Stretching, when is the right time?

"Fight training is very extensive, a lot of stretching, a lot of coordination of balance exercises"

-Jason Statham

Do you ever feel like you never stretch enough? When is the best time to stretch? Before training, after training? There is lots of articles out there on the web promoting stretching and or vilifying stretching. Here are some studies that made sense to me. Per Baechle of Human Kinetics, "There is little, if any, evidence that stretching pre- or post-participation prevents injury or subsequent muscle soreness". (Human Kinetics link)  So there are not enough studies to suggest that stretching before or after training helps in any capacity. What about stretching in general?

A study by Dr. Ian Shrier, suggests stretching immediately prior to physical activity does not generally improve physical abilities and reduce injuries, but routinely stretching in general does help improve physical abilities and reduce injuries. (Shrier study) Additionally, a study by Luxmi Sharma, concludes daily yoga helps improve sports performance through improved joint and muscular flexibility. (Sharma study) Stretching does make a difference, it appears that a daily stretching routine might be the best course of action. However, I would suggest trying whatever makes you feel comfortable.

Here is a sumo dynamic stretching routine for your pleasure, Youtube.

What are your thoughts?

-Dwight

Quick Jab Report - I love it when a plan comes together

"I love it when a plan comes together"

- Hannibal A-Team

Tonight, Bellator 135 kicks off with a main card match between Joe Warren (12-3) and Marcos "Loiro"(blonde in Portuguese) Galvao (16-6). Warren has won his last five matches and won by decision in the last two. Galvao has won his last three matches, two by technical knockout. I will lean with towards Joe Warren with the advantage who seems to be able to win by decisions and has a bit more Bellator experience than Galvao.

The other interesting match will be between Ryan Couture (Yes, Couture as in Randy Couture's son) versus Dakota Cochrane. Couture is 9-3 and has won the last three matches all by Rear-naked choke submissions. Cochrane is 18-7, but has lost two of the last three matches. The majority of his losses have been to submissions. So I think Ryan Couture will continue his winning trend and submit Cochrane. Should be a fun fight to watch some MMA without really any big headliners.

Now the big news of couple months ago that came out this week! Cris Cyborg had signed a contract with UFC right before her fight at Invicta FC 11 (http://www.foxsports.com/ufc/story/cris-cyborg-justino-is-signed-to-the-ufc-032615). So now I have another MMA match to get super ecstatic about, Rousey versus Cyborg! So Dana White is probably saying, "I love it when a plan comes together".

-Dwight

Martial Arts Resource: Bushido Soul of Japan by Inazo Nitobe: Bushido as an Ethical System

Bushido - Soul of Japan
By Inazo Nitobe


Foreword by Dwight
Bushido, the code of the Samurai. There is something almost surreal, dream like about these rules or precepts. It is hard to imagine that a certain code of ethics sprouted out of such savagery. This first chapter focuses on a bit of history and Nitobe eludes to some misrepresentations about Japanese chivalry. The main lesson I took away from the chapter was the common courtesy between the warriors. I believe it is still  important for martial artists to practice a common courtesy today, whether you participate in martial sports or arts.

Read it yourself and let me know what you think, I will also release a corresponding podcast #56
. 

BUSHIDO AS AN ETHICAL SYSTEM.

      Chivalry is a flower no less indigenous to the soil of Japan than its emblem, the cherry  blossom; nor is it a dried-up specimen of an antique virtue preserved in the herbarium of our history. It is still a living object of power and beauty among us; and if it assumes no tangible shape or form, it not the less scents the moral atmosphere, and makes us aware that we are still under its potent spell. The conditions of society which brought it forth and nourished it have long disappeared; but as those far-off stars which once were and are not, still continue to shed their rays upon us, so the light of chivalry, which was a child of feudalism, still illuminates our moral path, surviving its mother institution. It is a pleasure to me to reflect upon this subject in the language of Burke, who uttered the well-known touching eulogy over the neglected bier of its  European prototype.

      It argues a sad defect of information concerning the Far East, when so erudite a scholar as Dr. George Miller did not hesitate to affirm that chivalry, or any other similar institution, has never existed either among the nations of antiquity or among the modern Orientals. Such ignorance, however, is amply excusable, as the third edition of the good Doctor's work appeared the same year that Commodore Perry was knocking at the portals of our exclusivism. More than a decade later, about the time that our feudalism was in the last throes of existence, Carl Marx, writing his "Capital," called the attention of his readers to the peculiar advantage of studying the social and political institutions of feudalism, as then to be seen in living form only in Japan. I would likewise invite the Western historical and ethical student to the study of chivalry in the Japan of the present.

