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May 20, 2012

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The Root of All Martial Arts

July 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

“The root of all martial arts is self-protection. While you may or may not learn sparring, forms, weapons, fitness and meditation in your martial arts classes, you should definitely be learning self-protection skills. Many people take up martial arts exclusively to learn to protect themselves or to at least feel more confident in their self-defense abilities. While they often come to enjoy other facets of the arts, self-defense is the number one reason students sign-up for classes.”

—Sang H. Kim, Martial Arts After 40

Filed Under: A Martial Arts Education, Getting Started Tagged With: , , ,

Miyamoto Musashi on 2 Ways to Be a Better Martial Artist

July 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Miyamoto Musashi on 2 Ways to Be a Better Martial Artist

Miyamoto Musashi’s The Book of Five Rings can improve the self-defense training of any adult martial artist. It is a gold mine for students of combatives as well as of the traditional martial arts. Diligent study of The Book of Five Rings reaps rich rewards for serious adult martial artists even beyond the realm of martial arts.

Musashi makes clear that there is no easy way to achieve excellence in the martial arts. Training and discipline are essential. Equally important is proper mindset.

A Well-Rounded Martial Arts Education Paves the Path to Victory

Musashi knew that it was important to familiarize yourself with other martial arts styles. Without an understanding of what different martial arts styles could bring to the battle, Musashi said, you could not understand his own unique style of Niten-Ichi-Ryu.

It is essential to understand the weapons your opponent brings to the conflict even if it is only his bare hands. It is essential to know the kinds of techniques and tactics he may launch against you and to know how to counter them.

It’s not enough to learn one aspect of the martial arts. Just knowing how to box or kick or wrestle is not enough. Nor is it enough to know merely how to defend against a boxer, karateka, or wrestler.

In short, cross-training is crucial.

An Open Mind: The Deadliest of Weapons

Musashi recognized that each style of swordsmanship had its limitations as well as advantages. “In my Niten-Ichi-ryu, it is considered taboo to become bigoted and narrow-minded. Study this matter well.”

Martial arts styles and schools change over the course of time. Each individual brings his or her own unique interpretation to them. Some techniques achieve prominence for a time; others recede into the background. There is no one right martial art for all time and in all circumstances that ensures victory against violence.

This is one more reason not to badmouth styles. A particular martial arts style as embodied in one practitioner may indeed be useless. In the hands of an adept practitioner, the style may prove to be more formidable than originally imagined.

Musashi would have agreed with Bruce Lee: Absorb what is useful, discard the rest.

And as Musashi would have said: Study these things well.

Hidy Ochiai’s A Way to Victory: The Annotated Book of Five Rings is the finest translation and commentary I’ve seen to date. It merits close study and I highly recommend you get a copy if you don’t already own one. (And I wouldn’t mind if you used my affiliate link below, either.)

 

Filed Under: Books, Getting Started Tagged With: , , , ,

Cross-Training: The Last Taboo? (Part 2)

June 15, 2011 By 1 Comment

Say what you will about Mixed Martial Arts, MMA did bring the issue of cross-training in the martial arts to a head. Today, the tide of opinion has changed in the martial arts world. It is not only permissible to cross-train, but more and more martial artists now see it as a necessity.

There is no “Best Karate!” There is no one-size-fits-all martial arts style. True, some martial arts are more comprehensive than others. Hapkido and jujitsu come readily to mind

Still you want to be open to other possibilities.

Why cross-train?

  • You want to remedy deficiencies in your present training.
  • You want to experiment with other martial arts if only to understand and appreciate your own art better.
  • You’re dissatisfied for one reason or another with your chosen martial art and you’re thinking about making a switch. (It happens more often than you think.)

How To Cross Train

Don’t be too quick to cross-train. Spend at least, say, six months or a year in your initial art. Learn the basics. Explore the nuances of the art. Enjoy yourself.

Then decide if you in fact want to cross-train. If you do, choose a martial art that is different or at least substantially different from your own. You should look to complement, not duplicate, your training.

