keep going!

As for blogging, I wouldn't consider myself an expert by any means. I still have a lot to learn when it comes to martial arts. What I try to do here is translate the experience and knowledge I do have on to the page and hope someone out there finds it useful. Doing so is also a good way to learn and broaden your experience as well. Writing about MA's helps to increase and clarify your understanding of it, I think. You also get to join the online MA community and learn from the people within that too.

I don't expect everyone to like what I write but I try to be true to what I'm saying and the martial arts in general and only write about stuff that I have experience of or have gleaned from the experience of others. I love the martial arts and blogging about them is just another way for me to pursue my passion and have intelligent discussions with people like yourself who are actually interested as well. I have only been blogging for four months, I'm still a newbie in a lot of respects but I hope my articles will get better and more useful over time. I'm getting quite a bit of traffic for having only just started so some people must appreciate what I'm doing here.

Anyway, thanks for dropping by and I hope you drop by again soon. Good luck with your training.

Thanks for the compliment. I do know a thing or two about the martial-arts (practiced it for about 11 years: 4 years in judo and about 7 in ju-jutsu), I’m by no means an expert but it’s one of my passions and I try to train and learn as much as I can. Our style is modern ju-jutsu, I’ve trained under two sensei up till now (a shihan who founded his own style and his top student who’s currently a second Dan in JJ and an intermediate practioner in kali and JKD). Under soke there was a lot of influence from judo (groundwork mostly, he is a second Dan in kodokan-judo) and karate (the striking part obviously), under our current sensei there’s a lot of influence and technique-overflow from the arts he studies. To me this came as quite a revelation since both arts are quite boxing-orientated (JKD and panantukan or the unarmed section of kali/escrima can be considered highly effective, no-nonsense street-kickboxing systems) and this has improved the striking aspect of our art tremendously as well as the defenses against kicks and strikes. I don’t want to generalize but a lot of karate-styles have very deep stances and keep their guard relatively low, in my mind this is quite dangerous when you’re up against a fast kicker or boxer. We did retain certain techniques and the open hand strikes of course. The weapon-defenses are a mixture of ju-jutsu elements and techniques from kali, after all it’s always better to learn weapon-defenses from an art that regularly practices with them.

The philosophy behind the style is a) street self-defense (we do not train for competition nor for spiritual goals or fitness although we do different types of sparring, sweat quite a bit and we do try to represent the art and the mindset behind it properly), b) effectiveness (if a technique does not work it’s out, there are no sacred cows and if we find a better way to deal with a problem we’ll take it), c) hard work (we take what we do seriously, we try to perfect our techniques and train as realistically as possible without hurting each other) and d) having fun. This last part is quite important: the general atmosphere in our dojo is quite relaxed, there isn’t much formalism and we try to encourage our students to work together so they’ll both benefit from the experience (even a black belt can benefit from working with a beginner and vice versa of course). It’s quite simple really: if you do not make training exciting, fun, varied and challenging people will quit sooner or later and you’ll end up with just a few students or none at all. As my sensei puts it: train hard, train smart and have fun in the martial-art.

As to your question: I do not own a blog and while I’m flattered by your compliment and other positive comments I’ve received I’m not planning on starting one. For one I do not think I’m knowledgeable and experienced enough: I’m still only a brown belt (training for black-belt though) and while I do think my skills are quite effective (still need work of course, especially in the area’s of ground-fighting and kickboxing) I’m sure there are others far more qualified than me to write on the topics of self-defense and the MA. For the moment I’m quite content to read or view the works of others (blog-posts, books, articles, youtube, DVD’s) and comment on them once in a while, that’s if I actually know anything about it and thus am in a position to contribute to the discussion. Also I’m not a trainer myself: in our club I am sempai and had the opportunity and the privilege of teaching a few times already (filling in for sensei) but naturally this is nothing compared to carrying the responsibility of having to teach yourself each and every week, making curricula, planning lessons and all the other administrative stuff that goes along with owning your own club. While I consider myself an experienced and capable practioner of JJ and am building my skills in other area’s (on occasion I train in BJJ and various types of kickboxing, when I have more time I hope to be able to take regular classes in JKD and kali) I simply do not have the experience and depth of knowledge a genuine sensei or master has and this is, in my view at least, a prerequisite for high quality discussion and guiding others along the way. Naturally I hope to get there some day but that won’t be for years and at the moment it’s not really a concern for me: I just want to train and learn as much as I can and have fun with it.

The last reason is quite mundane really: at the moment I simply do not have the time for it and it would seem rather foolish to start something you know you can’t finish. I do like discussing MA-topics though (especially those pertaining to self-defense): it’s always fun to talk about what you love and come into contact with others who share your passion. Besides that you’ll learn a thing or two, that’s if you keep an open mind, and that in itself is worth the effort. At least this way I don’t have to bother my friends anymore: I can imagine it must be quite boring hearing about stuff you don’t give a rat’s ass about and they don’t have anything intelligent to say on the topic anyway (lol).

I’ve read parts of your blog and it seems quite interesting. I’ll visit from time to time and maybe drop you a line or two when I feel I can make a positive contribution to the discussion.

Regards,
.
Zara

PS: I did mistype the address (forgot one letter), I was in a hurry back then. I corrected it so you can email me if you want to. Don’t expect a reply instantly though since it is only my secondary address (meaning not much used) and I’m quite busy at times.

I tried to email this to you but the message kept failing so I'll just post it here (perhaps you mistyped your address).
Thanks for taking the time to leave your well thought out comments on my blog. They are much appreciated. You appear quite knowledgeable when it comes to martial arts (I read your comments on John Zimmer's My Self Defense Blog as well). Do you write on the subject, or have a blog or anything? If you don't you should start. Your talent is evident from the two comments I read. There's always room for one more!

Anyway, thanks again, and if you haven't already done so you can subscribe to Urban Samurai for free future updates. Hope to hear from you again soon!

I agree that if your life is in danger, seriously in danger, then you should go all out to put down your attacker. Law or no law, why take the risk of loosing your life. It's simply kill or be killed in such situations.