I have always trained martial arts under small organizations, shying away from the larger, often more prestigious, affiliations because they are usually bogged down with politics and bureaucracy. I like the smaller organizations because they tend to have more personal attention and will help me achieve my specific goals. The major downside of this, however, is that if something happens to that instructor or organization there is often nowhere else to turn. That is exactly what happened to me in Judo. I started Judo officially in 2010 when I took my first Judo class with Phil Porter, a true master of the art. Prior to that, since 2004, I have had a deep interest in the art, studying from books and DVDs and adding aspects of Judo into my Kenpo, Jeet Kune Do, and Kung Fu training. Believe it or not I even used Judo in my Brazilian Jiu-jitsu (if you know you know). Unfortunately, Phil Porter passed away the following year, and I had to move onto a new Judo program. I worked my way up through the ranks and then 2020 happened. In 2020 I received my Nidan (2nd Degree Black Belt) in Judo. We all know what happened in 2020. A big pandemic scared the crap out of all of us, and every business (but especially martial arts schools) suffered because of it. Like everyone else, I locked down and had to spend months on end training martial arts solo. When we all collectively finally came back outside, the world was very different. Arcades I loved had closed down, shopping centers I frequented had been abandoned, and most notably for this story the Judo organization that I had been affiliated with had disappeared. The website was gone, no one would answer the phone. Nothing. I kind of privately shrugged and told myself, “2nd degree black belt is pretty great, I guess my Judo journey stops here.” So, I turned my attention to BJJ and Kung Fu and went on my way. I kept the practice of Judo sharp, but as a solo practice. Then one day in 2024, a few of my students and some folks from my BJJ school started asking me to teach them Judo. I was hesitant because, technically only a Yodan (4th degree black belt) is supposed to run a Judo Club. So, I informed them I was under-ranked to teach them on a formal level, and they universally said, “we don't care, we just want the Judo you use on us.” So, I started teaching. Reports kept coming back from my secret Judo students of how they were implementing what I had been teaching them at their martial arts school and in competition. They boasted about the effectiveness of the techniques and laughed about how their opponents didn’t know how to stop it. Pretty soon, I became painfully aware that this group of secret Judo students really needed an instructor who had the credentials to rank them. The basic path from Nidan to Yodan is as follows. You would hold your Nidan (2nd degree) for three years and then be tested for Sandan (3rd degree). Assuming you passed your Sandan test, you would hold that rank for four years and then be tested for Yodan (4th degree). At that point, you would be at full instructor level and could rank your students to Black Belt. So, I began to reach out to various Judo organizations. I reached out to Freestyle Judo, which was an ancestor organization to the one I was ranked in. I looked into the United States Judo Federation and the similarly named United State Judo Association. Then I recalled working with Phil Porter all those years ago. His original organization, The World Wide Martial Arts Association (WWMAA), was still going strong 10+ years after he had passed away. The long and short of it was, the WWMAA were not just the first, but the only organization that got back to me. They had me send in a comprehensive martial arts resume and photos of all my rank certificates to verify that I was legit. Then through a series of emails and phone calls they built a plan to evaluate my rank and get me on the 4-to-7-year path of achieving my Yodan so that I could rank my secret Judo students. They told me they had a massive three daylong seminar in July that would be held in St. Louis, and they wanted me to attend and teach one of the hours of the seminar to evaluate my knowledge and teaching style. I agreed and started training up, refreshing myself on all the aspects of Judo that I am weakest on. Which is mostly the vocabulary since the whole art is spoken in Japanese. Then they released the schedule for the seminar, and I noted my name was not on it at all. So, I called them up and asked why. Maybe they forgot that I was going to be teaching. The nice lady on the phone explained that after a council concerning the event planning, they decided they wanted me to teach in front of a panel of Master ranked black belts, and after I teach the panel would just “ask me a few questions.” Needless to say, this made me more nervous. Hundreds of questions flooded my brain: “What will they ask?”, “What happens if I don't know the answers!”, and “Their Judo could be very different from mine, what if what I was taught wasn’t up to their standard?” But as far as I was concerned, no matter how much was unknown, this was something I needed to do. I traveled to St. Louis. Luckily, I have a lot of family that lives in St. Louis and more importantly my 15-year-old nephew lives there. He loves martial arts, so I was excited to take him to and train with him at the seminar. My wife Amanda and brother-in-law Alex also came with me. The seminar, like most martial arts seminars, was held in a ball room at a local hotel. With very few exceptions the information that was taught was incredible. They had world class striking coaches, grappling coaches, and they even had a few self defense classes. My nephew loves the sports aspect of martial arts, so we mostly attended the classes that leaned into that. After three grueling days of training from 8 am to 5 pm, I was pulled aside from the crowd and taken into a separate room. There, I stood with my brother-in-law Alex in front of a panel of three 80+ year old Masters of Judo. One of which was so OG that he was actually the teacher of the other old men testing me! Behind me, a small army of 4th and 5th-degree Judoka came flooding in. They settled in, sitting on counters and against walls, with their feet kicked up like a crowd of gangsters ready to witness a beatdown. The door shut behind us. I was a massive bundle of nerves! That whole day I had an upset stomach and felt dizzy. But I just told myself to keep marching forward and keep your cool. I reminded myself that strength is built in discomfort. So, I must be getting strong, because boy was I uncomfortable! As I had mentioned, the original plan was that I would simply give a teaching demonstration for evaluation. However, if you have ever dealt with really old martial arts