One of the most valuable lessons of martial arts is how to persevere when you make mistakes. Many feel like giving up. It is so easy for people to give up when they feel exhausted, and to refuse to push through. This is especially important in self-defense training. When someone [Read More]
Do you ever feel like you’re wearing a mask or must put on an act in front of certain people? Do you feel like the world has impossible expectations for you to meet—or do you put impossible expectations on yourself? Do you feel like you can’t be honest about what [Read More]
Do you want to completely transform your life positively and become an unrecognizable person to your peers? If so, martial arts and jiu-jitsu is the best way to get this accomplished. Self-improvement always starts with your health, when you get this in line the building blocks for transforming your life [Read More]
This article serves as a follow-up to my re-awakening post, “The Weirdness and Joy of Returning to Training After an Injury.” When I was a child, my dad used to make “first day of school” signs for my younger brother and me. We’d hold up our signs while grinning for [Read More]
Martial arts is a dynamic sport. It allows its practitioners to stand up to oppression and defend themselves and others. As the popularity of martial arts grew, it evolved into multiple disciplines and crossed over to other sparring sports. Different martial artists practice martial arts for different reasons. Some do [Read More]
My job is to teach people how to be safe. That’s how I earn a living and the central focus of my study. I know even if I won the lottery tomorrow, it’s still how I would devote my time. That doesn’t make it any easier when the world around [Read More]
Listening to What I Already Heard Even though I have been following Iain Abernethy for many years, it was my friend and great martial artist and physical therapist David Wallace who made me aware of this fundamentally important teaching of Mr. Abernethy’s. It was during this fascinating conversation with him [Read More]
I’ve left and returned to taekwondo three times in my life: Once as a pre-teen when other interests eclipsed taekwondo. I returned at age thirty-three as a desperate wreck looking for a fresh start. Once as a jaded black belt leaving a toxic environment. I returned a few months later [Read More]
Several years ago, during a low period in my life, I wondered if taekwondo had become yet another addiction. I’ve been addicted to many things: people, exercise, food, alcohol, thought patterns, and coping mechanisms. Taekwondo had been a saving force in overcoming the worst of my mental illnesses. Of course [Read More]
The year I started my adult taekwondo training, I had a raging eating disorder. It manifested during my teen years, peaked during college, and remained mostly contained throughout my twenties and thirties until I hit my emotional rock bottom. It quieted as I found my mental solace in taekwondo. [Read More]
Martial training is focused on the physical training emphasizing speed and power. This leads us to stretch, calisthenics or weight lifting, sparring…Yet, when it comes to the fuel that drives our training is overlooked while we punch and kick. The fuel we put into our bodies is essentially one of [Read More]
Even though it is mandatory, I was still proud to start my military service. I had been protected by soldiers since my birth. Everywhere I went, I could see a soldier dressed in their olive uniform and rifle. I knew that they kept my family and I safe. Now, it [Read More]
Any competitive sport brings on strong emotions. In many martial arts, those emotions are compounded by the intense physicality of the sport and the fact that it puts us in positions and situations that are uncomfortable, if not painful. As competitors we no doubt have experienced a sense of self-doubt, [Read More]
The Nature of the Job Brazilian Jiu Jitsu has always been my best tool as a bouncer. “If she lets go of you, will you calm down?” Our head of security was reasoning with an intoxicated female patron. I was in the process of ejecting her from the bar in [Read More]
Do You Know What You Did Wrong? I had just lost my first fight. My coach approached me and asked “Do you know what you did wrong?” “Everything,” I answered, hanging my head. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is one of the loves of my life, but also one of my main [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]
If I told you that being an expert in martial arts does not mean being an expert in self-protection, you would tell me I was crazy and list off some famous martial artists that had defended their lives in life or death situations. Or you might even point to the [Read More]
Adults… What stops adults from starting a traditional martial art? There is a martial art school at every shopping center There is a Taekwondo school on every corner. Almost every shopping center has a martial arts school. The most popular are Taekwondo and Karate schools. For some reason, adults usually [Read More]
Have you practiced today? Breath work, mindfulness, and meditation are generally the same, but each has its own focus. Breath work concentrates specifically on learning how to maximize the strength and efficiency of lung capacity for physical endurance. Mindfulness is just being present in whatever you are doing. Examples of [Read More]
2018 started off great for me, training-wise. I was never one of those people who seemed to live at the dojo, but I was maintaining a fairly regular training schedule and felt I was progressing nicely. And then, as happens all too often for many people, life got in the [Read More]
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