Everyone has different reasons for joining a martial arts school beyond learning the skills being taught. Some want to improve their fitness. Others want to meet new people. Some just want to get out and try new things. Others want an adrenaline rush.

At our dojo, we like to create opportunities to expand our students’ horizons by doing different types of activities outside the dojo together. This past weekend a group of us took part in “Run for Your Lives,” a zombie-infested 5k obstacle race. We put together a team of people who have trained at our dojo and completed the race together. We also played the roles of “Jiu-jitsu zombies” for some of the later races, when runners came face to face with our “undead dojo” many paused to re-group and psyche themselves up to make the run through our group, making the zombie experience that much more entertaining.

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Tags: extra-curricular dojo activities

Yesterday, I held a brown belt test for two students at my dojo. One of them had been training with me pretty much since I first started teaching in the Vancouver area, just over 7 years. The other had started less than 2 years ago, having come to the dojo already holding a black belt, with 9 years of training in another style of Japanese Jiu-jitsu having studied on the east coast. I am happy to announce that both students passed, but there is so much more to it than their test results.

After the test, the student who had trained with me since the beginning presented me a gift he made himself, which you can see in the photo below. When he presented it to me, he gave a short speech. It was along these lines: “When I first started training it was to learn self-defense, but I gained so much more. Training with you gave me the confidence to go after my dreams.” One of his dreams was to work in law enforcement and now he works as a BC sheriff, as represented in the gift he made, which I’ll be hanging prominently at the entrance to our mat area. I couldn’t help but tear up at this meaningful gesture.

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Tags: teaching martial arts

It is said that elephant trainers can train their animals to be held by nothing more than a small rope tied to one of their legs that is pegged into the ground. When they are very young and much smaller they use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s more than enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free. Humans do this for many things in life too, it’s in our nature to use predictive reasoning to make our processes more efficient. But sometimes things change and the process no longer makes sense. For this reason, we should always keep an open mind and re-analyze the things we do and the reasoning behind it. (more…)

Tags: weapons as an extension of the body

In the martial arts, we often talk about the mental benefits of our training. This is not just about developing courage to face a self-defense situation and fight back if necessary. Nor is it only about building the confidence required to learn the physical skills involved in one’s training. The mindset learned through martial arts training also has practical applications for dealing with the wide variety of personal challenges and conflicts we face in daily life. (more…)

Self-Defense Tips Everyone Should Know by Neil Martin is the compilation of the views and thoughts of Neil Martin, a martial artist and doorman. I think the title is actually a little misleading, to the book’s detriment. The content is so much greater than that.

I said in a previous review, self-defense oriented books tend to go either with the physical aspects of training, or focus more on teaching avoidance, awareness, and de-escalation tactics. This e-book is an exception, not falling into either of these categories.

This book isn’t a list of tips for self-defense, but more of a compilation of the author’s blog into a single coherent methodology for how to approach developing a full self-defense strategy and mindset.

Unlike most books I review, I ended up reading it through twice, as I received a draft version of the book originally, so in order to give it a fair shake, I read it again and I’m glad I did.  (more…)

Want to get more exercise? Eat healthier? Learn a new skill? Write a book? Get a better job? Start a business? Travel to a India? Cut back on booze? Quit smoking? For every personal goal there is a litany of excuses:

“I’m too busy.”
“I can’t afford it.”
“I have family and/or career commitments.”
“I’m too old/too young.”
“I’m just too —-. It’s just the way I am.”
“It’s just too hard.”
“I’m not strong/capable/disciplined enough.”

These are the tales of woe we tell when we aren’t doing the things we say we want to do. They are stories. Every one has a story, but every story has different angles. There is one simple solution to living life as a victim of circumstance. (more…)

A couple of weeks ago I had my students working on quick wrist escapes in class. The goal is to slip out of wrist grips by engaging their bodies from the hips then directing their trapped wrist through the weakest part of the grip. The action I was teaching is used against a wrist grab from the front in which the thumb is at the top of the grip.

While the students were training, Chris, the other instructor assisting on the mats came over and asked me to grab his wrist so he could practice it a few times himself. After he got to do it a few times, he went and grabbed my left wrist, but grabbed with the thumb down rather than up. As I initiate the action of the technique, I realized the grip was different mid-movement as I met the force of the strong part of the grip rather than the thumb and forefingers that would usually result in a quick escape. As I sensed the resistance, I reached under his wrist, clasped my hands together, then reversed my hip turning into him, putting him in a type of wrist lock using his fingers to apply the pressure. (more…)

When students start to adopt leadership roles in their martial arts school, they often worry about whether or not people will take them seriously, unsure of how to carry themselves in such a way as to engender respect and trust. They naturally look to their instructors’ examples to learn how to carry themselves as an instructor. For many, this is a mistake. I’m not suggesting that instructors can’t be helpful as a role model, but they shouldn’t simply look at their teaching style and the way they address students for modelling. Instead, they should be looking at the spirit behind a confident instructor’s actions.

Behind every truly confident martial arts instructor, there are a number of characteristics that define them that go beyond the mechanics of how they run a class. Below are 5 that I’ve noted in the many excellent instructors from whom I’ve had the pleasure of learning. (more…)

Tags: role of the martial arts instructor

Smaller statured men and women often encounter many challenges in the martial arts related to their smaller strength, weight, height and reach. More often than not, they frustratedly struggle against their limitations, which frequently leads to their giving up early on in their career. Or if they stick with it, they sometimes settle for less with themselves, accepting that there are some things they will simply never be able to do well in the martial arts. This is what happens when you focus on your weaknesses and the liabilities they present. Over the past 20 years of training as a smaller statured woman, I’ve learned that the best way to compensate for so-called liabilities is to focus on developing my personal strengths and the unique opportunities they present. (more…)

Tags: martial arts psychology

If you want to watch videos of police purportedly assaulting someone in the pursuit of an arrest, it will only take you seconds to find them online. It doesn’t matter that they often lack context, only include the part the videographer wants you to see, or actually depict legitimate police/security brutality, the fact is arrests often look overly brutal to people who don’t know what they’re watching. (more…)