masters, they always do things their way, regardless of the plans. I introduced myself, told them my martial arts history and then said, “I understand that I am supposed to be giving a teaching demonstration?” With a gruff look of disgust and disappointment the head instructor said, “No. There are a set of standards that must be met for the rank of Sandan. Teaching is one of them, yes, but there is much more that needs to be seen.” What followed was a brutal surprise test that I felt very poorly prepared for. They quizzed me on technique after technique, throw after throw. Even more discouraging was the fact that after every technique I demonstrated (without fail) I was subjected to five to ten minutes of harsh critique. They were merciless. At one point, they even brought in a few senior black belts from the peanut gallery to “show me the correct way” to perform a technique. They had me spar with Alex several times. After every round, they told him to go harder on me. It was humbling, and honestly, I felt like I was failing this ambush of a test. I’m pretty sure I looked calm on the outside, but inside I was crushed! Eventually, they asked me to step out. I collapsed in the hallway just outside the door. I was exhausted, sweaty, dejected, and feeling like I had let myself down. More negative thoughts started running through my mind, “Did I drive all the way here just to fail this test? Am I delusional?” What the fuck was I doing showing up to a massive room of strangers, putting myself out like that, putting my neck on the line only to suffer embarrassment? All of my friends and family knew I was going to take this test, and now I am going to have to walk through that door at home and tell my wife I failed. I was crushed. But I was in too deep now. Then they called me back in. It was time to find out, do I actually deserve to be here or have I lost my mind. I stood once more before the panel. The head instructor looked at me with that same scowl and said very slowly: “Based on your demonstration, we have decided to award you the rank of Sandan (3rd-degree)... backdated four years. And today, we are promoting you to Yodan (4th-degree) in Judo.”. I am man enough to admit it, I totally cried. But like a manly cry, I promise. They went on to explain that my demonstrations were excellent and that my skill far surpassed my current rank in Judo. One of the 4th degree black belts in the crowd came up to me, took off his belt, handed it to me and said “It takes a lot of guts to do what you did. Coming into a room of strangers and putting it all out there like that. I want you to wear my belt for the photos.” His face looked sincere and gruff. He knew what I had just been through. Then he joked “but give it back after the photos.” After I put on the belt, he did a ceremonial hip toss to me. It's an old Judo tradition representing passing from one rank to the other. At the end of the seminar, they lined us all up to hand out certificates and without thinking I stood in my usual spot amongst the 2nd degree black belts. Again, that friendly 4th degree came and gently grabbed me by the hips and pulled me out of line saying “Brother, you’re gonna' have to get used to this!” and he moved me up amongst my fellow Yodans. So that's it, that is one of the craziest martial arts tests of my life. I have ranked in no less than 5 martial arts, but that was the first time I really had to stand there in front of a bunch of strangers and just hope that my best was good enough. Turns out, it was.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, we martial artists have always had cleanliness as a rule. One of the many reasons for this is that we are constantly in close contact with each other. We spread sweat, blood, and spit. We have to take personal cleanliness seriously. It’s not just viruses we worry about. Martial arts gyms can be a breeding ground for fungal infections and even parasites. Most gyms work hard to make sure this isn’t the case, but breakouts can still occur. As students, we also have responsibilities to stay clean and healthy. Below are some ideas to help you do so: If You Work Hard Labor, Don’t Wear the Same Shirt You Worked In A lot of you already know to just have a change of clothes. But sometimes, someone shows up with a shirt full of grease or pants that have mud caked in. In most gyms, this isn’t a problem, since that person will be expected to change into a gi or gym clothes. Some self defense schools allow students to wear street clothes so they understand how to fight in them. And that's a-okay as long as those clothes aren't covered in dirt, grease, pollen, or spores. Don’t be the guy who shows up smelling like ass. Bring a change of clothes. And I’m not judging, I worked in kitchens throughout my twenties. I know that the shirt I wore while cleaning the grease traps should be ripped off of me as soon as I leave work. God forbid I wrestle another person in that. Carry Some Cleansing Wipes in Your Gym Bag To some this may sound silly, to others it sounds standard. Just get some flushable wipes to hit yourself with before and maybe after class. There are even separate kinds made for facial care. Don’t flush them though. While some wipes labeled flushable are indeed so, others are not. It can be hard to tell which are degradable in a sewage environment. So it’s safer to just throw them in the bin, especially when you’re using them for a quick cleanup. Brands like Defense Wipes even have specific wipes for cleaning up after a hard workout. They're mixed with tea tree oil and other antifungals to help keep your skin clear and healthy. Never Wear Outside Shoes on the Mat This might seem to be a “no doy” statement, but it does need to be said. If you wear shoes when training on mats and indoors, get some wrestling or boxing shoes. Only wear these shoes when you are training. I recommend high tops, but that’s just my preference. Otherwise, if you’re training at a dojo or kwoon where no shoes are used, you’re all good. Clean Your Gear Regularly Be sure to wipe down your sparring gear, training pads, and other tools that take consistent use and sweat. Make sure that your gloves can dry out after they are wiped down. It’s not common, but occasionally, closed hand gloves like boxing gloves can grow fungus. This can be combated by wearing hand wraps and washing those. Occasionally, it is also good to wash the inside of your gloves with soap and warm water. I use a soft toothbrush to help with this. Be sure that the gloves get a chance to dry after this. Glove deodorizers can help as well, but mostly just add a nice scent. Clean Yourself Regularly Shower consistently. Wear deodorant. Clip your nails. If you have long hair, be sure to comb it and put it in a protective hairstyle. All of these