When it comes to putting martial theories to the test, Loren is a model example for how to do intelligently and effectively.

 For anyone who likes to augment their training with practical books or videos, Loren is likely already in your library. He has worked on projects such as "On Combat", "Warrior Mindset", and "Solo Training" (among many others). He is a frequently utilized resource for police training programs and has become a respected voice in the realm of conflict resolution.

Having started in traditional arts and expanding his experience across multiple systems, Loren provides a mature and proven voice for people of all backgrounds to learn from. Please enjoy the following Q&A session as I ask Loren about his background, his theories on combat, and his most recent writing projects.

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Q&A

MA: Thanks for agreeing to participate Loren. Your bio states that you started your martial training in 1965. Could you tell us what inspired you to get involved at that time, and what your first art was?

LC: I was 19 when I began training. When I was 18, I broke my back in a weight lifting accident and had to wear a brace. The doctor told me to stop lifting but I had to do something with my teenage energy. So my buddy and I went to check out this new thing called karate and I was hooked from the first day. I couldn’t kick for a while because of my damaged spine, but I kept working at it until I could lift one leg, then the other, then kick shin high, and then knee high. In a few months, I was kicking as well as the other new students.

My first fighting art was called kong-su, a Korean system that was heavily influenced by the Japanese fighting arts. I stayed with this style until I went into the Army in 1967.

MA: Could you provide us with a brief timeline of when you enlisted in the military, when you began your career as a police officer, and when you attained your Bachelor of Science degree?

LC: I entered the Army in 1967, serving with the Military Police. I spent a year in the Florida Everglades as an MP dog handler, and then went to Washington DC to take a crash course in the Vietnamese language, and finally to Vietnam where I was an MP in Saigon.

I got out of the service in 1970 and joined the Portland, Oregon Police Bureau in 1972. I worked many jobs on the PD, to include patrol, gang enforcement, dignitary bodyguard, defensive tactics instructor, and Intelligence. I retired in 1997.

I took night courses early on and graduated from Portland State University in 1980. Earlier, I graduated from Clark College in Washington with a major in theater.

MA: Your experience includes 11 black belts in three different fighting arts. Could you talk a bit about these three arts and who you trained under?

LC: My emphasis of study has been primarily in the kick/punch arts, secondly the grappling arts, and thirdly the stick/knife arts. My goal is to develop skill in all four ranges: arnis stick range, kicking range, hand range, and close-quarter range, which includes grappling. Many fighting styles don’t cover all these ranges. For example, some jujitsu fighters have poor to nonexistent kicking and punching skills, and some kicking arts contain very little if any grappling. That’s a weakness. In my view, martial arts study is about striving to eliminate or at least minimize weaknesses.

In the kick/punch arts, I’ve studied karate, taekwondo, Muay Thai, boxing, and kung fu. In the grappling arts, I’ve studied aiki jujitsu, chin-na, police defensive tactics, and a little aikido. In the stick/knife arts, I’ve studied arnis. My objective over the last many years of training has been to incorporate, based on my 29 years of street experience in law enforcement, only what I know is useful for street self-defense.

I’ve been awarded belts from Master Bruce Terrill, Professor Duke Moore, Soke Tim Delgman, and Professor Remy Presas.

In 2011, I was inducted into the martial arts Masters Hall of Fame in Anaheim California and given the Golden Life Achievement award.

MA: How has your martial training intermingled with your military and police career? Were you forced to train after hours (off-duty), or did most of your combat training come from those establishments?

LC: I had already been training in the martial arts before I went into the military. I trained a lot in the Army, mostly on my own or with a few guys I taught, though I did take a little Shotokan when I was stationed in Florida. In Vietnam, I didn’t train at all, but as an MP I got into countless brawls, sometimes several a shift. That was probably one of the most intense learning experiences in all my years in the martial arts.

After I got out of the service, I picked up my martial arts training where I left off. In 1972, I joined the police bureau and trained and taught before or after I went to work. A year into the job, I was assigned to teach cops defensive tactics and went on to develop a program that they still use in part today.

Except for police defensive tactics, my martial arts training was always separate from police work, though I used it on the job a few hundred times.

MA: What inspired you to begin your lifelong search for practicality in training? Was it a specific moment, or more a general need due to your hazardous occupations?

