My blog on martial arts and self defence discusses the development and improvement of training methods. My focus is on practical karate training for self defence and on self protection. I take the best practices from multiple fields to improve my teaching.
As a former University and Secondary School Teacher, Military Officer, Confidence Course Instructor, First Aid Trainer and Risk Assessor I’ve gained lots of educational experiences. I believe that it is always worth looking at what others are doing to get a fresh perspective.
Many of my old blog posts are now only available in the Karate & Self Defence book series. These books include old articles that were published in paper magazines. You can find amazon links to those books and more on my books page!
You can find videos of some of the training methods and ideas I discuss on my youtube channel. There are some nice seminar clips there, including my 2016 Canada tour. I will update it soon!
I regularly post photos and short videos from classes and seminars on my facebook and instagram pages and you can follow me there!
Have you a question that you would like me to discuss on my blog? Ask me using my contact page!
Scroll below to pick a blog post to read!
the constant student
Last week I sat down and attempted to schedule my working hours to better accommodate the increased training time my changed weight training programme demands. It provided a refreshing opportunity…
Progress through practice
When I first started training martial arts, I did so with an inferiority complex. Most of my physical education experience up to that time was outdoors. Rugby, football, (grass) hockey,…
Chatting in the (online) room
“I picture the group of us sitting cross-legged around a low table in a cozy room, sipping tea, while I answer your questions about karate.” When I first read these…
Motivation, Discipline and Habits
I’ve been training for a while now. Some evenings I really don’t want to get in the car and drive in the dark through the pouring rain and carry the…
Cross training
Cross training is something I strongly support. It’s also something I think I do every week, but what I consider to be cross-training may differ from what you think. Last…
Training Inflation
“I’ve been training ‘X’ years.” I’ve seen it written with such assurance and finality. The writer seems to feel that the statement, be it three years, ten years, twenty years…
Introducing Self Protection to Martial Arts Classes
I consider myself first and foremost a self protection instructor, it’s the subject area on which I spend the most time, but in my regular evening classes I’m teaching Karate,…
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Circling but never landing
I don’t like flow drills. Wait a moment, haven’t I written 5 books on Flow Drills? The (out of print) Heian Flow System and the four books of the Pinan…
The Enemy Within
“Paedos!” Starting a Personal Safety Course with a group of 12-14 year old girls, this was their first suggestion when I asked them what they were worried about. I had…
Switching things up
It began with the warm up. I can still remember the familiar routine of my first karate classes. Star jumps, diagonal star jumps, running on the spot and bouncing in…
Karate Doesn’t Work!
“Karate Doesn’t Work!” Heard it before? How about “Tae Kwon Do doesn’t work”? “Wing Chun doesn’t work”? “Tai Chi doesn’t work”? “Aikido doesn’t work”? “BJJ doesn’t work?” “Traditional Martial Arts…
Losing my Superpower
I had eye surgery at the start of this year. It was nothing special, simply the removal of my existing natural lenses with artificial replacements, bringing my vision as close…
The Missing Year
Tidying up my website at the start of this week I suddenly realised that a whole calendar year had gone by without my writing a single blog post. How could…
A matter of perspective
Perspective in martial arts, karate, self protection and self defence. Picture a standard six-sided dice. No doubt you have handled or seen one before. You know that it will be…
Hikite for Power? Pull the other one!
Discussions on hikite are like discredited political philosophies. You think that empirical evidence has consigned them to history and then they flare up again, fuelled by the ‘true believers’ devotion…
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…
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?
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…
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?
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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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.…
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…
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…
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…
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 began my training in the Martial Arts and Self Protection over thirty years ago. I’ve been lucky enough to travel and train with and learn from…