Zoe Kazan is just one of the few actors in recent years who have decided to write a screenplay with a central character made for themselves. In most cases these [...]
All Entries in the "Sports" Category
The Martial Artist of the 21st Century
Martial arts were developed to help people fight, being it for attacking people in battle or for defensive purposes. If we look at China and Japan, two countries that gave birth to some of the most famous martial arts in the world, they have profound differences in the way martial arts developed over time. In [...]
Martial Arts and the Subconscious
Have you ever heard expressions like: Practicing martial arts without thinking? Going with the instinct? Thinking is too slow in a fighting situation? The main purpose of learning complicated moves and combinations during most martial arts practice brings two main advantages: improving the muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints involved in that move building connections in [...]
How Realistic is Your Training?
Considering that martial arts are, in essence, methodologies for fighting I always consider paramount to perform a reality check of each application. This is to assess if and when a technique or combination can be useful in a self defence or real fight situation. Please notice that some styles, like kick boxing, tae kwon do [...]
An Encounter That Made Me Think
The other day I bumped into MT, a former student of mine. He joined my club years ago and trained with us for at least a couple of years. MT is a guy in his late thirties, over 6 foot tall and well over 200 pounds of weight. When he arrived he had a reasonable [...]
Contact Training for Self Defence
This post is discussing the importance of contact training in martial arts, particularly in view of their effectiveness in self defence situations. Once I welcomed a new student in my club: he stated to be nearly at Dan level in his club back home. He practiced a style of Korean martial art, derived from Tae [...]
How Strongly Do You Wish to Succeed in Martial Arts?
When you see a person who is active and among the top performers within your school or club have you ever asked your self what took that person to be where he/ she is now? We surely cannot assume that anybody was born capable of punching, kicking or performing any other martial art move in [...]
Six Nations Review – 2013
March 2013 saw the exciting climax of the Northern Hemisphere’s most prolific rugby event – RBS Six Nations Rugby. Albeit the final table shows a vast range in class between certain teams, for example Wales’s four wins to France’s one, it cannot be said that the quality of rugby in the 2013 tournament has not [...]
Hook Kick: 5 Good Reasons to Hit with the Ball of the Foot
Different schools and styles of martial arts teach the hook kick (also called reversed round kick) in different ways. Main differences manifest essentially in the way the movement originates, how the kicking leg is moving during the kick and what part of the foot hits the target that can be the hill or the sole/ball [...]
Understanding Strong Posture
Different martial arts teach and instill different postures that have been designed to offer the ideal position(s) to best use attack and defend actions for that specific style. Although what works for Aikido is so substantially different from Kickboxing or Wing Chun they all make sense when you apply the techniques from their particular repertoire. [...]
What Experience Gives You
Recently I was running a lesson with the Cambridge University Kickboxing Society and I was pointing out to two beginners young ladies how one was not hitting has hard as she could while performing a simple exercise. Her partner was surprised of my remark and she stopped asking how I could tell she was not hitting “as [...]
The Importance of Speed in Martial Arts
In order to be a good martial artist you must aim at excelling in a number of different skills and having at the same time: Strength Agility Coordination Reflexes Balance Endurance Speed The last but definitely not least one in the list, speed, is to be considered of extreme importance because it affects most of [...]
Powerful Strikes: My Top 5 Martial Arts Punches
Martial artists and sport fighters with some level of experience are aware that some punches or kicks are stronger than others; some people just accept that as a fact, some of us try to understand the reasons behind by studying the human anatomy, how the body works and how biomechanics actually apply to these techniques. [...]
Knife Defense
Whenever you a guy fighting in a movie one or more attackers armed with knives don’t believe what you are seeing: most of the times it is unrealistic. I have seen lots of knife defences that simply won’t work when, in the street, a random guy (or girl) pulls out a knife and tries stabbing [...]
Two Good Ways to Avoid a Fight
I am convinced that getting involved in a fight is something that should be avoided at all times. There might be circumstances where fighting is absolutely unavoidable and I repeat something I have already expressed before: in a fight or flight situation the latter should be preferred if you are sure you can run faster [...]
