Train the Body, Everything will Follow
How do you get great at so many different facets of martial art at one time? What one thing can you do to bring up your game across the board, no matter what are you practice? Train the body. ✅ Want to get better at grappling? Train the body ✅ Want to…
Why Body Skills are Critical to Martial Arts
Body skills are the foundation of ALL martial and athletic movement. In fact, in my mind, they are the foundation of all good, powerful, pain-free human movement! What are body skills? They are the qualities that connect, support, mobilize, and strengthen the body from the inside out. They create a highly resilient, dynamically stable body…
Musashi on Posture in Strategy
In his classic work on the art of strategy, Go Rin No Sho, Musashi gives the following instructions on Posture in his art. “Keep your neck straight, putting some force in the hollow of the nape; lower your shoulders, with the sensation that the torso from the shoulders down forms a unity; keep the back straight,…
5.5 Principles for More Effective Striking in ANY Martial Art
Part 1 of this series, Conditioning the Fists for Striking can be found HERE. Being able to strike with power and precision involves a lot more than merely knowing the technique. Practice must include these principles of effective striking techniques for all martial arts… 1. Whole Body Power All movement in real life happens in…
Conditioning the Fists for Striking
One of the most underdeveloped aspects of the martial artist’s arsenal is the conditioning of his fists for striking. The tendon strength, wrist strength and flexibility, and the overall structure of the strike is an exploitable weakness that needs to be addressed. In this article we will examine several different push-up variations and isometric exercises…
The Strength of Structure (and How to Train It)
As we discussed in the previous post (see here), all martial movement must be based on a platform of both mobility and stability. Today we will discuss stability. Kamae is much more than just a stance or ready position. It is the platform from which all movements are made and from which all techniques are…
The Process of Becoming Masterful
“Remember that mastery is not attained once after a lifetime of practice, but earned every day.” – Jon Haas Usually when we think of someone who is a master, be it a master martial artist or the master of some other craft, we think of them as attaining mastery at the end of a long…
What is Specific Physical Preparation for Martial Arts?
Every once in a while it’s fun to think about how much the exercises we train on a daily and weekly basis actually translate, or carry over, to the activities for which we’re training. Depending on your training program this can either be a great way to confirm that you are moving in the right…
The Top 3.5 Reasons Training is Hard
The other day a student said to me during training: “This is hard.” My reply was, “Well of course it’s hard. You don’t come to me to learn how to do things you’re already good at, do you?” But why is this difficult? In my experience,training is hard for approximately 3.5 main reasons… 1. You are…
Kata (Alone) Will Never Build Internal Power
Trying to develop Internal Power by training kata (alone) in martial art is problematic. On one hand, you may inadvertently have minor success in creating some internal connection over the course of 20-30 years of training, but you will most likely have no idea how you did it, no idea why it worked (minimally at…
Lost Empire Herbs
