One Tuesday night back in the late 1970’s I was working out at the school when a couple of Korean Stylists came in and spoke to my instructor (Dick Willett) about doing some sparring. Dick asked me to spar with these guys and I agreed as they seemed to be respectful. I believe that I had my fighting black belt at the time.

In our system, one could do an abbreviated test to wear a black belt early before the official test. The only problem with this strategy was one had to fight 10 black belts in a row and do ok against them to get the fighting black belt. I did it as I wanted to start fighting tournaments as a black belt early. I did later achieve my traditional black belt and beyond.

I fought the guy about my size and did well against him but the other big guy (I’m about 6 foot and this guy was about 6′ 4″) kept saying “Poor Form” as I was kicking his friend. You see I had been fighting lots of tournaments and had the timing down. The first guy I was fighting had some beautiful kicks but they were not connecting like mine were. You see I did not care about form at all… only if my kick or punch connected.

More about these fights later but in this post I will talk about kicking form versus substance and does it really matter? I mean what are the pros and cons of adhering to some long dead master’s view of how to throw a proper kick (no disrespect intended). I’ll finish my recollection of my fights that day in the late 70’s and the surprising (to them) outcome! Here is one video of some of the best karate kicks.

The two scenes I loved were the guy kicking the barrel and Van Damme doing that straight leg side kick! You see these kicks were done with very good form. They looked really cool but in a real fight would they work? With today’s MMA enlightened era – I would have to say any time you leave a kick hanging out there (and it did not take the guy out), you are risking a take down… kind of foolish to lock anything out… but again they looked cool.

First off good form means you execute the kick exactly they way it should be done the way it is taught. A side thrust kick done in kata many times locks out. While it is true doing the kick with good form is probably close to the most efficient way to deliver the most thrust for the least amount of effort; it also does not consider what the other guy is doing.

If you take into consideration substance or perhaps another word is the practicality or usability of the kick – often times you are not fighting a guy/guy in a side horse stance waiting for you to throw your best shot. No - your opponent is going to be moving around and be willing to take advantage of any mistakes in position or timing you might afford her. 

Lets consider you goal now… if you are testing for a belt – by all means do the kick the way you were taught. You need good form to pass the test. What if your goal is fitness? One argument might be to practice the kicks the way you would throw them in a fight because you will fight the way you train. But many people who have never taken martial arts lessons – have taken “kick boxing” at the local gym. What I am trying to say is these folks have no idea how to throw a kick if they are depending on the fitness kick boxing instructor to show them.

What is your goal is self defense or some type of fighting? Does form matter? Nope… the only criteria a fighter is held to is ‘did it work?’ I don’t mean that one should throw away all of ones traditional martial arts training but rather let it evolve in light of the new goal. Guys and gals today move around when they fight. They beg – borrow or steal whatever techniques work in the venue they are competing (or fighting in terms of self-defense)!

Do you remember boxing in the old days…. before they moved around in the right much? Boxing has evolved to today’s highly skilled fighters in the ring. Karate has made a similar transition but there is still a lot of old style fighters out there in schools that stress form. To me this is a lot like the karate tournaments where I used to compete. There for fighting  and forms competition. The form competitors looked very fluid, crisp and flawless in their execution of technique.  

Contrast the forms with the sparring competition. Fighter’s kicks looked sloppy but often times actually connected. If one tried to throw a good form kick – most of the time it would be telegraphed and not connect. The only thing that matters in fighting is if it works… how pretty it looks does not mean squat. Here is a old Keith Vitali vs Doug Smith video to demonstrate effective kicking.

Wow… Keith Vitali’s kicks did not really look sloppy to me as it is pure poetry when a kick lands but you can see what I mean they were all over the place – thrown from any position. That to me is the goal – actually connecting with a kick rather than throwing a good form kick that does not hit anything.