things will help you and your partners stay healthy. In the summer months, a lot of folks switch to Dial antibacterial soap. This can be a useful change, but be sure to revitalize your skin afterward with your preferred lotion. Antibacterial soaps can be very tough on your skin, so it's important to make sure it's well hydrated. Nowadays, there are soaps specifically made for martial artists like Blackbelt Body Wash, Goat Soap in the UK, and Submission Soap. These soaps are blended with oils like tea tree and sage for their antifungal and antibacterial properties, but also formulated with moisturizers to help. They work well and smell great, but honestly they won't have a chance to work if you stew in your rashguards after class and don't shower until the end of the day. A fighter who washes their body with basic bar soap immediately after getting back from the gym has a better chance of staying clean than someone who has all the fancy soaps but lets the filth fester. In addition to this, if you're on a budget but notice an increase in fungal acne or other irritants after training, Head and Shoulders is a great help. The pyrithione zinc in the shampoo can be very useful in fighting these. Simply lather up the shampoo on your face and any other areas needed. Cut the water and let it do its work for a few minutes and then wash it off. Clean Your Space Regularly Oftentimes, in traditional martial arts spaces, this is standard. Students will help to clean the mats and equipment. In some gyms, this is less common. Don’t be surprised if an instructor has students clean the mats. That is a part of the culture. If that’s not a part of your gym’s culture, that’s okay. The employee(s) will have general cleaning duties. Talk to Your Instructor When You Have Caught Something This could be a cold, a fever, or something like ringworm. Either way, let them know. If you still want to come to class, expect to sit and observe, instead of engaging. If you have something respiratory, it’s good form to wear a mask. This is fairly common in many other countries, but isn’t a routine behavior across the board. Personally, I would like to see more of it. Have a Set of Slips or Flip Flops on Hand for the Restroom Oftentimes at martial arts gyms, we only have a limited amount of time to pop by the restroom before getting back to class. This means a lot of folks run the restroom barefoot. This should not be the case. Even striking arts can be affected by students bringing e. coli and other bathroom bacteria onto the mats. Just because it is a greater risk for grappling classes, doesn't mean it is only a risk for them. The simple solution is to have a pair of flip flops, slippers, or sandals that you can easily hop into when you leave the mat space. I recommend something with a little extra room in them, in case you are wearing shin pads or mat shoes. At the School of Self Defense, many of us have our own sandals we leave at the gym, but Sifu Michael also has a few loaner pairs, just in case. With all this being said, most of this boils down to common sense. If you’re not sure about something, talk to your instructor or a student you trust. Different arts and different gyms will have different cultures of cleanliness. You can handle it as it comes to you, but remember health is actually a community practice, not just an individual one. We all have to do our part to stay clean. A gym can do everything right and disease can still spread because one person decided it wasn't worth their time to be clean.

The perceived effectiveness of a martial art has far less to do with the art itself and far more to do with the kinds of people it attracts. Styles like Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and boxing are often seen as more “effective” because they tend to draw highly athletic, competitive individuals who thrive in high-intensity, full-contact training environments. In contrast, traditional arts such as Wing Chun, Karate, or Filipino Martial Arts frequently appeal to more philosophical, academic, or introspective individuals—people who may value precision, self-discipline, and personal development over direct competition. This difference in personality creates a powerful and self-perpetuating cycle. Like-minded people attract each other, and over time, the collective identity of a martial art becomes shaped not by its techniques, but by the attitudes and goals of its practitioners. Competitive, high-performance athletes seek out and stay in arts that prioritize sparring, conditioning, and pressure testing, which in turn raises the performance ceiling of those styles. Meanwhile, traditional styles develop cultures centered around discipline, ritual, or inner mastery, and often attract students less interested in competition. As a result, the effectiveness of the people training in a style ends up being mistaken for the effectiveness of the style itself. When examined purely from a technical standpoint, there is little that exists in Muay Thai that can’t be found in Karate. The mechanics of boxing are mirrored in Wing Chun, and grappling is present in many forms of traditional Kung Fu. The difference is in how often and how intensely these tools are drilled and applied. A world-class athlete with the work ethic of someone like Anderson Silva could become deadly using Wing Chun or Karate if trained under pressure and with intent. Conversely, a casual student of BJJ or Muay Thai—say, someone training twice a week for fitness—would likely be less effective in a confrontation despite training in a "proven" system. This reinforces the central point: the art is only as effective as the person practicing it. The culture around each martial art evolves based on the kinds of people it draws in. Over time, this creates a reputation that either enhances or diminishes a style’s perceived validity in competition or self-defense. But this reputation often overlooks the art’s full potential. Traditional arts like Wing Chun and Karate are not ineffective by nature—they simply suffer from being underrepresented by high-level, competitive athletes. With the same caliber of practitioner, these styles can be every bit as effective as their more popularly respected counterparts. Still, martial arts are not only for the elite. One of their greatest strengths is that they can offer value to people from all walks of life. Even those with limited time or average physical ability can train in any style and gain real benefits—improving their fitness, sharpening their minds, and developing enough skill to defend themselves. While it's true that the practitioner shapes the art, the journey shapes the practitioner in return. Whether you're a fighter or a thinker, martial arts can meet you where you are and take you where you want to go.

