PLEASE STAND BY ..read more

Goodness, it's OCTOBER already, y'all! Weather has been up and down with the temps - c'mon, cold weather, kick in already! How was your week? TRAINING Another fun training session at The Kansas City Presas Arnis Meetup.  We worked on our "defensive responses" (1, 2 and 3) with double sticks, then showed how to use those drills with other tools (we used a single knife) to explore the possibilities.  This is some of my favorite material my teacher offers, and I love teaching it myself. My karate teacher is still in Okinawa, so we're having to do home practice yet again this w ..read more

Happy First Fall Friday! Autumn is my favorite season.  Temps here in KC have dropped into "you might need a sweater" levels and I love it! How was your week? TRAINING Since I didn't do a Stick Chicktivity update last week, I wanted to mention that I went down to Shawnee, OK two weekends ago to surprise my teacher at an Arnis seminar he was teaching there with Arnis OK.  I got to see a lot of other old friends, help my teacher in the seminar, and then got some one-on-one training time with him later than night. A fantastic trip, with fantastic people! If you follow me on m ..read more

There's a new student in class, and you're paired up with him. You've been asked to show him some basics to get him going.  Within five minutes, he's frowning and shaking his head. "I've never seen that in the UFC, so it can't possibly work." You work on something else, like a kick, and he says, "I've seen that kick thrown by Conor McGregor, so yeah, it's a good one!" You're working on strike mechanics, and he says, "Yeah, but if I do that, I can get taken down to the mat for ground-and-pound, like I saw Ronda Rousey do that one time..." Oh boy! You're working with UFC Fanboy ..read more

It's Friday!  Hooray! Man, I can't believe it's almost time for fall. This year has gone by fast! How was your week? TRAINING Had a new friend show up to the The Kansas City Presas Arnis Meetup, so we showed some of our basic stuff to get him going, then we worked on "stick capture" with block-check-counter.  Very fun day! The National Football League started this week, and I got the pleasure of my beloved Kansas City Chiefs beating division rival LA Chargers on the road.  Great way to start the season! In Karate (well, kobudo), I'm still working on the first bo form ..read more

This is not the post I was intending to write. You see, I started updating my "Enough with Sensei Scumbag's Shenanigans" post.  I used to have a list of martial arts instructors arrested/convicted of sexual abuse and other crimes of that nature in that post, and I realized I hadn't updated it in a while.  In fact, that list became so long, I decided to create a new post with a better list that I could update in an easier way. Welcome to your near future, Sensei Scumbag. That's the post I was going to publish today. BUT. In my research for that post, though, I ran across ..read more

Another week gone by ALREADY? Wow! Short week due to the holiday, but busy, busy. How was yours? TRAINING Despite the potential rain, we had a really great training session at the The Kansas City Presas Arnis Meetup.  We reviewed a lot of stuff and did some double stick disarming, which is ALWAYS fun material to work with. We had a great birthday and holiday weekend and then Wednesday we went to Karate class and worked on Naihanchi Sandan. I got a little work done (not as much as I'd like) on a new project I'll be sharing with you guys in the next few weeks or so. Here's me ..read more

In a martial arts discussion group I belong to, someone asked the question how do you teach complex, nuanced concepts to new people. This got me to thinking, and when I get to thinking, stuff like this blog post happens. So imagine, for a moment, that you're making a multi-layered cake.  Kind of like this: NOT a martial arts cake, as it will not put you in a painful armbar or punch you in the face. To put the entire cake together like the one above, you have to start with a base layer, add a little icing, add another layer, add more icing, and so on, until you have the entire ..read more

Wait, it's the end of AUGUST already? Wow! Even though I spent a couple of days fighting off a nasty illness of some sort, my week overall was pretty cool. How was yours? TRAINING We spent a really nice Saturday morning at the The Kansas City Presas Arnis Meetup working on reviewing policing techniques, x-pattern sinawali, and we wrapped it up with our defensive responses.  Good day of training! Monday I woke up with some sort of illness and I spent Monday AND Tuesday fighting it off.  No fun, kids. But I got better by Wednesday, so FINALLY I could re-join karate cl ..read more

People who are beginning the recovery process often find themselves with a plethora of options for recreational sports, however, few people consider the martial arts. This post highlights the benefits of martial arts and how they can help individuals succeed throughout their addiction recovery. Martial arts have been around since the earliest forms of civilization. Often coming from Mesopotamian and East Asian origins, they can be traced back to ancient forms of illustration of people bandaging their fists to engage in close combat boxing. The Tang Dynasty of China introduced the use of weap ..read more