LC: I was not satisfied with my fighting ability as an MP in Saigon. The city during the war years was one of the most dangerous in the world and the MPs were smack in the middle of it. For several months, I worked a walking beat with seven others, four Vietnamese police and three American MPs. At 6-feet tall and 195 pounds, I was the smallest, chosen by the brass because of my martial arts skills.

Walking into bars, massage parlors, alleys, night clubs, and along sidewalks crowded with drunken military guys and Vietnamese criminals exposed us to a lot of fighting. I found that my robot-like karate movements—deep stances, punching from the hip, inside and outside blocks, and so on—that I had been taught in my Korean/Japanese traditional style did not work well for me. Now others might have done fine with it, but I had trouble adapting it to ugly street reality. So I promised myself that if I survived Vietnam, I would spend the rest of my martial arts career studying reality-based fighting techniques. That’s what I’ve been doing ever since.

My early karate style emphasized competition sparring with all the associated drills. I discovered in Vietnam and confirmed later in police work that few fights go down like a sparring match. Most of the scuffles, fights, and all-out brawls that I was involved in exploded in an instant, so quickly that there was no time to assume an on-guard stance, let alone move about and stalk one another.

I did develop from all those countless reps in my early karate training, tremendous power, especially in my reverse punch. On one occasion in Saigon, a Marine jumped me during a raid on a brothel and in the course of our struggle I punched him in the chest with a hard reverse punch. He fell instantly but then went into cardiac arrest. It was a long night waiting to see if he would live. He did.

The incident bothered me for a long while after and was one of my motivations to later develop safer control techniques for law enforcement, safer for cops and safer for the bad guys. When I was in the MPs, we didn’t have such a thing.

MA: Who were your biggest influences as you attempted to improve your abilities and grow into a more complete warrior?

LC: Early on, my influences were tournament champions, guys like Louis Delgado, Chuck Norris, Joe Lewis, and many others. I got to see these guys fight several times and I always went away hyped. In 1968 or 1969, I saw Bruce Lee at a tournament on the East Coast. He was a guest star attraction and was coaching Louis Delgado. I watched Lee train him for a while and was floored at Lee’s incredible speed. He told a bunch of us that he had just made a movie called Marlowe and was on his way to Hong Kong to make a few more. I remember thinking, he ought to do well. He did, didn’t he?

In street-reality martial arts, the slant I’ve taken for the last 40 years, I admire the writings of Marc MacYoung, Kelly McCann, and Melissa Soalt.

MA: When did writing become a part of your life? Was there a particular impetus that got you started, or have you always been a journal writer of sorts?

LC: I started writing when I was about 12. I loved hearing my stuff read in front of the class and the positive reinforcement I got at home. In the Army I wrote a filler for Reader’s Digest, took the $75 payment, and bought a typewriter upon which I wrote my first book.

In the 1980s, I began writing regularly for the martial arts magazines. I wrote another book in 1987 and have been working with five different book publishers since. After 45 nonfictions on a variety of subjects, I recently signed a deal to write a police/martial arts fiction series. The first one came out last month, Dukkha: The Suffering.

MA: You’ve authored many influential books, and “On Killing”, “On Combat”, and “Warrior Mindset” are an exceptional trio. I understand they weren’t originally created as a trilogy, but they certainly do build on one another. What was it like working with other top professionals like Lt. Col. Dave Grossman and Michael J Asken?

LC: While I didn’t write "On Killing" I did coauthor "On Combat"and "Warrior Mindset". I had just seen Lt. Col. Dave Grossman on CNN or one of those news programs when his assistant called me and said that the Col was on hold to talk to me. It was like surreal. I’m looking at the TV and looking at the phone and looking back at the TV again. Anyway, the Col told me he liked my book "Deadly Force Encounter" that I cowrote with a police psychologist and that he had an idea for one called "On Combat". He wanted me to write the first draft based on his talks, a monstrous box of notes, transcripts, and anything I wanted to include. Then he would add his touch and I would edit it. I agreed and 31 months later we had a completed book, which has been a best seller since 2003.

About three years ago, police psychologist Dr Mike Askens met with Col. Grossman to talk about doing a book that would be called "Warrior Mindset", its target audience cops, military, and martial artists. The Col didn’t have time so he hooked up Dr Askens with me. We humped it for a year and it was published a while after.

Both of these fine men possess great minds, far greater than mine. What I brought to the jobs was experience in a war, police work, the martial arts, and an ability to write and make the manuscript readable to the target audience.

