2011 Martial Arts Gear Review

When you’re thinking of martial arts gear you have a million products available. Some of these items are a waste of money and others are good for enhancing your skills. The majority of of the retailers online are just trying to sell the latest and greatest not what’s right for you. In this article I will review just a few items and explain why you should buy them.

Get Leather not Vinyl- Nearly every piece of equipment will come in either vinyl or leather and I can tell you from personal experience, choose the leather. This is one time in which you most certainly get what you pay for. Leather holds up to the abuse better and will generally out last the vinyl version by 3 to 1. I have found that most vinyl products will begin to wear out and tear easily. The harder you strike, the more you need the leather to take the impact.

Buy Adidas- Adidas is truly one of those companies that has invested a lot of time and money in researching the martial arts and they get it! Their equipment is top quality and once again it lasts a very long time. I have been in the martial arts for over 26 years and I will tell you from experience, your Adidas lasts.

Excellent Mouthpiece- This is one item I suggest you spend extra money on, you will be glad you did. The standard mouthpiece at your local sports store will probably be fine if your not doing any contact.

Listen To The Experts- The best way to know how good a piece of equipment works is to ask someone who has tried it. This can be your best reference for learning the caliber of the item and just how it will strengthen your skills.

With regards to improving your skills you don’t need a lot of martial arts gear, but you do need to work hard. The more you workout your techniques the better you will get. Absolutely nothing can replace working hard and sweat in terms of accomplishing your goals. Good luck with your training and continue to practice each day.

For the hottest martial arts gear in 2011, check out our video reviews. If you want high quality martial arts gear visit our review site today!

Is Classical Martial Arts Better Than MMA?

Classical Martial Arts against MMA, this is an fascinating question. On one hand, we have the classical practitioner, as in Krav Maga or Tai Chi Chuan and that sort of art. On the other hand we have the people who praise the UFC and regimens such as one would see on Strikeforce.

Now, obviously, we are going to have a difference of opinion, the main thing is can we come up with some facts, or at least opinions so well grounded, that belief in one system is superior to another? I believe it is possible.

First, there is sport v art. In a sport one fights an opponent. In an art, one is in conflict, and thus attempting to resolve conflict, with oneself.

Second, there is the question of control. In a classical art one is attempting to control ones body, ones opponent, and ones own spirit. In MMA one is all too often just attempting to knock somebody’s face in.

Thus far, the edge seems to be headed in the classical direction. In attempting to control ones own self there is a high ground, after all. This is not to say, however, that the MMA school of thought does not have considerable attributes and qualities.

The main consideration, UFC stylists would argue, is whether an art works in the dark alley, and in this they would appear to posssess an edge. After all, the face smashing, body twisting, leg breaks that one perceives in the octagon is definitely useful for self defence. This writer, however, is not completely convinced of the argument.

In the ring rules are present. No fingers to the eyes, strikes to the coconuts, small joint twisting, punching the back of the skull, and so on. These are the techniques that a classical practitioner might veer towards in a street encounter.

Thus, in the final tally, while experience with violence, such as one might find in the MMA ring, has a definite edge, this writer is still going to stick with the classical. After all, in traditional martial arts one learns how to fight without getting mugged, and there are lessons to be learned outside of violence, and which can actually de-escalate conflicts. Choose which you wish, be true to your choice, both classical martial arts and MMA have much to offer.

Got an opinion? Head to Monster Martial Arts and get more facts, see if your opinion is really right. Pick up a free book explaining Matrix Martial Arts while you’re there.

Get Extreme Power and Speed With Your Roundhouse Kick

The roundhouse kick is one of the most effective kicks you could execute if performed correctly. This kick is common in Taekwondo, Karate, Combat training, MMA, and many other styles. If you would like to create power and speed there are several details you must know.

