Archive for October, 2009

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.

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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.

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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!

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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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Every once in a while I am totally taken aback by a story I find on the internet, one that leaves me scratching my head (by the way if you’ve seen my head, I don’t have much hair left!). Well I found a youtube video series by a Dr. Scott Johnson entitled, “The Spiritual Danger of Martial Arts” that is kind of funny to me.

Now longtime readers of this blog know that one of my rules is to have reasonable discourse about topics, not to use personal attacks. I will resist the urge and ask any commenters to do the same. For me this is a reasonable platform to speak about Dr. Johnson’s main points and make some valid counter arguments.

Here is a PDF of Dr. Johnson’s sermon and the first youtube video below. Dr. Johnson goes off topic a lot trying to clarify his points so I suggest you might just read/skim the the 9 pages (7-15 on the PDF) as it will be faster then clicking on the videos. In this post I will give my frame of reference and rebut some of the fallacies found in this video/PDF.

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