Floating is the precision placement of pressure to reduce your opponent's ability to restrict movement. When you're floating on your opponent, they will feel opportunities to move, but never in the right direction. They should feel like whenever they move that you are already waiting for them in the next position. Tripod stances, shifting hips, and rotating cores are typical of floating movements. Floating and Flow go hand in hand. Floating to Pass Guard When we're dealing with skilled guard players, it can be difficult to create the right attachments and find the right level of pressure. This is where float passing comes into play. While bodylock passing can pin down your opponent by the waist, the legs are still in play. Keeping our hips and shoulders low means that their legs have more purchase and hold against our hips, thighs, and ribs. But sometimes we need to let our hips be more mobile to maintain a greater sense of control. One method to reduce this chance is tripod passing from headquarters. To begin, we set ourselves down in headquarters, with our knees controlling one leg of our opponent. Our weight is not entirely over our hips, which is a common mistake. If we keep our weight to ourselves, we are easy to topple. Instead, it's better to maintain some of our weight forward into their knee through our chest. This weight helps keep a line of pressure toward the floor, creating a lopsided effect in their hips. From there, we can begin finding our placement for hands. Two standard methods are grabbing the shoulders (high tripod) and grabbing the waist (medium tripod). You can also grab the hips for a low tripod, but we'll stick with the first two for this little tirade. If we go for the shoulders, we typically want to attack one arm and the neck. Think either an arm triangle or using your arm and head to maintain control, allowing for a third post. You can stay all the way on your hands, but often attacking the shoulderline with the full forearm on the ground creates a bit more stability. We want to shift our weight forward over the "captured" leg and then walk our hands into the preferred position. By setting the majority of our weight above the diaphragm, our opponent has more mobility in their waist. That also means we have more mobility. While they adjust their leg, their hips are still partly planted into the ground. We can take our hips into action, whatever way we choose and spin those legs out of the way, letting our body weight land across their core. Benefits to this are effectively going from guard to an immediate pin such as top mount, side control, or scarf hold. This kind of tripod pass works well against knee shields too, provided you staple the bottom leg with a shin or your "far side" hand. If we go for the waist, we want to grip right into the floating ribs. Now this means we have to place our head somewhere safe, so for certainty, the head can go right below the diaphragm. Our hips are once again pulled back, but decidedly higher at first. By keeping the hips back and high, we keep our guard player at the end of their defensive reach. Floating to Maintain a Pin (aka Riding) Using Half Guard as a Leg Ride When someone is holding you in a half guard, either a knee shield or lockdown, you can turn your hip down and treat the position as a leg ride. Now they are pinned at the hip more than you are held at bay. It's significantly more difficult for the opponent to turn into you, but you should be prepared to attack the far side leg. If you treat the half guard as a leg ride, then you can attack chokes, arm locks, and toeholds across their body while your unguarded leg posts when needed. Knee on Belly (aka Uke Gatame) I include the Judo terminology in the title specifically because it translates to Floating Hold. The thing about the Knee on Belly position is that it literally cannot enforce enough pressure across a large enough space to properly pin. With the gi, you have the ability to pull them further into the knee, but that doesn't negate the fact that you have one point of pressure. So to handle this, you need to maintain a shifting response to your opponent's energy. Sound familiar? That's the real benefit of the knee on belly position. It's a spot that allows you to transition smoothly from one thing to another. If you treat it like a ride and flow from there, you have a very dominant top game. And I'm not saying this like it's some new revelation of jiujitsu. This is old news that just seems to be forgotten in some schools. This is also why knee on chest, as a variant of knee on belly, can give you more time to experiment and understand your preferred avenues for the position. Knee on chest, with proper control of the head or shoulder can be an honest to God pin. Top Mount as a Ride The top mount is a pin, but to maintain it, you've got to think about where and when you use your pressure. If you've got a good smother game and can use your weight effectively, it's a perfect pressure pin. But often, you'll have to adjust your pressure depending on where they are seeking to establish pressure or escape. S-mount, knee pinching, and even setting up a topstyle crab ride all allow you to float atop an active opponent. Crab Riding for the Threat of a Pin The crab ride is a very effective position for sticking to your opponent and navigating to more secure positions. When you establish a crab ride, you should think about your limbs sticking to your opponent. With this stickiness, you can either move for a pin or guide their limbs into submissions. Crab riding requires the legs to be attached like hooks. Crab rides can be done from the top mount or from the back. Typically done from the back in wrestling, BJJ allows for more options, since there is no pin to win. Crab riding can be done from inverted positions, and even become a pass by itself. When we think about the crab ride, it’s important to see the legs and arms as equal tools for maintaining connection and shifting our pressure.

It would be no surprise to anyone that I am a big fan of Kung Fu movies. When I was growing up, films like Enter the Dragon, Mortal Kombat, and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon always served as an infinite well of inspiration to me. However, as I have learned more and more about the art of fighting, I can’t help but notice several common things the movies do that are just plain silly. So, I felt I would keep thing’s light today by pointing out the five silly things that movies get wrong about fighting. The Bad Guys Waiting Their Turn One of the most exciting moments in a lot of action movies is when the protagonist has to fight off several opponents at once. It always serves as a phenomenal way to illustrate that our hero is an unstoppable badass. However, have you ever looked at all the fighters in the background during these scenes? They just kind of stand there striking Kung Fu poses waiting for their turn to jump in. There are several movies that come to mind. For example, in Fist of Fury, Bruce Lee has a big fight at the Japanese school. He absolutely destroys all the fighters in the dojo. However, if you watch all the extras in the background, you will see they make sure to attack Bruce one at a time. Another movie that comes to mind is the old 1990s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. When they're in Shredder's hideout, the Foot Clan soldiers in the background just stand around flipping their weapons. Let's be real, it has to be this way. If twelve dudes actually attacked a single fighter all at the same time, even the best martial artist would crumple like a paper bag. Staying Unconscious for Hours Tell me if this sounds familiar. You are watching a movie, and our protagonist is on some secret mission where he has to remain unseen and unheard. He sneaks up behind a guard and puts him in a choke hold. The guy struggles for a second, then passes out. Our hero gently lays him to the ground and just like that we don't have to worry about that guard anymore. A rear naked choke will generally render someone unconscious in three to ten seconds, but they also wake up within seconds of you releasing the choke. There is usually a minute or two of confusion on the part of the person who had been choked unconscious as they wake up, but overall, they will be up and back to normal relatively quickly. Similar to this is when our hero gets captured. He is often hit in the head and wakes up in a new location like a jail cell or tied up in a chair. If you