Winner - Best Martial Arts Blog 2017!

I'm very proud to announce that The Way of Least Resistance has received a "Best Martial Blog"award from the security site CreditDonkey!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Punching: alignment and conditioning

Image
Choson Ninja and the question of "conditioned" knuckles The other day one of my colleagues at the Traditional Fighting Arts Forums alerted me to a fellow who calls himself Choson Ninja. He has a series of videos on Youtube and in this particular one he tells you about the dangers of getting "ugly" knuckles from hand conditioning. The general thrust of his argument is correct: conditioning can lead to deformed and ugly knuckles - especially so if you are doing it incorrectly. Certainly, even moderate makiwara practice will cause you to develop callouses. How "unsightly" these are will depend on how much and how "hard" you do your conditioning. However I disagree with Mr Choson about much of what he says in his video. To begin with, his knuckles are not really that conditioned . Rather, they appear to be damaged from breaks. Mr Choson certainly doesn't have anywhere near the kind of callousing one gets from regular conditioning such as st...
Read more

Karate punches vs. boxing punches

Image
Introduction In my article “ Kime: the soul of the karate punch ” I described the essential feature of the karate punch as being “focus” – ie. a combination of minimal deceleration before impact and optimum distancing – usually performed in karate with a straight thrust . Many have, and will continue to, argue that this straight thrust is less powerful than a boxer’s follow-through punches. This is true. But to understand why this does not necessarily mean that the former is less effective we’ll have to examine punching methods – what someone I know calls “delivery systems” – in greater detail. To the extent that karate punching is “less powerful”, I will then go on to examine why this is a tactical choice rather than a necessary failing. Categorising punches In a very general sense karate punches can be divided into 2 kinds: straight line and curved. In boxing, punches can be divided into 2 different categories that overlap with the karate ones, namely: 1. jabs (ie. punches which...
Read more

We need to talk about the whole gun thing

Image
I'm continually surprised to read the number of posts on Facebook of people (almost always so-called "conservatives") urging others not to discuss gun control in the wake of the latest mass-shooting tragedy at Sandy Hook, Connecticut. They say that to do so would be to "point fingers" and "make politics" out of this tragedy. In other words, they're saying: "You're not to discuss the 'elephant that has crept into the room', namely gun control . It would be 'unseemly' and 'political' for you to do so." It's as if they want a special dispensation not to discuss the most relevant legal, political and social issue impacting on this tragedy "out of respect for the fallen and their families". Well I'm sorry: you can't silence the debate in relation to its most relevant issue – all on the basis of some purported "moral high ground". If we shouldn't talk about gun con...
Read more