Wednesday, November 18, 2009 is when Mike Brown is defending his title against Jose Aldo. I’ve been watching both fighters recently and have been impressed by Brown’s title defenses and Aldo’s decisive wins.
Both fighters in my view could walk away with the belt. Brown does well against pressure and may successfully defend against Aldo’s standup and ground onslaught but it should be a great fight.
By the way Tito Ortiz vs Forest Griffin is happening this Saturday and should get a mention. Its not that I am not excited about this bout but I have to snake it from the internet if I am to see any of it. This as most UFC bouts is – is a PPV event. I think Brown vs Aldo is also PPV somewhere but I can still see it on Versus TV! Here is the preview of Brown vs Aldo.
I was reminded on the incredible power of our brain recently as a window in my bathroom fell open. Before I had a chance to think, my body had jumped into a fighting stance as a surge of adrenaline shot through my body and a growl escaped my lips. It was kind of funny but as this was happening I already knew what the affront to my serenity was – the window. But like it or not, I was as ready as my body could possibly be for whatever the external environment might throw at me. This I attribute to my brain’s intervention with my normal thought processes.
The brain at an instinctive level, does not understand the legal definition of self-defense or even care about self-defense, but rather it (the brain) is concerned with self-preservation! This post is not going to cover all facets of brain power like Ki, Chi, or the sixth sense as these concepts are ways of unifying the subconscious mind with the endeavors of the conscious mind. What I will try to cover in part, in this post, is how brain power can help us achieve seemingly superhuman feats! Here is a video I found that sets the stage for this discussion nicely.
This is just a quick note that I mentioned Blood of the Last Vampire in my Halloween Self Defense; Vampires post and I just watched it. Boy let me tell you this was a good martial arts flick. The girl in this movie was quite the swordswoman and there was an interesting plot while all of the great rippage happened.
I rented the movie from Netflix after I saw it was one of the martial arts movie choices.
Thats all for now – just wanted to do a quick follow up on the movie I mentioned in the Halloween post.
In case you missed it, one of the big fights happened Saturday, November 7, 2009 – Fedor Emelianenko versus Brett Rogers! The other big fights for me (as I only get free TV and I am too cheap to buy pay-per-view) was Cyborg vs Carano and Mir vs Lesnar (I saw this over the Internet).
Strikeforce is one of the more visible organizations. They used to have kickboxing and moved to MMA. Strikeforce took over the EliteXE and aired fights on Showtime. I like that they are still having some fights on CBS.
In this post I’ll highlight some videos (not sure how long they will stay up) and talk about this fight and the middleweight championship Sheilds vs Miller.
Do you remember the last cool martial arts movie stunt you saw! I know there have been some digital animation or such to “enhance” some stunts but there seems to be a trend toward pushing the human body to new limits!
I just figured out that Extreme Martal Arts (XMA) exists as does newer iterations called Tricking. Both of these activities are not what one could call martial arts (read fighting arts) because they seem to focus more on showmanship and totally disregard self-defense and fighting. Still there are martial arts woven into these activities as well as the more traditional martial arts iterations of fighting stunts.
In this post I will briefly review Tricking, XMA and martial arts stunts and speak of the advantages and disadvantages to these disciplines. Here is a video of Pataman Gym Time Trickingschule Berlin for your perusal.
One issue more than any other separate the various martial arts training. How much contact does your martial art (read karate, boxing, MMA, Muay Thai) train with and compete? Some might view this as a measure of machismo! I mean if you spar all the time with non-contact and then get into a real fight – how prepared will you be?
I am going to review three types of commonly used contact rules and some of the types of competitions you will find these contests. Before we start I would like to make my frame of reference clear. I have come from a semi-traditional point of view in my training. I have taken some Goju Ru and Chito Ru karate as a kid in Jr. high school and then some Lima Lama karate in high school but settled on Tracy’s karate teaching Kenpo karate in high school.
The style of kenpo I studied came from Japan (the Yoshida clan) through, James Mitose, William Chow, Ed Parker, Al Tracy/Ray Klingenburg, and Richard Willett my instructor. I was taught some formalities as well as kata, self-defense techniques, and basics as part of my curriculum. To get us into the mood for this discussion, I found this video of the Village People with their hit, Macho Man.
This is the time of year to beware! Monsters and goblins are soon going to be roaming our streets. When I was a child I remember watching the scary “Creature Features” on TV featuring the werewolf, the mummy and swamp thing but one of the most scary was Count Dracula!
Now that I have grown up I am no longer scared of the dark or any creatures that might be lying in wait because I learned karate! In this post I will try and answer the question will your martial art protect you from vampires?
Do vampires really exist today? I will even entertain some of hollywood’s notions of vampires in some cool flicks but most of all I would like your little goblins to have some good skills in case a “vampire” attacks them for their candy! Here is a scene from Blade Trinity where Jessica Biel is seemingly about to become a victim of vampires!
According to a recent Justice Department report on ABC News, “1 million gang members belonging to more than 20,000 gangs were criminally active within all 50 states and the District of Columbia as of September 2008.”
That is a scary statistic that I think means that gangs outnumber our police in many cities. In this post I will try to take on a small slice of a huge problem in America (and probably the world over), is peace or violence a choice? If it is (and more to purview of this blog), how can one structure their lives to live the kind of life they want? If one wants a peaceful life, is there a martial arts solution?
Most people have already seen this shocking video about an honor student being beaten and killed in Chicago but I thought I’d open with a news story about this event to put these questions in the proper context of importance.
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