MA: Sometimes traditional artists realize they need to refocus on practicality and not get too lost in the “trappings” of traditionalism. For individuals such as that, what could you recommend to get them on the right track?

LC: First they would have to know that they are lost in the trappings. Others might be perfectly happy functioning this way because they enjoy learning the culture and the art. And that’s fine. For others who want to go beyond this and examine, say, reality-based training, they either have to leave the traditional school, if it’s not satisfying that need, and seek out a street-oriented system. If that isn’t an option then they need to seek learning on their own.

For the latter, I would suggest going to youtube and watching the kuhzillion videos there that show real fights. Then ask, how does this relate to what I’m learning? Will my stuff work in the barbaric chaos that I’m seeing over and over in these videos? What do I know that would work well in these situations? What do I know that wouldn’t?

Tough to do? Oh yes. No one wants to admit that all the time they’ve spent training just might not save their bacon when the caca hits the fan.

Another approach for the person who feels lost in traditional trappings is to take a new look at what they do know. Consider a block and reverse punch. It works great when the opponent steps in and throws a stylized karate punch. But how will that block and punch work in the following places (all of which I’ve fought people):

•    on stairs
•    in a car
•    on your back
•    in a corner
•    in a closet
•    on your knees
•    on a cluttered floor
•    on the side of an embankment
•    in a toilet stall
•    between a bed and a wall
•    in a crowd

If your material right now doesn’t work in these places, you better seek out something that does or work real hard to make what you do know, work.

MA: Could you discuss how the warrior mindset is similar/dissimilar for soldiers, police, and civilians?

LC: This is the subject of about 700 combined pages in "On Combat" and "Warrior Mindset". So let me just give you my definition of a warrior mindset.

Mine is broader than limiting warrior or warrior mindset to cops, soldiers and martial artists. For example, I think a single mother who holds down three jobs to feed her kids and fights to keep neighborhood drug pushers and drug members away from her children is in possession of a powerful warrior mindset. I think a soft-bellied computer geek who steps in front of a bully to protect a weaker person is a warrior.

In short, anyone who goes toward the sound of gunfire (“gunfire” can be a bully, a drug pusher, a corporation, and the government when it’s wrong) while everyone else flees is, in my opinion, a warrior. Another definition that is similar is: One who does what needs to be done.

MA: One of the biggest obstacles in real conflict is getting passed the “amygdala hijack” and handling flight/fight/freeze. What do you recommend to students in order to better manage that aspect of the body’s natural response?

LC: First, you must do stress training, such as bulletman and model mugging. Don’t just beat the padded people but create realistic scenarios. Of course, there is always that thought that this isn’t real, but it’s still possible to get an adrenaline surge and jack the heart rate up so that can see how you function under such conditions. I know of cops who practice simunition training—sort of like paintball but the “bullet” impact hurts more—who have recorded heart rates close to 300 beats a minute. Remember, you start losing your fine-motor skills around 140 beats a minute. By the way, this is accelerated heart rate caused by stress and red-hot adrenaline; it’s not the same accelerated heart rate as when you run around the block.

Second, practice mental imagery where you imagine in your mind and in your body a high-stress situation. Mental imagery is different than visualization because the former uses all your senses to see, hear, smell, feel and touch all the elements of an assault, car jack, whatever. This is a powerful tool that is being used by everyone from Olympic athletes, to SWAT guys, to troops in Afghanistan. Not to plug a book, but we talk about this at length in Warrior Mindset.

MA: With the increase of communication through the internet, television, books, etc., “trolling” has become a huge part of modern martial arts culture. Trolling entails all of the typical my-art-vs-your-art, you-don’t-know-squat, angry forum thread behavior. Have you encountered this kind of behavior since you’ve begun publishing, and how have you handled it?

LC: Not much. I do what I call an ego check ever so often to see what people are saying. I haven’t encountered anything too terrible. Anytime you put yourself out there you have to be ready for negative comments and all-out ugliness from unpleasant people. It’s simply the way some people are and it will never change. So you have to develop a tough skin and don’t make them important to you.

MA: Speaking of publishing, you recently expanded your resume to include martial arts fiction writing. Could you tell us a bit about your newest (first) novel, Dukkha: The Suffering?

LC: Here is the teaser.