  • If you’re a student of Tae Kwon Do, then studying Shotokan karate will likely prove to be redundant.
  • If you’re present martial arts style places little or no emphasis on ground-fighting, then you might want to study judo, jujitsu, or take a look at Tony Cecchine’s catch-wrestling.
  • If  you practice Kenpo or Western boxing you might want to supplement it with an art like tae kwon do.

Some words of caution:

  • You still might not want to publicize the fact that you are cross-training. Even to this day many instructors disapprove of cross-training.
  • Don’t try to cross-train in too many arts at the same time. You don’t want to be a jack of all trades and a master of none. Mastering one art is sometimes more than enough of a challenge, especially in the beginning.  Training in two martial arts requires real dedication. Better to learn one art well than two arts badly.

Train hard, stay safe, live well.

 

Filed Under: Getting Started Tagged With: , , ,

Cross-Training in the Martial Arts: The Last Taboo?

June 14, 2011 By 1 Comment

Cross-Training in the Martial Arts: The Last Taboo?

When I first seriously began to pursue the martial arts in the 70s, I did what just about everyone did and (hopefully) still does. I went dojang hunting. Living in New York City at the time, I would roam from one martial arts school to another, trying to figure out which school would be a good choice. (I hadn’t a clue.)

One common denominator that ran through my journey was that the owner of nearly every martial arts school I visited believed his style to be the only style worth training in.

“BEST KARATE!” barked one Asian martial arts master whose school I visited. The ferocity of his staccato delivery left me puzzled and, to tell the truth, put-off.

But his dogmatism was commonplace among most martial arts instructors of that time.

Cross-training was anathema in those days. Taboo. Not something you did if you wanted to be a member in good standing at your dojang or dojo. Indeed, I knew of one instance where a student was kicked out of his school because he had dared to explore the possibilities of another martial art.

In effect, you vowed unswerving loyalty to your instructor and his martial arts style. There was something romantically feudal about it all—and also terribly frustrating.

If you were bold enough to cross-train in another martial art, it was something you did on the sly, secretly, sub voce.

You were basically a traitor, an infidel. Cross-training was heresy pure and simple.

Not even the pioneers of cross-training like Wally Jay and Bruce Lee could prevail against the orthodoxy of my-way-or-the-highway mindset of the majority of martial arts schools.

Ironically, after a couple of missteps, I was fortunate enough to discover a school that took cross-training seriously. Dr. Jung Hwan Park taught both Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido at his school in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, New York.

(Indeed, if I remember correctly, he required his senior students to study Western-style boxing prior to earning their black belts.)

Mind you, Master Park didn’t do what too many instructors did, which was to teach a few paltry, diluted hapkido techniques. No, I was learning serious hapkido.  Real serious.

The kind of hapkido that enabled Master Park to kill five Viet Cong prison guards barehanded and escape a death-camp, making him the only Korean POW to survive the entire Vietnam War.

The kind of hapkido I could use while tending bar at the infamous Maxwell’s Plum in New York City, the premier fleshpot watering-hole of the 60s and 70s sexual revolution.

The kind of hapkido I could use while living in dicey neighborhoods like East Harlem.

And so I managed to cross-train without becoming a martial arts heretic.

Perhaps cross-training is something you might want to think about, too.

In my next post, I’ll offer some tips about how cross-training can enhance your martial arts training. Until then…

Train hard, stay safe, live the good life.

Filed Under: Getting Started Tagged With: , , ,

Martial Arts: The Carnegie Hall Connection

June 11, 2011 By 1 Comment

Whether self-defense training or traditional martial arts is your passion, it has never been easier to become an adult martial artist.

In the Golden Age of Martial Arts—the 60s and 70s—you had to rely solely on your memory to learn martial arts. You would go to your martial arts school and watch the techniques performed, practice them several times, and then go home. It all depended upon how well your memory retained what your martial arts instructor taught you that day.

Sometimes you got it right, sometimes you got it wrong.

Nothing was more frustrating to return to your martial arts school a few days later and discover that your memory had failed you and you were doing the martial arts form or self-defense technique wrong.

