There is never an excuse not to train. Practice methods used in dance can help us take advantage and make the most of any small opportunity we can get during even the shortest amount of free time on a busy day. When we look at some terminology used in the Continue Reading
How to Respectfully Voice Your Opinion to Your Seniors, Especially if You Disagree
In my article about politics, any group of human beings will inevitably have some form of politicking, whether we like it or not. It’s an unavoidable fact in society, and this is true even in martial arts organizations. As such, disagreements are bound to spring up, not just in interpretation Continue Reading
Where the Head Goes, the Body Follows
A strategy of certain techniques in martial arts is getting your opponent off balance so your technique has a greater chance of success. Once someone’s center of gravity is disrupted, their instincts will be focused on getting their stability back; since they’re distracted and at a positional disadvantage, it leaves Continue Reading
Time to Give and Time to Receive
When it comes to deciding whether to attend an event or participate in an activity, we can fall into the trap of asking ourselves, “What am I going to get out of this?” Or “What’s in it for me?” When deciding how to spend our finite amount of time, These Continue Reading
The Meaning of Bo
In my association, there is a rank called “Cho Dan Bo”, which translates to “black belt candidate”. It is a solid blue belt, and it is the rank that you receive prior to testing for your black belt. I discussed what “Dan” meant in this article, so this one will Continue Reading
Different Seasons in Life and Training
We all go through different phases of life, and with each different phase of life comes different priorities. In David Brooks’ How to Know a Person, he describes these as different “Life Tasks”. One of the key things to really seeing and understanding someone is to understand where they are Continue Reading
Martial Arts is About Socializing
For those who read the headline and your first instinct is to comment that I’m wrong, hear me out first. People who have trained for years tend to hyper-focus on getting the right technique, or executing the correct sequence of moves in their form, or dive into the applications of Continue Reading
Make the Effort to Understand Those That are Different From You
For the entirety of my career as a chief instructor, I have mainly worked with college aged students at a university. As I am currently only 25 years old as of the writing of this article. That means I have always worked with those of a similar age demographic and Continue Reading
How Do You React to Adversity/Discouragement?
Just like the ups and downs of life, there will always be a balance in how people treat you. The reality is, you could be the nicest person in the world and there will still be someone out there who doesn’t like you. Therefore it’s important to not live your Continue Reading
Why You Should Start a Podcast Too: Benefits to the Martial Arts
About a year and a half ago I wrote an article on why martial artists should create a blog and write publicly along with all of the direct and indirect benefits it will give them. You can find that article hear. https://urbanmartialartists.com/2022/06/09/why-you-should-start-a-blog-too/ Today’s article is going to be very similar Continue Reading