February 26, 2024
With the abundance of martial arts resources and the power of today’s communication technology, YMAA staff writer Gene Ching ponders what effect it might have on the traditional arts for the next generation. 5 Min. Read
September 25, 2023
If you practice Chinese martial arts or qigong, how important is it to understand Daoism? YMAA Staff Writer Gene Ching ruminates on this by reflecting upon his own personal history as a practitioner who is not Daoist.
November 15, 2021
If you cannot overwhelm the attacker and end up temporarily disengaged facing him, you should keep moving to prevent becoming a static target and to camouflage any additional tax you must unleash as you launch into retzev. (Retzev is a Hebrew word that means continuous motion.) In short movement from movement is more difficult to discern then movement from a stationary position.”
October 11, 2021
Keep in mind that you don’t want any type of fighting chess game; instead, the goal is to eliminate any and all of his future counter-movement and counterattack capabilities. In other words, achieve checkmate with your first or second optimized combative as soon as possible.
July 12, 2021
The Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) mobilizes your body’s nervous system fight-or-flight response. Immediate SNS activation occurs when you recognize and face imminent violence. Once activated by the perception of possible impending bodily harm, the SNS in turn activates immediate physiological changes by flooding your body with stress hormones. Your freeze, fight, or flight response hits full throttle
Social violence can roughly be delineated as the Monkey Dance (MD), the Group Monkey Dance (GMD), the Educational Beat-Down (EBD) and the Status-Seeking Show (SSS). The MD and GMD were discussed in <a href="/articles/violence-dynamics">part one</a> of this article. We will continue starting with the Educational Beat-Down.
Bill and I were talking to the warden in an Iraqi prison, drinking chai. A gun fired. Other than ours and the warden’s bodyguards there shouldn’t have been loaded weapons in that section of the building. I put down my tea, stood and drew my sidearm. I started clearing the building.
Let's start with one, very simple thing—power generation. A traditional martial artist is taught how to hit hard. Different systems have different methods of power generation, but two of the most common involve a solid connection with the ground and good structure.
The Chinese year 4709 begins on February 3, 2011. According to the Chinese zodiac it will be the Year of the Rabbit, which is associated with peace. The Chinese calendar is lunisolar (not purely lunar). Months begin with the new moon (when it is darkest). New Year's Day usually falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice.
YMAA Publication Center supported the inaugural "Crossing the Pond Martial Expo" held Aug. 14-15 in Seattle, and Aug. 21-22 in Coventry, UK. This expo brought together six well-known and highly-skilled instructors of martial arts and self-defense.
On September 11, 2001, I was employed in New York City at a job that I would soon vacate in favor of teaching martial arts professionally. On that tragic but stunningly brilliant morning, I stood on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Nineteenth Street watching the destruction of the World Trade Center unfold before my very eyes.
Awareness of timing has to do with the time of day during which terrorist attacks are most likely to occur. Terrorists are very conscious of media attention, timing attacks carefully to achieve the highest possible level of public impact.
This article was written right after the bombing on the London transit system in 2005 and was published in Neth Publications. It is just as timely today with the recent bomb threat in New York City in April 2010. Although some of the statistics are five years old, the core of the article tells you that awareness is the key to survival...
While sticks and stones can break your bones, your words may actually kill you. They can also save your life. Having to be right despite the cost, reacting indignantly in the face of a threat, or insulting an adversary often guarantees that a conflict will escalate to violence.
The Chinese year 4708 begins on February 14, 2010, the year of the Tiger, with its association to bravery. This year, the date has special significance since it also happens to fall on Valentine's Day, making it a doubly auspicious day to celebrate in the West.
I purchased the wrong type of coffee yesterday, a ground drip blend rather than the whole bean variety that I normally buy. When I popped the top of the vacuum-sealed can, a blast of grit exploded into my face and left eye.
The following article is an excerpt from an upcoming book by Rory Miller, tentatively titled 7. It will explore the seven aspects that are critical to self defense, giving you a few hints on staying alive, or if you teach self-defense, some critical information you can pass along to your students.
We’ve spent much time writing about awareness on the street. It’s important in relationships too. Don’t turn your brain off when you walk into your home.
Religion is full of paradox, and Eastern religions are no exception. One of the most compelling paradoxes is that Eastern religions (Buddhism and Daoism) are closely linked with the martial arts.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, men commit about 80 percent of all violent crimes in the United States, serious stuff like homicides, rapes, robberies, and assaults. Men are twice as likely as women to become victims of those same violent crimes, except for rape.
The goal of self defense is not to win a fight, but rather to avoid combat in the first place. After all the only battle you are guaranteed to walk away from unscathed is the one you never engage in. Taking a beat-down can seriously mess up your life, yet winners have consequences too.
Lawrence A. Kane supervises employees who provide security and oversee fan safety during college and professional football games at a Pac-10 stadium near Seattle, Washington. This job has given him a unique opportunity to appreciate violence in all forms. Along with his crew, he has witnessed, interceded in, stopped, or prevented hundreds of fights. He has also worked closely with the campus police and state patrol officers who are assigned to the stadium. Here is what he says about aggressive behavior as well as the escalation process that precedes violence in crowd control situations.
Gang violence gets a fair amount of copy in the media. But another form of violence is mob violence. Mob violence rises up, explodes, and then recedes.
Recently I watched "Felon", a movie that makes some realistic and valuable points about self-defense. In most jurisdictions a person can only resort to deadly force to escape imminent and unavoidable danger of death or grave bodily harm.
It wasn’t until my third year at Wudang that I started to find the training interesting, and started to train harder because I was genuinely interested in it.