You’ve started to take karate lessons from your local school for some reason. Perhaps you have had a run in at the local pub or you have been mugged. Whatever the reason you have decided to learn how to defend yourself. You want to become the next Ninja Warrior! You do not want to be a MMA star but you just want that highly respected Black Belt.
You went with a reputable school that has been recommended by one of your buddies and have had your introductory lessons. The school is one of many that teach basics, self-defense techniques, katas and sparring. If you are really motivated you can do some semi or full contact sport karate tournaments later.
In this post I will focus on self-defense techniques, what they are, how long it takes to learn them well and do they work. I will also speak about beginning students with the goal of self defense and how realistic that is learning a traditional martial art. Here is a demonstration of some American Kenpo and Tracy’s Kenpo Karate techniques.
When I used to fight tournaments and have to get into fights at the bar (in my capacity as the bouncer), my favorite punch was my counter or lunge punch! Imagine if you will, an attacker rushing you. He already has the advantage of speed and power (speed and mass equal power)! You have a split second to formulate a plan and put it into action! What do you do? Well the answer for me has often involved using my counter punch!
In this post I will compare and contrast reverse and right cross punches from Boxing, Muay Thai and Karate. I will note similarities and differences and how one might use one to their advantage. I will also relate one instance where three counter punches helped me when I was attacked by six guys when I first started working at the bar. But first lets look at a boxing right cross.
As I was growing up, one of the reasons I wanted to learn karate was because I was introduced to the concept of superheros watching cartoons and reading comic books. I was a fan of Superman, Flash, Spiderman, Batman & Robin as well as Wonder Woman and Captain America!
Comics helped me understand (as well as a child can) that there were bad guys in the world and if you had a super power – you could easily thwart any antagonistic attack! Later as I entered my teen years, I realized that Kato of the Green Hornet, Robin of Batman and Robin, and James West of the Wild, Wild West all knew karate! This seemed more attainable to me as I realized that super powers did not really exist.
In this post I will give a very superficial overview (of the youtube videos) of Comic-con but I am ashamed to say that even though I live in San Diego, I have not yet attended one of these wonderful events. Here is a Comic-con martial arts demo from 2006.
I would guess that just about everyone that likes action movies has heard of the Resident Evil movies with Milla Jovovich! I was first introduced to Milla Jovovich while watching, “The Fifth Element” playing opposite to Bruce Willis. I was amazed watching her back then as a fairly new actress.
Milla Jovovich started out as a modeling and then expanded into acting and music. I reviewed her in Ultraviolet in 2007 here and have since watch the three Resident Evil movies. In this post I will highlight her three Resident evil films and offer a glimpse of the new Resident Evil Afterlife movie coming out in 2010. Here is the trailer of the first movie.
I have a recurring dream where I am fighting for my life and I come up against this big guy that is running at me. In my dream I think, cool, I’ll just hit him in his bread basket or nose and take him out! You know in real life, if someone is running at you – this is one of the easiest kind of fighters to beat! Just step off and nail the SOB!
Well in my dream I would hit the guy, kick the guy and nothing happens! It got me thinking about real life – what if this really happened!? In this article I will talk a little strategy and how to overcome a seemingly invincible behemoth! I will also look at a video of one guy that was totally impervious to pain as well as relate some stories from my life. Here is a quick into video from Moonraker and how James Bond dealt with this.
I am always looking for cool websites to add to my blog roll. I like some blogs but do not link to them because I cannot leave a comment without joining something.
I got an email from the former world heavy weight karate/kick boxing champion Joe Lewis, but did not realize it was an RSS subscription at first. Mr. Lewis has a new blog that I will highlight in this post!
I found this cool women’s self-defense website last year I think and linked am just now highlighting the site! I will give a brief overview of Cheryl Watterson’s site. I also just recently discovered Mike Ballard’s boxing website with a new twist that I will also highlight. Here is a video of Joe Lewis vs Greg Baines in one of the first full contact fights.
Karate is becoming more main-streamed and ever more accepted into venues it has never ventured before. Perhaps this is due to the generation of martial arts schools we have taken our children to in the last few decades?
I was looking for a hook for karate with models and noticed (by accident) some karate demos during a fashion show! Well you might be thinking – John there has been karate demos forever at all kinds of events! Yes that is true but in this case the models were integrated into the fashion show!
In this post I will bring some snippets of martial arts in the fashion industry and try to evaluate the direction of martial arts fashions in the years to come. Watch this first video all the way through if you can because it is sprinkled with demonstrations.
Say you are on the deck of a star ship, away from your home planet for the first time and you need to blow off some steam with your buddies. Why not stop in at the intergalactic watering hole? But what do you do if you find a creature hankering for a rumble? That is the subject of this post – what you can do to survive the bar fight – anywhere in the universe!
I come to you as a quasi expert in so much as anyone can be an expert because in my youth I was a doorman at a fairly rough bar. I talked my way out of a fight at least every other night in my capacity as a doorman because most people just want to be dealt with respectably. I will relate a few stories about some altercations that I could not avoid and some that I handled poorly (yes I too was sucked into some meaningless tussles). But first watch this excellent video on how to avoid a fight (at least for a little while)!
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