Innholdsfortegnelse for August - September 2017 i Black Belt Magazine

The Ultimate Fighting Championship announced that former heavyweight champ Maurice Smith has been added to the 2017 UFC Hall of Fame class as a Pioneer. The induction will take place July 6 in Las Vegas and will be streamed live on UFC Fight Pass. “It will be an honor to be inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame and be forever connected to this sport,” Smith said. “I was the first world-class striker to win a UFC title because I worked with great training partners to evolve into a well-rounded fighter. I’m proud of the titles I won in MMA, but helping advance the game toward the mixed martial arts of today is my greatest accomplishment in the sport.” Smith made his debut in 1997 at the UFC 14. He…

Having always held an interest in combat sports like boxing and wrestling, he was intrigued when a friend invited him to a school that taught a Korean fighting style called kang duk won. “My first class, they had me sit in a low horse stance for an hour,” Greene said. “In those days, the hardcore schools would give you something difficult to do the first time to see if you could take it. And if you could, then they’d let you train there.” The reaction to that kind of testing differs depending on the person, Greene said. “Some people are not interested. Some people just get hooked.” That was 53 years ago, and Greene is still active in the arts. I guess you could say he was one of the…

C onfession time! We’re not sure how Tim Tackett could have been overlooked for so long by the Black Belt Hall of Fame selection panel. He’s one of the most prominent instructors in the jeet kune do community and has a martial arts resume that stretches way back. Tackett got his first taste of the Asian arts back in 1962 when Uncle Sam sent him to Taiwan as part of the U.S. Air Force. His initial foray into selfdefense included tai chi, hsing-i and several forms of kung fu. When he separated from the military, Tackett opened a kung fu school in California, at the time an uphill battle for a non-Chinese. Like so many others who would go on to become martial arts movers and shakers, Tackett was inspired…

Many martial artists who are skilled at unarmed self-defense choose to carry an edged weapon. Likewise, many people who legally carry a handgun for defense elect to clip a folding knife to the lip of their front pocket. I’m among them. I don’t do it to be stylish or trendy. I don’t regard my knife as my default front-line weapon for unarmed or armed combat. Yes, it can be, but it’s also a backup to my hands, feet and firearm — that was especially true when I was serving as a peace officer. I created this overview of knives and knife training to share my experiences with civilians and introduce newcomers to this defensive device. The reason is obvious: The knife is not a tool one decides to carry without…

Caitlin Dechelle in 2012's “Champions of the Deep.” When Caitlin Dechelle and her dad strolled into the Black Belt office in 2004, we were duly impressed with the skills displayed by the spunky young karateka. They’d come out from Florida so Caitlin could appear in a Black Belt photo shoot and perhaps get noticed. While we often run across talented martial artists who move to California in an attempt to slide into showbiz, we found ourselves thinking she had that spark, that drive one needs to succeed. Over the years, we watched Caitlin grow — as a person, as a martial artist, as a competitor and as a performer. She won a ton of tournaments, including the Battle of Atlanta, the Ocean State Grand Nationals, the Capitol Classic and the…

Zebra Athletics, an outfitter of martial arts and MMA training facilities, has reached a sponsorship agreement with Mackenzie Dern, two-time Brazilian jiu-jitsu world champion and rising MMA star. “We’re excited to partner with Mackenzie,” Zebra CEO Chuck Blanski said. “Not only is she a great athlete, but she values the same things we do at Zebra Athletics. Hard work, dedication and a mission to be the best are core to everything we do at Zebra and are clearly a very important part of Mackenzie’s personal and professional life.” “A partnership with Zebra was a natural and perfect fit for me,” Dern said. “I started training on their mats when I was a kid and still train on them today for both MMA at The MMA Lab and BJJ at Team…

Arguments often boiled down to pure bias, or occasionally which side of the channel one resided on. Among unbiased observers today, there’s little doubt that both pursuits can be entertaining for spectators and have contributed greatly to the advancement of ring strategies and tactics. That historical contention did, however, motivate me to research the subject, and that led to my discovery of a martial artist who competed at the top tier in boxing and boxe Francaise. His name was Georges Carpentier, aka “The Orchid Man” or “The Orchid Kid.” AT THE AFOREMENTIONED turn of the century, Carpentier was a noted boxe Francaise competitor who went on to win the French championship in 1907. The sport was in its heyday at the time, so we can assume that Carpentier was forced…

Masayuki Shimabukuro demonstrates the right way to use a sword. THE METALLIC ZIINNGG: You hear this when a character draws or sheathes a sword. In fact, it’s a sound that’s added in postproduction. The saya, or scabbard of a Japanese sword, is made of wood. Properly constructed, the blade “floats” in the scabbard, touching the wood only at the collar at the top of the hilt. If you hear a lot of noise when someone draws a sword, it indicates that the person is scraping the blade on the saya. It’s actually possible for such a swordsman to cut through the soft wood of the scabbard and into the hand that’s holding it. When you draw or sheathe a katana, there’s usually just a faint rustle. It may not be…