were ever hit so hard that you were unconscious for hours, your brain would not be working well enough for you to continue your mission, have a witty conversation with your interrogator, or escape a jail cell. Most people wake up very quickly after being knocked out. By quickly, I mean within seconds. If someone gets hit, and stays down, then they need immediate medical attention and might even die. The Sound Punches Make Real punches don't make low base filled booms, or bone crunching snaps. In reality they sound more like clapping your hands together. Which would not be very exciting for movies. The film maker wants the hits to have an impact. This makes the fight scenes more exciting and makes the fight feel like it has higher stakes. But it would be funny to see an edit of the matrix where all the hits sounded like high pitched slaps. Becoming Good at Fighting Over a Short Time In the Karate Kid, Daniel-son wins a Karate tournament after only about six or seven months of honestly questionable training. Mr. Miyagi’s training methods aside, six months is hardly enough time to learn the bare bones basics of any martial art, not to mention one as complex as karate. Then he goes on to beat a black belt who, I assume, had been training for years. Not very likely. This happens a lot in movies, where the good guy gets his butt whooped. Then has a training montage, and just like that he can fight. As a professional martial arts teacher, one of the more frustrating calls I receive is for last minute self defense training. The caller will tell me they are moving to a different country in three weeks and want to learn some martial arts to protect themselves. It always breaks my heart when I have to break it to them that that's not really enough time to achieve their goal. I can never be sure, but I wonder how this one movie trope has created an unrealistic expectation in the general public's view on how quickly you can develop true martial ability. The Second Wind This is by far the silliest thing that movies get wrong about fighting. Let me lay out the scene for you. Our hero is in a boxing match, really getting the screws put to him. He is bloody, tired, and beaten. He is down for the count about to give up when he looks up and sees his girl cheering him on from the crowd. Suddenly the music swells as he gets up in slow motion as he summons the resolve to keep on fighting. Not only does he keep on fighting, but he is magically better than he ever was. He beats the snot out of his foe and gets the girl in the end. Damn, that's badass. . . and full of it. You don’t really get a second wind in a fight. You only have so much cardio and can only take so much damage before your body gives out. Some people think they have experienced a second wind, but that is actually the feeling of your body shutting down. As you get more tired, your body will start shutting down various faculties to conserve energy. When you get tired enough, your body will shut down the part of your brain that tells you that you're tired. Thus, the illusion of a second wind. But it is just that, an illusion. In reality, your body is still tired and broken and will not perform any better than it did a few seconds ago. In Conclusion In all honesty, none of these so-called mistakes bother me. In fact, I love them. I see how they are necessary to keep the plot moving forward or make a fight scene more engaging. In reality fights are short, ugly, and have long term consequences. None of which is great for the silver screen. The goal of a good fight scene has never been to be realistic, it's to be awesome, inspirational, or exciting. What film makers know that we often forget is this: No one wants to pay for reality.

There is a video trend on YouTube of ranking various martial arts for how effective they are for self defense. I too have taken part in this trend, resulting in the most watched video on my YouTube channel. While comparing various content creators' opinions on the subject, a general consensus started to emerge. That consensus being that Combat Sports like Muay Thai, Lethwei, and Boxing were always put in the top tier, while more traditional martial arts like Karate, Kung Fu, Kali, and Kenpo were put in the mid to low tiers. The reasoning often given is the Combat Sports, because they are trying to knock each other out, give the practitioner a better sense of what a real fight feels like when compared to non-Combat Sports that tend to compete with lighter contact and more protective gear. The Idea seems simple enough, if you want to learn to fight then you should fight hard and fight often. When I was in my 20s, I would agree with this sentiment wholeheartedly. I would take any fight I could get when I was in high school and college. Living in Mississippi in the early 2000s, formal Martial Arts competitions were not available to me. So, I took part in weekly fight clubs, did challenge matches, and sparred with local martial artists as often as I could. Now I know this is not the same kind of competition that a Muay Thai fighter or boxer is doing but believe me when I tell you we were fighting for real. In college I took up Boxing, did a little Muay Thai, and I attended a gym that sparred very hard! Why? Because if you were going to learn how to fight you had to do the real thing. Right? According to the Indiana University School of Medicine “Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, is a progressive degenerative disease affecting people who have suffered repeated concussions and traumatic brain injuries that may occur in some athletes and others who have been exposed to concussions and repetitive head impacts.” The repeated blows and shocks to the brain associated with Combat Sports put fighters at an unusually high risk of developing CTE. This phenomenon is not exclusive to striking sports. Ronda Rousey, an Olympic bronze medalist in Judo and the first UFC women’s champion, admitted in her latest book “Our Fight” that she had sustained well over 100 concussions in Judo before she ever took part in striking arts. According to the National Institute of Health, “CTE results in a progressive decline of memory and cognition, as well as depression, suicidal behavior, poor impulse control, aggressiveness, and eventually dementia similar to Alzheimer's disease.” These impairments can have a horrible effect on your quality of life as you age. Combat Sports can also have a negative effect on the rest of your body as well. For example, the guy who taught me kickboxing was 60 years old and had cataracts, glaucoma, and was missing an ear from years of competing in the ring (granted he lost the ear in a bar fight). I am in my mid 30s at the time of writing this, and because of my years of doing fight clubs and challenge matches I have shoulder issues, back issues, and I can't straighten my elbows. On the flip side one of my Kung Fu Instructors, Master Daniel Pesina, is in his 60s and in phenomenal shape. I once asked him how he does it, and he gave me a simple answer “Do Kung Fu every day”. Then there is my Sifu in Wing Chun, a man in his 70s who can still do pistol squats, swears by the practice of kung fu as his primary method to stay in shape. Finally, there is Guru Dan Inosanto who still travels around the world teaching Kali and Jeet Kune Do in his 80s. He tells me a combination of a good diet, restorative arts like yoga and physical therapy, and training martial arts is the key to his longevity. I have trained with a lot of old men who can still do martial arts, and I have trained with a lot of middle-aged men whose bodies are falling apart. What is the difference between these two? What styles they study and how they train it. None of the guys who are 60+ prescribe to this “You have to get in the ring to learn to fight” philosophy. Instead, they encourage super light contact sparring and a lot of intense drilling of techniques. In contrast the instructors with broken bodies are all the dudes who tell me to do neck bridges, to always train as hard as I can, and are constantly pushing their students to compete in full contact martial arts tournaments. But the question still remains, can the guys who don't train so hard still defend themselves? The answer is yes. I know of very few instances where a trained martial artist of any kind was unable to protect themselves against an untrained fighter. Because martial artist are always competing with each other we tend to forget that the 90+ percent of people who have never done