Black Belt Magazine

When I was a kid, long before I had the opportunity to study the martial arts, I loved Black Belt magazine. The pictures seemed like such a wealth of information, and look at all the cool stuff that was for sale back in the day. With the help of this magazine, I was quite convinced that I could become a ninja. Ehh, I was 12, what do you expect?

Entirely by accident, I discovered this week that the Google Books project has started making old magazines available. Including Black Belt Magazine. All the way back to it's infancy in the early 1960s.

Not only are they available through google, but they are - of course -- fully indexed and you can search for those old articles and sweet fashions. Wow. Highkick Casuals look absolutely nothing like dobohks! :) And just for my generation: behold.

Novelty aside, BB magazine gives an interesting perspective into the martial arts as they were perceived in the US. You can see how it went from a modest cottage industry hobby and exploded into a very big business. You can watch as Judo, Karate, Kungfu, Tang Soo Do, Tae Kwon Do, Jujitsu, Brazilian Jujitsu, UFC, and Filipino arts all briefly were in the limelight. You can see how people in the 1970s were absolutely obsessed with the nunchaku, thanks to Bruce.


There's also some good snippets of history, for those of us who didn't get to experience it:

• An article about Grandmaster Jae Chul Shin



• WTSDA article



• An article on the history of TSD



• And another article about Grandmaster Shin.

As I think back to middle school, I remember how our school library actually subscribed to BB. In retrospect, I'm completely bowled over by this, and have amazing respect for what must have been an amazingly progressive school librarian. These days, I can't imagine that is still possible.

But I digress. At the time, the school library was my source for BB magazine. It was stolen or hidden a lot, and we were usually lucky to have one or two editions hanging around. If 12 year old me was able to have every volume of BB at his fingertips, his head may have exploded from the sheer awesomeness of the prospect.

Good stuff. Try not to get lost in the history! :)

Note to Google: now, go get Kick Illustrated, Tae Kwon Do Times, Kungfu Magazine and Journal of Asian Martial Arts! :)

Flexibility

DSC_0123
Originally uploaded by tommrkr

It's been one of my goal's for the year to improve my flexibility, and this pic gives me hope. From what I understand, he didn't achieve the full split until his late 30s. I've still got some time to get there!

Tang Soo, Master J!

Ki Gong 2.0

Some of you who are interested in Ki Gong may find Master Dan Segarra's blog to be of interest.

Master Segarra has been online, sharing his knowledge with the Korean martial arts community for many years. Recently, he has gotten on the Youtube bandwagon and is also blogging.

What I'd really like to point out is his introductions to ki gong and meditation that he is sharing online. Very no-nonsense, and very much in line with what I've been exposed to. I especially enjoyed the lesson visualizing the lemon as Grandmaster Shin shared this same lesson with us at a black belt class years back.

cookbooks versus cooking books.

What is the difference? A cookbook teaches you recipes, but doesn't necessarily give you the background, how to match the food with a proper wine or other dishes, or explain certain terms.

A cooking book, however should be about the art of cooking. How boiling versus braising changes the flavor of the meat, how certain flavors compliment and enhance each other, and more. Once you know how to cook, a recipe may serve as a roadmap, but you may change things around or mix recipes to get your desired result.

You may try this with a recipe, but without the proper background, your results may range from ineffective to disastrous.

I feel the same way about books and videos on martial arts. Too many materials claim to be cooking books, but are nothing more than recipes!

Are you following my metaphor?

Many videos claim to teach an art, but are really just giving you a taste of the flavor. Usually this is delivered in a set of one-steps or a form. I already need to keep track of 90 one-steps and I have committed over 30 forms to memory. I'm not sure I can handle many more.

Every once in awhile, I find a video which does this for me. The best example I can think of are the Comtech knife fighting videos. They give you the essence and help you incorporate the concepts into your current skill set.

I recently purchased a video on Jang bong (long staff) fundamentals by a certain famous TKD master. Perhaps that was my first mistake as TKD is not necessarily renowned for bongsul. What I got was a tape showing several very unimaginative exercises, one steps and a couple fancy forms. Needless to say, I'm disappointed.