Step one shall be to study the basics of this kick. Without having the basic principles, adding power will only result in your injury and not the other fighter. You must first raise your kicking leg, pivot on your standing leg, rotate your hips, and extend your kicking leg. To perform this kick you have to see it on video, I would recommend that you simply visit BlackBeltSite on the web to get a better description or hit one of the links at the conclusion of this article.

After you get the principles down, it’s the perfect time to work on hitting a target. I propose that you start by striking a kicking bag lightly and build-up power as your entire body and foot get used to it. Make sure that you are rotating your hips and your foot on the base leg whenever you strike the bag. If you don’t rotate the base foot you can hurt your knee!

I recommend that you simply throw 10 roundhouse with each leg on the heavy bag, rest for 1 minute, and repeat. For the very best results, begin with 3 sets and progress up from there. After your feet toughen up and get used to striking the bag, 5-10 sets, three times per week will generate devastating power with your roundhouse kick.

Our next goal is to work on the speed of the roundhouse kick given that we’ve got a power training curriculum in position. Timing drills work the best for creating explosive speed, and there are numerous different ways to work your timing. If you’ve got a partner, I would recommend one of you hold a typical hand target as the other is doing kicks. Have the holder in fighting position ready to extend his hand out with the target, so the kicker can strike. This exercise will really help you create lightning quick roundhouse kicks in a hurry. By doing what’s called “broken rhythm” or kicking drills where the kicker doesn’t know when the target shall be held out, you’ll develop explosive speed.

Don’t rush, don’t start too fast, and practice these drills regularly and you will be shocked at the difference in your roundhouse kick. The primary manner in which students get injured is simply by overtraining and pushing their body to early and too quickly. Take your time, martial arts training is actually a marathon, not a sprint.

Take a Quick look at this video for more info on the roundhouse kick. For more Free Videos on a variety of martial arts techniques including variations of the roundhouse kick, check out our Black Belt Academy.. Free reprint available from: Get Extreme Power and Speed With Your Roundhouse Kick.

Modern Martial Arts: Learning Faster!

LEARNING FAST is important for every jiu jitsu student. If you’ve been taking classes for any length of time, you’ll quickly find a deep need to get better faster. You know some moves – a submission, a sweep – and it’s frustrating when you aren’t able to use them on your classmates. You can grapple for hours on end, but it’s not making you progress quickly enough.

Here is the solution, and don’t worry, it is not about mastering a new awesome submission or unbeatable guard that the other jiu jitsu students won’t already know about. To really get better you need to train with a purpose.

As you’ve undoubtedly heard before, if you do not make a plan you will not succeed. So to get better, make a plan, WRITE THE PLAN DOWN, and every day take a step towards reaching that plan. You should not deviate from your plan until your reach your goal. Remember: PUT YOUR PLAN IN WRITING! You must believe me about this!

A lot of people training in jiu jitsu just want to have a great guard or have great submissions. These are admirable goals, but you must break everything down to the details. A more concrete goal would be something like “keep side control for at least 15 seconds on every opponent”. Another would be “Bump sweep each partner”. You will be able to measure your success and take actions toward meeting the goals. If you make smaller, reachable goals you will be more likely to meet your ultimate goals faster.

It’s time to mentally enter the BJJ arena. Develop a plan, a plan just for you, and work to meet your goals. Begin each training session with a reminder of the goal you set and make it come true. You are not going to be better instantaneously, and patience will still be required, however you will get there! After you attain a few of your smaller goals, you will recognize your success and you will ask yourself why you didn’t start doing this sooner.

While John normally sells used cars Houston, he loves to practice martial arts and lives that passion. Just remember to give him a shout if you are ever looking for used autos Houston!

Beginning Jiu Jitsu: How To Avoid Mental Errors

Jiu Jitsu is both a physical and mental game. In fact, many refer to jiu jitsu as physical chess! The beauty of this sport is that you can have the most talented physical traits, but it is quite possible to be beat by someone who understands the mental game.