      Enticing as is a historical disquisition on the comparison between European and Japanese feudalism and chivalry, it is not the purpose of this paper to enter into it at length. My attempt is rather to relate, firstly, the origin and sources of our chivalry; secondly, its character and teaching;thirdly, its influence among the masses; and, fourthly, the continuity and permanence of its influence. Of these several points, the first will be only brief and cursory, or else I should have to take my readers into the devious paths of our national history; the second will be dwelt upon at greater 
length, as being most likely to interest students of International Ethics and Comparative Ethology in our ways of thought and action; and the rest will be dealt with as corollaries.

      The Japanese word which I have roughly rendered Chivalry, is, in the original, more expressive than Horsemanship. Bu-shi-do means literally Military-Knight-Ways—the ways which fighting nobles should observe in their daily life as well as in their vocation; in a word, the "Precepts of Knighthood," the noblesse oblige of the warrior class. Having thus given its literal significance, I may be allowed henceforth to use the word in the original. The use of the original term is also advisable for this reason, that a teaching so circumscribed and unique, engendering a cast of mind and character so peculiar, so local, must wear the badge of its singularity on its face; then, some words have a national timbre so expressive of race characteristics that the best of translators can do them but scant justice, not to say positive injustice and grievance. Who can improve by translation what the German "Gemüth" signifies, or who does not feel the difference between the two words verbally so closely allied as the English gentleman and the French gentilhomme?

      Bushido, then, is the code of moral principles which the knights were required or instructed to observe. It is not a written code; at best it consists of a few maxims handed down from mouth to mouth or coming from the pen of some well-known warrior or savant. More frequently it is a code unuttered and unwritten, possessing all the more the powerful sanction of veritable deed, and of a law written on the fleshly tablets of the heart. It was founded not on the creation of one brain, however able, or on the life of a single personage, however renowned. It was an organic growth of decades and centuries of military career. It, perhaps, fills the same position in the history of ethics that the English Constitution does in political history; yet it has had nothing to compare with the Magna Charta or the Habeas Corpus Act. True, early in the seventeenth century Military Statutes (Buké Hatto) were promulgated; but their thirteen short articles were taken up mostly with marriages, castles, leagues, etc., and didactic regulations were but meagerly touched upon. 

      We cannot, therefore, point out any definite time and place and say, "Here is its fountain head." Only as it attains consciousness in the feudal age, its origin, in respect to time, may be identified with feudalism. But feudalism itself is woven of many threads, and Bushido shares its intricate nature. As in England the political institutions of feudalism may be said to date from the Norman Conquest, so we may say that in Japan its rise was simultaneous with the ascendancy of Yoritomo, late in the twelfth century. As, however, in England, we find the social elements of feudalism far back in the period previous to William the Conqueror, so, too, the germs of feudalism in Japan had been long existent before the period I have mentioned.

      Again, in Japan as in Europe, when feudalism was formally inaugurated, the professional class of warriors naturally came into prominence. These were known as samurai, meaning literally, like the old English cniht (knecht, knight), guards or attendants—resembling in character the solduriiwhom Caesar mentioned as existing in Aquitania, or the comitati, who, according to Tacitus, followed Germanic chiefs in his time; or, to take a still later parallel, the milites medii that one reads about in the history of Mediaeval Europe. A Sinico-Japanese word Bu-ké or Bu-shi(Fighting Knights) was also adopted in common use. They were a privileged class, and must originally have been a rough breed who made fighting their vocation. 

      This class was naturally recruited, in a long period of constant warfare, from the manliest and the most adventurous, and all the while the process of elimination went on, the timid and the feeble being sorted out, and only "a rude race, all masculine, with brutish strength," to borrow Emerson's phrase, surviving to form families and the ranks of the samurai. Coming to profess great honor and great privileges, and correspondingly great responsibilities, they soon felt the need of a common standard of behavior, especially as they were always on a belligerent footing and belonged to different clans. Just as physicians limit competition among themselves by professional courtesy, just as lawyers sit in courts of honor in cases of violated etiquette, so must also warriors possess some resort for final judgment on their misdemeanors.

      Fair play in fight! What fertile germs of morality lie in this primitive sense of savagery and childhood. Is it not the root of all military and civic virtues? We smile (as if we had outgrown it!) at the boyish desire of the small Britisher, Tom Brown, "to leave behind him the name of a fellow who never bullied a little boy or turned his back on a big one." And yet, who does not know that this desire is the corner-stone on which moral structures of mighty dimensions can be reared? May I not go even so far as to say that the gentlest and most peace-loving of religions endorses this aspiration? 

