Angle and positioning: How do we get there from here? Anyone who has trained a martial art with resistance-based pressure testing or sparring knows that the correct technique in a given situation is rarely predetermined. A boxer may have a plan to knock out his opponent with his powerful right cross, but making perfect contact … Continue reading Angle and Position Before Execution
We are a collective of training brothers and sisters joined together with the goal of mutually beneficial martial improvement. One of the things that attracted me to traditional martial arts was the feeling of family and belonging within the group. We all worked together to make each other better and, through that, to make the … Continue reading Non-Competition for Mutual Benefit
After several years of doing martial arts as many days a week as I could, I stopped. I stopped for several reasons, not the least of which was that my teacher moved his school to the other side of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and, without reliable transportation, it was increasingly difficult to get to class. … Continue reading Adrift with Amnesia (A Break From Training)
One of the most positive and life-changing decisions I made in my early 20s was to let go of my car and to move to downtown Annapolis where I rented a room in a rooming house. A friend of mine lived there and had for quite a while. The woman who owned the house rented … Continue reading Depth in Limitations (To Know a Place)
The founder of traditional Korean hapkido, Choi Yong-sul, claimed to have studied under Japanese martial artist and founder of Daito-ryu aikijujutsu Takeda Sokaku for approximately thirty years, after having been kidnapped from Korea and adopted into the Takeda household as a child, before returning to Korea and teaching his version of Daito-ryu which eventually became … Continue reading From Hapkido to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Through Sumo and Aikijujutsu