In a final comparison, I've always found the cookbooks with super sexy pictures of food to be the least useful. Same with MA videos: the higher the production values, the more fluff. The best videos seem to be of someone who is in their studio and mounts a camera in the corner.

In that respect, I really enjoy YouTube, because people are sharing their passions and the videos tend to be far better information that what is for sale out there. Incidentally, as more and more bloggers are sharing their recipes online, I no longer feel compelled to buy bad cookbooks either.

(On a side note, if someone knows of a good video showing examples of staff partner work that breaks the mold of the same ol stationary tapping drills, I'd greatly appreciate it.)

(On another side note, I hope my Shotokan friends do not take my use of the Best Karate text as inflammatory. The Best Karate series are some of the best cookbooks on the market, but that is all they are: a guide to the JKA standard. They don't teach you a darn thing about the essence of Shotokan, but they weren't intending to either.)

I am the world's best orange belt

One of the results of teaching your own classes is that if you are doing your job to attract new students, it means that you are constantly teaching introductory material. This means spending a LOT of time on the basics.

A unique challenge I've been working on is balancing the needs of my junior and senior rank students. I think the top end of the class may often feel neglected by a class, and in fact most black belts must make some degree of personal sacrifice in class to work with junior rank. The reward is usually that their understanding of the basics increases and they can apply those same lessons to their current material.

For me, every time I teach something, it is brand new again. I get to look at the material I am presenting, tailor it to my crowd, appeal to different learning styles, ages, cultures and I walk away from the lesson with a better understanding than when I began. That is a great feeling!

All of this is great, but you must still find a time to cover more "advanced" material as appropriate for other ranks. While white belts are learning spinning back kick for example, green belts can be doing hook kick, brown belts can do wheel kick, red belts can do jumping variations of these techniques, etc. Or multiple kicks.

In my opinion, this is a very difficult challenge for most instructors: running several curriculum at once in your head and making sure everyone's needs are met.

Reading and Thinking

I haven't posted much lately because I've been, well, reading and thinking. As I work on updating the website for my studio, I started putting together some of my thoughts on the school logo.

I've always felt strongly about my logo, and about the message my logo presents. There are some immediate influences and obvious symbols, but my students can also tell you about other subtle interpretations that are meaningful to me and to them.

I am a big fan of how geometry is used in the martial arts, especially in terms of symbolism. The martial arts often look to triangles, circles, and 8 pointed stars to encode their knowledge. My instructor developed his logo (with later changes made by me)with these same thoughts. The strength and stability of the pyramid, the choice of a right triangle, all of these parts were intentionally chosen to convey meaning. Some meanings are "secret" while others resonate universally. In a way, the logo explains our specific ryu pa of Tang Soo Do very clearly.

What has been interesting to me is that my logo shares some parallels with other martial arts themes: some intentional, and some by pure coincidence.

The 8 circles are set to point in the compass directions. Similar things are seen in the use of the compass in Western martial arts and the use of the bagua in Eastern arts.

What I wasn't expecting to see were the similarities between Pennsylvania Dutch Barn Art, or in Ed Parker's Universal Kenpo Pattern.

I'm glad to know that my thought processes are shared by other smart folks.

One of the big features of my logo is that the 8 circle rosette, linked by a central circle represents planes of motion such a figure 8s, florettes, etc. Geometry of movement is expressed in my logo and could give a student a lot to think about. Now, as I was researching martial arts, movement, and geometry, I stumbled into this gentleman:



I've contacted Sifu Moses to see if he will share some more information on his inspiration and path. I'm really interested to learn more about what he is doing with similar material. It is certainly different, but he's not the only one out there on that sort of martial fringe.

Nice Quote

Charles Goodin at the Karate Thoughts Blog had a very nice recent entry to celebrate the new year.

Karate is not one style or system. Karate is all of us. Whether we practice Goju-Ryu, Shorin-Ryu, Kenpo, or Shotokan, we are all carrying on the art of Karate. From the youngest child to the oldest Sensei, each and every one of us is a thread in the great fabric of the art.

Karate does not exist in books or photographs. It only lives when we practice it. It is something to "do," not just think, talk, or read about.

Now log off, and go hit a heavy bag, practice a form, or something. :)