      This desire of Tom's is the basis on which the greatness of England is largely built, and it will not take us long to discover that Bushido does not stand on a lesser pedestal. If fighting in itself, be it offensive or defensive, is, as Quakers rightly testify, brutal and wrong, we can still say with Lessing, "We know from what failings our virtue springs." "Sneaks" and "cowards" are epithets of the worst opprobrium to healthy, simple natures. Childhood begins life with these notions, and knighthood also; but, as life grows larger and its relations many-sided, the early faith seeks sanction from higher authority and more rational sources for its own justification, satisfaction and development. If military interests had operated alone, without higher moral support, how far short of chivalry would the ideal of knighthood have fallen! 

      In Europe, Christianity, interpreted with concessions convenient to chivalry, infused it 
nevertheless with spiritual data. "Religion, war and glory were the three souls of a perfect Christian knight," says Lamartine.

Martial Arts: A Revolution or Evolution

A Revolution
Struggle inside or out
Evolve Unceasing

Welcome Martial Enthusiasts to Martial Arts Musings! This week I take a look at the differences between the evolution or the revolution in Martial Arts.

To give everyone a little bit background, if you listened to the Master Linh interview, you would have heard him suggest that in Vovinam as a revolution rather than an evolution. During the interview, he mentioned that Vovinam emphasized the notion of an individual's revolution. The journey through Vovinam is a revolution of the mind and body. A couple to transformation of the person.

Before I get too far, lets define revolution and evolution. Evolution is the gradual development of something, from a simple to complex form. Revolution is the sudden extreme or complete change of something,

Martial Arts and Revolution:
On one hand martial arts can be viewed as a revolution especially when applied to an individual. If a person and their environment aren't prevalent with martial arts then one may go through a drastic change or transformation. For example, say you grow up here in the United States, how prevalent is martial arts in this country? The only loose number I could find on the internet was roughly 18-20 million out of 320 million. So about 5%, so we will take this number with a grain of salt. Since, martial arts is not widely practiced or incorporated in our culture like say football, when someone does starts a martial arts journey they will probably make an incredible transition.

Woodrow Wilson said "The seed of revolution is repression".
Fidel Castro said "Revolution is not a bed of roses".
Napoleon said "Revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets".

Notice a pattern with these sayings? A revolution is a struggle, a fight. Some historical examples are the Boxer Rebellion and Cultural Revolution in China, Japan's occupation of South Korea, the French Occupation of Vietnam, Thailand. Most martial arts or self defense was born out of a struggle against imperialism or occupation.

For our purposes, a martial arts revolution is a struggle with ourselves, a struggle against being lazy, fat, undisciplined, egotistical etc etc.

Martial Arts and Evolution:
On the other hand martial arts can be viewed as an evolution. There are two ways to look at this, one broadly at the environment and second at the individual. One could say, martial arts evolved through generations of development. Look at the Chinese martial arts that have been passed down since 400-500 AD. Chinese Martial Arts have gradually changed over the centuries and I am sure that some young kids were "bred" for martial arts to pass on the lineages.

Thomas Edison said "Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages". AR Rahman said, "Each of us has our own evolution of life, and each of one of us goes through differed tests which are challenging.

Notice a pattern again? An evolution is a challenge, a test. A martial arts evolution is the gradual betterment or honing of our skills.

Conclusion:
So where does this leave us. In my opinion, Martial Arts is both a revolution then an evolution. Your environment will likely impact whether martial arts to you is a revolution which then turns into an evolution or just a continuing evolution. What do you think?

Check out the corresponding podcast, #44.

-Dwight

Haiku - Lost Fight

Muscles Ache Lightly

Pain dances around the body

From distance bell tolls

Can you develop your own personal Martial Arts Credo/ Philosophy?

Credo

noun cre·do \ˈkrē-(ˌ)dō

"Statement of beliefs or aims that guide someone's actions"

Philosophy
noun phi·los·o·phy \fə-ˈlä-s(ə-)fē\

"A theory or attitude held by a person that acts as a guiding principle for
behavior"

Whether you call it a philosophy, a credo, axiom, doesn't really matter, what matters is that you the Martial artist develop a set a beliefs to effectively reach your potential, or in terms of Maslow's motivational theory of Self Actualization. Why should you develop a personal martial arts credo in your Martial Arts Journey?

How can you become the best if you don't know who you are and what you want? Psychology Today specifies, "To not have a credo means to go through life without defined purpose, clear focus or identifiable direction".(https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-prime/200909/business-prime-business-credo) So if you are an avid Martial Arts practitioner, why are you involved in Martial Arts? What do you get or what do you want to get out of Martial Arts?

