Commentary

The Essential Films of Jet Li Jet Li began training in Wushu at the age of eight and quickly rose through the ranks in Chinese competition. Over the course of nine years, Li joined the Beijing Wushu team and racked up metals everywhere he went. At seventeen, Li called it [Read More]

So, you do martial arts? Whenever you tell someone that you do martial arts, I’ll near guarantee that what pops into their head is an image of rows of people in white gi punching in unison to the commands of an instructor in the front of the room. Although that [Read More]

Martial artists are, generally, great people. In fact, I’ve long maintained that martial artists are a better group of people than non-martial artists. I’ve done a fair bit of traveling, and I suppose I may be biased, but I have found martial artists to be more sensitive, compassionate, and caring [Read More]

Time to Learn Time is often considered a relative concept, forever fleeting.  Yet we chase it with steadfast determination. We all know when it’s time to learn. In the world of martial arts, it is a paradox that is both vexing and humbling. Simply put, martial artists have a skewed [Read More]

Introduction Unless you’ve been isolated from pop culture for the last decade you’ve most likely heard of Avatar: The Last Airbender. If that’s the case let me summarize it. It’s an animated tv series that aired from 2005 to 2008 on Nickelodeon set on a fantasy world with elements from [Read More]

Foreword You might’ve heard there’s a new Kung Fu tv series coming. For those who might not know, there was a tv show back in the ’60s called Kung Fu, starring the late David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine. The protagonist, a Chinese American man raised at the Shaolin Monastery, [Read More]

We, the traditional martial artists of the world, are a weird lot. But I probably didn’t need to tell you that. See, unlike nearly every other hobby, sport, pursuit, and pastime, we put an awful lot of stock in the way our preferred way of spending time is represented in [Read More]

Essential Films of Jackie Chan Jackie Chan is one of the most famous names in the world. No matter where you go in the world, the name Jackie Chan will spark a conversation. His career has spanned well over fifty years and he has starred in over a hundred films. [Read More]

Donnie Yen Donnie Yen is widely recognized as the modern king of Kung Fu cinema. His acting career has spanned four decades and isn’t slowing down. Such a long career has provided so many classic films. But with a long filmography comes intimidation for new viewers. It’s like coming across [Read More]

In Krav Maga, we train to make the best of a bad situation. We use hard times to grow and improve and learn new skills that will benefit us.  Yes, the COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating. Gyms have been forced to close and I have been without a classroom to [Read More]

In order to examine the issue of women in martial arts, I think the first factor we have to examine is how martial arts is marketed towards women.  After a lot of googling, I saw martial arts are often marketed very differently to women in three ways, which all impede [Read More]

Is Change Necessary? Necessity is often the mother of invention and in a post-COVID 19 world, it will be interesting to see how the martial arts community adapts. We have already seen the rise of online training surge as schools cling desperately to retain students. But will this be the [Read More]

Karate and its identity in the world of sports is something it has struggled with ever since the thought first occurred in Japan. Many practitioners feel that this segue into sports has caused the de-evolution of the art, stripping away the roots of self-protection that are the glory of karate. [Read More]