To finish my story – I sparred the big guy next all the while he was talking smack. Every inverted lunge punch or side kick I threw to his kidneys (in response to a high – fast kicking attack), he would growl ‘Poor Form!’ You can see how that might be irritating. I kept my cool as only cool heads can fight and if this guy actually connected with me – it would have been bad. You see my fighting weight back then was 165 and this guy was easily 220.

But in this guy’s defense, all of his kicks were very good form and hard kicks. I quickly realized that I would not be able to absorb any of them so since this guy was going hard – I went hard in my counters. I took no chances and fought a defensive – outside fight. I mean I fought from the outside and did not commit. As his attacks came at me, I would either side-step or back off and counter-strike to his kidneys with a inverted counter-punch or side-kick mostly right after his attack missed!

After about 10 minutes of this I called the match because he had not hit me and I was hitting him at will. His unfriendly banter and not ceased so by calling the match I was ready to take him out if he continued. But he and his friend still had minimal respect for our school and my instructor sat down them them and I and explained to them that form is good but connecting is more important in open tournaments. The guy admitted that I had one hell of an inverted counter punch and showed me his bruised kidney. We parted respecting each other but I hope I impressed on them the importance of substance over form.

I learned how to fight as a kid out of necessity but I did not really think of girls fighting. I mean that it did not happen when I was a kid. Girls were the weaker sex and they were too nice. Girls did not seem to have the ‘killer instinct’ boys did to do whatever it took to win, or even fight!

As I grew up I was exposed to the idea of women fighting. Yes girls were weaker than boys but with karate or judo, a few fighting tricks, I reasoned could even up the score. 

In this post I am going to explore the idea of women having the ‘fighting spirit’ necessary to win a fight, I will also look back a bit to the fabled Women Amazon Warriors and then comment about some of today’s women fighters. To get this started here is probably one of my first exposures of a woman warrior – Wonder Woman!

Wonder Woman to me was a great example of how a woman could fight and even beat men! If you stop and think about it – strength is not everything in a fight. For instance if you are really strong but cannot hit the other person – you cannot beat the other person. I did not think too much about Wonder Woman’s skimpy costume at the time but grown up – I can see how this show was marketed to increase TV ratings!

Did Amazon Warrior Women really exist? I found some information on a Ancient Greek’s – Who were the Amazons website, that seem to backup the existence of a race of fierce warrior women. Here is an excerpt of this webpage:

Outside of the questions of the Amazon origins, other questions pertaining to Amazons concern their view of men, and if they were a fierce (blood thirsty) people. The Greeks often questioned (as do modern scholars) how the Amazons, a race composed entirely of women, were able to sustain themselves throughout the generations. The most credible theory holds that the Amazons had contact with men from other lands, the Amazons kept the female children born to them, and sent the male children to live with their fathers. As to the Amazons blood thirsty nature, Quintus Smyrnaeus wrote of them during the Trojan Wars:

“In the pure rapture of triumph the Amazons charged, and with anguished groans and shrieks the Greeks perished, their manhood withered by the women from the fierce and untamed northlands. Like Goddesses amidst earth born heroes the Amazons pursued their reeling foes, dashed them down, cut them apart, and, scoffing, tossed them through the air – till the Greek formations dissolved in consternation.”

It really looks like throughout history women have had to take up arms and fight for their survival alongside men! I don’t really know why this would be surprising and I think it should be empowering to women to know they are capable of fighting! Here is a video that discusses a couple of iterations of the Amazon women briefly for your perusal.

It seems the world over women have had to defend what was theirs but in the case of Amazon’s – it seems they have banded together to be safe from men. What a novel concept! Humans have always done what it takes to survive. In history, survival has been supreme – I mean to say that you and I, brothers and sisters are the cream of the crop! We and our ancestors have survived all of the wars and injustices of the past to get to this point.

What I am hoping to impress on the readers that have been dumbed down by civilization, is that men and women are quite capable of learning to fight and in today’s context – learn self-defense!

What does it take for a woman to have the warrior spirit? In karate we used to call this fighting spirit when teaching sparring so one could understand that a fight was more then the sum of the kicks, punches, parries and foot work. Fighting called for a drive or strong will and the belief that one could win the fight! Here is one video of women that have successfully learned fighting spirit!

