We were having a blog meeting and while going through all of the articles that we have saved for the future, someone said, “yeah David, you have 10 articles you can take a break!” While the recognition was nice, there was something about the statement that bothered me. You see, Continue Reading
David Paprocki
How I Met Anthony
When I began my studies in Electrical Engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology, I was a rather shy person. I had desired to start a martial arts club on campus, but I thought it would be worthwhile for me to stop in and try out the Jujutsu class and Continue Reading
3 Keys to a Good Test
I had the opportunity to judge a regional black belt pretest recently. In the process of testing for my 4th Dan, this is a new responsibility that I get to take on and as such, I was very excited. I was the first judge on the panel to make it Continue Reading
Moo Shim
You will often associate Bruce Lee with the phrases “Be like water” and “Wu Shein” or “Moo Shim” if you are a Korean Stylist. The latter two references allude to the idea of having an empty mind, and not thinking of anything. He always notes how important these things are Continue Reading
Teaching People Wrong As a Joke
When you look at two karate pioneers, Anko Itosu and Gichin Funakoshi, there is one thing in their pedagogy that sticks out to me. Unlike today’s martial arts culture where at most schools (The good schools are the exception here) you will be admitted to the class if you pay Continue Reading
De-Escalate the Situation
When we start training in martial arts it is easy for us to believe that the main goal of any self defense situation is to dominate your attacker making them regret that they attacked you! After all, why do we learn how to block, punch, choke, or throw? What we Continue Reading
Anybody Can Train
When you look at the history of Anko Itosu, one thing that stuck out to me was that his instructors doubted his ability to succeed based on his sickly appearance. Itosu was born very small and did not have a good prognosis for life let alone for martial arts. Itosu Continue Reading
The Important Difference Between Being “Busy” and “Responsible”
Busy and Responsible When we look at these two words they seem to be pretty much synonymous with each other. In reality, though, there is one key difference between the two that can affect your mentality and your lifestyle. Busy means that you are spending or dedicating time because you Continue Reading
Never Stagnate! Is It a Journey If You’re Not Moving?
In Semper-Fi, Business Leadership the Marine Corps Way, Dan Carrison points out an effective strategy that the armed forces use in order to keep servicemembers continually focused on progression! On their uniforms, there are markings for both time in the service as well as their pay grade (Carrison and Walsh Continue Reading
Plane Crashes
What do commercial plane crashes between different countries’ airlines have to do with our attitude for how we train in the martial arts? In Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers, he points out that in the 1980’s Korean Air had a crash to flight ratio that was 10 times that of any other Continue Reading