The state of New York is banning the practice of MMA within the state territory and therefore any related sports shows.  The video here below collects statements and interviews to make a point against it. The stronger message is by Chael Sonnen, MMA fighter for UFC, who in several parts of the video states how unions and politicians are in fact banning MMA in New York for political reasons and to put pressure on some Las Vegas businesses. However the reason this decision is not affecting me much: I am Italian, living in Cambridge – UK, never been in NY. However I am against this banning when they mask it behind the excuse of violence. 

Martial arts practice techniques that can hurt people, true; so is for boxing, football, rugby, hockey and many other sports.  Good thing about martial arts is that when you enter the ring or the octagon you know your opponent will be there to fight you, with referee and judges who are there to enforce rules and for your safety.  On the contrart when you are playing other sports, e.g. like some heavy contact ball sports, your aim should be to deliver a ball to a particular destination but a lot of violence, often unaccounted for, can happen in between.  As Dana White correctly points out in the video many people died and die during boxing matches but nobody died so far in the relatively short 12 years of UFC.

Learning martial arts is not about becoming violent it’s about understanding violence and when to use it, in the right way.  It’s about discipline, it’s about ethics and many other important values.

I am not a MMA practitioner and I’ll probably never will. However MMA has allowed martial arts to become popular on mainstream TV and create a new generation of professional sport men and women so I will promote it and support it because it will help the popularity of all martial arts.

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The advent of MMA has popularised martial arts to a point that an increasing number of young men and women are approaching martial arts with the aim of becoming professional fighters.  Large organizations like UFC managed to get martial arts fights shown in main stream TV programs, with big sponsorships and VIP audience.

Competing in martial arts is not tough just for your body and the continuous training and preparation required.  In over 30 years of practicing martial arts I met many great martial artists boasting amazing technique and fighting abilities when training in the gym; at the same time I was disappointed more then once watching them delivering sub-optimal performance once in the ring.  Your mind can play funny tricks and it best performs when adequately trained.

Discoveries in neurosciences from the last 20 years have demonstrated how mind rehearsal, visualisation and other more specialised techniques have a measurable impact on personal performance in sport.  Olympic athletes have been using mind coaches to visualise the slightly faster run or the extra metre in the javelin throw, often obtaining gold medals.

While many martial arts coaches have good experience in teaching great techniques and for offering specific physical preparation to their athletes few of them have the right knowledge or qualification to offer mind coaching that can make the difference between winning and loosing a fight.  The missing link in this scenario was the availability of professional mind coaching, delivered by a person who is both a martial artist and a qualified mind coach… until now.

I am lucky enough to know a great mind coach that happens to be my business partner who I first met during a martial arts session over 10 years ago.  Luca Senatore, martial artist for over 20 years, has a broad range of qualifications in NLP, Hypnotherapy and Mind Coaching and has recently developed a program called MMA Mind Power, after testing his innovative techniques on a selected number of MMA professional fighters.

Apart from 1-2-1 mind coaching session you can download a taster session from the website or buying the full set of mp3 recording that will guide you toward a better performance in fighting.  Whether you are a professional fighter or an ambitious amateur you will benefit from the “Warrior in You” programme going on sale today.

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The combination of Bill Wallace’s words together with some of the scenes makes this video from 1991 a great lesson about martial arts, its phylosophy of training and how we can improve even after many years of training.  I agree completely with these concepts and that’s why I am still training with the same, sometimes more, passion than when I started.  Enjoy and comment please:

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For somebody who has been practicing kickboxing since before it was given this name I find somehow irritating when people confuse it or, worse, deliberately misuse its name for commercial reasons.  Most martial arts, despite attracting some time interesting numbers of keen followers, failed to attract the real interest of the masses in terms the education systems, TV coverage and commercial sponsorships.  The only exception, over the last decade or so is the growing popularity of MMA.

If we can thank Bruce Lee for creating a huge awareness and interest for martial arts thanks to his movies in the 60ies and 70ies we could thank Jean Claude Van Damme for helping Kickboxing becoming a main stream martial art and sport thanks to his movies of from the late 80ies and early 90ies.  So while if you are practicing Tang So Do or Wing Chun you still have to explain to people what you do when you tell people to be training Kickboxing most of them will have at least a clue of what you do.

For this reason many organizations are promoting their martial arts as Kickboxing even when they are practicing something else and they should really keep its original name.  I will list below the 5 martial arts to me known that are all confusingly called Kickboxing while just one of them should be it.

