Clubb Chimera

Image via Wikipedia "The fool wonders, the wise man asks." – Benjamin Disraeli Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism and other religious and philosophical ideas have been melded with the practice of martial arts in modern times. However, I would like to suggest that we apply another so-called philosophy. It has some very ancient and respectable roots in the philosophers of ancient Greece and its process is the very definition of objective philosophy. What I am describing is something I believe underlies […]

Years ago I read an online martial arts discussion regarding limited training times. A martial arts student had written in with a problem. He only had an hour a day to train and wanted to make the best use of his time. The responses came in thick and fast. However, to my astonishment all of the programmes suggested consisted of mainly doing long callisthenic exercises and stretching before a small amount of time was dedicated to doing actual martial arts […]

Image via Wikipedia Like children and the disabled, violence directed against the elderly often grabs news headlines because of the shock it will cause in those who read or hear about it. The callousness of these crimes hits right at the heart of society’s core. Those of us who are not elderly yet are often angered by such news, as we can relate the victim to an older member of our family. Those of us who are elderly often see […]

Picture the scene: you are an eager adult martial arts student with a firm interest in realistic combat methods for today’s civilian and, having found a club that seems to tick all your criteria boxes, you are suddenly paired with a child training partner. You are a no-nonsense type of person and a veteran of many different martial arts classes. The belts, rituals and exotic movements no longer impress you. In fact, you would rather steer away from clubs that […]

How do we teach children to be efficient students of realistic self-protection and martial arts? It’s a tough question and if training children is to be seen as an allegory for teaching fundamentals then it is not surprising that this very element is where the martial arts education industry is at its weakest. I see teaching children as a path to retraining ourselves about base principles and commonsense. In short, the premise I set for myself when I first founded […]

Previously I discussed the social barriers that often stand in the way of teaching children realistic self-protection. In this article we look at what I believe we should be teaching children in the context of realistic self-protection, but first let us look at how these barriers, if we let them, severely impede our honest intentions. It should be noted that these barriers are often reinforced by sound arguments and therefore should be seriously considered before anyone approaches realistic self-protection training […]

“Why?”: the dreaded single syllable word that a child can use repeatedly to raise an adult’s temperature and stretch his comfortable and established philosophies of logic, reason and beliefs to breaking point. I have seen many an adult reduced to a blubbering mess or a ranting dictator, as he tries to explain and justify his answers, while a six year old sits calmly with only the smallest traces of a mischievous grin on his face asking again and again “Why?”  […]

Image via Wikipedia “Learn from the experienced, not from the learned” – Anonymous Since the nineteenth century, streets have been patrolled by organised police forces employed to uphold the laws of the land designed to protect the innocent. Yet the civilised human being is still drawn to combat whether it is as a system of self-protection, a form of stress relief or a method to keep healthy. There is something appealing about the visceral look and feel of ordered violence. […]

Image via Wikipedia “I saw you beat him like no other man’s been beat before and the man kept on coming after you. We don’t want any part of a man like that” – Rocky II (1978) In the epic medieval poem Le Morte D’Arthur, King Arthur battles his treacherous son, Mordred, who has tried to usurp his throne. Arthur confronts Mordred and thrusts his spear through his son’s body. However, before falling to the ground dead, Mordred strikes a […]