Martial Vitality

  2020 was not the best year for anyone, let alone for those practicing martial arts. Nevertheless, I've been summarizing my martial arts activities each year since my return in January 2016 , so why stop now? Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu I started 2020 as a fairly new blue belt , having tested at One Spirit Martial Arts (OSMA) in October 2019. I had 35 classes during the remainder of 2019 at that rank. I wrote in my 2019 Martial Arts Year in Review that "my goal is 17 classes per month, which is 204 classes per year. I expect that will translate into about 20 hours of class time per month, or 240 hours of class time per year." Before Covid-19 became a serious problem in my area, I participated in 40 BJJ classes at OSMA, with my final class occurring 11 March 2020. That was 40 classes in 70 days, and perhaps it was a bit too much. I hurt my back a few times during that period, including the last class on 11 March. Although my school continued teaching for a bit more, took a brea...

Are you a Jiu-Jitsu practitioner? Have you heard of Beltchecker ? It's a free site that seeks to provide ways for BJJ practitioners to validate their own rank, and therefore the ranks of others. I had signed up a while ago, but had not taken the steps to verify my profile. The main steps involved uploading a profile photo, uploading a photo of me with my name and Beltchecker ID number (Reddit AMA-style), and verifying my name. I chose to do the latter by donating $2 to the project, rather than uploading copies of documents. Those steps verified me as a user, but I also needed to verify my rank. Each rank requires "votes" from existing registered users. For blue belt, I needed 200 points.  Registered users can vote to endorse my rank. The number of votes they can provide is based on their own rank. For example, a black belt can offer 100 votes.  I decided I would try contacting Jeff Shaw from Bellingham BJJ , as I had attended his great online history of BJJ sessions. I a...

Hello everyone. I just wanted to post a quick note describing my goal for this site. Previously I posted information on my personal martial arts journey on a blog called Rejoining the Tao. I also created a presence called Martial Vitality, as a possible home for a future martial arts school. I had various social media accounts for both sites, which was confusing. I decided to retire the Rejoining the Tao account and content and migrate the blog posts to this site. Therefore, everything previously published on that blog is now here. I've also retired the old @rejoiningthetao Twitter account, and asked my small number of dedicated followers to move to my @martialvitality Twitter account .  I've been posting regularly to the Martial Vitality Facebook account regularly, so that will continue. I will save this site for long-form material that I want to be sure survives any issues that could arise with Facebook. On a similar note, if you're not already following my new project f...

Trump and Putin, 2018 How does a high-ranking judoka handle President Trump's handshake?  Introduction Trump and Gorsuch, 2017 I'm fascinated by how world leaders and other officials deal with President Trump's handshake. Today I saw footage from a press conference hosted by Presidents Trump and Putin in Helsinki from 2018, and I got to see how a high-ranking judoka reacts. Background Warning:  this is not a political post.  It's a post about movement, balance, and technique. If you're not familiar with President Trump's handshake style, the story Donald Trump's strange handshake style and how Justin Trudeau beat it  is a good overview. A jiu-jitsu school's technique for defeating the Trump handshake also caught the attention of Vice News . I'm going to concentrate on the standing handshake in this post.  A so-called "movement expert" claims in this  video  that Trump is showing "affection" via his handshake style. I think Mr Trum...

Travis Stevens on YouTube, https://youtu.be/xLNpi2HHPsU Travis Stevens, American judo Olympian, spent over two hours on YouTube describing how to fix the American competitive judo system. He said he has spent several years advocating these changes and pitching it to multiple audiences. This post is my attempt to summarize his main points. I thought his presentation was compelling, so I wanted to capture highlights. If you want it straight from him, please watch the video. The First Step: Startup Revenue Through Seminars The First Step The first step is to hire a coach to perform two main functions. The first is to teach judo cadets, those under age 18 years of age. The second is to have that coach teach 18 seminars per year, across the US. (That's 18 seminars, not just seminars for 18 year olds.) Figure 1 below shows the revenue that a single seminar could generate, depending on the attendance and the cost per person. Figure 2 shows shows the revenue that 18 seminars could generat...

I just watched the free online seminar by Burton and Sarah Richardson on Black Belt Magazine's Facebook channel . I've known about Burton for years and I love his approach and style. When you realize he's also a BJJ black belt, you know as a jiujitsu person you can't ignore his advice. I joined his seminar late but the material I watched involved knife defenses. Having a few years of Krav Maga Global experience, I had trained several forms of knife defense. However, I was never really comfortable with approaches like the "360" and related motions. I felt like I was not going to have a chance against anyone in a live scenario. After describing that running and compliance were the best ways to survive an encounter with a knife, Burton explained that getting two hands on the knife hand for knife control was the best physical self defense method. I agree with this. Burton demonstrated two methods to accomplish this goal. The first was the Russian tie method found...

I've decided to stop training jiujitsu during the COVID-19 pandemic. My kids' district has closed schools, probably for several weeks. I also possess an immune system deficiency because of a medication I take for rheumatoid arthritis, so I am in the "vulnerable" category. Even if I were not classified as a "vulnerable" person, I would not want to become a carrier and expose my family members or others to this disease. My school is currently still open, although I expect they will make the decision to close for a while as well, based on all the other martial arts school closings that are happening around us. I want to wish everyone the best during this (hopefully) once-in-a-generation, or better still, once-in-a-century event. Stay informed of new blog posts by following me on Twitter  @martialvitality .

I have good news. In my 2019 Martial Arts Year in Review post, I mentioned that I had a goal to attend roughly "17 classes per month, which is 204 classes per year." I marked the achievement of my BJJ blue belt in late October as the start of tracking this goal. In general, my goal is to attend at least 50 classes every 3 months, as a minimum. I'm happy to report that as of today I have met that first 50 class block. I plan to attend a few more classes this week, prior to the end of January, so long as my health holds up. (I've been having some issues with my left knee recently that caused me to miss two classes in January already.) I'm sharing this with the world as a way to motivate myself and anyone else who might have similar goals. This 50 classes every 3 months goal is about double the previous class attendance schedule I had prior to blue belt. I was not sure how my body was going to hold up, but I decided to set the goal and see what I could do. It took ...

2019 was my fourth full year practicing martial arts, since my  return in January 2016 . About a year ago I posted my  2018 Martial Arts Year in Review , reporting some statistics on my training and how I spent that time. Krav Maga In 2019 I began my fourth year of training at First Defense Krav Maga in Herndon, VA. I started the year as a G1, which I earned in December 2018. I ended 2018 by mostly training in the sparring classes, and that continued in 2019. However, I decided to stop training mid-year, after 22 classes. I decided to leave First Defense and focus exclusively on jiu-jitsu. Later in the year, I learned that First Defense was no longer a Krav Maga Global (KMG) affiliate. In what looks like a " KMG purge ," about half of the schools that started the year as affiliates were no longer members. During my time with KMG, the US school count dropped from the 30s, then into the 20s, and now it's 12 as we start 2020. In addition to KMG sparring classes, I attended a...