martial arts can’t take a single punch or handle being thrown to the ground. Infact, they don't even know how to defend such counter attacks. I once had a friend of mine attacked at a gas station. He never sparred hard and just practiced Kenpo twice a week. When the guy swung a punch at him, my friend snap kicked him in the groin, palm struck him in the face, and broke the guy's knee with a side kick. My friend never competed in boxing, he was a middle-aged man who smoked like a chimney and liked doing martial arts in his spare time. I assure you that if a Boxer or an MMA fighter had a fight with my buddy, my friend would lose. But that is fighting, not self-defense. His training had him fully prepared to protect himself and he did not have to incur a lifetime of brain trauma to develop the skill. There is a concept in Wing Chun that instead of hitting as hard as we possibly can, which will most likely break our knuckles, we hit hard enough and accurately enough to get the job done. We do this to minimize the risk of injury to our hands. Many of the older martial arts styles, much like the older men who taught me, have developed a softer, more relaxed training method because they have found longevity is more important than speed of skill development. If you want to become the best fighter in the world, it is important to know there will be some major sacrifices you must make to your body and brain. However, if you are just wanting to learn to protect yourself, stay in shape, and get a good workout in, then the arts like Kung Fu, Jeet Kune Do, Kali, and Kenpo will also teach you how to fight and take care of your body as you do them. Much like the Wing Chun punch, it’s not about training as hard as you can. It’s about training hard enough and smart enough to get the job done and reach your goals without taking on long term damage to your brain or body.

I have had the honor of training with many of my childhood heroes. One of those people is Dan Inosanto who is one of the very few people to be certified in Jeet Kune Do by Bruce Lee. Not to mention he is a living encyclopedia on Filipino martial arts. When he was 28 years old, he received his black belt in Kenpo under Ed Parker and at the age of 75 he received his black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu from Rigan Machado. I bring this up to show that he never stopped training. If you have ever trained with him, one of the first things that will stand out is how healthy he is at his age, as of writing this article he is 87 years old. When he is just moving around in his day-to-day life, his age shows. However, when he starts demonstrating martial arts he moves with speed, explosiveness, and decisiveness. I think everyone who has trained with him at some point has asked, “how the hell does he do all that in his 80s?”. So, I asked him, and what he told me changed the way I trained martial arts from that day forward. He told me every ten years or so you have to change everything about how you train in martial arts. You cannot expect a workout routine that worked for you in your 20s to even be good for you in your 50s. You cannot expect to eat like you did as a teenager when you are in your 30s. Most importantly, what techniques you use when sparring and how you spar will develop over the years. The kick or escape that worked well for you at 25 might not be viable at 45. You do not age out of martial arts; you simply have to let your martial arts age with you. The problem with this strategy is not all martial arts age with you. While there are some outliers in every martial arts style, there definitely seems to be some systems of fighting that are catered to a young body. I will pick on Wrestling first. For all intents and purposes, I consider wrestling to be the single most effective style of grappling. If you have ever rolled with a college wrestler, their explosiveness, strength, and pressure is eye opening. However, it all comes at a cost. I don't believe it is a coincidence that you don't see many men in their 50s practicing wrestling. Study after study have shown that many of the core movements of wrestling such as neck bridging, snap downs, and even how they change elevation do a great deal of long-term damage to your back. In fact, I once showed the neck bridging that is at the core of most wrestling programs to my physical therapist and he said, “That might be one of the single most dangerous exercises I have seen.” In contrast, there is a small but dedicated group of 40+ year old students who still train every week in most Brazilian Jiu Jitsu gyms. So why is that? Why do people seem to age out of Wrestling but not of BJJ? You can surely still find plenty of BJJ gyms teaching neck bridging, snap downs, and wrestling style elevation changing. I think the difference comes down to two major factors: The pace of training and the variety of techniques to pull from. In wrestling there is one pace, and that is full boar pedal to the metal train until you puke. Conversely, most Brazilian Jiu Jitsu schools will make space for a more casual and laid-back approach to training. So, when you are fifty years old with a messed-up shoulder and tight back, you can still go to the gym and train. The variety of techniques also allows for a greater expression of the art so your strategy can adapt and change as time moves on. For comparison, most wrestling schools will run the same gameplan: Take your opponent down by grabbing their legs then pin them with all of your might. While this strategy is perfectly viable in BJJ, you can also win by pulling your opponent into your guard. If your opponent is far stronger than you, in BJJ there is a means by which you can subdue your opponent even if your back is to the mat. I find BJJ is not an “either or” martial art but more of a “yes and”. As a result, as your body changes there is room for your game plan and training method to change along with you. Boxing is another art that people seem to age out of. I trained boxing for five years in my early 20s and in the gym I went to there was one 50-year-old dude who trained with us. Sure, the coaches were in their 40s, but they told us how to train and did not train with us. The culture of training at that gym was rough. What we called “Sparring” I would call “fighting without hard feelings” today. No one pulled their punches. Training was equally intense. Jump rope, wind sprints, truck pulls, and duck walks were an everyday affair. It was crazy hard work and as a 20-year-old I thought it was bad ass. However, at the same school there was a Kenpo class that was filled with 40+ year old men. It seemed like at some point folks would organically age out of the boxing program and graduate to Kenpo. Because I am a glutton for Kung Fu, I was training in the school’s Kenpo program along with boxing and the difference in the training methods were stark. The Kenpo guys worked hard for sure, but not like the boxers. The Kenpo guys put a lot more emphasis on slow and accurate training with 100s of repetitions of any given sequence of movements. They would spar fast but would pull their punches and kicks so they would not hit too hard. This training method allowed the Kenpo practitioners to train for longer and greatly minimized injuries. The crazy thing, having sparred both the boxers and the Kenpo guys, their skills at striking were comparable. While the boxer’s footwork was always better, the Kenpo fighters had such an extensive arsenal of punches and kicks that they became equally difficult to deal with. However, because the Kenpo practitioners sparred light, we could get more rounds in during each training session. Once again, the core difference between the art that people aged out of and the art that aged with the practitioner was the pace of training and the variety of techniques to pull from. This article is not made to trash on wrestling or boxing. I would be the first to tell you that both arts are essential elements of a complete self-defense arsenal. Martial arts are hard, no matter what style you study. Your muscles will ache, your skin will bruise, and your joints will be sore. These are all guaranteed in whatever martial art you choose. Therefore, choose a martial art that you can still practice when these kinds of injuries become more permanent. Age will come for us all and I hate the idea of training hard for years to only let age come along and take it all from me. Choose your style carefully and train wisely so you can fight like an old man.