Police Detective Sam Reeves, a 34-year-old martial arts instructor, has a solid fifteen-year record as a good police officer with the Portland Police Department. For the first time, Sam is forced to take a life in the line of duty and despite the findings of “good shoot” he struggles to recuperate psychologically from the killing.

Facing up to his fears Sam returns to work and then within days is forced to fire his weapon again— killing two more people. With his spirit almost broken, Sam meets a stranger… a man who claims to be his father, who Sam has always believed to have died in a North Vietnamese prison camp a long time ago. This odd man, named Samuel, is as convincing as he is quirky and is revealed to be a phenomenal martial artist, the likes of which Detective Sam Reeves has never encountered. This ‘Samuel’ comes out of nowhere, equipped with a family in Vietnam and a daughter named Mai who is about to graduate from Portland State University.

With a series of interlocked events of violence: a revenge-seeking uncle, the destruction of his martial arts school, his new father’s connection to some lethal Vietnamese outlaws, Sam’s life spirals into a dreadful new direction.

MA: Was it difficult to let go of the hard research of non-fiction and embrace the open landscape of fiction?

LC: I actually did as much if not more research for Dukkha than I have for other books. For example, for the first two fiction books, I’ve been helped by a medical physician, two Vietnamese, an Apache, several soldiers, three psychologists, two experts on weaponry, a SWAT officer, a teenager, and two patrol officers. Oh, and Google. The stories would not be as real and accurate as reviewers are saying without these good friends.

MA: Should we be expecting more books in this series?

LC: Yes. The second one is completed and being edited and I’m a few pages into the third.

MA: Thanks again for your time! Where can people reach you if they have any questions or want access to some of your work?

LC: Thank you. I can be contacted through my website at www.lwcbooks.com

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I hope you enjoyed this session with Loren Christensen. He has a great way of providing reality checks for anybody's training, and does so in a manner that promotes learning over ego.

If you'd like to hear even more from Loren, friend of the site Patrick Parker also has an interview with Loren at Mokurendojo.com. Patrick asks a different set of intriguing questions and focuses on some of Loren's other written works.

When you reflect on the best sword fighting scenes in cinema history, you might cite some of the following movies:

• The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
• Mask of Zorro
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl
• The Princess Bride
• Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
• Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
• The Three Musketeers
• Highlander

Imagine one man with the depth of knowledge and passion for excellence needed to bring combat to life on all of those movies. Bob Anderson was the man behind the swords.

Image Courtesy of ScienceFiction.com

Life and Times

"Born in Gosport, Hampshire, Anderson followed his father into the Royal Marines in his early 20s. In September 1942, he was one of the survivors when HMS Coventry was badly damaged in the eastern Mediterranean by German dive-bombers. After the second world war, Anderson, who had taken up fencing at a very young age, taught the sport as an instructor for the services. He won competitions with all four weapons – foil, sabre, épée and bayonet – and represented Britain at the Olympics in Helsinki in 1952. It was while waiting to compete there that he was asked to go to Pinewood Studios to work with Flynn on The Master of Ballantrae. " - The Guardian

Bob Anderson was a man who managed to turn his expertise into a fruitful career. After working with Errol Flynn, Anderson's star rose as he moved from movie to movie. He became known as a tough perfectionist working behind the scenes, but his effort repeatedly showed on film. Anderson even made appearances as he doubled for various actors.

Years of Olympic experience and stage presence made Anderson the elite sword coach in Hollywood all throughout his life.

 Here's more on Anderson as a coach and swordsman:

The Birth of the Lightsaber Duel

Although lightsabers played an important role in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, they truly came alive in the duels of the second two movies in the original trilogy. The lightsaber appeared to be a unique mixture of fencing sword crossed with medieval broadsword. The results were stunning and game changing.

The individual under the mask of Darth Vader, David Prowse, was allegedly not up to the task of bringing the duels to life. It was Anderson who stepped in, at the age of 60, and fought Mark Hamill on screen.

The portrayal of sword work in movies has never been the same.

A Lasting Career

Despite his advanced age, Anderson continued to be active on movie sets, demanding excellence from actors such as Viggo Mortensen of Lord of the Rings. In fact, he was working on the upcoming movie The Hobbit, which is set to be released toward the end of 2012.

Sadly, he won't be able to finish that particular project, but there is no doubt his mark will be left on the movie when it hits the silver screen.