Or, sometimes it might be a week or two before the instructor reviewed the form or technique you had learned. Even longer.

By then the wrong move had semi-burned itself into your brain. You had to erase it from your memory banks and, so to speak, to rewire your original circuitry.

Sometimes you just plain forgot.

Talk about going back to Square One.

In the 80s, with the advent of the videocassette recorder, some martial artists began producing tapes. On the whole, the instructional quality usually wasn’t very good. It was hard to learn from them. Some just looked like marketing tools. But still they were better than nothing.

In the 90s, martial arts videos came of age. The cinematography became cleaner and crisper. The directing was more proactive. Performance of the same techniques from multiple angles was a huge advance. Narration became more common and more informative.

Today, martial arts videos are a powerful learning tool. They offer powerful positive learning reinforcement. They have accelerated and at the same time simplified the learning curve. You can use them to perfect your current martial arts training in two ways:

  • They shorten the time it takes to master a form or self-defense technique.
  • You can use them to supplement your martial arts training with another martial arts style or self-defense training program.

You’re almost foolish not to take advantage of martial arts videos to improve your martial arts training or self-defense training class.

In search of rock-solid martial arts videos that will make you a better martial artist?

Here are a few suggestions:

Turtle Press

Kelly McCann

Hoch Hochheim

Carl Cestari

Richard Dimitri

From Martial Arts Videos to Martial Arts Mastery in No Time Flat

Well, not quite.

If you think that you can master the martial arts by just watching videos, think again.

The martial arts are, well, arts. An art requires practice. And it is a physical art. You need to get the feel of the bodily physics involved in kata and self-defense training intimately. You don’t need to be an Olympian athlete to be a rock-solid martial artist, but you do need to perfect traits such as coordination, balance, agility. You need to grow familiar with the art of movement. You need to get used to hitting and being hit, throwing and being thrown, and the body mechanics behind joint-locking techniques.

So you need to get out on the training-hall floor and just do it.

A tourist arrives in New York. He walks up to a New Yorker and asks for directions:

“How do I get to Carnegie Hall?”

“Practice, practice, practice,” says the New Yorker.

Enough said. Until next time…

Train hard, stay safe, live well.

Filed Under: Getting Started Tagged With: , , , ,

Is Your Martial Arts Training Missing Something?

June 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Is Something Missing?

Self-defense is what drew you to the martial arts. You’re an adult now. You want to be able to defend yourself, your friends, your loved ones.  Sure, you want the coveted black belt. Let’s face it, you’re not alone. Millions of Americans have wanted or at least dreamed about getting a black belt. Very few ever earn one. It’s to your credit that you’re doing what others only dream about. But you’re not all that interested in entering competitions and cluttering your home with trophies and the like.

And let’s say your six months to a year or more into your martial arts training.  Sure, you’re having tons of fun. You love your fellow students. You have nothing but respect for your instructors. Welcome to the club! Most of the people I’ve met in my martial arts training have been just great. They’re diverse, colorful, smart. They often have fascinating backgrounds. The life-histories are unique. Taken as a whole, I haven’t met a nicer group of people.

That Deep Down Nagging Feeling

Still, you have this nagging feeling that for all your hard work, for all the drilling in high kicks and low kicks, low punches and high punches, back falls and front falls, you don’t feel confident that you have what it takes to defeat the thug in the parking lot waiting to prey on you or the rapist lurking in the stairwell.

In short, you’re not confident that you’ve come that much closer to knowing how to defend yourself than before you began your martial arts training.

The Dilemma

Quit your present martial arts school and go elsewhere?

Well, if you really love your school, your instructors and your fellow students, pulling up stakes isn’t much better than shooting yourself in the foot. Besides, where are you going to go? What if there is no martial arts school offering better?

And how is quitting your martial arts school going to help you better defend yourself against all the sociopaths out there?

Besides, you’re a winner and we all know the old saying: Winners never quit and quitters never win.

So what do you do?

