Many martial arts schools today focus on belt-rank as an end goal. They have black-belt clubs, accelerated black-belt training, etc. That’s fine, and I’m sure most give good instruction. I take issue with the view that a black belt – or any rank should be an end-goal. The myth that the black belt makes you [...]
In the Western world, the practice of alchemy has a long history as predecessor to modern chemistry (it’s where we get the name), school shrouded in mystery, and practice persecuted as pseudoscience or blasphemy by the powers that be. Outwardly, alchemists main goal was to produce the philosopher’s stone, a substance rumored to be able [...]
Making a decision is a powerful mental process. In fact the word “decision” is a nominalization, the turning of a process verb into a noun. A decision is static – set in stone, unlike the process of deciding. This is an important distinction. When you decide something, you draw the proverbial line in the sand. [...]
It’s been said that the hardest part of martial arts training is getting into the car. I have seen this first hand when 11 people tell me they are coming to train and 2 show up. I don’t take it personally when people tell me they were “busy” or there was “traffic” or whatever. I [...]
The other day I posted a statistic to my facebook profile – that 70% of adult males carry edged tools, such as knives, on a day to day basis in the U.S. A couple of people called me on the statistic; I have no problem with that. I do have statistics and research methods training [...]
I am a big fan of action movies, specifically martial arts action movies. I have been my whole life. Anyone who has some training in a Reality Based Martial Art (RBMA) knows that the movies and TV have little to do with real self defense. Unfortunately many people without training, including those who shape our [...]
As a child, I was subjected to numerous surgeries, the most severe was the amputation of one of my feet. Growing up with a lower limb prosthesis was challenging and often painful experience. As a boy, my parents and several of my teachers noticed that I seemed to have a fairly high pain tolerance. My [...]
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Martial Artists Images From Flickr