The Lives of Many

The amount of lives Anderson has touched can hardly be overstated. The Princess Bride is my personal favorite movie. I recall growing up with it and every time I watched the sword duel between Wesley and Inigo I was stunned into silent study. The intrigue, banter, and athletics were perfectly executed. The moves were so fluid and astounding that I couldn't imagine two better swordsmen in the whole world.

It's satisfying to know that the man behind the choreography was indeed one of the best, and will always be remembered for his lasting efforts.

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3 Reasons to Learn Boxing:

1. Functionality

Boxing at its purest forms is functional and brutal. By partaking in boxing, you very quickly learn what works and what doesn't work. Fighting goes so far beyond throwing and defending attacks. It's about learning how to fight without getting tired, how to minimize damage of landed punches, how to follow up after a missed punch, how to counter a counter, how to apply offensive pressure without striking, how to use defense as offense. Beyond on all that is how to let a fight unfold as it should.

While form and technique are important, destroying your opponent is even more so. This distinction is often lost when fighting arts take the route of being "less brutal". All fight training by nature will become brutal if they dare to be functional.  There are few things as brutal as learning how to trade blows at high speed with an opponent only an arm's reach away. The use of boxing gloves prolongs the beatings making it possible to exchange more blows without fight stoppage due to cuts.

2. Athleticism

While every fighting technique should emphasize the use of technique over physicality, athleticism is still of utter importance. Being athletic is what allows you to train at higher intensity, train for longer periods, and develop higher level efficiency. In reality, athleticism and skill go hand in hand. As you become more athletic, your skill and ability will rise, furthering the upward spiraling cycle of athleticism and skills.

Boxers are in incredible shape, there is no denying that. Boxers are however made of a different kind of athleticism. They are stronger, faster, have more endurance, and can take far more punishment. YET, they can do all this without really trying. They remain strong throughout an entire fight yet rarely fight above the 50-70% pace. This is a result of boxers learning how to fight while relaxing. In fact, it's the only way to fight.

At some level, there is no excuse for not having superior athleticism. There is no excuse for being slower or weaker than your opponent. If you are athletically superior to other fighters, boxing will allow you to exercise that advantage. Moreso, boxing will help you develop that advantage to new levels. An extra inch of arm reach can help you win unscathed. A split second difference in speed will help you knock out opponents before they can respond.

3. Rhythm of Attack

I dare say that boxing is fought at the highest speed of attack. Why? Because the combatants are almost always in range of each other, in a style that is fought in combinations. When you have an art like kicking, it's common to see distance used as defense. (Using distance as defense in boxing is unpractical because you spend more energy running than you do blocking.) With an art like grappling, smothering can be used as a defense. (Using smothering as a defense in boxing can be dangerous because you run into more punches.) The main difference is that grappling & kicking attacks are more easily thwarted with a single evasion.

With boxing, evading one strike still allows the attacker to threaten with many more. Not only will you learn how to fight at a higher pace, you learn how to defend at a higher pace.

For the best examples of boxing's functionality, athleticism, and rhythm of attack, I suggest watching videos of:

- Pernell Whitaker

- James Toney

- Floyd Mayweather

- Prince Naseem Hamed

- Roy Jones Jr

- Mike Tyson

- Manny Pacquiao

- Sugar Ray Leonard

- Roberto Duran

I would suggest for you to watch their training videos and sparring videos. There are few other arts where you can see regular demonstrations of theory and principle being applied successfully on a regular basis.

Most people don't know how to watch a boxing fight. Most people watching a pro see an even chess match. I would beg some to try watching a video of a pro fighting an amateur...two come to mind:

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Unfortunately it can be very tricky understanding what karate actually is. Hollywood is no help. They'll do whatever turns a profit, even if it means taking a movie like "The Karate Kid" and making it about Kung Fu.

This article is here to provide important highlights that will help you understand karate, where it came from, and what it looks like in the modern world. Don't worry - this won't be boring. In fact, the real story of karate is better than any Hollywood flick I've seen to date.

The Misty Past

Our story begins long ago on a tiny island off the coast of Japan. It was known as the Ryukyus, now called Okinawa. The native inhabitants of Okinawa were an industrious people, laboring for generations in the arts of farming, fishing, and trade. Over time their island became a popular port thanks to their fortuitous geographic location, placed amongst larger Oriental powers. For almost as long as history can record, traders from countries like China and Taiwan have visited these welcoming shores.