In the early part of the 1990s, an excellent illustration of this can be seen in Royce Gracie and his jiu jitsu matches. He was always the smaller and less athletic guy, but he ended up winning UFC 1, 3, and 4. This was incredible, and it was obvious that he possessed abilities that his opponents could not defeat.

So, you might be asking how this applies to you.

Preparing for a fight mentally is as essential as preparing for it physically. Understand what you are good at and what you need to work on. Understand what the other guy is good at and bad at, too. Lay out your jiu jitsu plan that is going to benefit what you are good at and prey on what your opponent is bad at. Then, all you have to do is make it happen.

For instance if you are not big, but are fast, you don’t want to get under a guy who is huge. If you weigh a lot, you will want to take advantage of this when you are on top of your opponent. If you have excellent arm bar submissions, you should keep doing them and get them to where they are unbeatable.

However, you don’t want to make the error of believing that you should only concentrate on your strengths. Your jiu jitsu training needs to encompass every component and aspect of the sport that is available in order to completely comprehend your craft. You should be taking these suggestions as a way to pump yourself up regarding your approach to competition and training. By tapping into your mental skills, you will gain a huge advantage over a lot of your opponents.

I suggest you write the following down on paper: your strengths, your weaknesses, your top two specific techniques you want to work on. Now practice the two you want to work on. And after every roll, see what falls under your strengths and weaknesses. Once these are written down you are committed, so hold yourself responsible for working on them.

While John normally sells for used autos in Houston, he loves to practice martial arts and lives that passion. Just remember to give him a shout if you are ever looking for Houston used auto sales!

Sure Fire Ways Of Achieving The Ultimate Kung Fu Chi Power!

Okay, I’ve had enough of the pretty boy weight lifting and sit ups and stuff…I want an exercise routine that will enable me to have the ultimate Kung Fu Chi Power! I want to be a Gung Fu Monster! I want to rip up 300 year old trees by their roots and knock over cement outhouses with my little pinkie, and I’m going to start doing the following calisthenics every day until I make it!

First, for kung fu jump kicks, I’m going to do the following exercise. I’m going to dig a hole, one shovelful a day, and practice jumping into and out of the hole a thousand times a day. By the time I’m down to ten feet, I should be able to do jumping kicks that’ll knock over skyscrapers!

Okay, for body slamming that would put king kong to shame, I’ve got a real he man, kung fu drill! I’m going to live out in the country and every day I’ll lift a calf on my shoulders. By the time the calf is a thousand pounds, I’ll be able to lift anybody in the world, and throw him or her at the ground so hard they strike oil!

Of course brute force isn’t all I want, not when it comes to getting the kind of Kung Fu power ‘m thinking of, so I’ve got a gung fu training drill that will sharpen the eyes and make my fingers nimble. I’m going to sneak up on a wasps nest and practice snatching wasps out of the air with my chopsticks! Hah!

Taking punches is pretty important, too, and I’ve got the right idea for that. I’m going to practice running into walls and trees and things. A thousand days of running full tilt through orchards with a blindfold on should prepare me.

And the old noggin, how could I forget martial arts head conditioning! I saw a guy in a flick who could ring a giant bell just by slamming his head against it! Hey, if I practice smashing into bells with my head long enough, ain’t nobody gonna be able to ring my bell, if you know what I mean.

Let’s see, what else do I have to…oh yeah, ‘that!’ I think a little makiwara training with ‘that’ will strengthen ‘that’ immensely. Of course it may look a little ugly when callouses start appearing, but that’s a small price, and if even ‘that’ is a weapon, I will have achieved my goals and be the ultimate gung fu strong man!

I will be the strongest Kung Fu warrior in the world! Every body part will be thick, immense, dense, rippling with muscle, and able to be used in combat to the death! All hail to me…the possessor of the ultimate Kung Fu Chi Power!

For the best in home study Kung Fu books and DVD/courses, mouse to Monster Martial Arts.

Where Did The Martial Arts Come From?

