Keeping it Real
How much do we need to modify techniques for safety, without sacrificing realism and maximum challenge? Full contact with no equipment? Kata only? Jyu kumite? Ippon kumite? Where do we draw the line. What’s real? What prepares us for real defense? What is a “natural” way to train?
Matsumora’s Grasp
空手に先手なし ‘There is no first attack in karate’ means that we respond when the cause is just and the need is present. People think that Gichin Funakoshi used the “no first attack” idea to communicate to non-Okinawans that his karate was a cultivated art, for cultivated people. The presumption was that karate and other arts […]
Power From the Center
People admire strength. Courage. A clear mission. Commitment to a cause. Skill in means. Honor in fellowship. An uncritical willingness to face danger. No one is born with those qualities. We cultivate them. We can cultivate them in traditional martial arts. That’s why people appreciate what we do. That’s why we do it. That is […]