The Okinawans, or Uchinajin in their native Hogen language, lived with all the ups and downs of ancient civilization.  Their troubles included (but were not limited to) invasions by marauders, pirates, and thieves, as well as territorial conflict between island factions. The Okinawan soldiers of the time compiled a method of combat to better kill enemies. It was known simply as Ti, "hand", and was hard, aggressive, and effective.

The Three Kingdoms

Like most ancient civilizations, Okinawa developed as a series of provinces, each ruled by a lord (anji). By about the 14th century, Okinawa had whittled itself down to three main territories: the Hokuzan (northern), Chuzan (middle), and Nanzan (southern). Around 1429 one particularly ambitious lord named Sho Hashi of Chuzan decided it was time to bring everything under one roof.

Sho Hashi made aggressive and swift raids against his neighbor to the north, whom he saw as a potent military threat. Upon seizing the capital of Hokuzan and annexing their land, he turned his attentions to Nanzan and conquered it as well.

Throughout this entire process, Sho Hashi injected more and more Chinese culture into his territories. Naturally the Chinese emissaries approved of this, and the relationship between China and Okinawa grew with Sho Hashi's successes.

By this time, The Ming Dynasty (China) had asserted dominance over trade in the area and had brought Okinawa under it's umbrella as a tributary nation. Due to this, travel between the two countries increased heavily in order to trade, pay tribute, and share knowledge.

Chinese and Other Outside Influences

Thanks to the territorial unification and geography of Okinawa, a wide assortment of emissaries, bodyguards, and soldiers made their way to the island from countries like China, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Some of these visitors brought great martial knowledge from their respective cultures and shared it with the higher class Okinawan Gentry and bodyguards (known as Shizoku and Pechin).

These influences slowly combined with the indigenous art of Ti, especially as China became more and more dominant in the operations of Okinawa's trade routes. Eventually, the predominant self defense art of Okinawa became known as Kara Ti, or "China Hand". It was at this time that karate began to exude some of it's sophisticated philosophies along with soft, circular techniques. In addition, since the Shizoku and Pechin of Okinawa had less territorial struggles to deal with, they could spend more time in the thoughtful study of their fighting "arts" while integrating new sources of knowledge.

The result was a method of self defense that was hard and soft, simple yet in-depth, and utterly devastating.

Weapons Ban - A Great Idea!

Around 1477 the second Sho Dynasty was in full swing and lord Sho Shin was beginning to flex his political powers. Sho Shin was a skilled ruler and economist; in fact, his reign is often referred to as "the Great Days of Chuzan".

Sho Shin was also a crafty politician. He knew the territorial nature of Okinawa, and decided to bring the provincial rulers (anji) into a more centralized government. He forced the anji to live in the city of Shuri, making it much easier for him to watch them and more difficult for them to form insurrections in their homelands.

Sho Shin took things one step further. He decreed that all of the wartime weapons (swords, spears, bow and arrow) from the provincial soldiers were to be stored in Shuri and kept for governmental use. This was, effectively, a weapons ban on anyone who wasn't in the central government's armed forces.

Up until this point most of karate and kobudo (the unique farm tool style implements of Okinawa) had been the property of privileged Shizoku and Pechin who had access to Ti and Chinese envoys. Now the art was beginning to disseminate into the masses who needed more inventive ways to protect themselves.

Weapons Ban - A Terrible Idea.

Sho Shin's policies stayed in place even after his death. In fact, the weapons ban was still active when the Shimazu Clan of Satsuma, Japan invaded the island in 1609.

The Okinawans had an armed central government, but compared to the lethal invasion force of the battle hardened Satsuma, it simply wasn't enough.

The Satsuma swiftly conquered Okinawa and declared it a province under Japanese rule. They analyzed the weapons ban put in place by Sho Shin and decided to reinforce it. Now it was the Japanese who were armed on the island with only a very small peace keeping force remaining of the once strong Okinawan military.

The Okinawans had a whole new set of problems to deal with, including ronin (rogue Samurai), heavy handed Japanese enforcers, and entitled Japanese lords who had their way with Okinawan land and people. In these times karate became a rare and priceless tool of defense.

