differently. I was working retail security in
This training program is what I used from 2006 to 2008, while I was training in both Taekwondo and Judo. In general, I performed conditioning workouts in the morning and martial arts workouts in the evening. Conditioning Schedule Monday A.M.: Chest, Biceps, Elliptical Trainer Tuesday A.M.: Thighs, Calves, Recumbent Bike Tuesday P.M.: Shoulders, Triceps, Forms Friday A.M.: Back, Abs, Elliptical
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
One of the things that always impressed me about the Gracies is how they were able to turn out generation after generation of top-notch instructors. After reading a number of articles about their original belt system, etc., I started to adapt some of their methods with our own students. Once the student reaches Green Belt, we allow them to start