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The importance of footwork and structure in Eskrima and Boxing is a point that is generally under-appreciated by students of these arts.  All too often you will see people playing advanced striking combinations from flat-footed, static positions.   Without the necessary mobility provided by proper footwork people end up compromising their structure to avoid strikes when they attempt sparring or combat.  Once you’ve compromised the structure, which is the foundation of every action you take, you have put yourself into what some describe as a “ready to be beaten” posture.  Desperate evasions may save you from one attack but they leave you with little or no resources to deal with the attack that is likely following it.
Within the first (Baguhan) rank of Lameco Eskrima there are some eighteen different variations of footwork that the student is required to learn.  “Retirada Caballero,” is a familiar shuffle step, essentially the same as the basic first footwork that most boxers learn.  This is a good technique for cautiously advancing and retreating without overly committing to...

Weapons.  Hmm, just the word itself sounds dangerous.  Say that word to children and they conjure up in their minds visions of sword battles, ninja fights, dart guns, shooting at bad guys and maybe even a video game or two!
     Say that word to the military or police department and you get a total different thought process.  Fully Auto? Sidearm or Long Gun?  Grenades, Missles or Explosives?  Revolver or Semi Automatic?
     Mention weapons to any member of a paramedic squad or emergency room and they might think of the last call they just had.  Bullets, shotgun blasts, hands blown off, knife wounds, blood & lots of it, deformities, and deaths that should have never happened in the first place.
     Yes the word weapons have a lot of various thought processes associated with it.  But what I am referring to and thinking of when I say weapons are the martial art weapons that are taught in today’s martial art classes.  In our class we use a variety of classical martial art weapons including; single stick, double stick, staff & jo, sword & knife defense, nunchakau & pocket sticks.  Some better for self defense and others not so much.
     So the question is “Why train with weapons?”  Some may argue that shouldn’t you learn to defend yourself first with no weapons before moving on to weapons?  This viewpoint usually comes from a person who has never trained in a martial art and has never had to defend themselves against anyone let alone someone armed with a weapon of any kind.  This same person may also ask “Why couldn’t a police officer just shoot him in the leg, instead of having to kill him?  Again, they have never been in a situation where your life is on the line and you literally have seconds or less until you are the one in the body bag at the end of the day.  Harsh sounding? Maybe.  Reality?  Unfortunately it is.
     Stress does crazy things to our bodies.  Muscles get increased blood flow, blood shunts away from our skin, our heart beats faster to provide more blood and oxygen to our muscles, our lungs take in more air and our breathing quickens, our blood pressure goes up, our digestive processes slow down, our vision becomes sharper, our hearing more perfected and adrenaline is pumped into our blood stream and glucose is released into the blood stream.   All this happens in seconds to prepare the body to fight or run away from danger.  This in known as the flight or fight syndrome.
     If you have never encountered your body going through these metabolic changes like this you are in for a rude awaking.  Often people don’t know what to do.  You might cry, run, freeze, scream, panic or attempt to fight.  Your brain will try and find a solution to the current situation and it will instantly pull out whatever training you ever had that even closely resembles the current problem.  If all you ever had was a 2 hours self defense course back in 7th grade…well that is what your brain is going to pull out at a moment’s notice because that is all you have in your memory banks to draw from.  If you have nothing programmed into your memory banks…you often get nothing out when the data is searched for under stress.  Hence…you do nothing.  This is why people stand around waiting for others to do something.  Heck, some people witnessing a traumatic event don’t even have the presence of mind to call for help, render first aid or even yell for the attacker to stop.  And forget trying to identify who it was.  Some witnesses don’t even get the gender right, let alone the race or description of the individual involved.  
     Yes stress does many things to our bodies and minds.  The only thing that can combat stress is training.  While you can’t train for every possibility you can train for a lot of them.   Training with...

    
     People often don’t really know who their instructor is when they start their training or what the teachers background is in martial arts, let alone what makes a master a master.   I think all too often people just see the black belt and figure that "wow...they must have been born with some special talent!”   Now most instructors will tell you that is not the case at all.   My journey and it is a long one, started out when I was 12 years old.  My friend Tom had these very cool nunchakus that were octagon in shape and made out of rosewood.   He offered to trade me these nunchakau for 6 packs of blackcat fireworks.  This was around the 4th of July, 1979,  I thought what a great trade!  
     It was around that same time that I would watch the Professional Karate Association (PKA) kickboxing fights on ESPN with my dad.  I was fascinated with the fancy kicking and the sweeping techniques they used to unbalance the martial artist they were fighting with.  I was in the 7th grade at the time when I got those nunchakau from my friend Tom and my parents decided to enroll me in the local YMCA karate program.   The instructor was a mountain of a man, wearing a crisp white uniform and the students were almost scared to say anything to him.  His name was Daryl Suta and he taught a hard style of Japanese Karate called "Shito Ryu Karate".  I remember the class going from about 30 students down to about 6 within the first week.  It was brutal...pushups, sweat, stances, more pushups, punching, kicking, more pushups, the physical conditioning was tough.  I even broke my ring finger.  It was my fault of course.  I did not block with a tight fist!  He did drive me home that night.  I guess he was not as "heartless" as I first thought.  Why I stayed in that class...I don't really know.  I certainly was not any good and the instructor always seemed to pay more attention to the upper belts than me.  But I remained for two years.  Up until the instructor left the YMCA and a new instructor took over.
     The new instructors name was Steve Coates, a young guy with amazing kicking abilities that I had never seen anyone perform before!  The uniform was different too.  We wore black pants and a white top.  The style that I was now learning was called "Taekwondo".  It is a Korean style and was known as the "Chang Hon Style" of Taekwondo.  Not sport Taekwondo like you see in so many places today.  It was the first and foremost, original style of Taekwondo.  It was also a hard style of martial art but with much more movement and circular techniques.  The kicking skills did not even compare to the karate I had studied.  They were so far superior in every way.  They were fast, fancy and the...

Can You Take a Punch?
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WWW.NorthernShaolinAcademy.com 619 South Trooper Rd Audubon, PA 19403 610-631-9200 The Northern Shaolin Kung Fu and Tai Chi Academy is a complete school of traditional Chinese martial arts, located in Philadelphia / King of Prussia / Audubon, Pennsylvania (PA). We offer external martial arts...

As one progresses in the wing chun system wooden dummy training starts to become important. In teaching the wooden dummy fighting method and how it applys to dealing with a live opponent.
Wooden dummy training teaches us how we apply our stance in realtion to the center line. How we attack our opponents line and, protect our own while moving.
 As our understanding changes and we move more freely around the dummy understanding how having our hips connected is paramount...

There has been various articles concerning what Wing Chun is and what it is not. I am not going into the semantics of various lineages i am here to talk about the fighting method of wing chun. Traping and fast hands, are only a by product of the training and, is only one aspect of the full fighting method of the system. Wing Chun...

Tricking: Breakdancing in the sky?
 
Tricking is a new sport that has evolved from many disciplines, but in it's current state, it could be said it came from martial arts tournaments where the competitors wanted an edge over their competitors and started adding really flashy looking moves that may include gymnastics or techniques from other disciplines such as Wushu and Capoeira, even if the style they study has nothing to do with their original style. Lot's of spin kicks were...

New York Karate Academy is now offering Brazilian Jiu Jitsu instruction in the Hyde Park and Poughkeepsie,...

Just as Martial Arts practice is important for automatic response when faced with an aggresive confrontational situation.  Meditation practice is the focus that keeps you out of the situation to begin with. Sure it is fun...