Believe it or not, Kata/forms can fit into Ecological dynamics, active inference and embodied training.

Been a while since I updated this blog. I am going to talk about forms again, and I’ve changed my mind a bit since the last time I began writing about this topic. But before I do that, I have to set the stage of what my point is. I’ve been busy dipping my foot

Why you should practice forms even though forms are useless.

Love the click bait title? Good, because I actually kind of mean it. So this blog post is about martial arts, but it started from a political discussion regarding the current conflict with Israel and Palestine. A kung fu teacher I follow said something slightly offensive after October 7th toward Palestinians, and I ended up

The biggest thing my Karate teacher taught me: Being athletic can be learned.

Before and after I got my black belt. Before and after I took up training in kickboxing, BJJ and MMA wrestling, people always said my movement was slow and awkward, but somehow I landed well and I defended well. But I was never described as explosive. Weird timing, good fundamentals once they understood what I

There is Invisible Jui Jitsu and there is Invisible Karate.

I used to describe the way I learned Uechi-Ryu as ‘Tai Chi with rolling and sparring’ or rather ‘internal martial arts with aliveness’ or other such desccriptions. But I’ve come to realize using ‘internal martial arts with resistence’ is a pretty bad description. Not because it’s entirely inaccurate, as Tai Chi is hugely influential in

The No.1 reason you need to spar/roll

I plan on this post being short, but I write stream of consciousness, and so it could go long. There are many genuinely good martial arts teachers who not only don’t spar, but don’t encourage it. The logic is either it’s too risky, or that sparring is too much like a duel and not an

Western influence on traditional arts is not always one way.

I was watching Lawrence of Kenshin make a video about Kyokushin karate, and he basically said the reason Kyokushin wins against Muay Thai (Sometimes) and he heavily implied that it’s because Kyokushin and other Full contact karate styles basically integrated Muay Thai, and that’s why they start to win or perform well. And there is

Another post on crashing: Do you have the timing down?

This post is going to be pretty short. I’ve been thinking about why crashing is so commonly taught even to very skilled and in-depth martial artists, why is it a tactic? Sure it’s easy, but there are things that provide a better end result. So why? Then I realised it’s a timing thing, why crashing

Pivoting and rolling off the point of contact: Why people who are good at crashing are not crashing.

As always this article will have plenty of moving and still images. The problem is I could find nothing that perfectly illustrates what I want, even though when watching matches or watching Youtube videos of assaults and self-defence instructional, people do this stuff I mention in this article, whether knowingly or unknowingly. But when doing

Yes, there is such a thing as training too much to be efficient.

I almost feel dirty for writing this article. Because frankly, if focussing too much on efficiency is a problem, then focussing on getting something done regardless of efficiency is an even bigger problem. I’ve seen collegiate wrestlers do arm drags and take downs with pure ‘hulk smash’ energy than smooth technique. So the problem I’m

Leaning forward in a triangle vs standing verticle like a tree. A discussion on posture.

Back when I could afford to be a patreon for people, I was giving patronage to Steve Morris. I learned a few things reading his posts on mechanics, the neuro-science of stress and learning between the rants. And there were rants, often about how useless most karate, kung-fu and general traditional arts are. He’s an