I was working in a factory many years ago, and word got around that I was training in the martial arts. A Philippine co-worker came up to me one day, and he said, “No study martial arts, martial Arts bad…bad, ” then he shook his head and walked away. From this odd beginning I discovered where the martial arts really came from.

As one might expect, I was quite surprised by my co-workers viewpoint, the Philippines were famous for their martial arts, and so I tracked him down and queried him further. “Why do you think the martial arts are so bad?” I asked. This is the anecdote he told me.

“One day I decide I need know martial arts, so I go outside and hit tree. I chop like so (he did a downward chop, as if hammering down on somebody’s forehead), and a I chop and I chop. I do this karate two hour a day for two year.

“One weekend my neighbor have crazy party, and three in morning I go ask him to turn music down. He laugh at me, so I karate him. I chop his face and he turn upside down, so I go home and worry I kill him…that why Karate bad!”

I didn’t l reveal my grin, because he was serious, he really thought that karate was bad, and didn’t understand that his bizarre method of training, and his own lack of control, might have something to do with the art ‘being bad.’ But his story led me to wonder where and how the martial arts had been invented. I mean, the fighting disciplines are as old as the world’s second oldest profession, so how did they come about?

They came into being because somebody wanted to take something away from somebody, and they came from somebody wanting to stop somebody from taking something away from him. This is the same as lawyerism, but applied to the actual hit and punch that occurs when politics breaks down. Eventually, the idea of taking something away from somebody, or protecting your property from somebody reached the levels of armies and weapons of mass destruction.

The idea that what you have belongs to me, and I don’t have to pay you no stinkin’ money…that is where the martial arts came from. And people train to war, and steal money and property and wives and whatever else they covet. And, oddly, as my previous words indicate, the solution to this avarice and misbegotten art is…in the study of the true art.

You practice the art to be able to protect yourself, and in that practice you discover the truth of yourself…you realize your self worth, and the idea that you are honorable and suddenly you don’t have to fear others, or that they might take from you. On the day that every person on earth practices the martial arts immorality and war stop, and on that day everybody will know why the martial arts were invented. They come from inside, from the spirit within, from the honor that pulses with every beat of your heart and every breath you expel.

Discover the true arts at Monster Martial Arts. Whole arts, faster training methods, a logic that has never been seen in the combat arts. Click on over to Monster Martial Arts. A-1

A Very Intriguing Method For Making Martial Arts Chi

Martial Arts Chi is one of the great secrets of all time. It’s not just that you see it on the big screen, or that it has become some sort of an urban legend, it’s that there is truth to be had. Chi does exist, but how the heck to you create it…let alone use it in martial arts techniques?

So we have a two part question here: how do you make chi, and how do you use it? Interestingly, the second is the answer to the first. Unfortunately, this results in a catch 22…how do you use it if you can’t make it, how do you make it if you can’t use it?

To solve this mystery let me give you an internal exercise and a drill, and see if you can solve the problem. The exercise is an old Bagua exercise named ‘Stroking the beard.’ The drill is based on the old ‘Catch hands’ game we used to play as children.

To Stroke the beard simply move the hands in medium circles, coming together at the chin and moving downward as if stroking a beard to your navel. To do this effectively you must relax your muscles, let your weight drop, breath low, and do it until you can do it with no distraction. Doing with no distraction means concentrating on only the exercise, and this is very crucial to your success.

Once you have stroked the beard for a couple of hours, find a friend and practice ‘Catch Hands.’ To do Catch Hands simply face your partner at handshake distance and let your hands relax at your sides. Your partner places his palms together and extends them in front of his body.

The object of this drill is to take your time, create lots of silence, and then catch his hands. Don’t slap at them, just catch them, like catching birds without breaking their wings, and do it gently. This simple move is the same motion needed to block or a strike, and is well worth practicing.

As you practice, over time you will become more adept at the exercise, and you will find yourself becoming calmer, jerking less, and that is when the benefits of stroking the beard are going to appear. You will find that energy flows down the center of your body and gathers at your center. It will be like a fountain that is bubbling backwards, and it will be as if energy is entering into your tan tien with every breath.

