Innholdsfortegnelse for February/March 2018 i Black Belt Magazine

The wake of the boxing bout in which Floyd Mayweather Jr. took on Conor McGregor is continuing to wash up on the beach even though the fight took place on August 26, 2017 — more than three months before this issue of Black Belt went to print. More than anything else, it seems to be precipitating talk of other big matchups in a way the Milo Savage-Gene LeBell fight in 1963 and the Art Jimmerson-Royce Gracie match in the UFC 1 never seemed to. The big bout was won by Mayweather, of course, with a 10th-round TKO. No surprise there, really, given the champ’s 49-0 record going into it. However, most pundits give McGregor great credit for nearly going the distance against the champ, and all three judges had the…

A sequel to 1984’s hit flick The Karate Kid is in the works, Entertainment Weekly reported. Ralph Macchio (Danielsan) and William Zabka (Johnny) will be involved in the project, which will be called Cobra Kai and will premiere in 2018 on YouTube Red. The usual news outlets announced that Mel Gibson and Danny Glover may be reprising their roles as Riggs and Murtaugh for a fifth Lethal Weapon movie. There’s good reason to expect the film will include martial arts: The first Lethal Weapon (1987) helped introduce Brazilian jiu-jitsu to the masses with its dynamic fight choreography by Rorion Gracie, who served as special technical adviser. And Lethal Weapon 4 featured Cheryl Wheeler Sanders (then Cheryl Wheeler) performing fight scenes for co-star Rene Russo, as well as Jet Li, who…

On a Quote From the Man JUDO GENE LEBELL: “Jujitsu comes from wrestling. So does judo. They’re really all the same thing.” Deitrich Tennin: LOL at people “correcting” Judo Gene LeBell. Abraham Vega: When you do martial arts for as long as he has, there is really nothing new, and you see similarities in techniques all across the board. On a Link to a BlackBeltMag.com Story BLACK BELT: Go here to read “Bill Superfoot Wallace on Teaching Martial Arts, Practicing Diplomacy and Loving What You Do.” Christopher Chad Blevins: Such an awesome person and fighter, and he’s hilarious to train with and very respectable. Been a fan of his for years! On a Link to a BlackBeltMag.com Story BLACK BELT: Click here to read “Donnie Yen: The Martial Artist Who…

THE FOREIGNER This is the most satisfying Jackie Chan performance in years. It’s a gripping melodrama about an aging, gentle, London-based restaurant owner named Quan (Jackie Chan) who witnesses his sole teenage daughter being blown up in an IRA attack. That’s when his long-buried demons erupt into a vindictive vendetta that targets the culprits. The man who may be responsible, Quan learns, is former IRA leader Liam Hennessy (Pierce Brosnan). After the opening scene in which the bomb explodes and kills Quan’s daughter, Chan — glass in face, smoke and blood everywhere — is cradling his daughter. As an actor, he’s rife with pain and loss, making this the most powerful emotional shot I’ve ever seen him do. Peeved by Quan’s pursuit, Hennessy sets four goons on him in a…

In modern culture, the ninja are often portrayed as coldblooded assassins, men and occasionally women garbed in black and armed with samurai swords and throwing stars, agents who appear out of nowhere in the shadows of the night to dispatch their victims without mercy. They’re said to possess magical powers, including invisibility and the ability to walk on water. They’re depicted as the owners of physical skills that could give Olympic athletes a run for their money. Once in a while, you even hear a fantastical statement like, “Only a ninja can kill another ninja.” That kind of hype might be fine for entertaining kids who were raised on comic books, video games and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles flicks. But adults tend to prefer a dose of historical accuracy in…

Some will know, too, that we can determine the pedigree of a karate system through the heritage of these two styles. Shorin-ryu, for instance, comes basically from the Shuri-te tradition, while the bulk of goju-ryu evolved from Naha-te. Beyond that, these two iterations of karate aren’t really understood or appreciated by many practitioners. The distinctions and unique characteristics of the two are intriguing, and they offer important insights into the karate we practice today. WHILE OUR IMAGE of Okinawa and the other Ryukyu islands is largely shaped by World War II, from very early on, the chain was seen as a crossroads, a convenient, neutral stopover and trading spot for much of Asia. Naha has always been, and is today, the principal port city of the Okinawan islands. For centuries,…

