Last time we categorized martial arts in 3 categories. Those categories were striking, throwing, and grappling. Read about those categories in part one, here. Now we will further categorize martial arts into 3 more categories. I call these categories “The Art”, “The Fight”, and “The Competition”. I will elaborate more Continue Reading
Anthony Hicks III
Getting Started In Martial Arts – Part 1
Welcome to the “Getting Started in Martial Arts” series. Over the course of the last few months, I have had many people ask me how to get started in martial arts. They have asked me questions such as “Is it too late for an adult to start martial arts?”, “What Continue Reading
Transferrable Martial Arts Skills
A lot of times when we think about our martial art skills, we only think about them in terms of self defense or tournaments. Yet, our martial arts skills can help us in other situations as well. The skills we develop in training such as break falls, rolling, reaction time, Continue Reading
Surpass Your Limits
At some point in our martial arts career, even now maybe, we plateau in terms of our skill and have to work a bit harder than usual to get better. Whether we weren’t able to kick as high as we wanted, we couldn’t punch as hard as we wanted, we Continue Reading
Look
When teaching forms to beginners, I always have to remind them to look at where they want their next technique to go before executing it. It’s always obvious when they aren’t looking before moving, their technique will be off-center and sometimes not even fully executed. I have seen other instructors Continue Reading
Learn From Anyone And Everyone
One thing I quickly learned from martial arts is that I can learn something from anyone and everyone. I remember when I was in my early teens and there were black belts a bit younger than me that would try to teach me and I would think to myself “What Continue Reading
Experiencing Patience
“Patience is a virtue” is a saying we hear quite often. Yet, it is difficult for a lot of us to practice patience. Because of this difficulty we miss out on a lot of things. I know this sounds counterintuitive. We may think that not having patience and moving on Continue Reading
Black Belt is Just The Beginning
Within the traditional arts that have a belt system, oftentimes we see people get their Black Belt and stop training. People tend to believe that the Black Belt is a sign of mastery and that they have learned everything they need to about the art, which is just not true. Continue Reading
Facing Our Fear
Martial artists have to face their fears all the time. Think about how many times you have heard an instructor say in a dojo, “You can’t break the board because you are afraid of it”. How many times have you seen people get afraid in the sparring ring? Or the Continue Reading
Know Your History
We all know martial arts is more than just punching and kicking, but did you know it’s also a form of storytelling. Each martial art, especially the traditional ones, is an expression of the ideas and culture of its time. When we perform the movements of the art, we are Continue Reading