The boxer that recounted the tale of punching a guy that tried to touch her reminded me of my wife, Sly a year back having to defend her honor against a pig at a bar! Sly was out with her sister and girl friends at a local bar and a guy was trying to get friendly. After rebuffing him a couple of times the guy copped a feel of her thigh when she looked away. To his surprise Sly back elbowed him in the face and challenged him to a fight in the parking lot.

The guy backed down in light of the peer pressure so she did not have to resort to fisticuffs but you can see what lengths women have to go to get some respect!  One woman fighter in MMA today that is commanding the respect of both men and women is Christine “Cyborg” Santos. Chris has been seemingly easily running through the ranks and captured the title last year in a widely watched fight against Gina Carano. Here is video  of Chris Cyborg demolishing Jan Finney.

Chris Cyborg would give any normal guy in a bar devastating loss if the messed with her. I thing she embodies what fighting spirit is by her non-nonsense attitude and her attention to training. Jan Finney did ok but did not really understand how to distance herself properly so Cyborg was able to connect with most of her punches easily. Finney is a good tough fighter in her own right as she was able to hang in there a round.

I think today’s women fighters embody the ancient Amazon Warrior Spirit and it is easy to imagine any of these women picking up the weapons of the day to defend what is theirs – just as the Amzaon woman of folklore did in the days of old. So the next time you wonder whatever became of the Amazons – look across the kitchen table to see the new breed of potential Amazons and mind your manners!

I don’t know about you but I came of age in the 1970’s. At that time the Kung Fu TV series was airing and the most popular karate movie was Enter the Dragon! It is against this backdrop that I started taking karate lessons. First Okinawan karate at my jr. high school and later I took a couple of years of Lima Lama. I attained my first rank in Lima Lama – ultimately becoming a Blue Belt. Later I went on to learn Kenpo Karate and attained many degrees of Black Belt.

By now most people understand that belt ranks are analogous to grades in school but do the belt systems hold any real value to martial arts students today? That is the question I will ask in this post along with some examination of the expectation and meaning of “attaining rank” in today’s modern fighting systems.

First off, here is a video depicting the belt requirements of some martial arts.

Martial arts belt systems have gone from no belts to very limited belts (white, brown, black), to what we have today. Every system has their own grading and criteria that makes it hard for anyone to know what a belt means.

When I was growing up I thought a black belt was the baddest person on the planet! I grew up watching martial arts movies where the masters (the red belts) would fly through the air and fight. I did not really believe that they could do that but I was still in awe of the possibilities.

I remember talking to one navy guy who confided in me after he drank a few beers, that if someone tried to punch him – he would block with a chop (breaking his arm) and karate chop the neck. The same for a kick (chop the leg (breaking it) and counter chop the neck!

As a teenager I bought into the whole mystical karate master thing. I had one doubt though when I watch Tarzan beat a 10th degree karate master in a fight – I chalked that up to Tarzan being a muscle man… and the king of  the jungle!

Other martial arts, broadly interpreted include; boxing, wrestling, kick boxing, MMA and even street fighting (although this is not formalized) do not included belt rankings. You have to know the person, his or her record, or get into the ring to find out how good he is (his rank).

I have a brother in law who was taking karate lessons as a kid and got challenged to a fight. My wife told me before he would fight he told the guy to wait a minute. He ran into the house and suited up in his karate gi and belt! I don’t know if he won or lost. :) 

Will your karate or judo belt (or kung fu sash) help you in a fight? Will the simple knowledge that you have a black belt strike fear into an attackers heart? Will a mugger bow out to you and not attack? Will women (or men) throw themselves at your feet when you walk into a room (ok – I’m getting carried away)?

NO! (but wouldn’t that be nice)

Take a look at this guy’s perspective on what the belt rankings represent and I will give you my thoughts.

