Archive for January, 2008

Anyone who has known me for a long time, has heard me poke fun at flying kicks. I had to learn how to do various flying kicks to get my first degree black belt but I have seldom had use one in a fight. I had lots of opportunity to fight for the couple of years I was a bouncer at a bar.

Ok… I can think of one time when a flying kick worked, I was chasing a couple of guys down the street that had thrown something into the bar… startled I ran out and saw two guys running away. I was young and gave chase. They were just trying to get away in a car they had just opened and I jumped the last few feet to smash the car door (with a flying front stomp kick) into the driver. That caught his attention and he had to explain himself. 

Mostly though, I have ridiculed flying kicks because one cannot change direction in the air (a real disadvantage in a fight). Here is the highest flying side kick I could find on the web executed by a William Fincher.

Picture from: http://www.kimsookarate.com/gallery-present/paraKick.htm

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My first experience with a regular karate school was with Tracy’s Karate Studios - San Diego in 1976. I had studied some Okinawan Karate as well as Lima Lama from the base karate club. I knew the basics but did not know how to put kicks and punches together to mount a successful attack. Still, I thought I knew everything but was determined to know more. I saw the Tracy’s Karate commercials that aired during the Kung Fu series playing on TV at the time and decided to give Tracy’s a try.

I called up Tracy’s and spoke to Dick Willett about my interests and he told me to come on down to take the first five lessons – to see if I liked it before I signed up! I went for the initial lessons and quickly was impressed by teaching methods. As I said. I already knew how to kick and punch but I had a problem connecting with my opponents. Dick told me about critical distance and initial movement he had learned from his tournament days and his associations with Joe Louis (the undisputed heavy weight full contact karate champion of the late 60′s through early 70′s) and I was properly impressed! Here is a picture of Dick Willett as I remember him after I started taking lessons.

Picture from http://members.tripod.com/hungahungas/akksandiego.htm. Pictured are Todd McElhinney, Irvin Hoffman, Joe Lewis, Dick Willett, David Hays, & Frank Mafnas (left to right).

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Many of you have been in the situation where you have had to fight or bluff an animal to gain the upper hand. We here at My Self-Defense Blog believe you have to be ready for any situation. What if your plane crashed over Alaska on the way to a karate tournament? How would you eat? And more importantly are you on the top of the food chain? Here is one karate practitioner that has meditated and answered this ageless question.

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I’m not sure if any of you have following the Smallville series but Laura Vandervoort is playing Supergirl! I remember the old comics when I was growing up when Supergirl would make an appreance. In real life this Supergirl can really kick! Here is a photo from her photo shoot on her web page (lauravandervoort.net)

Photo from http://lauravandervoort.net/gallery/Press-publicity?page=2 of Laura attending “Wizard World Comic Convention” in Texas.

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I think most kids at some time or another have been bullied. I was a military brat that moved every couple of years. I remember at one school in the 5th grade a kid who always pushed me around. I did not know what to do so I tried to walk away. That seemed to give the bully courage and he would yell at me. He started using me as his punching bag. My dad freshly back from Viet Nam, told me that I had to stick up for myself. He told me that if a kid hit me, I should hit him back. Here is one video filmed by kids that talk about the problem of bullying at school.

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I just saw a fight on youtube.com from the Dutch TV program, ” Try Before You Die,” where this average guy (not a fighter but a fan I think) got to fight a female Muy Tai (I’m guessing) fighter! This fight went as I thought but it would have been better if the guy had some fighting skills. He moved around a bit but could not really put an attack together. Trained fighters of either sex are a force to be reckoned with for anyone. By the way this video is in Dutch (I think) but you can get the gist of it. You can wait until the buffer loads and then just move the video about half way to see the fight.

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Ilonka Elmont vs Philemon

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About half of the content of this blog has been about self defense issues and the rest have been about general karate topics. While I review many things, I want you to know that I feel strongly about helping folks find a self defense solution that works! I reviewed the Kelsey Smith story that broke on June 2, 2007 about a girl being abducted from a Target parking lot in Overland Park, KS. I like most martial artists believe that if you cannot break free from the abduction; your chances of survival are limited. Here is a video of a self defense school donating some time to teach local women (AustinSelfDefense):  

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