Innholdsfortegnelse for December/January 2020 i Black Belt Magazine

ON MY SUBSEQUENT VISIT, Putu introduced me to several local martial artists, including masters of san da, judo and silat. That last style, in particular, intrigued me because on a previous visit to Malaysia, I’d studied silat kalam and silat tomoi, in addition to having documented a few other variations of the art. On that trip, I learned that one significant difference between Malaysia and Bali is that in Malaysia, silat is seen as a Muslim martial art and most silat masters are reluctant to teach non-Muslims. In fact, I was the first non-Muslim to be permitted to study silat kalam. In contrast, Bali harbors no religious divide. Balinese silat is open to Hindus, Buddhists and Christians alike. For example, Komang, the lead instructor of mepantigan, is a Hindu who…

NE ZHA: With an elegantly constructed allegory that mirrors William Ernest Henley’s 1875 poem Invictus — which asserts, “I’m the master of my fate; I’m the captain of my soul,” — the Chinese animated feature Ne Zha is loosely based on a martial arts legend from the Ming-dynasty novel Creation of the Gods. With earnings that topped $650 million in 30 days, Ne Zha clearly rivals the glitz of any production from DreamWorks or Pixar, and it’s appealing to audiences everywhere. The plot revolves around a god named Yuan, who splits Chaotic Pearl into Spirit Pearl and Demon Pill, then traps them inside a lotus blossom. Since Demon Pill is dangerous and indestructible, Yuan casts a curse that a lightning bolt will kill it in three years. He tells a…

“MIGHTY MOUSE” Demetrious Johnson When he hit the MMA circuit in 2007, Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson was a human tsunami. An immediate force to be reckoned with, he dominated the bantamweight and featherweight divisions of the sport thanks to his lightning-fast fists and his arsenal of grappling techniques. Like a true martial artist, he hasn’t let his success go to his head. “I am very happy with where I’m at in my career,” Johnson stated. “The martial arts have given me and my family a wonderful life. If I were to stop fighting today, I’d be satisfied with the way everything has turned out.” That said, Johnson has no plans of bowing out of the ring anytime soon. In fact, he’s gearing up for his next big fight, which will…

As a 23-year-old graduate student in Middle America in the early 1970s, I was hungry for whatever I could learn about the Asian martial arts. On the East Coast and West Coast, schools had been emerging and multiplying since the mid-1960s, but those of us who lived in “flyover country” had few opportunities to broaden our understanding of arts like karate, kung fu, judo and taekwondo. At Union University in my hometown of Jackson, Tennessee, I’d been fortunate to train from 1969 to 1970 in the then little-known art of hapkido. In a field-house basement, a Korean student and former captain in the ROK Army known only as Mr. Suh organized and taught the system to a small group of dedicated students. Suh ran a nononsense traditional class, and for…

THE WORD EMPI presents a good example. Many Black Belt readers will be familiar with it because it was Gichin Funakoshi’s name for a karate kata originally — and, in Okinawan dojo, still — called wanshu. That original name referred to an expatriate Chinese martial artist who taught in the Tomari region of Okinawa. Funakoshi changed the name when he introduced karate to mainland Japan in the 1920s. Why? Probably because wanshu sounded Chinese to Japanese ears. Given the era, a time when Japan was becoming fervently nationalistic, it would be more patriotic to have a Japanese-sounding name, so Funakoshi wrote empi using the characters for “flying” and “swallow.” Of course, empi also can be written with different characters to mean “elbow.” Some karateka know this term and so confuse…

THINKING ABOUT THESE figures of speech, I remembered one that I heard as a child: umi no uchi no katana, “the sword behind the smile.” This is a curious saying. How should one interpret it? A smile behind the sword would seem obvious in meaning. You are ready, even eager to use the weapon and happy to do so. But the other way around? We associate smiles with politeness and friendliness. The sword hiding behind that seems incompatible. Much has been written about the politeness of the Japanese people in general and the samurai in particular. In Japan, the emphasis supposedly placed on manners is so pronounced that it’s almost a caricature. Old cartoons used to show the smiling Japanese bowing to his attacker before unleashing a judo throw or…

