George Donahue
Balance Beam Training
By George Donahue
A balance beam is a simple, easy, and effective karate, taekwondo or other martial art training tool for home or dojo.
Kata, Bunkai And Calligraphy
By George Donahue
Should karate kata applications should be practiced outside karate kata exactly as they are performed in the kata, or whether they should be modified to meet variations in the situation
Making A Fist
By George Donahue
You would be surprised by how many martial artists make the same basic mistake in forming a fist, a mistake that could hurt them more in a fight than their opponent.
Martial Mania: Acquired Stupidity Syndrome
By George Donahue
You see Acquired Stupidity Syndrome (ASS) too often in martial arts. From an outsider’s perspective, it seems as though whole martial systems or organizations are mired in ASS. In general, however, it’s not the system itself that is afflicted but its adherents, who somehow have managed to embed themselves into its fabric and thus retard its expression and development.
Martial Mania: All Blocks Suck
By George Donahue
This doesn’t mean that all blocks are worthless, but it does mean that blocks done the wrong way are less than optimal and some truly indeed are worthless. What we’re really getting at, however, is that blocks should draw the opponent’s attack toward the defender, deflecting the path of attack only by from 5 to 15 degrees, if at all.
Martial Mania: Defrag Yourself
By George Donahue
Just as we need to defragment our computer hard drives regularly to keep them effective, we need to defrag our mental hard drives to remain effective as students and teachers of martial ways.
Martial Mania: Five On One
By George Donahue
When a stronger person attacks you with a grab you have to quickly decide where you can use your strength optimally and where you can afford to let your attacker keep in control for a while.
Martial Mania: Gator Mouth
By George Donahue
When an alligator or crocodile has clamped down on its prey, there is almost nothing the prey can do to break the grip of the jaws. That’s the bad news, but the good news is that the gator can’t swallow, either, until it releases.
Martial Mania: Ikkiri Jûgiri
By George Donahue
As I’ve grown still older, I’ve realized more and more that the simple initial interpretation of ikkiri jûgiri is far from the best. It has been a good motto all these centuries because it has been so complete.
Martial Mania: Martial Paranoia
By George Donahue
" Are you vigilant or just paranoid? Just as there is a fine line between love and hate, there is a fine line between paranoia and appropriate defensive awareness.
Martial Mania: Nippon Hamu
By George Donahue
Sometimes, ham is just hamu.
Martial Mania: Reciprocity
By George Donahue
" If you are looking at a martial arts school, if there is no true reciprocal courtesy, too little kindness, too little consideration, you are better off going somewhere else to train.
Martial Mania: Shutô uke vs. shutô uchi
By George Donahue
Too often when doing kata practitioners execute merely a shutô, and neither uchi nor uke. That means that they are just posturing and not really doing anything that useful.
Martial Mania: Some New Year’s Resolutions
By George Donahue
Here are some New Year’s resolutions that you should find easy to carry out, rather than to ignore, in part because they are mostly stuff you can stop doing.
Martial Mania: Split the Difference
By George Donahue
The whole point of martial training is to make ourselves smarter and stronger and faster and better armed (if not with physical weapons then with technical knowledge) than we were when we started.
Martial Mania: The Class Cork
By George Donahue
I’ve finally realized that what keeps us from developing to our full potential as martial arts students are our internal corks, whether we’re aware of them or not.
Martial Mania: The Vocabulary of Self-Defense
By George Donahue
I like hanging out with martial artists and karate ka. There is a lot of nobility in their hearts, a lot of wisdom in their heads, however humble they are. On average, too, karate practitioners and the martial artists I've met have tended to be more generous than usual and one of the best interventions we have within our power is to make living conditions better, or at least more hopeful, for those who are doing without.
Martial Mania: Uso Kumite / Yakusoko Kumite
By George Donahue
Much of what we practice in our martial traditions is the art of deception. It’s a paradox we tend to ignore for a while but which we eventually have to deal with.
Some Personal Observations On Dealing With Dog Attacks: Part 1- Prevention
By George Donahue
A dog attack can be dangerous and terrifying, but if you know what to do it can often be avoided before it begins.
Some Personal Observations On Dealing With Dog Attacks: Part 2- If Attacked
By George Donahue
When attacked I have defended myself when I needed to and at times I had no choice but to harm the dog, but, I've never caused them more harm than was necessary.
The Martial Craftsman - An Introduction
By George Donahue
FightingArts.com is pleased to introduce this new article series by this knowledgeable and gifted martial arts teacher, writer, editor and researcher.
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