Happy Spring!! To All EP Martial Arts Students and Friends Thanks to you we made it through one of the toughest years ever!! We are very grateful to all of you, long timers as well as new students!! Let’s keep training hard together and make the best ever version of ourselves! We can be stronger, more confident and ultimately more able to defend ourselves and our families. Also we can be more effective in our daily lives through the confidence gained from training. Thanks to everyone that participated in the tournament last Thursday! We are really proud of how so many people stepped up to test ..read more

Theodore Roosevelt was the 26th president of the United States from 1901-1909. He was also the youngest becoming president at 42 yrs old. TR was a sickly child and had asthma. As an adult he was told by his doctor that he had a bad heart and that he should live a quiet life. Teddy rejected this advice and was very active. After getting pushed around by his fellow hikers while on an outdoor adventure, he took up boxing for self defense. He loved boxing and boxed for many years, including weekly sparring sessions while governor of New York and even as president, until he was hit in the eye and b ..read more

HAPPY NEW YEARS ! 2021! We hope everyone had a great Holiday ! We’re looking forward to New Years were all ready for 2020 to be over! We will be be closed next week for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, otherwise we’ll be running all our regular weekly classes. Polar Bear Plunge Date Change to Sunday, January 3. We changed the date from New Year’s Day to the following Sunday, January 3, at 11 am. It will still be at Barrington Beach. Hot chocolate and caps for everyone that shows even if your just there to support us! I hope to see you there! Please be safe this Holiday season. Watch out for ..read more

Sent from my iPhone Begin forwarded message: > From: EP Martial Arts bart.axelrod.gmail.com@hubspotfree.net> > Date: November 30, 2020 at 12:59:51 PM EST > To: bart.axelrod@gmail.com > Subject: REMINDER plus Striking: Schedule & Links for Virtual EPMA Classes! > Reply-To: bart.axelrod@gmail.com > > > > EP Martial Arts Website > > > > Schedule and Links for Virtual Classes > For everyone’s safety and for compliance with our local restrictions, our physical gym will be closed starting today (November 30th) until December 13th for in person classes ..read more

Inversion Thinking Try a new way to help you to see the world more clearly and make better decisions. It is called Inversion Thinking. This approach was popularized by Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet’s business partner. Charlie said Inversion Thinking was his simple trick to make better decisions. It originally came from a German mathematician in the 1800s. Charlie said it is used all the time to solve Algebra problems. I wish I knew about this in high school! Inversion think isn’t just for business people or mathematicians. It can work for almost any problem or challenge. How can I achieve my g ..read more

This Too Shall Pass We are all feeling pretty glum about America right now. There are many problems and perspectives. You may feel the whole country is racist and it needs to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up. You may feel that radical protesters are trying to erase history. You may feel that there is endemic racism in every action by police. You know there are some bad cops, but you feel certain they’re a tiny minority. Maybe you own a small business and you’ve been closed for months and you can’t get your employees to come back to work. Maybe you’re afraid of losing your health ins ..read more

Why we need to exercise during this pandemic and why I miss the gym It’s crazy being all cooped up. Pretty much as soon as we closed the gym I have been going to the beach in the evenings, running, it’s been mostly drizzly and cool with nobody around. Actually it’s been nice. The beach feels safe from the virus, with the salty breeze and the amazing views and open space it connects me with the natural world and it’s a fun place to work out. I had fun putting lines in the sand with my heel every 10 steps and I did interval sprints. First 10 yards walk back then 20 yds and up to 100 yds. I felt ..read more

Automation and The American Dream I had three recent experiences with automation and AI systems and I’m concerned about corporate greed and The American Dream. Remember the American Dream, you can pick yourself up from nothing and make it in America?! The ladder is the key, climbing it is the challenge, but the ladder needs to be there. The teller in my bank asked me to come into the bank whenever possible instead of using the automated systems like atms so that more tellers are not laid off. I heard a story on NPR about how Amazon employees are being injured at an alarming rate trying to keep ..read more

My friend Keith Allan I met Keith Allan in March of 2015 at the open house for a new location of EP Martial Arts. Ty and Keith had been partners in a gym in Pawtucket 20 years earlier and Ty always spoke highly of Keith. Keith had been his JKD and Kali instructor as well as his partner. Keith came to our open house to support us and I remember meeting him for the first time. He was interested in Krav Maga and we talked about Filipino martial arts, JKD and boating which was a big part of his life. I didn’t see Keith again until several months after I went to Israel for Krav Maga training two ye ..read more

Violence in the media, (oh and guns) This blog is about a problem in our society and how we are trying to correct it. We are reacting emotionally to the issue of violence and especially gun violence. We are being manipulated by those who benefit from the status quo. I feel qualified to express my opinion because I have been a victim of violence and I deal with violence and the aftermath of violence in my job as a paramedic. I am also a Krav Maga (Israeli self defense) Instructor and I train in Judo. You could say that violence, and thinking about and training for violence is a big part of my l ..read more