American Kickboxing

Original called Karate Contact to differentiate from the no-contact karate competitions that still take place nowadays.  This martial art was initially practiced as a form of freestyle karate that allowed contact during sparring and competitions; it then developed into adding more appropriate boxing punches and combinations of kicks and punches.  Targets for all punches and kicks are the front part of the body and face, no low kicks are allowed.  American Kickboxing is practiced with full protection kit, boxing gloves, mouth guard, groin guard, sheen pads and foot pads. The uniform usually includes a t-shirt or jacket and long trousers.

Muay Thai

Muay Thai, also called Thai Boxing or Thai Kickboxing is a form of sport fight originated in Thailand and it allows one of the most complete and harsh fighting scenario for a sport bout.  Muay Thai allows punches, kicks, elbow and knee strikes to all parts of the body.  While training is usually performed while wearing a reasonable level of kit such as gloves, mouth guard, groin guard and sheen pads, fights are performed without any leg protection.

Japanese Kickboxing

The origins of Japanese Kickboxing are rooted in Muay Thai. It all started in th 60ies when a Japanese Karate master, after seeing a Muay Thai fight decided, to adopt a similar style fight full contact sparring.  Japanese Kickboxing has now evolved into K1 a world popular fighting sport that looks similar to Thai boxing, excluding elbow strikes; that means it allows punches, kicks and knee strikes to all parts of the body, excluding groin.   K1 has regular followers and practitioners in Japan, Europe and USA with TV coverage and large sponsorships. Typical uniform for Japanese Kickboxing is just shorts and perhaps a vest.

Savate

Also called French Boxing (or Boxe Française) is a French version of fighting sport with a number of differences compared to the rest of similar martial arts. In Savate both punches and kicks are allowed but they limit the target for the formers to the front of body, above the belt and face, e.g. similar to IBA boxing; quite confusingly kicks are instead allowed to hit the whole body, including back and legs.  The uniform used for Savate is also very typical as it’s a Lycra fabric full body suit and they wear boots instead of foot pads.

Sanda or Sanshou

Sanda, also called Chinese Kickboxing, was originally developed by the Chinese military based upon the intense study and practices of traditional Kung Fu and modern combat fighting techniques; it is a full contact form or Kickboxing usually practiced as a fighting application of various kung fu styles like Shaolin or Wu Shu.  Its freestyle philosophy embraces a sport fight with little rules, where kicks and punches to any area of the body (excluding groin) are allowed; throws are also possible but the fight gets stopped as soon as the fighters hit the ground (e.g. no grappling and submission).

So in my opinion just American and Japanese Kickboxing have the legitimate right to be called Kickboxing while the remaining three are getting free publicity by the big popularity that the name Kickboxing has gained over the last 20 years or so.  This list is the most accurate to the best of my knowledge; it relies on my over 30 years experience in martial arts and research I did online, both on Wikipedia and other sources.  If you have any suggestions for amendments please leave a comment.

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I was kind of surprised to notice that about 3 years have gone by since my first encounter with Master Steve Tappin, the founder of the Escrima Concepts style, a complete fighting system that teaches weapon based attack and defences to start with and the explores what happens when you have no weapon available.

One of  my main purpose of attending a martial arts seminar is to have the opportunity of learning, usually new things, from a master or instructor that is usually not available for local tuitions, and share with a few others his/her expertise in a session that is normally longer that the average class. However last Sunday I was particularly lucky; I attended, together with 3 other CARISMA members, a seminar organised by my friends at the Cambridge Kung Fu and I was pleased to find out that just 13 people, including us, were taking part to the event.  The real luck was having Master Tappin in person taking care directly of us for a generous amount of time and really ensuring we would get a great training.

Master Tappin’s teaching style is very clear and effective and he always manages to simply explain the essence of why one thing should be done in a certain way and shows it directly, helped by his expert son Wayne.  It’s shocking to see a man who had a broken back and an injured knee, somebody who struggles to stand and limps visibly but then, when demonstrating a technique, moves with the speed and the grace of the great martial artist he really is.

Weapons are tricky to handle and they open a complete new dimension about what should and should not be done while fighting.  While I don’t feel my skill level has grown substantially I can acknowledge I learnt a lot of useful concepts and by repeating and rehearsing the moves my skill will improve over time.

Whether you have experience in weapon based training or, like me, passionate and curious about exploring a new art I would definitely suggest to join one of Master Tappin’s seminar at your earliest convenience.

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