Martial Arts

            Being martial artists we’ve been taught by a series of goal attainments or levels of achievement. We’ve attained status in the studio pecking order according to the color of material about our middles and hopefully haven’t allowed our ego’s to override our common sense. If you’ve reigned in your ego and are about to ...

KNOW YOUR VALUE AND CHARGE FOR IT What Makes a Studio Successful? We have carefully studied what makes a studio’s success above average in the sale of programs.  In general, successful studios focus their resources on developing a specific market don’t try to sell to everyone Prospect for business rather than waiting for it to come to them we thought ...

The way your business will survive is by selling the goods and services you offer. marketing them is the key to success.  That’s why a plan setting out just what your sales goals are is so important. The first of these steps on how to create your own martial arts business marketing strategy is your image and the image of ...

Controlling Membership Costs in Your Martial Arts Studio The need to keep up with the amount of attendance is necessary in any educational system.  Attendance can alter a marginal decision on a testing grade or alert the instructor that further communication may be necessary if a student apparently becomes inactive.  There are several methods of recording a student’s attendance that will ...

Black Family Martial Arts Celebrates 90th Anniversary In the winter of 1914, a fourteen year old boy ran away from his Pennsylvania home intent on seeing the world and to accomplish this he would lie about his age and join the Army. He was a large boy, larger than most men in his community. You had to b 16 years ...

Ki! When the word is mentioned it fills the mind with thoughts of wondrous ability, many times considered far beyond the realm of normal human experience. Probably the one personage to pop into the head of the practicing martial artist, when Ki is mentioned, is Morihei Ueshiba, the great master and founder of Aikido.

The study of the martial arts is not just a study of physical skills, but also the study of philosophy. For too many the physical skills combined with years of competition have simply served to create very contentious people, who are constantly seeking conflict with somebody or other. The current profusion of challenges, both as large contests, and between certain individuals, clearly show that many of our practitioners of martial arts, are not martial artists at all. For to be a martial artist one must know and follow the philosophy of their art, and yet few of these individuals, who are so wrapped up in challenges, seem to even know, let alone comprehend, the philosophy behind their art. This seems to be especially true for those Jujutsuka, practitioners of Jujutsu, who seem to be in the forefront of these current spat of challenges.

Many people are interested in teaching grappling skills, but too many of them have only a peripheral knowledge of grappling skill and that from the perspective of sport Judo, which taught techniques developed only for sport, not intended for combat. Now I am sure this supposition needs to be explained from a historical point of view, and the answer is actually quit simple.

It has been acknowledged by most authorities, at least those who actually train in traditional martial arts, that Kata is the most important form of training that exists. While some people get confused about what constitutes Kata, the truth is some of the people who deride it as impractical, actually practice it themselves. One very public figure used to talk about how Kata was not a good form of training for actual fighting, yet in preparation for fighting competition, the person spent many hours 'shadow boxing', which is actually just a spontaneous method of practicing Kata. In all truth, there was a time in martial arts history when all Kata, in all countries, were only extemporaneous, for it was found that freestyle practice developed the freedom of movement and the unrestricted mind necessary for excellence in combat.

Some people say that in order to be a good martial artist or an expert of self defense, it is necessary to possess a killer instinct. Yet the very people who need self defense skills the most are those people who tend towards gentleness and non-violence. Would a person who is truly gentle and peaceful even enter a Dojo, if he/she were actually convinced that he/she would have to develop a killer instinct? Probably not. More important, what needs to be considered, is a killer instinct actually a positive attribute or a deadly attitude that needs to be expunged from a martial artist's personality.