A Wise Sensei Once Said in A Dojo Not So Far away is a collection of quotes/training tips from a collection of modern and historical martial artists with analysis from the author. some of the quotes/tips featured are from leading industry experts such as Iain Abernethy, Kris Wilder and also historical figures such as Choki […]
Why martial artists should hit stuff Well first and foremost karate and combat are percussion arts and therefore how can you measure the effectiveness of your technique if you only ever kick or punch thin air? Also by never testing your technique you risk injuring yourself through poor training habits such as bent wrists or […]
The blue belt blues. In the martial arts students often stall in their progress, they feel frustrated and often struggle with motivation, this frequently happens at blue belt, but it can happen to any students of any grade. Why do we stall? Typically when we start karate our learning curve is very steep- we feel […]
It is one of my pet hates when sport fighting clubs like some tournament orientated karate schools, kickboxing clubs and Jujitsu clubs advertise that they teach self-defence. What they do is okay for some situations but consider this: Roughly 40% of self defence situations involve multiple attackers, which by its nature is a very dangerous […]
The brain is an amazing organ, it takes in and records all the information from all five or our senses. If we had access to all of our memories and were flooded with stimulus from all of our senses all the time we would struggle to focus. So to prevent us from being over whelmed […]
Shuhari is a Japanese concept which can be taken to extremely esoteric levels, but for us, as practical martial artists we should initially view it simply as three levels of learning: Shu(守?) : In this beginning stage the student concentrates on how to do the task. The goal here is to learn to control your […]
Karate Jedi It is no accident that Jedi robes look a little similar to a karate gi. Jedi were meant to look like a cross between a samurai warrior and a Buddhist monk- strong warriors but also wise and religiously devoted to their craft. Obviously, karate students don’t have lightsabers nor can we use the […]
There is a certain mysticism about becoming a black belt and even achieving a brown belt is a serious accomplishment. What is it that is so special about this achievement? Well, the answer is simple: it is not about their physical prowess although that is impressive. It is about the person they became in order […]