Differences Between Kickboxing and Thai Boxing
Many people, too many people, confuse Kickboxing with Thai Boxing (also called Muai Thai). Perhaps it is because of the generalisation that many schools do in defining any fighting sport that uses upper and lower body strikes (e.g. punches and kicks) as Kickboxing. I used the term fighting sport to indicate a martial art that gets practiced [...]
Levels of Competence: the Martial Arts Case
One of the models I used during my Professional Coaching Training describes competence in four broad steps or levels: I found this extremely useful and practical because it helps identifying very quickly at which stage a person is with her competence toward a certain subject. I’ll add an example about driving a car that I hope [...]
Importance of Online Bookings for the Yacht Charter
Greece is undoubtedly an country where you can really enjoy seeing many different monuments, locations, as well as many of its awesome beaches. It is in the summers that place becomes abundant in tourists as it provides to the tourists with its awesome beaches and other fun activities. Advantages Of Booking Your Kroatien Yacht Charter [...]
Disambiguation About 5 Styles Called Kickboxing
For somebody who has been practicing kickboxing since before it was given this name I find somehow irritating when people confuse it or, worse, deliberately misuse its name for commercial reasons. Most martial arts, despite attracting some time interesting numbers of keen followers, failed to attract the real interest of the masses in terms the [...]
A Golden Era For Men’s Tennis
For the past fifty years Men’s Tennis has had many rivalries. In the 70′s we had Borg and Conners, then during the 80′s we had Lendl, McEnroe and Becker, it was the turn of the Americans in the 90′s with the two powerhouses of Agassi and Sampras. At the turn of the millennium Europe began [...]
Clever Tweets or Silly Twits?
With Ashley Cole becoming the latest in a long line of sports stars to apologise for their outburst on Twitter, today I will examine the questions: ”Do sports stars really need Twitter to become closer to their fans?” and ”Is it really worth running the risk of a fine or charge by their respected sports authorities?” Gone were [...]
The Day Justice Became a Reality
The the 15th of April 1989 became the day that sport did not matter. It became the day headlines being prepared on the back page of a newspaper which would only reiterate what was being prepared for the front page. It became the day 96 people left their homes for a football match only never to return. [...]
Foot Note
“Have you ever spent a day wearing mittens? I do not suppose you have tried it too long with shoes.” These were the thoughts I had as I sat on my kitchen table looking down at my feet wiggling my toes. Our autobiographical lives give ample coverage to back ache and neck pain, but [...]
Start The Samba Early
Having just watched England comfortably beat Moldova 5-0 in the first qualifying match for the World cup finals in Brazil 2014 its time to Que the hopes and expectations, the dare to dream and mutter the words “we could win the World cup”. There is only one problem with this? I said this for the World cups [...]
Right Mind; Appropriate Perception
Episodic or lifelong knee pain is increasingly familiar to a greater number of people. Amongst young adults, the most common pain is of the lower fraction, just below the patella (knee cap), and towards the inner side of the knee. Clinically this is referred to as Prepatellar Bursitis, common diagnoses are; patella tendonitis, Osgood-shlatter disease, [...]
The Olympic Legacy
They hope that the London 2012 games will have ‘inspired a generation,’ and I do believe that the impact of the games has been much larger than anticipated, and what it has highlighted is that Sport can make a difference. For as long as I can remember subjects such as sport, music and dance have [...]
Inspire a Generation, You’ve Inspired a Nation
Overcrowding on the underground, lack of security, congestion on our roads due to “games lanes”. All this as the country still deals with the aftermath of the London riots, falling further into recession and the summer of discontent. Was an Olympic games really what we needed and this precise moment? In fact it was the perfect tonic. Even the [...]
Ask City Connect
How Do I Holiday Like a TOWIE Girl?
Having not watched The Only Way Is Essex (TOWIE) myself, I am probably better advising you on whether to holiday in Cannes, New York, Paris or Milan. However one of [...]
Style
To Snood or Not to Snood?
Summer is just around the corner but the vagaries of British weather mean that you should ensure you can quickly lay your hands on something to wrap around you on [...]
Relationships
Only Children and Drunks Tell the Truth – Part 3
I’ve seen enough anger turn to violence amongst the drunk and the restless to know that anger in its most basic form is a cry for help, a sad loss of control on one’s life. [...]
