never good

Fading skills…or never good?

What if I was never good? Not feeling or looking how you once did? I’ve been wondering about our memory playing tricks on us. One advantage of constantly filming myself is I get a lot of feedback on how I move. After you’re no longer under constant instruction, this may become an issue. Even if[…]

UFC 200 Nunes

UFC 200 — stacked and sucked

If I weren’t hanging out with people I liked, UFC 200 would have been a miserable time. UFC 200…lots of surprisingly positive write ups. I’m going to dissent. A card that looked good on poster but severely under delivered, with a splash of sideshow for good measure. First thing, great headlining fight. Glad to see:[…]

master ken expert

Referring experts

Like giving compliments, referring experts only makes you look better I recently had to admit some coding was beyond my ken, at least for the commitment I was willing to put in, and contacted Manish Sharma over at Upwork, whose doing a great job. Similarly, when someone is doing something well, even if I do[…]

kung fu sifu guru voice

The guru voice

Do you, your teachers, or students suffer from sifu or guru voice? As we ease into the holiday weekend, now may be the perfect time to meet your martial arts community in a more social setting: watching fireworks, or eating chicken wings or quinoa salad. And in this setting, do people still talk like Kwai[…]

UFC sold or not… would be just in time before UFC 200

Getting a sale ahead of UFC 200 is probably a good idea There’s been a good sense that UFC 200 is not going to be the historic event UFC 100 was, but the early flux left casual fans not really even caring though the card now looks decent. The fact that it felt that Conor[…]

Let the true intellectual speak

Even when wrong the quality of thought matters because that’s what will eventually get us closer to the truth So with the Orlando shootings, it was hard to decide what to write this week. We see the rants that have no argument, the too-delicate conciliatory pieces, and some thoughtful writing and meta analysis that offer[…]

snake style

Your style and sparring

There is no style without sparring When people hear you do martial arts, the follow up question is usually, “what style?” Generally people mean what style you practice, and you could answer “clover poisoning sheep style,” and they wouldn’t care. But something we should be aware of is whatever style you practice is only somewhat[…]

Chris Malgeri

Why I value fun more than good

Because you stop caring for even a serious hobby when it stops being fun My old friend and teacher Christian Malgeri was in town last week and I was reminded of not only what excellence, but the pursuit of excellence looks like. It was humbling, motivating, and fun, and—all respect to my local martial arts[…]

Dan Inosanto greatest martial artist

The greatest influence

The greatest influence on your martial arts are your primary instructors: not Bruce Lee nor Dan Inosanto, no matter how much you want them to be. With the Dan Inosanto seminar just over (contact me and I’m happy to link to your event) and some of the feedback from the last post, I thought I’d[…]

Dan Inosanto greatest martial artist

Why calling Dan Inosanto greatest martial artist alive isn’t giving him enough credit

Dan Inosanto is the greatest martial artist of all time period. With the Dan Inosanto seminar coming into town, I thought I’d scribble this down. First, some definitions: martial arts is a body of knowledge and practice. In the modern sense we exclude from it practical aspects of war and combat. Looking at karate, which[…]