Ah — this is a good video. It’s a nicely done Aikido demonstration, showing empty hand attacks, jo attacks, knife attacks, and sword attacks.

This is too cool — Tekken as done by actual human beings! (From Kotaku).

There’s a great article on WikiHow on how to choose a martial art. It’s a great read for anyone who’s new to the martial arts world, but is looking to start training. Nicely done! I think I’d add one other step to it, though: do your homework. Any school should have a traceable lineage, showing where that school originated. Wikipedia and Google are great resources for tracking this back. Most schools showcase their lineages right on their web page, so go through it and verify their statements. Is their description consistent with views from people outside of their school and other independent sources? If their school is the only one mentioning their lineage, be wary. Google will also turn up “horror stories” for some purported martial arts.

See also: McDojo. Also, if you can’t find the art mentioned in the Martial Arts FAQ, you should definitely do more research before plunking your money down.

If you think you can stop a train with kung fu, you might want to go back to the kwoon, Daniel-san. As kung fu gets broader exposure through media, are we at risk of having kids doing stupid things? Worth a thought, as well as consideration by any martial arts instructor: ground your students in common sense!

I think most guys get the mild hankering to start a “fight club” after seeing the movie of the same name. Apparently some more than others — CBS 5 reports on an informal fighting club in Silicon Valley. A group of software engineers get together wearing minimal protective gear (cups, fencing masks, elbow pads, knee pads) and have at it. Exotic weaponry is showcased, such as (I kid you not) plastic knives, rolled up magazines, toilet seats, and cookie sheets. This is a bad idea.

Sparring is a good thing. It’s also very controlled, so often, one wonders how applicable it is to real life fighting. However, a free-for-all like this is a little bit unsafe. I can see stab wounds, concussions, and other injuries just around the corner for this group. Someone’s going to the hospital.

While I can certainly appreciate wanting to do something that really breaks you out of the cubicle world, as well as engaging in an activity that allows you to use your martial arts skills, a club like this dangerous. It’s not even necessarily a new concept — backyard wrestling had been making the headlines for a while, and this is just a different type of the same sort of thing. With no generalized supervision and a high risk of injury, I get the feeling this is heading towards a bad ending.

Conventional wisdom says to stretch before working out or competing, but is it such a good idea? People stretch before an activity to increase range of motion and to prevent injury. However, CBC Radio’s Quirks & Quarks program recently reported that such ideas might not be correct. (Link from Boing Boing.)

Dr. Ian Shrier, Professor in the Faculty Of Medicine at McGill University, noted in the program that “There have been some 24 studies looking at performance and every single one shows that [stretching is] detrimental. You don’t run as fast, you don’t jump as high, and you can’t produce as much force.” When you stretch you actually slightly damage the muscle tissue, which means the muscles themselves perform less well than without stretching — by perhaps 2 - 5%. (This tissue damage is a normal part of stretching, by the by — you also damage muscle tissue when weight training, which means that you also shouldn’t weight train before competition either, obviously.)

What’s more, stretching may not prevent injury, either. Dr. Shrier noted, “We now know that most muscle strains occur when your leg is still in the normal range of motion.” For most atheletes, pulled muscles don’t occur when the muscle is overextended, so the efficacy of stretching to prevent injury is doubtful.

That’s not to say that stretching in general is a bad thing. A martial artist without flexibility is going to have problems. Range of motion will be limited, and some techniques will be impossible to do without flexibility.

I figure this means that before a class, stretching may be okay — just realize that you may be moving slower and with less power than if you hadn’t stretched. After all, in class you may try to increase your range of motion, which tends to push your muscle’s limits of flexibility.

In competition, however, that loss of 2 - 5% of muscle performance could be significant, depending on the activity. A little light activity to warm up the muscles is recommended in lieu of stretching.

Stretching is basically a separate activity from working out. Sure, you can do them at the same time, but you should still regard them as separate. You should certainly be mindful of stretching before a competition, depending on how much of an edge you need.

Just keep in mind that you should warm up your muscles before stretching as well — which usually leads to the new notion of stretching after a workout, rather than before. However, if you’re not putting it after working out, just like with competition, a little light activity will ready your muscles.

It looks like three more videos have been uploaded to Google Video starring the so-named “Master Ken”. I had previously discovered videos from him in an earlier post. From the looks of it, he’s set up a studio in a garage somewhere, so this may be an up and coming school. (I still don’t know where.)

This video emphasizes use of tan sao and bong sao.

Emphasis on feeling and moving your opponent’s structure is shown here.

Master Ken covers basic information on use of Wing Chun kicks in this video.

It’s very interesting to see this stuff start appearing on Google Video. I’m curious to know a little more about his lineage as well as where he’s located. Anyone have more information?

I was perusing Google Video when I came across a few entries for “backyard wing chun”. What shocked me about these amateur videos is that the guy talking about Wing Chun seems to actually be pretty good. Check out this explanation:

That’s one of the best video explanations for Wing Chun concepts I’ve seen. This next one goes a little more into arm technique:

This last one doesn’t have much interesting information, but does have a few seconds of chi sao movement.

From the notes on the above video, I gather that this is Ken Ng. Does anyone have any more information on him or his school? I’m curious as to what style of Wing Chun he studies.

Here’s an example of why I’m not likely to take jiu-jitsu. These chicks could kick my ass, no doubt, but I’m unlikely to want to practice this over and over again.

Self Defense Technologies, Inc. is claiming to have produced a robotic sparring partner, the Fighting Android FA1. They offer claims that this is safer, as if too much force or resistance is detected, the android will scale back. The idea is that one would be able to spar while reducing chances of injury associated with traditional training techniques.

Needless to say, I’m a little skeptical, as I have my doubts about the technology maturing enough to be useful. I’d be interested to see how this actually plays out for training. While they offer a solution that helps prevent or reduce the injuries that may occur when sparring against a live opponent, I doubt that this training would be able to replace a live opponent (nor, I should mention, do they say it should). A Wing Chun dummy, for instance, is a great aid, but doesn’t hold a candle to actually training with a live person.

Nonetheless, it’s interesting to see how technology is working its way into martial arts. If this android really can offer a decent sparring experience, I’d like to see two androids pitted against each other — now that would be an intriguing demonstration.