The other night I was closing up my gym while chatting with one of my students. I was talking to them about the fact that people who specialize in only one style of fighting, such as boxing or Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ), tend to get better faster at the given discipline when compared to those who study multiple systems of fighting. As we moved the conversation into the parking lot they asked me an interesting question, “Wouldn't it be best to learn only one martial arts style and master it then? So, you can get good faster?” Of course, if you take a look at the schedule of my school it would be clear that I encourage cross training over specializing. At my gym we offer no less than five different martial arts styles to learn. So, the question remains; if specializing gets you good quickly then why do I encourage all my students to cross train? If someone exclusively studies one style of martial arts such as Judo, Karate, or Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, then their pathway to mastery of the art will be considerably quicker when compared to someone who cross trains. This is because the total amount of information they have to learn is narrowed and focused into a smaller group of techniques. For example, in the martial arts world the style of Muay Thai is highly respected for producing excellent fighters very quickly. This is due to the fact their arsenal is comparatively very small when examined against other systems of fighting. With the student having less total information to work on, they are able to hyper focus on developing the selected tools of the art and refine them in a very short time. “Hick's Law” states that the time it takes for a person to make a decision increase as the number of possible choices increase. Therefore, the specialist may have an edge in this situation as well. While the cross trained martial artist will have many options to choose from when faced with any threat, the specialist will know their game plan and execute it without hesitation. The obvious problem with this approach is their particular specialty may not be the best tool for every situation. You may have heard the phrase “when all you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” This is the inherent flaw of specializing in only one method of fighting. For example, if all I know is boxing, then I am going to throw punches even if my opponent would be better subdued with grappling. Furthermore, a specialist is often ignorant of the diversity of tools some other system of fighting might present to them. For example, I was having a casual spar in a BJJ gym, and my opponent only knew about my Judo background. They shot in for a double leg takedown, I sprawled and stuffed it. Then they recovered to their feet and tried an arm drag to take my back, and I stuffed that too. After the roll was over, they said “Damn, I am so used to double leg takedowns being free on judo guys, I also can't seem to take your back.” I explained to him I studied Jeet Kune Do which utilizes elements of catch wrestling, so I was ready to defend a wrestling takedown. Additionally, I used the “Sticky Hands” technique I learned in Wing Chun to counter the arm drag. If I had truly only known Judo, then maybe the double leg would have caught me off guard. However, because I was cross trained in multiple fighting styles, I was better prepared to counter his gameplan. There is also a higher risk of burnout for the specialist. Martial arts are something that is best enjoyed over a long period of time. I tell my students “It takes ten years to get ten years of experience every time, you cannot speed up the process.” However, it takes a very special individual to enjoy doing the exact same handful of movements over and over for ten years. While those people surely exist, in fact they make up the upper levels of every martial art style, most people will get bored with the monotony of constantly practicing the same drills and techniques day in and day out. Eventually they will get bored and quit before they reap the benefits of the art at its highest level. In contrast, one of my coaches' trains in BJJ, Wing Chun, Kenpo 360, and Muay Thai. He tells me whenever he starts to get burnt out on one style of martial arts, he puts it on the backburner and focuses on one of the other systems he knows. He told me it works like seasons. Sometimes it's the BJJ season of his life, then the Wing Chun season will take over. Eventually something will reignite his passion for BJJ, and he will be back in. The biggest limitation to specializing in only one method of fighting comes down to self-defense. Specializing in the world of self-defense is gambling plain and simple. Sure, if I knew for a fact that I was going to have a boxing match in six months, I would spend the next six months exclusively training at a boxing gym. However, you do not get to choose the "how, when, and where" of how you may be attacked. If you need boxing skills, let's hope you studied some boxing, if you need BJJ skills, let's hope you at least have a blue belt’s knowledge on the ground. I recall watching this interesting experiment where they took a handful of MMA fighters and had them go through a military training exercise where they would be attacked randomly. They all failed. This was due to the fact that they had never had to defend from off angles, and some of their attackers had weapons like knives and sticks which they also never had to concern themselves with in the cage. Even though they were all awesome fighters in their given sport, their hyper focused skill set left them ill prepared to defend against relatively common self-defense situations. I have many more reasons than just this to encourage the cross training we do at The School of Self Defense, but I will stop here to prevent this article from becoming a short book. The biggest objection to cross training I receive is that most people simply don't have the time to study multiple arts. The great benefit of the training method at my school is that cross training is built into our program. Instead of traveling to five different schools a week in order to study with five different instructors in five different martial arts styles, The School of Self Defense simplifies the whole process by putting it all under one roof and building the curriculum around the idea of cross training. Because multiple arts are taught in one school, we can more carefully and accurately explain the interplay between the different fighting methods and help you understand how they all work together. Our goal is not to make you a Wing Chun fighter or a BJJ fighter, we want to help you find your own personal kung fu that is custom made for your needs and attributes. I think Miyamoto Musashi, the greatest samurai who ever lived, summarized my point perfectly when he wrote in The Book of Five Rings, “It is difficult to understand the universe if you only study one planet.”

