A subject of relevance for all regardless of any martial arts participation. A recent story on Radio Five Live detailed how two blokes chased another, beat him with a cricket bat and a metal pole, rendering permanent brain damage; the cricket bat actually broke in three pieces! The accused, two brothers, were sent to jail after being found guilty of GBH with intent. An open and shut case, fair enough, but was it? The...
Bruce Lee is a bit of an icon and means a lot of things to a lot of people but despite the myth he did speak a lot of sense. My favourite Bruce Lee quote comes from the start of Enter the Dragon, in the clip below. “Don’t think feeeeeeeel” I’ve used that quote over the years many many times. I have written on here about developing a sense of body awareness or feeling,...
I can clearly remember the outrage around the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence, in 1993, and subsequent attempts to bring the perpetrators to justice. Today I heard the testimony of Stephen’s friend Duwayne Brooks on radio five live. It was read out by the court reporter as yet another trial has just begun this week. The wikipedia account of the death of Stephen Lawrence gives a clear synopsis of events surrounding the case to date. It’s a...
One analogy used in martial arts concerns bow’s within the body. I first heard of this from Steve Rowe at Shikon then later Steve Morris. I didn’t find it all helpful initially but now I love this analogy and, importantly, it’s useful in getting the body to generate power ‘naturally’. Steve Morris blogged about bows in the article ‘loading against the curve’, referring to the construction of a reflex bow. While this helped I...
I’ve just come across an excellent article which could serve as a great reference for self defence classes but the post reputes that MMA shares principles with self defence. On the whole, it is very good, but it suffers from a bias against MMA rampant in the self defence fraternity and it’s one that bugs me. Put simply self defence classes and MMA share more than people would like to give credit. Many think...
On Sunday myself and two training partners had a go at the infamous Tough Guy course in Perton a few miles west of Wolverhampton. Although not exactly martial arts related it was a lot of fun, that’s for sure. We signed up online in January for a cost of £104, most of which goes on safety considerations. The one lad suggested it and me and my mate agreed to give it a go. The...
One of the Goju kata’s, Saifa, translated as tear and destroy is partly about creating a whipping motion into your strikes. I first came across the notion that this concept was apparent in saifa when watching Higoanna Sensei’s Goju Kata video made in the 70’s I think. The videos came in a horrendously expensive set, which provided performance and bunkai to all Goju kata. My copy wasn’t expensive and wasn’t original. In fact, the...
In a previous post I postulated that the preferential level of physiological arousal required for MMA or a fight is similar to the concept of mushin in Japanese Martial Arts, rather than a raging state. The following quote is from a short piece on developing mushin through makiwara training Makiwara training also develops mushin, which literally means “no mind”. If you only concentrate on the pad in front of you, your sense of awareness...
I was given an indoor bike a while ago. It’s not exactly modern, in fact it’s probably 20 years old. The picture is from the user manual and is so cheesy I love it, if only I had a nice white track suit! There is a speedometer and a pretty hopeless timer, it is similar to the old fashioned kitchen timers, complete with bell!While it is not fit for a regular spinning class it...
Recent Comments