The Okinawans knew that if the Japanese learned too much about karate, they would instinctively seek to snuff it out. Therefore, the Okinawans made a strong effort to hide their vicious means of life protection. Karate and kobudo became hidden in dance, farming chores, and night time meetings among masters.

A Tough and Winding Road

It was tough sledding after the Japanese invasion. For awhile relationships were not particularly friendly (as you might imagine). Karate and kobudo continued to be passed along among pockets of Okinawans. They would collaborate as much as possible to share and improve knowledge, but it wasn't always easy.

In fact, the lockdown on gossip about karate was so tight that very few records exist about specific karate masters until around 1733 when Satunushi "Tode" Sakagawa came onto the scene.

Sakagawa was allegedly the student of an Okinawan named Peichin Takahara. It's believed that Sakagawa combined his study of Ti with Chinese martial arts, received from an individual named Kusanku. He passed on these learnings to one of the most famous Karate practitioners of all time - Sokon "Bushi" Matsumura.

After Matsumura, records surface of other practitioners with their own unique stories and influences. In fact, three general "styles" of karate develop, known as Shuri-Te, Naha-Te, and Tomari-Te (all based on the cities they developed around).

The Spread of Karate to Japan

Just like any good secret, the word about karate eventually got out. The Japanese ultimately witnessed a few small demonstrations of this "indigenous Okinawan art", but it wasn't until wartime that karate became something worth talking about.

During the Sino-Japanese war the Okinawans were forced to enlist and fight alongside the Japanese. It wasn't a smooth relationship (The Japanese thought of the Okinawans as rather backwater, and often had difficulty understanding their language of Hogen). Nevertheless, the Okinawans proved fit and capable soldiers with tactics enhanced by their study of karate.

In time the Japanese emperor decided it might benefit wartime efforts if young Okinawans all learned karate and became fit soldiers.

Of course, karate was a highly complex fighting system with Okinawan culture heavily ingrained in it's practice. The Japanese overseers thus decided it would be best if karate was simplified and regimented, with more nationalistic overtones for the good of Japan.

An individual named Itosu Anko, student of Bushi Matsumura, was placed in charge of this effort. He headed up the introduction of karate to schools in Okinawa. One of his students, a school teacher named Gichin Funakoshi, began introducing this new version of karate to universities in Japan. Due to the tumultuous relationship between China and Japan at the time, Funakoshi used a homonym of karate (same pronunciation, different meaning) which meant "empty hand" instead of "China hand". This interpretation of the word karate, first referenced in a book by Hanashiro Chomo entitled " Karate Shoshu Hen", has stuck ever since.

The Spread of Karate to the World

The Battle of Okinawa was one of the bloodiest conflicts of World War II, and the Okinawans bore a large brunt of it. In fact, more Okinawans died during that 82 day maelstrom than Japanese did during the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

After the Americans defeated the Japanese and took control of the islands, the soldiers stationed there naturally began interacting with the native inhabitants. In time they learned about the culture, food, and lifestyle of the Okinawans, including a peculiar self defense method known as karate.

During their tours of duty after World War II and through Vietnam Era, many of the soldiers studied diligently with the Okinawan masters. In addition, non-military travelers from the U.S. and other countries began taking advantage of the new western occupation and arranged for extended visits. From that period of early 1950s and onward, karate began it's steady climb toward globalization.

The Diversification of Styles

After World War II, many different styles of karate began to develop. There were two major factors for this happening:

1. During the early spread of karate to Japan and other areas, karate instructors needed a label for their art in order for it to be recognized by governing bodies. Thus, many of the senior practitioners chose a specific name for their brand of karate. Goju Ryu, Shorin Ryu, Shotokan, etc were born.

2. During and after the Battle of Okinawa many of the old masters died. This left a void in how the arts were passed down from generation to generation. Many of the senior students, now left masterless, had to decide how to proceed and keep the arts alive. New styles and branches of existing styles developed as students attempted to decide the best way to proceed.

Nowadays many styles are born for marketing purposes, or because practitioners never received a full art and instead pieced together bits from various different arts. Sometimes new styles are created out of necessity, but often they are created for profit and personal gratification.

What You Find In the Strip Mall

If you're looking to get involved with karate you have a tough decision to make. As elaborate and in-depth as this history of karate has been, it is only a brief overview of all the factors and key players that have gone into the development of karate as we see it today.

In America, every small town has a handful of schools and "masters". Some are likely to have real credentials, while many do not. Some karate isn't even karate; it's taekwondo that has experienced a name change for marketability.