If you are familiar with Pete Carroll, coach of the Seattle Seahawks, he has a very intriguing personal philosophy. It comes down to one word, "Compete". Compete as a football coach to be the best, compete to be the best parent, husband, etc. Just compete in everything you do in life to reach your potential. Here are some other examples relating to philosophies and credos:

"American parents who give a darn about their kids have noticed that martial arts teach their children about respect, discipline, hard work, sacrifice and humility"
(http://www.blackbeltmag.com/category/daily/martial-arts-philosophy/?topicid=9329)

Five Dojo Kun of the Japan Karate Association
1. Jinkaku kansei ni tsutomuru koto - Seek perfection of character
2. Makoto no michi o mamoru koto - Be sincere
3. Doryoku no seishin o yashinau koto - Put maximum effort into everything you do
4. Reigi o omonzuru koto - Respect others
5. Kekki no yuu o imashimuru koto - Develop self-control
(http://jka.or.jp/en/karate/philosophy.html)

Obviously, your personal philosophy or credo can be very long and explicit or short and implicit.

Here is a short way to get started:

1. Determine what type of Martial Arts Practitioner you are
1.  Martial Artist - Self Defense
2.  Martial Artist - Community builder, demos, and forms
3.  Martial Fighter - Mixed Martial Arts
4.  Combination
2. Review any sources important to you 
1. Martial Arts instructors, philosophies and texts
2. Religious philosophies and texts
3. Philosophical theories and texts
4. Mentors and other influential people
5. Heck even fictional books and movies
3. Pick certain philosophies, brainstorm and think about 3-5 items that are important/ useful to you
4. Pick 2-3 as you core
5. Rewrite in your own words
6. Strive to reach your goals and potential
7. Repeat as necessary as epiphanies or life experiences dictates

http://www.ehow.com/how_6088211_write-one-personal-philosophy-statement.html

http://www.leadershipchallenge.com/resource/composing-your-personal-credo.aspx

Hopefully this helps Martial Arts Enthusiasts and I will continue to dig up resources to present on this blog and podcast. Bam!

-Dwight

Competition among fight promotions?

"Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best" - George S. Patton

It is great to see competition among fighting promotions, I know it is hard to believe that there could be something bigger than the UFC. One Fighting Championships, now known as One Championships has become one of the biggest fight promotions in Asia. It is boasting over a 90% market share in Asia and over a billion viewers (http://www.onefc.com/about-one/about-us.html).  So what does this mean, Why is competition important?

As an avid martial artist, I enjoy watching mixed martial arts. Especially fighters who had formal training in a traditional martial art, such as Judo, Karate, etc. But watching can get quite expensive, and as any business savvy person knows competition generally drives down pricing. This weekends match ups verify this point.

One Championships will feature eight match ups and the cost to stream it will be ...holy s**t, only $10.

The UFC stream will cost .. What!? $60.

The UFC event may or may not provide better fights than One Champion event, but I think you will begin to see more competition to the $50 - $60 "Pay per view" events. In my opinion, the UFC doesn't have enough star power to keep commanding high pricing for these type of events. As the competition grows, consumer costs should shrink.. Only really really big match ups could command such a price. The only pay per view event I would even consider purchasing at $50, is the Pacquiao Vs. Mayweather fight. 

-Dwight

Haiku - The Break

Crazy Are People
Challenges Fly at Rousey
Ribs Break far Away

MMA: Lets hear it for the Girls!

 Lets hear it for the Girls!
They are fighting hand to hand
Lets hear it for these cuties
You know you gotta understand
(Thanks for enduring a Footloose Reference/parody)

Wow, what a bunch of great fights this past weekend. Last Friday, Cristiane "Cyborg" Justino destroyed Charmaine Tweet with a bunch of strikes before the ref stopped it at 46 seconds at Invicta FC11. The main event the following night at UFC 184, Ronda Rousey smoothly arm-bared Cat Zigano in less than 20 seconds. In one of the preliminary fights, Amy Montenegro (She is from the Seattle area, how could I not root for her) defeated Brianna Van Buren.

It was great to see, what I believe is a great stride for the women in Mixed Martial Arts. Specifically, that this weekend featured exciting matches between the women fighters. I believe it was the first time women fighters had the main card on the UFC. Obviously every Invicta FC has women as the main card, but they appear to be steadily improving their ranks of fighters. I think you will continue to see more and more great women fighters as the sports continues to grow.

I am not saying women do not already have a big impact on MMA. It is arguable that Ronda Rousey has become the face of the UFC and MMA.  Especially with the absences of George St. Pierre and Anderson Silva (old Silva, not steroid Silva). What I am saying though, is that I do not believe we have seen the full potential of women in MMA, the best is yet to come!

-Dwight