Arrogance and Its Role in Martial Arts Today I have the privilege of sharing a few thoughts with fellow martial artist and author, Duane Emsley. Duane, who’s from the UK, and I have been friends on Facebook for quite a while and he recently approached me with a fascinating idea. Duane [Read More]
Hey, I’m a Blue Belt Thanks to the wonders of Facebook, I was recently reminded that I was awarded my blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Four years ago. It’s not an unheard of amount of time to be a blue belt but it’s long enough that I’ve begun scheming [Read More]
Just wanted to confirm with everyone – yes, the site went down yesterday, 7/4/18. It was all from an effort to improve performance on the site that went horribly wrong. In the future, we’ll post on the Facebook page – here. Thank you to everyone who reached out to help, [Read More]
That one guy in the dojo who has “probably been in a hundred street fights.” That would be me! I was Born in 1972 in Daytona Beach, Florida as a biracial male raised by a single gay mother. There was no male influence in my home, but there was plenty [Read More]
The dojo has always been a place of profound wisdom, incredible perseverance and some of the best life lessons that I’ve ever learned. I believe that the true power in martial arts comes from reading between the lines of your training and learning the metaphors for life. Challenges in life [Read More]
(Edit from author: thank you for all the interest in this article. If you’d like to see more data driven articles on fighting and training, I had a new website called highpercentagemartialarts.com) In a former life, I was a data analyst at a college. I spent a lot of time [Read More]
What does legacy mean? Maybe it’s the fact that I am rapidly closing in on 50 and having to not only accept my mortality, but having to admit that I’m almost certainly closer to the date of my death than the date of my birth. Either way, I find myself often [Read More]
Everyone wants to be included into a group. It’s part of human nature. Even those who don’t fit into the “mainstream” society create their own groups to belong to. It used to be (way back in the 90’s) that comic books weren’t considered cool. I hid my comic books from [Read More]
Today’s world is full of strife and difficulties. We cannot always control what happens around us. What we can control is what happens inside of us, and martial arts play a significant role in allowing us to live positive, powerful and productive lives. Here are three ways that martial arts [Read More]
How Much Tradition is in Your karate? Back in December, Ron Amram wrote a wonderful article titled “Traditional Martial Arts – What is ‘Tradition’?” If you haven’t read it yet, click the link and do so now (or after you read this). His article got me thinking about what tradition [Read More]
Ms. Samantha Lunsford Talks About Personal Growth and Perseverance In Her Journey A while back, I came across this particular story that I knew had to be in a Positivity Post. It was about a young woman, Samantha Lunsford, who had recently competed and won a competition. That may not seem [Read More]
The Martial Arts Teacher – A Painter and a Gardener By Jonathan Bluestein As martial arts teachers, we can learn quite a lot by comparing our craft with other skillsets and types of teaching, art, and cultivation. Here in this article, you will find two such fantastic examples, with very [Read More]
Yes, you read that right. The Karate Kid. Let’s face it, it’s not a film that has a tremendous following in the martial arts community. Most don’t hate it. But it’s never on the Mount Rushmore of the genre. There’s an odd sort of resentment that The Karate Kid, of all movies, [Read More]
The most badass women I know, all do martial arts. Usually, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Not because BJJ has the market cornered on badass women. It just happens to be what I do three nights a week. In my school of about fifty students, only four or five are women. These women [Read More]
Positivity is Tax-Free! This weekly post highlights positivity in the martial arts from around the world. Unfortunately, it is far too easy to find negative stories on the internet. Positive ones, however, are harder to find. Let’s recognize and celebrate those martial artists and schools who are doing good things in [Read More]
Martial arts has many different sides to it. On one hand, you have the most obvious, purely physical side to it. And let’s face it, the physical component of the art is probably the initial draw for almost everyone. However, for most of us, that would not be enough to [Read More]
I won’t bore you with the mundane of how I became interested in the martial arts I will just get to the story. The year was 2002, I was a 30-year-old, married man with a 6-year-old son. I decided that I wanted to do karate. After talking it over with [Read More]
“What’s the best pressure point to strike during a fight?” That was a recent question posted in a karate forum. It wasn’t the question that bothered me but rather the flurry of replies: driving knuckles into the throat, finger strike to the eyes, and a litany of recommended vital point [Read More]
Ego is at the root of many issues that plague the martial arts world. Bad attitudes, unethical behaviour, ‘sensei worship’ and the ever-present and so-hard-to-avoid constant trash talking that goes on between different competitors, styles, instructors and schools. Martial Journal writer Daniel Hartz recently wrote on ego in the martial [Read More]
How Do Non-Martial Artists Develop Their Perception Of Us? Recently I had the absolute pleasure of recording a two-part podcast episode with Senseis Jeremy Lesniak of Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio, and Jaredd Wilson of Martial Thoughts. We talked about comments you often hear from non-martial artists when they find out that you [Read More]
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