Advocates of compulsory health insurance plans will often ask rhetorically, “What if you got hit by a bus?” Yet we all know that the relatively poor health of America today isn’t the result of some freak accident. It wasn’t the shark attack, the falling piano, or the runaway Prius that has led so many of us to physical (and financial) ruin.
The real cause is inappropriate conduct. It is, primarily, neglect and disregard for the effects of diet, exercise, environmental conditions, and other factors under our imperfect but substantial control.
As a holistic form of exercise, martial arts can arguably be classified as health care. Experienced practitioners also recognize it as a form of health insurance. Daily practice provides a richly detailed baseline against which latent health issues can easily be observed, and hopefully corrected in their earliest stages.
Those are the straightforward facts; now here is the tricky part: we can use martial arts to insure and ensure our health, but how do we insure the practice itself? [Read more →]
December 6th, 2009 · 6 Comments
Raging Phoenix
[Yesasia] [IMDB]
I would love to cite Raging Phoenix as the first awesome martial arts film with a female lead. I would love to do that. But its choreographers and writers conspire against me.
Raging Phoenix is the story of a young female rocker (played by Jeeja Yanin) who gets caught up in a ruthless kidnapping ring. Women are abducted off the streets of Thailand, drugged, and taken to a secret laboratory hidden within a Temple of Doom, which is in turn hidden within a metropolitan sewage system. Naturally, the women’s tears are harvested there, to concoct a patent medicine for eccentric billionaires.
Only one force is strong enough to thwart the kidnapper’s plans: a small group of drunken vigilantes who learned to combine Muay Thai boxing with stylish hip-hop dance moves. [Read more →]
November 6th, 2009 · 3 Comments
Did you know?
In 1982, Chuck Norris was choked out by the famous Gracie Jujitsu family. A decade later, everybody started copying him. We now know this phenomenon as the UFC.
(pg. 57)
On the set of “Walker, Texas Ranger,” Chuck Norris once took a live rattlesnake by surprise. Then he set it down on the ground, and grabbed it again. The director fleed the scene in terror. (pg. 2)
Chuck Norris is half Irish, and half leg. (pg. 20)
In the interest of full disclosure: I owe Chuck Norris a favor. It was by introducing his “facts” to the mainstream audience back in 2006, that I first established this blog as a premier source for martial arts humor, news, fact and opinion. As payback, he has kindly allowed me to review his latest book, [Read more →]
September 10th, 2009 · 9 Comments
Below is the second half of our exclusive interview with qigong researcher Drew Hempel. (Here is the first half.)
Through this intensive practice, you progressed rapidly. What experiences and events marked this progress? In what manner was your brain “transformed”?
The first energy transmission I had from Master Chunyi Lin was this flash of light (while my eyes were closed)…very bright, and my whole body filled with this amazing deep bliss. [Read more →]
Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.
~ Donald Knuth
You’ll never appreciate the true complexity of a mundane, everyday task, until you’ve tried explaining it to a computer.
Contrary to popular perception, computers are not smart. Actually, they are stone dumb. Given a lengthy set of precise instructions, your computer can follow them well enough, most of the time, but when asked to exhibit the tiniest bit of reasoning or creativity, your cutting-edge laptop PC is helpless and hopeless. Ditto for the Mac. Sorry, Linux won’t help either.
Consider the simple act of making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You can teach the average six year-old child this skill in a few minutes; writing the equivalent instructions for a general-purpose computer could literally take weeks or months of effort.
Knowing all this, I was amazed by the concept and promise of Spike TV’s new show, Deadliest Warrior:
In Los Angeles, CA, we’ve created a high-tech fight club, with scientists, martial arts experts, and lots and lots of weapons. It’s all here to create a virtual battle between two legendary warriors. We’ll test their weapons and fighting techniques on high-tech dummies—stand-ins for human victims. Based on this data, a battle simulation program will stage a true-to-life fight to the death. The winner will be The Deadliest Warrior.
Could it possibly be true? Would the endless debates over the ultimate fighting style finally be put to rest, by indisputable scientific evidence? [Read more →]
By guest author Thomas Tan
Spike TV, the unabashed cable channel dedicated to all things manly, has created a new show in the same vein as the moderately popular “Fight Science” and “Human Weapon” series. Like those other shows, it uses modern scientific equipment to gather data from historical weaponry and techniques. Unlike those shows, however, “Deadliest Warrior” makes no effort to be a cultured or sophisticated study of the martial arts. [Read more →]
Warning: This post contains spoilers.
With more than two years spent in filming and production, Ong Bak 2 presents Thai martial arts star Tony Jaa’s attempt at an action masterpiece. Jaa shares writing and directing credits, in addition to his leading role as the slave-turned-rebel-hero Tian [Read more →]
January 17th, 2009 · 2 Comments
“KATANA” is a martial arts web series that premiered January 7th, 2009, on Strike.TV, an internet network created by Hollywood writers during the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike. It is the first ever martial-arts based internet television series by Hollywood professionals to debut on the internet.
In the pilot episode, John Koyama (The Last Samurai) plays Toshiro Sato, a former Ninja forced out of retirement to do the evil bidding of his older brother Kenji, played by action legend Yuji Okumoto (Karate Kid 2, Johnny Tsunami). “KATANA” is also Yuji Okumoto’s producing and writing debut.
Shot in Seattle, the series pilot stars a host of top A-list stunt and action talent from Hollywood to Hong Kong, including Thai action star Don Tai (Rush Hour 3, Fast & Furious), Al Goto (Letters From Iwo Jima, We Were Soldiers), and Sam Looc (Mask of the Ninja, Tropic Thunder).
[Read more →]
January 16th, 2009 · 9 Comments
As voted by Martial Development readers in 2008…
Most Popular Posts
Totally Nude Tai Chi: A DVD Review With Pictures
After writing this, I learned that Tai Chi is just one disc in an extensive nude martial arts DVD series. Other titles include Judo, Kendo, Karate, and Changquan. I kid you not!
Five Questions With a Nei Kung Expert
My thanks to the Mo-Pai disciples who collaborated with me on publishing this interview.
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I have randomly selected one commenter to receive a free gift. [Read more →]
Grandmaster Ip Man—the man who ushered Wing Chun kung fu out of obscurity, and presided over the instruction of a young Bruce Lee—is the subject of a exciting new Hong Kong biopic. Action star Donnie Yen portrays the petite but powerful Ip in early adulthood, as wealthy playboy and martial arts fanatic. [Read more →]
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