Jose Aldo’s Crushing Crane Kick

Lyoto Machida vs. Rashad Evans

After Karate expert Lyoto Machida’s recent win in UFC 98, fans immediately started talking about a comeback for traditional martial arts. Prior to Machida’s victory, the couch potato consensus had written off traditional training methods as superstitious and ineffective. How quickly perceptions change.

The Karate Kid

Two short weeks later, Brazilian featherweight Jose Aldo won a truly stunning victory against Cub Swanson in WEC 41. Total match time: 5 seconds. Winning technique: crane kick.

The Best of Tui Shou, The Worst of Tui Shou

In theory, the Seattle Martial Arts Club has no teacher. Members meet to practice martial arts drills and exercises of their choosing, under their own direction, for the benefit of all involved.

In practice, no two practice partners are ever equal, and the partner in control usually sets the pace and the tone of a practice session—if not intentionally, then haphazardly.

As I am often the senior Taiji practitioner in attendance—or in other words, the unpaid and under-appreciated Taiji instructor in attendance—it seems appropriate to briefly discuss my personal guidelines and preferences for tui shou (pushing hands) practice.

Inside Deadliest Warrior’s Combat Simulator

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.

Command prompt

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?

Analyzing The James T. Kirk Fighting Method

Captain James T. Kirk vs. Gorn

In the year 2266, captain and crew of the USS Enterprise embarked upon a thrilling mission, to make out with sexy female aliens. After encountering significant resistance from angry male aliens, Captain James T. Kirk developed a unique hand-to-hand fighting method.

With trademark moves such as the flying flop-kick, Judo chop and double-fisted hammer attack, Kirk triumphed over his scaly, bug-like adversaries. But will his method work for you? Read our analysis to find out.

Ong Bak 2 Review (with Exclusive Video Previews)

Tony Jaa in 'Ong Bak 2'

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