Archive for April, 2008

Many of you may be wondering what is the best style or martial art for self-defense? There are many good martial arts schools that teach adaptive self-defense moves that also teach the traditional martial arts. People often ask me what is the best way to learn self-defense. The short answer is to find something you like for the time commitment you want to make, and then follow through.

Almost any martial art will work in self-defense if one practices but it must be suited for the student. For instance if a woman wanted to learn how to fight in two weeks, I would not suggest a formal Kung Fu or Karate school (unless they also taught self-defense courses), but rather a self-defense course. If a woman wanted to learn an art form as well as some practical self-defense then almost any martial art will be good (Kung Fu, Karate, Jiu Jitsu, Judo, Aikido and so on). Here is a short video of a Kung Fu school with a self-defense offering.

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I have been hearing about Cung Le for the past year from my wife’s nephew, Tony Corleone, who has contributed some rap music to Cung Le’s bouts. I have not seen Cung Le in person but I have been reviewing some of his videos after he took the middleweight title from Frank Shamrock. This guy is a fighter after my own heart! I love to see a striker compete in MMA. Here is a video of some of Cung Le’s highlights.

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I’ve been watching a couple of hours of the T.O.P. (Toughest Operational Personnel) Army Fighter series on the Military Channel (105 on COX South San Diego) yesterday. I am impressed with how our military is being taught to fight. A good overview of this series is found at MMAJunkie.com.

Safety is a great concern during the military version of MMA so while it is OK to use a leg lock, it is not OK to twist the foot because these guys are actually shipping out to Iraq. I found a short clip of one popular fighter that fights MMA and T.O.P. Army Fighter for your perusal.

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The following story is of my wife (let me call her Sly) using self-defense when she was a kid! I should explain that she came from a large family with a single working mother for most of her teenage years. Her mother was away a lot and the kids went unsupervised. I have edited this account to remove much of the identifying information.

I decided to publish this becuase there are probably lots of young girls living in unsupervised conditions due to single working parents. Sly has been a fighter ever since we met and had to use her wits to escape many times when she was younger. I will publish self-defense stories of people not trained in karate to show that anyone can use their wits to increase their chances of survival! This is written in the first person – I will hold my comments until the end.

Watch out for those peeping-toms!

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Picture from here.

 It is with great pleasure I would like to notify the readers of this website that Joe Lewis (former point and  world heavy-weight full contact karate champion) and Dean Lister (U.S. National Sambo champion,  a U.S.  Machado National Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and  National Gracie Jiu Jitsu Champoin) are giving a seminar on June 14, 2008 at Rancho Bernardo (just north of San Diego, CA). Joe Lewis is also planning a seminar on June 12, 2008 at Chandler, AZ (near Phoenix, AZ).

Picture from here.  

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What is going on? I have been looking for stories of women defending themselves against attackers and I found a bunch of articles about women punching, hitting sharks and saving puppies and kittens against pythons! I have never had an issue with sharks – I’ve seen a few blue sharks and leopard sharks while scuba diving but I have had an altercation (for me) with a Torpedo Ray.

Jessica Alba reportedly while filming “Into The Blue,” had to punch a shark in the nose that got too close to her – story here. Another woman kayaking off of Australia, had a Great White capsize her kayak and try to eat her. She responded by hitting the shark repeatedly with her paddle until the shark swam away (story here)! Both of these woman let the sharks know there would be no easy meal here! I found a promo picture of Jessica posing for the release of her movie, “Into The Blue.”

Photo from: http://www.320by480.com/wallpaper/?id=1102

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