This guy makes some good points but having said that – it does not preclude “systems” from creating grading standards and holding their students to them to attain rank.

Schools have to teach something to their students and have a way to tell if the student is advancing. Or at least this is the schools’ argument on this matter. How would a school keep a student’s interest if he or she were not granted privilege and respect for having advanced? 

While I have bought in to the whole belt system thing as that was the era I grew up in; if you wanted to learn how to kick and punch – the only real arbiter of martial arts is your ability to FIGHT!!!

I have always believed that to be a black belt, you had better be able to fight your way out of a paper bag! I don’t care how much kata, basics or how long you have tried to learn karate, but only if you can fight or not.

I have watched with distaste (toning down my feelings and vernacular on this matter for public consumption) as some schools publisized10 or 12 year old black belts? What! Talk about cheapening the already watered down public perception of what a black belt is – I do not agree with any other standard for testing a black belt other than fighting ability. To me – the katas, basics, and techniques are all fluff (important for the schools grading criteria but not in the real world).

Ok – off of my soap box but I had to get that out.  If I was a kid growing up to day, my guess is I would be enthralled by MMA! Just like if I had come of age in the 80’s (I might have gone right into kickboxing) or the 90’s (I might have gone straight into jiu jitsu) I would have been highly influenced by the flavor of the day martial art.

So do I think belt rankings are important? No but I think whatever martial art you take – you should know how to fight. While I like kata ok and understand that many traditional schools (and still a lot of non-traditional schools) teach formalized moves to keep up student’s interest and have a measure for martial arts grading – I don’t think it is the only way to do this.

Especially today when it should be more apparent than ever, that there is no one “best” style and belt ranks do not equate to fighting ability (and perhaps never did). A person’s ability and work ethic is the most important thing when it come to the only true measure (my opinion) of a martial artists rank – FIGHTING ABILITY!

I hope you have enjoyed my perspective on martial arts belt rankings and take it with a grain of salt. I am a Godan, master of kenpo karate and I wear a black belt with a red stripe down the middle. I’m not taking that belt off any time soon.

I’ll close with this song that has always resonated with me about the importance of teaching our children.

When I first started taking karate lessons at Tracy’s Karate, I asked Dick Willett how he could teach me to be a good fighter. He said that knowing how to kick and punch was not enough but rather I would learn how to connect the strikes.

What does it take to win a fight? That is what I will examine in this post. Remember the first Ken Norton vs Muhammad Ali? Norton was widely reported to have undergone hypnosis to get the edge in that match. If someone beats you in a match – was he or she just a better fighter? How can you consistently become a fighter that wins opposed to collect a paycheck?

To set the stage lets look at this humorous video of Dolf Lundgren’s.

Interesting, so if you learn karate – you win fights, girls and money! If so I’d bet many would want to learn that! Well let me set the stage. You are a black belt at a popular school, known for turning out good fighters. Many of the fighters are more accomplished than you and you have to fight them all during open sparring.

Are you nervous? The first couple of months you get beaten in most matches but you justify this as they are better than you. Is that acceptable? Hobnobbing with the greats will somehow through osmosis teach you to be a better fighter? I say NO!!! You have accepted mediocrity!

Is there ever a justification for a fighter to believe that someone out there is better than he or she? Here is Bas Rutten’s view point on winning.

What I like about Bas’s philosophy is he fights to win. It is unacceptable to believe that anyone can beat him. I don’t know about you but when I fought – this is how I was. How can that be? I mean how can every good fighter be the best fighter in the world? My answer is they are all impostors.

Protect yourself with protective cups for boxers.

No seriously that is my attitude but it takes more than a winning attitude to become the best at anything (sorry Tony Robbins). You need to have something concrete that you can grab onto… that you can control to be able to truthfully tell yourself that you are the best in the world.

Norton believed that he could beat Ali in this fight. Another aside here – I was just a kid in 1973 but my friends and I rode our bikes up to Clairemont hospital when Ali was getting his jaw treated. Here is the last round and decision of that fight and then I’ll talk about what worked for Norton.

