The Karate Guy Strikes Back – Surgery Recovery Journey
On the 21 February I had keyhole surgery for a Nissen Fundoplication redo surgery. This was my thirteenth surgery under General Anaesthesia following on from a failed Nissen Fundoplication in…
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Is it Karate?
The other week I found myself explaining the origins of an exercise my DART students were doing to one of my Shotokan white belts (a cross training Ju Jutsu practitioner),…
Don’t let your past restrain you
“The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.” L.P. Hartley No matter how much we try to keep things the same, we change. Even if the syllabus…
Why?
Moving beyond acceptance of the status quo by asking ‘why?’ should not be taken as a call to throw away everything that has previously been learned. Change for the sake…
Game Play
Regardless of how you wish to dress it up, all martial arts and the physical aspects of self protection training are forms of games. There will always be training compromises…
Finding your own way
Anyone who has worked in education for any length of time will be familiar with the ebb and flow of different ideas and trends in teaching
Letting Go
You don’t necessarily have to empty your cup to take on board new knowledge. You may not have to tip anything out at all. You might choose to simply collect…
The Kata teaching experiment
Afterwards I asked which of the methods used on the two days made the learning process easier, form first or function first?
Reactive Position Training
Unless your strikes have no power, when you hit a person, they will move. Unless they believe your strike has no power or will not land, if people see you…
A Clarity of Focus
It is possible to study a martial art and neither be learning self protection nor self defence. It is possible to study self defence and not gain an understanding of…
Making Karate Your Own
It is an oft-repeated maxim that as you train your karate should become your own. It is also, I feel, a much-misunderstood concept.
Going through the motions, on the pull, going nowhere
I really like to see positive innovation in training and teaching. I particularly like seeing exercises that help students develop the ability to move beyond single techniques, beyond combinations, into…
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Brains saves both
This pithy analysis is attributed to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, but despite the clarity of his insight and his credentials as one of the greatest generals of the 20thcentury, this…
Failure, flow and complicated combinations
“I liked that drill. It wasn’t complicated like the other ones.”
How do you maximise your ability?
Most people realise that collecting tools does not necessarily make you an able, efficient or skilful tool user.
The Brown Belt Mentality
Anyone involved in the martial arts who uses social media will no doubt have seen many different memes purporting to inform them what a black belt is, and what a…
Perceptions of Karate?
“Hi, I’m calling about a karate class for self defence, the Leisure Centre gave me this number, it’s for my nephew.” “Can I ask how old your nephew is? The…
Multiple assailants, combative distance and escape
In any unsolicited violent or aggressive event our primary aim is to remove ourselves (and others if we feel responsible for them) from danger of bodily harm. The aim is…
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The problems of self protection and self defence
In my last blog post, terms and terminology, I drew a distinction between self defence, as the physical aspect of using force to protect yourself or others, and self protection;…
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Terms and Terminology
The other day a respected friend of mine made an observation about the number of clubs, particularly the pyjama dancers (as I call them), advertising that they were teaching self defence,…
A Christmas tail (off)?
It’s Christmas time, there’s no need to be afraid… Are you dreading the physical toll of a dearth of training combined with a number of days of feasting?
Training for life
Why do you train? What could you train for? What should you train for? Across my clubs and those that are affiliated to me, we use the phrase training for…
Present and past perspectives on my training
The other day while reviewing some light personal training I’d just done, I found myself wondering what a younger version of me would have made of both my current ability…
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Self Defence on a road trip or acid trip?
In the UK the recent release of crime statistics indicating a marked rise in the percentage of both moped related robberies (both of the vehicle and using the vehicle as…
Stop deskilling yourself!