Although she’s been well-known in the judo world for years, Kayla Harrison rose to fame in the greater martial arts community when she struck gold at the 2012 London Games and thus became the first American judoka — female or male — to stand atop an Olympic podium. She reveled in the glory of the moment, then got right back to work in the dojo to prepare for the 2016 Games. And guess what? She grabbed another gold in Rio! “I knew it was going to be a tough road, but I also knew I had prepared as best I could,” Harrison said. “I went to tournaments and training camps all over the world looking for the right preparation. I trained as if I wasn’t an Olympic champion, and that…

Most modern martial artists know about muay Thai, the combat sport of Thailand. Most also know about muay boran, its no-nonsense parent art. Few, however, know about pradal serey. This fighting system hails from the same part of the world — namely, Southeast Asia — but its practice isn’t nearly as widespread as muay Thai’s and its role in history isn’t nearly as celebrated as muay boran’s. Here is the story of this unsung style. BEGINNINGS Pradal serey (also spelled bradal serey) traces its origins to the Khmer Empire, which lasted from 802 to 1431. Khmer territories encompassed parts of modern-day Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. During that period, the system was known as Khmer boran and kun boran. Roughly translated, those terms meant “ancient Cambodian fighting arts.” Physical evidence…

The Special Forces Association and its board of directors recently acknowledged the unique service of Michael D. Echanis to the Special Forces community by awarding the hwa rang do practitioner a posthumous Associate Membership. This act acknowledges Echanis’ contributions, which included not only teaching martial arts to the Special Forces but also serving in a heretofore-unknown role as an intelligence asset working in Nicaragua at the time of his death. Echanis reported personally to Col. Charlie Beckwith (retired) at Fort Bragg. Beckwith is best known as the founder and first commander of the Army’s elite counterterrorist unit Delta Force. These initiatives involving Echanis, formally documented and reviewed by the board, were likewise attested to by Special Forces legend and Ranger Hall of Fame inductee Vladimir “Jake” Jakovenko. It was Jakovenko’s…

• Improve Your Muay Thai Now: How Master Toddy Trains Champions, Parts 1 and 2 There’s more to muay Thai than kicks, punches, elbows and knees! In this Black Belt exclusive, a renowned trainer reveals the secrets of his success. • In Honor of David Carradine, Kwai Chang Caine From the TV Series Kung Fu Join us as we pay tribute to David Carradine on the eighth anniversary of his death. He inspired the masses with two Kung Fu TV series and multiple movies, including Lone Wolf McQuade and Kill Bill. • Self-Defense for Minimalists: The Only Kick You Will Ever Need Want to learn a powerful and versatile selfdefense move but pressed for time? We have a solution, and a veteran black belt is here to teach it to…

FATE OF THE FURIOUS The Fast & Furious films began as drag-racing movies, yet with Fast Five (2011) and Furious 7 (2015) — which introduced CIA agent Luke Hobbs as Dom Toretto’s (Vin Diesel) nemesis and Jason Statham as Deckard Shaw — the franchise morphed into an in-car-nation of outrageous, high-velocity auto stunts and martial arts potency. In 1999 Diesel was telling me about his love for 1970s Shaw Brothers kung fu films when he said, “Would’ve been cool to be in one of those movies.” In a twist of fate, Diesel finally got to do that ’70s flick with a Western twist. In Fate of the Furious (aka Furious 8), a villain named Cipher uses ruinous video evidence to force Dom underground, turn him against his team and coerce…

It doesn’t matter whether you practice boxing, judo, jujitsu, karate, kendo or tai chi. It doesn’t matter whether you choose to use a staff, a stick or a fist. All martial arts are based on three simple rules. What distinguishes one system from another is the way those rules are implemented and the strategies that grow out of them. That’s why the best people in any martial discipline recognize the excellence of others whose arts, while seemingly different, are surprisingly similar in execution. They’ve all solved the same puzzle, each accenting different components of a single answer. On first seeing Morihei Ueshiba’s aikido, judo founder Jigoro Kano reportedly said, admiringly, “That is my judo.” And both those masters appreciated and respected the modern karate fashioned by Gichin Funakoshi. There’s nothing…

It’s been widely observed that training in the martial arts is ultimately limited by human physiology. As Bruce Lee said, as long as we all have two arms and two legs, there can be only one way of fighting. Success is determined not so much by the nuances of technique as by how technique is taught and practiced. It’s precisely this search for a superior approach that’s garnered the Russian martial art of systema so much attention. With roots stretching back to the fighting traditions of the ancient Cossacks, systema was born and nurtured in a climate of diversity and adversity. The expansiveness of Russia required a style that was adaptable and functional. A history of invasion and occupation solidi?ied this mindset, forging a martial tradition that contrasts sharply with…