Much of what the original Okinawans developed has been sifted out, first during the spread of the art in schools and universities, and second as business people watered down the art for commercial gain.

Nevertheless, if you do the research and look hard enough, you can still find outstanding practitioners of karate that have devoted their lives to the propagation of the life protection arts, founded centuries ago to preserve a very unique island nation.

Recently we realized something unusual about martial arts retailers - every company has a standard store front with wholesale tacked on the side as an afterthought. Karate Depot was just as guilty! We realized that with such a large contingent of school owners getting online to promote their business and supply their students, why shouldn't there be a resource dedicated entirely to them?

It was with that idea Zengu.com was born.

Zengu combines the resources of multiple different retail sites, including http://www.karatedepot.com, http://www.boxingdepot.com, and http://www.mmaopinion.com. Pooling these resources into one location resulted in a greatly improved product selection. The prices were then dropped as close to factory as possible while still allowing for a sustainable business model.

After that core framework was taken care of, we went in and started building features that would benefit martial art school owners specifically. For example, on Zengu you have the ability to create and save lists of products that you may need for tournaments, demonstrations, or routine school maintenance (click here to learn more about Zengu's tools). Each list is separate and can be quickly ordered or re-ordered any time they are needed.

It can be difficult to remember which products you need (and how many) when taking registrations, prepping events, promoting students, etc.  so these kinds of tools provide a streamlined experience.

To become a part of Zengu, simply sign up for a free account and submit your proof of business. After that the KD team will activate your account and you'll be good to go. Also, for a little added publicity for your school, don't miss out on the Zengu Network.

I was glad to be a part of this project, and I hope Zengu adds to my core goal of helping other martial artists in their training journey.

Is it any wonder that the rumor regarding traditional styles is that they are simply too rigid, too caught up in themselves to be efficient in the modern world?

The last question in our series makes no bones about it - the asker wants to know if the nature of traditional arts (and the abundance of style-blindness) makes traditionalism ineffective, not worth the time and effort of individuals who need something that can be relied upon in a pinch.

Check out my perspective on the matter. Once again, please forgive my brevity on certain matters as this is a big topic and I didn't want people nodding off in front of their monitors.
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In the video I mention trying to dig back to classical styles rather than traditional. This is a symantic matter that I use to distinguish between arts that seem to have evolved out of effectiveness and are more inclined toward rank, showmanship, etc, vs the original arts which were designed for straight life protection. There are plenty of folks who don't use the same symantics as I do, so please don't consider it any sort of textbook definition.

I use karate as my primary example simply because that is my area of study, along with certain Japanese Budo. However I do maintain that the core principles and methods as passed down by classical/traditional styles are, fundamentally, as valuable now as they ever were.

Breaking through the rigidity of practice is a matter of maintaining creativity and patience. However, as I have seen in practitioners far more advanced than myself, it is well worth it even in modern society.

Building an individual completely (character, technique, spirit, fitness, wellness, combat readiness, etc etc) is a monumental task. Classical styles attempt to accomplish just that, which is important to remember when comparing an old method with a modern fight sport (not better or worse, just different goals). Rigidity is a gateway of the self, and true classical sensei can guide you passed that to levels you didn't suspect you were capable of.

To understand what I mean, play the video below and listen closely at the full question as I read it. You'll no doubt recognize it's broad implications. Nevertheless, I feel like I touched upon the most important factors and provided some concrete examples as to why I have drawn certain conclusions.

Hope you enjoy.

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Keep in mind that the examples I cite in the video only hint at the broader spectrum of changes that have occurred. Each style and system has it's own tale to tell.

Check out question 5 - Are Traditional Martial Arts Too Rigid?

Nowadays, any town that doesn't offer at least three different kinds of arts is considered modest in size.

With this accelerated spread we've encountered a handful of problems that our predecessors wouldn't have had to consider; one of which is the inclusion of 'home language'. Some martial arts schools choose to do away with it entirely, while others prefer to preserve it.

In today's video, I weigh the value of preserving your art's origin language and when it might not be appropriate to do so:
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Whether or not you choose to include an origin language in your studies, I hope you do it purposefully (knowing what you are gaining and losing).

Mata aimashou!

Check out question 4 - What Martial Art Methods and Values Have Been Lost in Modern Times?