The Missing Link

Here’s one suggestion: Take a serious look at the DVDs offered by any of the following self-defense training experts:

Or, you might want to see when self-defense training experts such as Tony Blauer or Tim Larkin are offering a self-defense training seminar in your locale. (Hochheim and Dimtri also travel around the country, no, make that the world as well)

If you can’t find a qualified self-defense training expert (always preferable), then grab a friend or fellow student, preferably someone with martial arts training and ask them to be your self-defense training partner.

Can you become a master of self-defense techniques watching martial arts DVDs? No, you won’t. But you can with sufficient practice begin to learn enough self-defense techniques from them to better defend yourself in the streets. (And still get that rightly coveted black belt.)

It’s not perfect. But at least it’s a start.

Train hard, stay safe, live well.

Filed Under: Getting Started, How-To Tagged With: , , , ,

Just Don’t Stand There! Read This.

April 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Self defense training is important in today’s world and you should have an array of self-defense techniques at your disposal with which to defend yourself.

But self-defense in the streets is often about what you do before and after a violent encounter. Unfortunately, too many martial arts schools, especially commercial martial arts schools, neglect to prepare their students for the reality of violent encounters in the streets.

And sometimes situational awareness is not enough. You may find yourself ambushed or blindsided by a hoodlum or other sociopath.

Now what?

The Worst Thing A Martial Artist Can Do In A Fight

Stand still. Standing still can get you killed or at least give your attacker the opportunity to put you in the local hospital’s ER (after, of course, he has his way with you).

Unfortunately, this lesson is too often left untaught in too many commercial martial arts schools.

Forget about staring down your opponent. Forget about Chuck Norris and the Walker-Texas-Ranger-Death-Stare. You’re not Chuck Norris. You’re not in Hollywood.

That’s not to say that you should take your eyes off your opponent. That’s just as dangerous. But don’t become fixated by him or your predicament. That’s playing into his hands.

What should you do?

2 Smart Moves for Martial Artists Looking to Live

Glance around you. Keep moving. Maintain your tactical distance as best you can for as long as it makes sense to do so. But just keep moving. Train yourself to ask these two questions until they become instinctual when a confrontation looms before you:

  • Are there any safe paths allowing you to escape? Take them. It’s almost always better to fly and fight another day. Moving around gives you an opportunity to see additional exit routes.
  • Is your attacker alone? Or is he with his buddies? If you remember nothing else, always remember that wolves tend to travel in packs. You don’t want to be blindsided by one of his accomplices from the side or, worse, from behind. Moving around, surveying the terrain denies them the element of further surprise.

Don’t freeze up. Don’t remain stationary.

Just keep moving.

P.S. Click here to learn yet another way to prevent your martial arts training from getting you killed in a real-time encounter.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Getting Started, Self-Defense Tagged With: , ,

What Can Sculling Teach Adult Martial Artists?

April 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Adult martial artists in search of inspiration for their pursuit of the martial arts and self-defense training should read Barry Strauss’ Rowing Against the Current: On Learning to Scull at Forty

Barry Strauss is a professor of classics and history at Cornell University. (Military history buffs ought to take a look at his The Trojan War: A New History or The Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter that Saved Greece — and Western Civilization.)

Professor Strauss strikes you as your typical mild-mannered academic. Growing up, he is your quintessential bookworm. He is by his own admission anything but naturally athletic and he suffered the indignities that many of us suffered in our schoolyards’ playing fields:

In Little League days my only philosophical question about coaches was how best to avoid them. The Little League dads who coached our team had no time for me, a klutz who was afraid of the ball, so they put me in the outfield and they left me there. I returned the compliment.

But is Professor Strauss doomed for eternity to wander about the ivory towers of academia with its dusty archives and cerebral disdain for the body?

No.

At 40-something, he decided to take up the art of competitive rowing. He discovers that he grows physically and emotionally more powerful from his newfound passion: “The oars gave me power but they also taught me humility.”

Rather sounds like learning martial arts, doesn’t it?