I was first introduced to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) in my early teens when I picked up a self-defense book by Royce Gracie. In the back of the book, it told the legend about how Brazilian Jiu Jitsu became “the most effective self-defense art in the world” by making a single change to the goal of fighting. While the vast majority of Americans at the time would fight with the goal of landing a knockout punch, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioners would take their opponent to the ground and choke them unconscious or put them in painful joint locks. They called these fight ending chokes and locks “Submissions”. The promise of this submission-based self-defense was to allow the smaller weaker man to beat the stronger man by using technique and leverage to overcome their strength. In a BJJ match, an opponent can give up at any time via “The Tap Out”, a gesture where the defeated man slaps his hand repeatedly on the ground, himself, or his opponent. This signal of tapping out has made its way into just about every combat sport that allows grappling. The long and short of it is, if you can make your opponent tap out, then you win. However, I have never been much of a combat sports oriented martial artist. My passion has always lied deep in the realm of self-defense. The mistake I think most martial artists make is the assumption that all submissions are created equal. If they tap out then you win, right? In this article I intend to lay out a hierarchy of submissions for self-defense. Because amongst all the submissions such as wrist locks, elbow locks, shoulder locks, knee locks, ankle locks, and chokes, there are some here that would be more likely to end a fight than others. Finally, I would like to challenge the BJJ legend that grappling is the best way to survive a street fight. Let's start with arm and wrist locks. In martial arts such as BJJ and Judo one of the first submissions you will be taught is the Americana (Ude Garami for my Judo buffs out there) a submission made to dislocate the shoulder. While playfully training in the gym with other BJJ fanatics, the Americana will become one of your go-to submissions. You can hit it from damn near any position, it's simple, and in the gym, you will get a tap every time. However, take a look at actual martial arts tournaments and a very different story will unfold. In competition it is not uncommon for some meathead athletes to simply not tap out to an arm lock of any kind, rather it be an Americana or an Armbar. Some foolish athletes are so desperate to win, they would rather let their body break than suffer defeat. While I trust this is not the case with more experienced levelheaded practitioners of the sport, I have seen crazier things happen. In fact, I recall in high school, one of the players on our football team broke his rib during one of the first plays of the game. He did not want to get pulled out of the game, so he simply did not tell anyone. He only spoke up about his injury once the game had finished (we lost by the way, we always lost). The point I am trying to make is that there is no tapping out in self-defense. There are monsters out there like that football player that would not roll into a ball and cry just because you broke their wrist. While I am not saying we should neglect arm and wrist locks in our self-defense training, what I am saying is this: If you want to develop a self-defense focused style of grappling, consider arm and wrist locks as a means to an end and not the end itself. Because at the end of the day, they can still be used as a painful hold to simply control someone. So, let's talk about the second-best submission group, leg locks. When I say leg locks, I am referring to any submission that would break the knee or ankle. There are some leg locks that simply cause pain and would not break your opponent, those are out for self-defense as far as I am concerned. Let's think about that tough football player again, but this time let's imagine that instead of having a broken rib he broke his ankle. Now, no matter how tough he is, there would be no way for him to keep running on the field. He would be forced to back out of the game. Same would go for self-defense. Even if our opponent is “bath salts crazy”, if we break his ankle or knee, he simply can't chase us. However, there is something to keep in mind. Most of the positions we would use to achieve such a submission leave us extremely entangled with our opponent and often in a prone position. We still have to get away to reap the benefits of that submission. As long as we are still on the ground with them, there is still a chance for them to draw a knife or pin us and knock us out. So, while an attack to the legs is an excellent submission for self-defense, I would study how to disengage from that position safely. Finally, the king of submissions, the Choke. Simply put, there are no tough guys with chokes. If someone refuses to tap out to a choke, they simply go to sleep. Furthermore, even in combat sports the various chokes such as Rear Naked Choke or Guillotine are always amongst the highest percentage submissions. Lucky for us, chokes are available from almost every position in grappling. When it comes to self-defense there is no better path to victory than rendering your opponent unconscious. If only there was a way to do the same thing without having to take the time of grappling my opponent to the ground and pinning them first. If only there was a faster way. . . All self-defense practitioners should learn striking. While BJJ and other grappling arts are must have skills for self-defense, the core of self-defense will always be striking. A well-placed elbow strike or knee can knock out your opponent before the fight even gets going. When we are seeking the quickest path to victory, striking arts such as Muay Thai and boxing will always have the edge over grappling arts. While the grappling arts can end a fight in a matter of seconds, striking arts are the only ones who can end a fight in under a second. Of course, the best option would be to focus on a martial art that incorporates both striking and grappling aspects. While you could study separate arts by attending a Muay Thai class and a BJJ class every week, there are already martial arts such as Kenpo and Jeet Kune Do who have been studying the interplay between striking and grappling for well over 60 years. As grapplers we get too used to the idea that when we get to a certain checkpoint (the submission) that the fight will just magically stop. Because in the gym, it does. There is no effective submission that is not worth knowing, because grappling is about so much more than self-defense. Many people pick up BJJ for the sport, to get into MMA, or simply as a weekly workout. And in those cases, all submissions are created equal. However, if you are a self-defense focused martial artist, do not be distracted by the siren’s song of the "Tap Out". Know what submissions will finish fights and what ones may not. Then focus your attention on using them all appropriately. In conclusion, armlocks are good, leg locks are better, chokes are best, learn to hit hard.