It is amazing that, while most who are attacked with an edged weapon survive, it is still the one violent attack that tends to scare people the most. There are several possible reasons for this…among them: amount of VISIBLE injury (i.e. slasher film effect), close range of the attack (personal space is instinctive) or viciousness of attacker. But, in spite of this almost
Continue reading Fear the Blade! Defense Against Knife Attack
Is the practice of kata, or more specifically its fighting applications, an out-dated relic of a training method that can be replaced with a philosophy of “more sweat, less thought” or even discarded altogether? Or, is it possible that in many cases in the modern dojo (or dojang) there is a lack of the collective
Continue reading The True Kata Applications…Part 2
I put together this bunch of clips so I could get a look at how different forms of karate executed a basic take-down (nage- waza in Jananese). When I started training (many, many moons ago), it was in Shotokan Karate. And, being a very hard Japanese style (Okinawan origins), it focused almost exclusively on the linear techniques.
Continue reading The KARATE Ground and Pound!
It is a debate that has raged back and forth between karate traditionalists and sportsmen for YEARS; and has become as cliché in training circles as “Which came first…the chicken or the egg?” What good are the traditional blocks when competition parry blocks are much faster and more easily delivered? Traditional blocks, in most styles
Continue reading Are You Here to Play…or to Fight!?