A Blog I Admire

Years ago, I found this little Shotokan website that apparently grew out of a ‘usenet’ group. It was filled with thoughtful, incisive, and often heretical (at least to the Shotokan powers that be) articles presented with style. No, I didn’t always agree, but I was always interested. It had an archive of the forms, free. Can you sense that it might have inspired me a bit? Suddenly, one day it was gone. Thankfully, it has returned as a blog. It’s not the same as it was, but it has blossomed into a new entity containing much of what drew me there in the first place. I’m not a huge Shotokan fan, but much of what is found on 24fightingchickens.com applies to organized martial arts in general. I’ll know I’ve ‘made it’ when I start getting hate mail like he used to get… 

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When does it become something else?

Over the last while, I’ve been trying to focus my effort on streamlining my kempo practice to come up with the best nucleus of material. My beef with the ‘million and one is better’ school of kempo stems from several sources. First, despite what Hock Hockheim says, Hick’s law (and Fitts Law) are still robust predictors of the effect and the size of the effect of a preponderance of choices on reaction time.   Continue reading

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Resistance training? Here’s the way.

As part of my Post-Baccalaureate program at Bridgewater State College, I completed coursework related to a wide variety of physical activities, and as part of the my efforts to increase my knowledge of resistance training, especially in regard to sports, I picked up the book Explosive Lifting for Sports by Harvey Newton. It’s a great resource for using resistance training to increase your effectiveness in other areas.

The book begins with a basic overview of the terms and ideas, and clearly defines and differentiates between strength and power, and describes techniques for training for each. It also explores weightlifting and plyometrics, and gives ways to combine them for better results. 

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