Along the way, he finds himself facing up to some tough truths about himself:

Learning how to row at forty is a test. It’s an audit of achievement and disappointment, both of which there has been plenty of since leaving college. It’s about a second chance at something simple and verifiable. It’s about reconcentrating and refocusing. So much of my career seems to me, in retrospect, to have been a process of retreat, hiding, avoidance of the big tests, causes in equal parts by diffidence, fear of failure, and laziness.

Following Professor Strauss as he readies for the Day of the Big Race is an intense and enjoyable experience. His ability to blend the moral wisdom his classical learning has imparted to him through the years with the tough physical challenges the art of rowing imposes makes for solid, enjoyable reading.

Three of the many excellences of this book will prove particularly relevant to adult martial artists:

  • The importance of finding a good teacher or coach
  • The idea of physical education as a part of a liberal education. Plato and Aristotle understood this and incorporated physical training into their educational programs. Cicero, of course, summed it up famously as a sound mind in a sound body.
  • The importance of determination in the face of self-doubt

Indeed, the moment of Professor Strauss’ Big Race reminded me of my first black belt examination: A time of apprehension wherein a lifelong battle between determination and fear were about to have a final showdown within the four walls of a dojang—and within a dark intersection of my psyche.

Adult martial artists will find much to appreciate in Barry Strauss’ Rowing Against the Current: On Learning to Scull at Forty regardless of whether their passion is traditional martial arts or self-defense training. This is no sentimental memoir, but an odyssey the ancient Homeric warriors would have applauded.

Filed Under: Books, Getting Started, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , ,

Self-Defense: The 10 Commandments

February 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Self-Defense: The 10 Commandments

Self-defense training is the sum and substance of  David James’ Vee Arnis Jujitsu.

One of its chief virtues is its checklist approach to self-defense: You have a simple, straightforward mental checklist that lists what is being done to you by your attacker and what you are going to do to him in response. In this video, for example, David James interrupts the vision of his opponent. Check. Then James interrupts his breathing. Check. Finally, he takes him off balance. Check. In other words, distract, stun, disrupt.

But that’s just the beginning. Watch and learn from one of the best.

1.       Evaluate the situation. Situation awareness is crucial. The first question you should ask is not how to do I kick the crap out of my opponent. No, the first question is how do I avoid this confrontation?

2.      The three-foot rule. If you’re more than three feet from your opponent, there is little you can do to harm him, especially if he has a weapon. If, however, he gets in your face, your survival options increase.

3.      Start from a non-threatening manner. Be humble. If you must attack, try to look weak. Let your opponent’s pride and arrogance be the cause of his destruction.

4.      Control the focus. If you must stare at your opponent, make sure you stare him down all the way. Don’t let him make you look away. That signals weakness and he’ll exploit that.

5.      Motion causes motion. Action and reaction. Cause and effect. Know how bodies react to force.

6.      Always deploy the element of surprise whenever possible

7.     Strike from the closest point.  Take the path of least resistance.

8.      Change the focus.

9.      Hit high and low. And repeatedly. Spread the pain around.

10.  Beware of backing up. Your opponent can move forward faster than you can move backward. Instead, always take the fight to your opponent. You want to be the one moving forward on the attack, not him.

Oss!

Filed Under: Getting Started, Self-Defense, Videos Tagged With: , , , ,

On Martial Arts Instructors

January 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A Good Teacher

Someone who can be sensitive while being tough and firm.

Someone who is willing to learn while teaching.

Someone who believes that learning slow gains more than learning fast.

Someone who believes that mastering small portions is much more effective than learning all at once.

Someone who listens while talking.

Someone who understands that not all students are the same.

Someone who knows his limitations.

Someone who is willing to say no and not only thinks of money.

Someone who can improvise his methods to adapt to people’s abilities and disabilities.

Someone who is happy to teach and happy to see the progress of his students.

Avi Nardia and Sage Benado
www.avinardia.com
Sunday, January 23, 2011

Filed Under: A Martial Arts Education, Getting Started Tagged With: , , , , ,
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