There are lots of ways to train the martial arts, and many different and differently weighted reasons to do so. There is a danger however that through misguided training weighting…
The Fantastic Four – the elephants that carry your training world
We all build the mental worlds in which we live, and we don’t all live in the same world, even if we believe we do. Most martial artists build their…
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Step away from knee jerk fantasies
The loss of life and terrible injuries that occurred in the low-tech vehicle and knife attacks in London earlier this month shocked many across the world. There are many unspoken…
Don’t get hung up on history
For many people it seems to be incredibly important who their teacher was, who taught their teacher, what each person’s seniority within the dojo was and so forth.
Learning lessons from training and testing
It is in my Sim Days where my students experience the broader context of the tactical, ethical and legal repercussions of aggression and violence through simulating how they might respond…
The sobering reality of a fake abduction
On Saturday, under my supervision, four teenage boys (aged 13-14) experienced a fake abduction. This was a single scenario in a multi faceted training day for both adults and teenagers.…
Addressing self defence in martial arts training
Martial arts training can comprise aspects of self defence, but unless the art has been specifically devised for that purpose recently, it isn’t the same thing.
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I find your lack of bunkai disturbing
It’s not that you don’t do it. I’m sure that if you are a form practitioner interested in bringing a functional purpose beyond postural exercise to your forms then you…
Six between-class shortcuts to excellence
Is this all too obvious? Then ask yourself honestly, how many of these do you really adhere to?
Talking bollocks
One of the most prevalent myths I’ve noticed over the years in the martial arts community is efficacy of hitting men in the groin as a one-stop solution to the…
Why your kata should not look like your applications
In all of my books and videos there are deliberate differences between my kata and my paired application (oyo) that has resulted from my analysis (bunkai). “Practicing a kata is…
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Play the game
There is a difference between training (for development and/or testing of skills) and utilizing those skills outside of your training, whether in a competitive format, in scenario training or in…
kicking in self defence
To kick or not to kick, that is the question. When it comes to applying martial arts techniques in self defence, context and training methods determine the results. We get…
Kata is ice. Be like water my friend.
Kata, for most of us, is fixed. It is a set construct that we learn and rehearse. It does not vary very much. Over time different instructors have figuratively taken…
Self Defence, Retreat and Invitation
“In war it is all-important to gain and retain the initiative, to make the enemy conform to your action, to dance to your tune. When you are advancing, this normally…
Don’t share our secrets!
Don’t share our secrets! I’ve come across this refrain in the Traditional Karate Community a number of times. It usually crops up when a person posts a video online where…
Sticking with the basics to become advanced
The size of the toolbox is not what impresses me; I’m not impressed by high numbers of techniques, drills or kata: it is the versatility of a small carefully stocked…
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Malta Pinan Flow System Seminars
Sensei John delivered a remarkable seminar, leaving us with a deeper understanding of the 5 Shotokan Heian Kata. His knowledge on the subject is staggering, spanning some 25 years of…
Big Steps and Little ‘Uns
Have you ever walked down the street holding the hand of a small child, or noticed in passing another adult doing the same? If the adult is not fully focused…
The Giants are Pygmies
Karateka across the world owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the Okinawan and Japanese instructors who, in the first half of the Twentieth Century, laid the foundations for a…
The 2015 Review
So farewell 2015. It’s definitely been a Phoenix year for me, rising from the ashes of 2014, which I wrote about here. January 2015 began with me just starting on…
Three things that will revolutionise your karate
1. Treat each demonstration by an instructor as if it is the first time you have ever seen it. We look, but we fail to see, We listen, but we…
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Final Pinan Flow System book released!
Foreword by Iain Abernethy. ‘So here we are with the final volume of this series of books from John Titchen! You can now see John’s full interpretation of the Pinan…
Not seeing the wood for the trees
The techniques of karate kata have many possible interpretations. What each individual sees in the kata will vary according to their own experience and how skilled they are at identifying…
Headlines, knives and kneejerk reactions
Last week the Office for National Statistics in the UK published its latest Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW). This regular publication does not normally merit much public comment…
Keep it fun!
