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
Philosophy
Positive Self Image
I’ve been on a long journey with self-confidence, it wasn’t always easy for me to believe in myself. Every time I couldn’t get a new skill, whether it be a new guitar riff or advanced kick, I’d beat myself up, say I suck, and think it’s just never going to Continue Reading
Manifestation
Something I’ve heard of a lot in mainstream alternative culture lately is the concept of “manifesting”. Manifesting is essentially something theoretical becoming real, so basically meditating/focusing on something to make it become your reality. It has been used in many memes, such as someone manifesting some Burger King and having 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
Finding Company
I was an extremely anxious kid growing up, and one of the scariest experiences for me was having to go to middle school and not have the option to come home for lunch. I know it seems silly, but I literally had a stomach ache for months leading up to 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
Don’t Let People Hold You Back
As an outcast throughout my life in middle and high school, I actually surprisingly found it to be quite fortunate looking back on it. At the time it wasn’t great, I was really shy, didn’t have too many friends, and a lot of kids thought I was weird and tried Continue Reading
What You Think Becomes Reality: Think Well!
The power of words are very impactful, both to the person saying them and the person being said to. They’re an expression of emotion and knowledge, but sometimes the words we say can begin to dictate how we think, without knowing. Especially our own self-talk and thoughts. I am 25 Continue Reading