Tweet When I was a boy I was drawn to martial arts mainly because of images in the media. I saw Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee beating up bad guys. I saw the Karate Kid win the tournament. This was inspiring, but even more spoke to my insecurities with a promise to become someone more […]
Tweet Chi, also spelled qi (or ki in Japanese) is one of those things in the martial arts that generates a lot of controversy. For those who don’t know chi is the supposed mystic power, used in the martial arts to do seemingly miraculous feats. The word chi itself is almost synonymous with the phrase […]
Tweet 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 […]
Tweet “Think Evil” is at the heart of the Security Mindset… ~Patrick Heim, CISO of Kaiser Permanente from the preface to Hacking Exposed 6: Network Security Secrets & Solutions In my experience people are generally good. Most of us don’t want to believe we’re evil or that we do bad things. When we do “bad” […]
Tweet The purposefully provocative title of this post is meant to point out a “truth” about martial arts and self defense. In Ketsugo Jujutsu we say that the three possible ways to finish a defense are to kill, cripple, or control. We say that killing is for soldiers, crippling for bodyguards, and control is for […]
Tweet Make contact, keep it. That’s a basic philosophy of our system or ketsugo jujutsu. When someone throws a punch or a kick, or moves in to grapple – they are giving us a gift by presenting us a set of targets for attack. It’s a good idea not to box a boxer, or wrestle […]
Tweet 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 […]
Tweet Kuzushi (崩し) is a Japanese word for unbalancing an opponent. It comes from the verb kuzusu, meaning to pull down or demolish. You’ll find it commonly used in jujutsu and derived arts such as judo and aikido. Normally it is the act of taking an opponent’s balance rendering them incapable of counterattack. In most […]
Tweet Let me start by saying that nothing here is meant to denigrate BJJ or MMA in any way. As a rule, I do not criticize other systems. The BJJ guys I know are amazing martial artists and great athletes. My issue with the name Brazilian Jiujitsu (or Jiu-Jitsu) is a personal hangup, but bear […]
Martial Arts photos from Flickr
