Free Glide

One great thing about street-fighting self defense and martial arts is that the single most effective training “tool” you can get is also the cheapest and easiest to find.

Now, I am not talking about sparring gloves, punching bags, training knives or anything like that.

No, what I am talking about is, quite simply, a training partner.

Why do I say this?

Because if you are training yourself to deal with “real life” altercations, then you should always train how you would fight. And using boxing bags and training dummies just doesn’t cut it. They don’t think and they don’t move like a regular human being does.

In fact, you should not only find a training partner right away to practice your skills with…but you should also try to find a variety of training partners that are all different — big, small, strong, unskilled, savvy — get them all in there.

You should also find people who train in karate, boxing, wrestling, and other fighting arts. And you should especially train with people who don’t have any training at all — and won’t know about or care about any of the “rules” that people are forced to observe in a formal training situation.

And finally, you should also train in different terrains.

Like small rooms, tight hallways, parking lots, in the snow and even in enclosed areas like bathrooms and closets. Reason why is because you just never know if, when and where you are going to be attacked. And since most violent crimes occur at night by people who don’t want to be seen or heard, you will probably not be attacked in a wide open space with lots of room and good visibility. Instead, if you ever are attacked on the street some day, there’s a good chance it could be in a dark alley, a public restroom, inside your car or even in something as cramped as a phone booth.

Bottom line:

If you start to train with all different kinds of people in all different kinds of environments over the next several months…you’ll start to gain an almost “sixth sense” type of awareness that’ll make you way more prepared for a fight than just about anyone dumb enough to attack you.

Martial arts is a term that is used to describe a system of fighting that is very unique but often quite varied. The system has codes and rules to it. It is not one that has weapons, especially any type of modern day weapons, but one that focuses the body and the mind to have them work as one. It is used for traditional uses, for sport in competitions around the world, for fitness, for self defense although it does not teach to go out and fight but to defend and for improvement of the self. For this aspect, there are several things that martial arts can do. It can help to keep you mentally disciplined, provide self cultivation such as that of meditation and provide for self confidence. Character development is the key to martial arts.

Martial arts have been practiced for many years. It can be dated as far back as 2500 years ago in the Zhou Dynasty. Here, students would master the Six Arts which including rites, calligraphy, mathematics, charioteering, archery and music.

The systems that are used within martial arts are quite varied. Here are some of the various focuses of them.

• Kicking which can be found in Tae kwon do, Capoeira and tantui.

• Striking which is a main element and is found in karate, Wing Chun, Bando and Southern Praying Mantis.

• Weapons. In some forms such as Iaido, Kendo, Fencing, and Bojutsu, there is the use of old style weaponry.

• Grappling and throwing are also evident. Here they are used in such forms as wrestling, Judo, Shuai Jiao, Sambo, Naban, and Qin Na.

Most individuals that study martial arts will study several or many of these different areas of combat. Other forms such as those that come from traditional Chinese arts teach more including acupuncture, acupressure and bone setting as part of the study of traditional Chinese Medicine.

Today, martial arts are quite misunderstood. Many have seen it done on television in various movies and have come to think of it as just a style of fighting. But, there is much more to it than that. It is not only in the combat element that martial arts are quite powerful, but also in the element of self control and character building. Many parents allow children who misbehave to take classes not to teach them to fight, but to teach them control.

This article was written by T.Potter. You can visit Genuine Martial Arts for further information and martial arts resources.