Articles | YMAA

Olympic Karate: A New Martial Art Enters the Ring
August 2, 2021
Martial arts history happens when karate is introduced at the Tokyo Olympics. Among the 33 overall different sports this year, karate is part of a special group of martial-based Olympic sports. This includes archery, boxing, fencing, judo, modern pentathlon, shooting, taekwondo, and wrestling (some also include the track and field event of javelin, and the winter sport of biathlon.) Despite their global impact, most Olympic games are of Western origin. The outstanding Non-Western games are the martial arts: judo, taekwondo, and now karate. The Olympic karate events will begin on August 4th and run until August 8th, 2021.
Searching for SUPERHUMANS: ENERGY – How Far Can Human Potential Go?
May 17, 2021
YMAA presents the three-part documentary series Searching for SUPERHUMANS by Lee Holden and David Verdesi.
Spotting Danger Before it Spots Your Kids: A Book Every Parent Needs
April 22, 2021
YMAA is proud to release Gary Quesenberry’s 2nd book, "Spotting Danger Before it Spots Your Kids: Teaching situational awareness to keep children safe". This new work teaches you how to teach your kids how to spot potential dangers before they happen and avoid them. It’s an essential read for parents or anyone who wants to keep kids safe.
Needle Through Brick: A Postcard of Traditional Kung Fu from Borneo
February 11, 2021
Needle Through Brick is a documentary that poses these questions by taking an intimate look at some surviving traditional Kung Fu and Tai Chi masters of Malaysian Borneo, particularly Sarawak and Sibu. There’s a large Chinese population here, a diaspora of masters who fled the Japanese occupation and the communists. Needle Through Brick presents insightful interviews of Borneo’s unique elder masters as the precious disciplines that they have dedicated their lives to face extinction.
The Fight
January 18, 2021
Fights are not static. Things move. People move. Bear-hugs and headlocks and all that stuff happen sometimes in a fight, but they are transitional actions. You do not get bear-hugged just to be held (except by bouncers). A Threat wraps his big arms around you from behind either to pick you up and shake you (disorienting and intended as an intimidating show of strength) or to drive you into a wall. Maybe to throw you over a balcony. If you practice technique-based defense, will they work if the Threat refuses to stand there? If he is using that headlock to slam you from wall to wall?