Eventually, you will be able to catch your partner’s hands easily and there will be nothing he can do about it. The important thing, though, is that you will feel the ‘universal energy’ that is chi. Keep practicing this exercise and you will experience some fascinating results, and it will be proof positive that you can create and use Martial Arts Chi.

Al Case has written a fascinating book on how to Create Chi. You can find it at Monster Martial Arts.

Quicker Reaction Time Through Traditional Martial Arts Practice

I saw an interesting TV show today, a couple of fellows were discussing how to achieve faster reaction time through traditional martial arts training. The odd thing is that they were obsessed with training the muscles. The conclusion they reached is that you train the body to react so fast that there is no reaction time.

But to have a body is to have reaction time. If you conduct your self defense through a body then you have to have the time it takes to make that body work. It’s going to exist no matter what you do.

Unless, of course, you see what is happening before it happens and move with it. Or, better yet, move before it can even occur. You simply watch what is going to happen and insert your body into the desired place and time.

Training in Martial Arts techniques is going to help you do this. You create a plan, and you carry out the plan. Eventually, all actions can be predicted, eventually this carries into life, and life becomes something you can predict.

Of course, those that don’t believe this have there own way. A boxer or MMA specialist trains his body to react, but the other guy is also training his body to react, so what you have is two virtual robots bashing their bodies together, and less awareness. This is not shortening reaction time, it is increasing it, once you have been bashed enough times.

You have to be willing to face yourself and ask the question, what is reaction time, if you are going to to undo it. You are acting after something. But what?

Well, after reality has already occurred. That’s right, you are making your body do something because of something that has already happened, and thus you are already late, and thus you are a victim. You have to be a victim if you follow this path of muscle memorization, acting after something has happened means you are moving after somebody has already acted.

If you don’t want to be the victim, you have to seek out methods which do not have muscle memorization, and which short circuit reaction time. While classical martial arts practice (if you can find a pure school, and an instructor who knows what he is doing) doesn’t provide the glory, and sometimes seem a bit confusing, the fact of the matter is that they have been expressly designed to get rid of reaction times. Reality fighting methods may draw in the crowds, you will gain faster reaction time through traditional Martial Arts training.

If you desire to know more about ridding yourself of reaction time, mouse to Monster Martial Arts. Get a free ebook while you’re there.

Bruce Lee The Modern Martial Artist

In Japan, around Ming dynasty in China, samurais had special authority to carry samurai sword. The sword fighting technique they used was very brutal. Later a man from China appeared there who began to teach a special martial art, Chinese Kung Fu. Kung Fu is a kind of martial art that can capture someone without killing.

During that time, in Tokyo, people admired Confucian and Zen martial art. The sudden coming of Tao Jujitsu has made a lot of changes to the ancient form of martial art. Chinese Kung Fu is an ancient martial art condensed from thousands of years of combat experiences. This changed the habit of the Japanese who only knew sword, archery and sumo.

Just as marvelous as what this Kung Fu master did to Japan, Bruce Lee went to the North America in 1959, three hundred and forty years after master Chan, to introduce Chinese Kung Fu to the world. He almost captured the world with his Wing Chun Kung Fu learned from Yip Man.

Bruce Lee travelled on a ship for many days and finally came to San Francisco. The first problem he faced after he arrived is how to make a living. He didn’t want the help of his family, so he worked part time to continue his study.

Lee’s father wrote letters to his friends in San Francisco to ask them to take care of Lee. After three months, Bruce Lee went to Seattle because he didn’t like the environment in San Francisco. A friend of Lee’s father, Yeung, lived in Seattle and helped get Lee there.

Seattle is at the North West part of America. It is only two hours of driving away from Vancouver of Canada. It is a big coastal city developed from a forest in Washington. There are lakes in Seattle which made the air very fresh. Bruce Lee went there and did not think about moving in awhile.

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