A Socratic Dialogue
Master Po: Grasshopper, soon you must leave the mountain. We shall now begin preparations for the day that you accept disciples of your own.
Kwai Chang Caine: Be not concerned, master. I have committed each of your Kung Fu fighting techniques to memory.
Po: Grasshopper, these techniques are trifles. It is most […]

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A poem inspired by Billy Collins

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Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot […]

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With his proclamation Cogito ergo sum, Descartes set the stage upon which most Western philosophers have played for the last four hundred years. Under his model, the human being is composed of two distinct entities: mind and body. Some thinkers agree, and others disagree, but few challenge the validity of the model itself, […]

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Long before the invention of the blog, and even before the creation of the World Wide Web, there was Usenet. The world’s first electronic social network was established in 1980, and martial artists have been arguing there ever since.
Back in the late 1990s, I started reading the rec.martial-arts newsgroup as most people do, with […]

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Mohandas Gandhi
Where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.
~ Mohandas Gandhi
The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards.
~ William Francis Butler
He who is […]

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Credit: Mark Hirschey
A Fake Interview with Real* Quotes
Martial Development: First of all, congratulations: a recent surge in Berkshire Hathaway’s stock price has made you the richest man in the world. $62 billion dollars, I hear. According to my estimates, you could literally buy up all the tea in China.
Warren Buffett: I drink Coca-Cola.
Martial […]

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With thousands of martial arts authorities publishing online and in print, how do you decide whom to trust, and whom to ignore? Credibility is an important factor, but determining a martial artist’s credentials is a perilous task.

Frankie Chan vs. Lam Ching-Ying
Since crossing hands in a duel can lead to serious injury or death, most […]

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You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency, made […]

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What is the best way to approach kung fu training? Should we seek to train our instincts, or cultivate our intelligence?
The answer seems obvious. In a fast-paced and dangerous combat scenario, there is simply no time for intellectual deliberation. We must let our animal instincts take control, to react instantly with the […]

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