Are you having fun?” The student grins, “Yes.” “Are you getting hurt?” He looks a little confused,”No.” “Then there’s no reason to be so tense. Relax. Breathe.” RC pointed out that in certain professions, sleep deprivation is just a natural state. Whether you’re a pager slave or you do shift work; whether it’s crossing time … [Read more…]
Something I encourage both instructors and students to do is know the difference between a basic and a fundamental. It is a concept that — to quote Professor Randall from Danzan Ryu — is “simple, but profound.” Using my old Random House Unabridged the definitions of basic and fundamental were the same until Number 3. … [Read more…]
People are afraid of violence. And some of them make the choice to train to protect themselves from violence. But training isn’t free. Not financially, not physically, not emotionally. How much do you have in your wallet or purse right now? Credit cards and stuff, too. If you are afraid of getting mugged, that is … [Read more…]
Just because something really sucks doesn’t mean it works. Remember USM J. Jone’s three rules: Anything you teach must work moving or standing still, must work when you are adrenalized and, number one, anything you teach must have a tactical use.Combat sports train hard, but they train within a ruleset. Does that make it wrong? … [Read more…]
Watched a highly ranked martial artist a while ago, and something’s been bugging me. He was smooth. He had a good explanation of what he did and why. He had a lot of little, subtle motions (subtle is not the same as fine motor skill, these were good) and some fighters I respect were impressed. … [Read more…]
There are three paths to being good. Being human, you can take multiple paths simultaneously. So maybe path is a really shitty metaphor here. But bear with me. And I’m not going to talk about fighting, at least not right away. A talented photographer sees the way a camera sees. For whatever reason, the eye … [Read more…]