THERE ARE, however, a few general guidelines that all martial artists should keep in mind. To simplify, I will divide them into three tiers. 80/20 SCANNING: If you’re in any crowded venue — be it a sports arena, a concert hall, a farmers market, an airport or a mall — you know that bad things can happen. Of course, I’m not advising you to shun every event that’s liable to draw a crowd. Living scared is no way to live. I am urging you to use a bit of vigilance. Pay attention to everything. Put 80 percent of your attention on the fun at hand and use the other 20 percent to scan what’s around you. Treat any event you’re attending as if you’re a springbok at a watering hole…

Chatri Sityodtong The martial arts gods are smiling down on Chatri Sityodtong and ONE Championship. Either that or Chatri is a genius because what he and his crew are serving up is resonating not only with fight fans in Asia but also with traditional and eclectic martial arts practitioners around the world. As evidence, note that ONE is seeing consistently growing audiences, and it’s the subject of weekly stories in mainstream outlets touting its unparalleled success and preaching the gospel of Chatri. The following quote sums up the philosophy of the man and the org rather nicely: “The word ‘MMA’ is now synonymous with martial arts, [and] the general public thinks of MMA as blood sport, violence, hatred, controversy. Literally from day one, my mission for ONE Championship [has been]…

BECAUSE OF ITS VERSATILITY AND POWER, the round kick — known to some martial artists as the turning kick, the saber kick or the roundhouse kick — is one of the most common leg techniques in our world. No matter your particular interpretation, the basics are the same: You swing your leg along an arc until your foot or shin strikes the target. Unfortunately, that very simplicity can have negative consequences. When teaching students to spar, I often find myself thinking, I get it — you can throw a round kick! How about some variety? Try something else! And when I watch taekwondo in the Olympics, it often seems like I’m observing a round-kick marathon. Despite its popularity, many martial artists don’t have a deep understanding of the round kick.…

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At first glance, most people — most martial artists, even — will zero in on the smaller person in any fight and deem him or her to be at a distinct disadvantage. It’s a natural tendency to draw this conclusion based on obvious attributes such as height, weight and reach. However, that tendency does not always lead to accurate conclusions. This should not come as a complete surprise given the underlying premise of the martial arts, which were created to overcome inherent physical advantages bestowed at birth. Some fighters have capitalized on this aspect of the arts and gone one step beyond — by learning how to use their smaller stature as an advantage. This encompasses not just using the speed advantage that’s enjoyed by fighters with smaller physiques but…

Mackensi Emory With her feet planted firmly in the air, 23-year-old Mackensi Emory has a knack for flying, flipping, flopping and twisting her way toward stardom. She’s been doing just that since she was 6 years old. Before she turned into a teen, the youngster from Sacramento, California, owned a roomful of trophies taller than she was. Also a champion gymnast, she became an expert at blending the two sports into exciting routines. And for the past eight years, she’s ridden a winning streak that sets the bar high for anyone wishing to follow in her footsteps. “Things really changed for me in 2018,” Emory said. “That year, I won every single overall grand championship and dominated my divisions, and that had never happened to me before. At the U.S.…

In hand-to-hand combat, you face a constant and undeniable danger. Among other injuries, you can sustain broken bones, torn cartilage and ruptured organs. You also can be knocked unconscious or killed. Over the millennia, various cultures have developed their own techniques and strategies for dealing with such threats. One of the most pervasive is punching. That’s the case because in most unarmed encounters, a properly thrown punch is the most efficient and effective tool a martial artist can use. Options While engaged in battle, your objective is to remove the threat as quickly as possible. No responsible martial artist would suggest that killing an attacker is the optimal solution, but people do get killed in street fights, and if your life is on the line, dispatching a violent criminal may…

THEN CAME THE INTERNET. At first, people interested in learning martial arts would use search engines to find local schools and proceed to check them out — which was fine because everyone was on a level playing field. That didn’t last long, however. One day, I woke up and found that, according to the search engines, my academy’s ranking in our city had dropped from the top of the first page to a position with virtually no visibility. That left us completely out of the running. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it was. I’d been asleep at the wheel, oblivious to the low ranking that had been secretly hampering us. Over time, the phone calls slowed even more, and fewer walk-ins were showing up. I had no choice…

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