Qi Gone

Whether your art calls it Qi, Ki or just simple bollocks, we’ve all heard of it. Mystical energy cited by martial artists and healing practitioners throughout the east that provides the human body with the life force it needs to survive. However, looking deeper at the actual meaning of “Qi” (as discussed in Traditional Chinese Medicine), we discover that it is almost impossible to discern what it actually means

MMA – The rise of the charlatan

Once upon a time, martial arts schools would only tend to teach one system for one purpose: be it Karate, Judo, Tae Kwon-Do, Kung Fu etc. Then someone had the bright idea of cross training in lots of systems at once. This seemed like a brilliant idea, and pretty soon lots of people began to do the same thing.

Eventually, someone else had another bright idea to pit these arts (and combinations of arts) against each other in order to discover what the ultimate system was and who the ultimate fighter would be. Again, this seemed like a brilliant concept

YouTube’s influence on Martial Arts Culture

I spend a lot of time on YouTube (probably far more than I should do) following various interests of mine, including the martial arts. YouTube and internet videos generally are a relatively new phenomenon, but the effect that they have had on the martial arts in recent years is huge.

Self Defence for Women (only)

One thing that I take serious issue with in the martial arts is the existence of women’s only self defence classes. My reasons for this are fairly simple and probably shouldn’t take very long to summarise, nevertheless, I will try and stick to my usual long winded way of phrasing things, interlaced with various attacks on other martial arts groups.

Same stuff, different day – On resisting the McDojos

Most people who have spent any amount of time in the martial arts will be aware of the term McDojo. For those of you to whom this is a new concept, I will try to explain it here as best I can. Dojo is the Japanese word for a martial arts training hall and frequently refers to an entire school. McDojo, therefore, refers to a school that has started to take on the characteristics of a particular, well-known fast food chain