Fight Like You Train, Don’t Train Like You Fight

You will fight like you train, as the saying goes, and there is some truth in it. If you have never tried to apply your martial art against a fully resisting opponent, it is unlikely to work as well as you would hope. Therefore, a practical martial arts curriculum should include a variety of common attacks, drilled with realistic speed and power.

A reasonable conclusion, isn’t it? But a surprisingly popular school of thought goes much further, contending that:

You should always train as if fighting, as this is the only way to improve your fighting ability.

This is nonsense, and every martial artist should understand why.

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Build a Popular Blog the McDonald’s Way

A professional author spends months, or even years crafting a single bestselling novel. A magazine or newspaper journalist needs a few weeks to compose a feature story. The entire history of writing shows that good writing takes time.

Yet, according to Technorati, most popular blogs are updated on a daily basis, often multiple times. What are we to make of this?

Is that accepted wisdom, that successful blogs are built on great content, supported by any factual evidence?

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Top Martial Arts Movies of 2006

Historical map
The world as seen by Netflix
Sea monsters block DVD imports

2006 was a great year for martial arts movie enthusiasts like us. Unfortunately, many of this year’s best films will never be released to US audiences.

No, you won’t see these movies in a local theatre, or at Blockbuster Video. Even Netflix seems unaware of Asia’s existence. As a kung fu fanatic, your only alternative is to order them directly on DVD.

If Jet Li’s Fearless and Tony Jaa’s The Protector didn’t scratch your itch, try these others:

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Do You Make This Zhan Zhuang Mistake?

Standing Like a Tree
Yao Chengguang performs zhan zhaung

Even an exercise as simple as zhan zhuang has its subtle points, the ignorance of which may hinder your progress in wushu. Wang Xiangzhai, the founder of Yiquan and a master of zhanzhuang, said:

We must, first and foremost, avoid the use of clumsy force, in body and in mind. Using this force makes the qi stagnant. When the qi is stagnant, than the yi stops; when the yi stops, than the spirit is broken.

To be sure, this is good advice, but even the greenest student is familiar with this principle of no-force. So, instead of dwelling on that, I would like to examine a more specific problem.

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Cultivating Happiness with the Secret Smile

This horse knows the secret

Happiness does not happen to us, it happens by us.  That is, by our specific intentions.

The Secret Smile is a simple and powerful meditative technique for cultivating happiness, to improve your health, your work, your relationships and your outlook on life. To practice the Secret Smile, follow these steps:

  1. Sit quietly and relax, until you have reached an emotionally neutral state.
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Emotional Mastery and Self-Defense

Effective self-defense requires a chain of complementary skills: awareness, discernment, agility, and so on.  This chain, like any other, is only as strong as its weakest link.  Many practitioners of martial arts concentrate on strengthening one end of the chain—the tactics of physical attack and defense—and give only cursory attention to other important links.

Emotional mastery is one such underappreciated skill. 

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