So did the hypnosis help Norton win? Who knows but he believing in himself only helped him put all of the hard work training he did – to good use. I tend to believe that Norton had it in him to win anyway but often the difference between winning and losing is a state of mind.

The more important lesson here is Norton did not figure out how he won and subsequently lost the next two fights to Ali.

Here is the secret stuff – the object of this post. You have to figure out how to win if you want to consistently beat your opponent. Part of the puzzle is to adopt a winning attitude and train hard. The most important way to consistently win is to not look at how great a fighter your opponent is but rather your shortcomings.

What do I mean? If your opponent is able to jab you – is he just better than you? Nope.

If you opponent can submit you – is he a better fighter than you? Nope.

If you opponent knocks you into next week – is a better puncher or kicker than you? Nope!

Do you get it yet? You cannot do anything really about how well another person fights. True you can watch film of his or her previous fights and try and figure out the best strategy but you cannot make him or her fight bad (short of drugging him).

So what are you in control of here? Have you guessed it yet? You are in control of you! Yes! You can only control you so if someone gets in a “lucky” punch – that is your failing! Let me repeat. If someone punches you – he or she is not better than you but rather you made a mistake!

So the secret is out. Now you know there is no one better than you. If someone beats you it is your failing. You let him or her win!

So here is what you do, what I did. If you have a good instructor or trainer. Ask him/her what you did wrong to get hit and then learn an effective counter strategy. Practice and then deliver on your plan.

You no longer ever have an excuse for believing that anyone in the world is a better fighter than you! If you do – stop fighting. You have defeated yourself already.

I hope this sage wisdom has helped you realize that positive thinking, lot of practice and the belief that you are the best fighter in the world (along with the knowledge that if you lose – you messed up – the other guy is not better)  is the winning ticket! Now grasshopper – go into the world and lose no more.

Before I begin there are some great fights coming tonight in the WEC! Varner vs Henderson should be good to watch plus the two former WEC Featherweight champs (Brown and Faber) are each fighting others to get back in line to challenge Aldo.

The hardest thing about writing this blog is to stay on focus to the chief point I am trying to make or examine. This post is about how to fight using some type of martial art. One might view this topic as overly broad but in my mind it is easy.

I will first talk about martial fighting arts and some popular contests that portray martial artists fights! I will talk about what is fighting and then how one could use martial arts to fight in whatever venue you select. Finally I will wrap this up with how I fight with martial arts. Here is a quick video from the old Kung Fu series that explains how a wise man behaves.

Why did I select this video for fighting? Because I could If I wanted, get into a fight every single day by not overlooking perceived slights of others in my daily life. First and foremost fighters ought to be modest. There is no reason other than self defense (or fighting for ones country) to get into a real fight that I can think of but let me know if you can think of one.

What is a martial art? Popular opinion has it that martial arts are oriental but more broadly defined, a martial art is any fighting art. This is how I view fighting, not from the view point of some ancient fighting art in a temple but rather from all of the fighting arts in the world.

Some popular martial arts are boxing, wrestling, karate, jui jitsu, muay thai, and the most popular today - mma. My background is in kenpo karate from a non-formal, semi-traditional style (meaning we are Americanized but retain some formalities from Japanese karate).

So as you might imagine fighting can mean different things from style to style, fighter to fighter, and from contest to contest. The only “real” fighting is what one uses in self-defense!

There is not universal method of fighting that is accepted but rather many different ways and philosophies that fighters will offer up proof of what their favorite fighter did to make his or her point!

Do you understand there is no right answer? Each contest will trot out their champion and say he or she is the best fighter in the world but what they are really saying is with their rules, these fighters are the best we have found.

Do the various contest closely mirror what a “real” fight will be like? I don’t think so but any world rated fighter would beat 95% of the world’s population in a one on one fight with any rules I would bet. There is a lot to be said for proper conditioning, training, and a lot of sparring practice!