When you and a partner are impact training on each other, how hard you strike depends on the technique, the scenario, the sequence, the weapon, whether you’re wearing protective equipment and, most important, you and your partner’s appetites for intensity. In all cases, you need to really think about how to blast safely. The good news is that following a few precautions and adhering to some simple guidance will keep your training as safe as combatives training can be. FOR EXAMPLE, if you’re working on drills for unarmed defenses against edged weapons, the attacker should wear protective equipment specific to those drills, but he also should slash and thrust at you with full power and speed. Only by training at this level of speed, power and intensity will you develop…

The last time Black Belt scored a sit-down with Rickson Gracie was for the cover of our March 2001 issue. Yes, he’s that busy. So when we got a chance to spend some time with the martial artist who’s widely regarded as the best fighter Brazilian jiu-jitsu has ever produced, of course we accepted. What really got our blood pumping, however, was the promise of a big reveal — that Rickson is dedicating his life to getting BJJ back on track as a self-defense art. Needless to say, we’re very excited about where his initiative will lead. — Editors What occupies your time these days? In addition to teaching and being engaged in the jiu-jitsu community, I’ve been involved for the last five years with the Jiu Jitsu Global Federation.…

TO BECOME FLEXIBLE, SUPERFOOT SAYS, YOU MUST WORK YOUR HAMSTRINGS, QUADRICEPS AND ADDUCTORS. As a living legend of the martial arts, Bill “Superfoot” Wallace needs no introduction for the majority of Black Belt’s readers. But for those who are new to our pursuit, here are a few keywords that describe the world’s greatest kicker: high-school wrestler, Air Force veteran, judo black belt, karate black belt, undefeated professional full-contact fighter, bodyguard, fight commentator, actor, stuntman, fight choreographer, Black Belt columnist, author, video talent. Add to that the fact that Wallace is perhaps the most popular martial arts instructor in the world and has been for four decades. If that’s not enough, know that he owns a master’s degree in kinesiology. The take-away is that if you’re into point fighting, continuous sparring…

Japan imported Chinese characters during the fifth century, mostly for official business, which was conducted in spoken Chinese. About two centuries later, Japan began using these characters to write in Japanese. They used Chinese characters but read — and spoke — them in Japanese. Example: The character for “wind” is the same whether it’s written in China or Japan, but in China, it’s pronounced fung, while in Japan, it’s pronounced kaze. This would be simple, except that given early Japan’s regard for China, the Chinese pronunciations of some words were the “elegant” or “educated” ones. We have something similar: We all know the German or Anglo-Saxon terms for words that would be considered crude in polite conversation, so instead, we use the more refined and “proper” Latin or Frenchderived terms.…

But unlike some grappling masters who look to demonstrate their prowess by submitting every opponent as quickly and impressively as possible, Galvao is kind, almost languid in his approach. He gives all the participants an opportunity to feel as if they’re accomplishing something before the inevitable. Displaying his trademark methodical style, Galvao eventually takes charge of each opponent, carefully improving his position until he’s placed himself in full control. Then he gently launches a final submission hold. It’s a style that has led not only Galvao, with his five black-belt world titles, to the heights of the jiu-jitsu landscape but also his Atos squad to No. 1 status, winning the team title at this year’s “Mundials,” the Brazilian jiu-jitsu world championships. GALVAO’S CAREER has followed the same methodical, inevitable progress…

In his writings, Bruce Lee attempted to depict a street fight in its empirical form and not through the prism of any style or system. When he said, “In a fight, we must be like water and adapt to the chaotic shifts and changes of combat,” he was talking about stripping human conflict down to its purest form and actually embracing the chaos. Unfortunately, most people, including many martial artists, harbor misperceptions about fighting. I’ve found that those misperceptions exist mostly because of two factors. One is the lack of real-world combat experience, which is self-explanatory. The other is the preoccupation students have with the style they do. For example, folks who study taekwondo tend to assume the whole world is going to attack them with high kicks. People who…

And then from the depths of the woods went out such a tremulous and prolonged wail of mournful fear and utter despair as may be imagined to follow the flight of the last hope from the earth.— Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness Most people don’t know much about that part of the map that sits in the center of the African continent, what was called in Joseph Conrad’s day “the Congo” but is now officially termed the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a perhaps wishful name given the country’s perpetual ruling mix of tyranny and anarchy. The few fleeting mental images anyone might have of the region often owe themselves to Conrad’s overwrought but estimable novella Heart of Darkness, which follows the journey of an English steamboat captain up a…