Archive for April, 2014

When I owned my karate school, one of the neighboring businesses was a biker bar. One of their bartenders and I were talking about karate one day and he made the remark that if any karate guy messed with him – he would just use his gun. I retorted that would be fine if you happened to have it one you. The bartender started laughing. You see I had assumed the bartender was a law-abiding citizen and would not carry a illegal handgun.

My assumption was natural in California because up to now – only one county in the state allowed for concealed handgun permits without showing cause (that is being challenged now and may change here). So the bartender assumed since he had a fire stick – he could take care of himself if he had to against any unarmed or lesser armed man.

It this post I will challenge the bartender’s assumption as any martial artist knows like any weapons attack – you have to fully deploy it with a calm state of mind to use it. Guns are no exception. Martial artists are under no illusion that they will be ready if attacked so Bruce Lee’s famous words, “Expect the unexpected” is actually a better mantra.

I will make the case that a gun, knife, bat or whatever is no substitute for actual martial arts training. If you ever to get attacked it is going to be when you are asleep, sick, totally unaware and such so you are going to have to regroup and let your training take over. With that said – lets bust a myth. Take a look at this video to see how prepared police (arguably should be the best prepared) to take on a sudden knife attack.

embedded by Embedded Video

YouTube Direkt

Full Story »

I remember as a kid talking to a Tang-Soo-Do 3rd Dan Black Belt, the old, “What would you do if?” questions. and he told me if I tried to throw a punch, we would break the arm with out outside chop and then break my neck with a chop. He said if I tried to kick he would break my leg with a chop and then break my face with a kick… So as a 13 year old kid I was impressed. I “knew then” that blocking was very important in karate.

Later as I progressed in karate and three styles later I finally learned the truth. Blocking was what you used if all else failed. Even the faster parry or cover was more of a whoops move if you were an outside fighter like me. Blocking is for beginners that don’t have any skills yet or find themselves in a precarious situation. But for the effective outside karate fighter you mostly strike and move using critical distance, initial movement and angular attacks. The advantage of being an outside fighter is one does not have to depend on fast reflexes, blocks, parries, and a good chin to best your opponent.

In this post I’ll speak about outside fighting and why I did not block often in real fights. I want to add of you like inside fighting and banging away (trading blows), more power to you. I’m not saying that does not work too… only I did not do that for personal stylistic reasons (I did not like getting hit too often).

embedded by Embedded Video

YouTube Direkt

Full Story »

While searching the information super highway this morning for a topic I came across this story here. I could not believe what I was reading. I mean men were so threatened by women learning self defense they wanted to take the classes so women could not learn the “secret stuff” and beat them up?

While that is certainly humorous to think that, I think more is going on here. This men’s group seems to be an equal rights group for men. Maybe they are planning on suing to make some money because in some places men even go after ladies night promotions. I’m not so sure of the motivation in this case though.

In this post I’ll speak about self defense classes for women and why I think sort term women’s self defense classes should be gender biased to have the best chance at effectiveness.  First some comic relief from the onion.

embedded by Embedded Video

YouTube Direkt

Full Story »

Boy I about fell off the couch tonight watching this commercial for Autozone’s Duralast Battery. Take a gander to see what I’m talking about.

embedded by Embedded Video

YouTube Direkt

Now I have a new line, “Trust me… this battery can beat up your battery!”

Full Story »