Training in the martial arts can be a serious business. Physical Fitness Personal Discipline Improved Concentration Competition Self Defence Listing the most common reasons why adults and children join or…
Ten reasons why your moves won’t work!
How many times have you heard someone remark “That won’t work!” about a particular tactic or training method? Here are my top ten reasons why your tactics or training methods…
Bend over and take it!
It’s not what you think… When I say ‘bend over and take it’ I’m envisaging the difference between form and function in combative posture. In many of my application pictures…
Standing on the shoulders of giants: perspectives of karate training and practice
Today Isaac Newton is recognized as a great figure for his work in furthering our understanding of the laws of physics. His work paved the way for further research, discovery…
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Defensive parking and common sense
When I am delivering personal safety training I occasionally get asked whether a car should be parked ‘nose in’ or ‘nose out’. Often the person asking has a preconceived answer…
New Heian / Pinan Sandan book available!
I’m extremely excited to be releasing Volume Two of the Pinan Flow System, outlining how I use Pinan / Heian Sandan to teach free movement between striking and controlling strategies…
Hands Up!
Our body language can determine not only how likely we are to be chosen as a victim of an unprovoked violent crime, but also how likely an attack is to…
Creating and delivering self defence courses for women
Every year I deliver a number of single sex and mixed sex personal safety and self defence courses or lectures. A moderator on the online forum Martial Arts Planet recently…
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Conscious incompetence
Conscious incompetence. It could be viewed as a pretty harsh term. After all it sounds pretty nasty. Without the right attitude and support it is a discovery that can end…
Karate Uke, Blocks, and other Applications
What do we mean by block? My old concise Oxford Dictionary offers 18 different meanings for ‘block’ as a noun and 6 for it as a verb, a number of…
Get a grip!
How do you use your feet? A few weeks back I was reading an excellent blog post on ‘Old School Karate’ by Garry Parker of Columbus Dojo. He’d made a…
Biting the bullet
At some point in time almost everyone who exercises will sustain an injury that limits their ability to train in the martial arts. It may occur during training or randomly…
Six things you should do in your training
1. Train against attacks to the head The head is an obvious target. Not only can we be knocked unconscious through strikes to the head, our ability to hear, see,…
Why I regularly train with other people (and so should you)
A few weeks ago I discussed the value and importance of training alone, but solo training is only one part of the bigger picture. There are very good reasons why…
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Environmental awareness
The majority of self protection lies in the assessment, avoidance, deterrence, and de-escalation of aggression and situations where conflict is likely, but regrettably this is not always possible.
Why I train alone (and so should you).
Your instructor’s class isn’t designed to improve your skills. That can’t be right surely? Your instructor’s aim is to help you improve. Yes and no. In theory your instructor’s aim…
Sticks and stones
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me. Whoever came up with that particular saying might be shocked by how false it seems in the…
Legal Underpinning – why you should teach appropriate techniques
I’d rather be judged by twelve than carried by six. It’s a common dictum that I don’t like. I don’t like it because it indicates a casual, often sloppy approach…
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What’s the rush?
I had some space cleared in my schedule today for some training at home. Not a particularly unusual thing as I train every day, but rather than grabbing a few…
Keep on training
I don’t know the origin of this text, but it was given to me by my Aikido teacher John Tidder in the late 1990s. It’s never let me down. …
Suit up!
Warning. This post is going to be legen… Suit Up! A call to arms with which anyone who has watched the American sitcom ‘How I met your mother’ will be…
Targets
Targets seem to be the bane of anyone who works these days. Whatever line of work you’re in, I’d be surprised if you haven’t been set either a sales target,…
Kata: dead or alive.
Kata is often viewed by both detractors and supporters as a dead beast. Supporters respect its usefulness through the technical repertoire it provides while detractors point out (and they do…
Hi!
I’m John Titchen. I’ve been regularly training in the Martial Arts and approaches to self protection for almost thirty years and have learned from instructors across the world. I’m the…