Still what about the run of the mill fighter in any contest? There are a lot of the run of the mill fighters and just mean son of a (female dog)’s out there that make contests like toughman exciting. How would a normal martial artist do against an average street thug or common fighter? It depends on how he or she trains.

In both formal and non-formal karate styles for instance, one learns how to do various kicks and punches as well as kata and some drills or self-defense techniques. This is just laying the groundwork for what is really important in marital arts – fighting!!!

Before we actually talk about fighting, I would like to dispel a myth I see over and over again. I see many videos about a  defense for a grab, punch, knife or gun attack that just would have no chance of working unless the attacker messed up. Here is one such attack and defense and I will explain.

So you can see a guy sitting on the park bench somehow has noticed a guy with a knife about to strike him from behind. I will say if you happened to notice the guy, this technique would work, but what I am disputing is how often would you see a guy from behind about to stab you unless you had ESP?

When I first started learning karate and went to one of Tracy’s Karate School’s for my interview, Dick Willett told me he would not only teach me how to do all of the kicks and punches but how to make them connect! He also told me about tournament fighting and assured me that when I became a kenpo black belt – I would be able to handle myself in almost any fighting situation!

I did not care about the formalities, the belts, attaining rank, or the fancy certificates, but rather at first I just wanted to know how to fight effectively against anyone – no matter how big or strong!!!

As I mentioned before the way people fight differs widely but one thing I noticed fighting tournments in the late 70’s and early 80’s – Tracy’s fighters were widely respected. You see Al Tracy enlisted Joe Lewis to fight on Tracy’s Karate Teams and Tracy’s black belts adopted many of the fighting strategies Joe used. Joe Lewis has his own organization and published criteria for fighting here.

My instructor, Dick Willett knows Joe personally and has taught Joe Lewis’s fighting principles to all of the black belts of Dick Willett’s American Kenpo Karate. The black belts have attended seminars from Joe Lewis over the years. So you see we have been heavily influenced by Joe Lewis (indirectly from Bruce Lee as Joe has incorporated many of Bruce’s methods into his own fighting sytem). I should say to gain your own insight into Joe Lewis’s mind, visit his blog here.

So how to I fight? I fully endorse the K.I.S.S. fighting method. I mean learn a couple of three fighting techniques and get good and them. Then practice sparring under your instructor’s watchful eye and learn how to become a great fighter.

Get a great sparring gear set from Macho.

I used semi-contact, open karate tournaments to gain my initial fighting experience. I was able to work on my distance, timing, counter punch and my side kick. I also threw a mean jab/back fist and flip kick.

Now I can hear many of you through my computer screen – what does point karate have to do with “real” fighting? I guess it kind of depends on you definition of “real” fighting.

I view “real’ fighting as the closest thing to self-defense. I mean boxing, jui jitsu, wrestling, muay thai, judo, or mma have too many rules to be truly effective in a street fight unless your opponent was inept. Now please do not take me to task for this comment as it is only my opinion/reality.

I think fighting ought to be close to what one would really use. In a street fight for self defense I would kick a guys knees, shins, or groin as a first strike – all of which are illegal moves in all of the above contest except the groin is open in point karate tournaments.

It is not that I don’t think a good mma fighter would do well in self-defense, only that he would have to transition to accept the leg and groin kicks I mentioned if he was going to be effective against a trained point fighter.

So I did not really intend to open a debate of what is best for fighting, only depending on what you are trying to accomplish – it matters how you fight! My favorite example I’ve heard from my instructor (Dick Willett) is, “You would not train in flag [American] football, and then go try to play tackle.”  

So to wind this up, my preferred method that takes into account all attacks providing one is aware and uses some common sense, is to to use initial movement, critical distance, and my leg kicks and counter punches from the outside! My preference is to not be an inside fighter because of the greater chance of trading blows with a trained fighter. I’d rather give a trained fighter no chance of winning due to a flawed strategy on my part.

What is your favorite way of fighting and would it also work against a trained fighter in a self-defense scenario? Cutting this off here as I’m about to watch the WEC!