The Way of Least Resistance

A video in which I discuss the impact and function of stance width. Copyright © 2014 Dejan Djurdjevic

Many readers will have noticed that I have been unusually quiet since the start of the year.  I assure you that this is not for any reduced interest, or will to engage in, martial writing, but rather due to the presence of a creative side-project that will take up significant resources in the next few months.  Given that this has involved about 45,000 words in 1 1/2 months, and given that I have written about the same in my day job, you can see that my time is somewhat limited. But I'm finally ready to take a break from my side project to come back to martial writing - thanks largely to my friend Noah Legel and his fascinating posts on Facebook concerning "Fight Night 36" - a UFC sanctioned tournament. Noah correctly noticed that two interesting techniques executed by Erik Silva against Takenori Sato are really "old school" karate techniques and not the "newly invented techniques" that people were talking about. This gif posted by Noah below...

Introduction I've had two main "contrary" responses to my " Karate ni sente nashi? " article: "That's all very interesting, but I prefer this article..." (which goes on to detail exactly why and how karate is compatible with pre-emptive striking). "I don't have time for your theories - I hit first and hard and that works for me." I thought I'd address both of these as succinctly as I can. The first objection It never ceases to amaze me how many people read "karate ni sente nashi" as some sort of rigid "rule" - then proceed to run through all the reasons why the "rule" can't work. You'll note that in my article I didn't spend any time trying to describe the sorts of situations where one can and should "attack first".  Why?  Because it's obvious that myriad such potential situations exist!  Why waste the time discussing this? I think the reason people i...

Introduction There is an old debate that has been raging in karate for years.  As my friend Ryan Parker says, it really has its genesis in the philosophical (among other) disputes between the two karate masters who first brought karate to Japan: Gichin Funakoshi and Choki Motobu. Almost every karateka knows Funakoshi's famous "golden rule": "Karate ni sente nashi" - there is no first "attack" in karate ("sente" literally means "initiative" - in this case "aggressive initiative"). Many karateka also know Choki Motobu's response: "Karate is  sente" - in other words karate is  about (aggressive) initiative. So who was right?  My answer is: both of them!   If this seems weird, stay with me. A little bit of background Motobu was a practical fighting man.  Funakoshi manifestly was not.  If you haven't, read this article by (the always fabulous) Jesse Enkamp and you'll get a feeling for what kin...

Gichin Funakoshi is well known as having had two teachers: Yasatsune (Anko) Azato and Yasatsune (Anko) Itosu . As I pointed out in my previous article , the adjacent group photo shows Funakoshi (already a karate master in his own right) and some school students just before a demonstration to Prince Hirohito in 1921.  I have tentatively concluded (see my previous argument) that it is Funakoshi's teachers - Azato and Itosu - who are shown in the inserts (as was custom, particularly when you consider that the photo was used by Funakoshi in his 1922 book "Ryukyu kempo"). This leaves only one real question, and this is who is Azato and who is Itosu? Having just deduced  (with, I think, good reason) that the person in the right insert must be Itosu, it follows that the person on the left is Azato.  In other words, we have, for the first time, a reasonably identifiable picture of Anko Azato! He is certainly quite distinct from the drawings we've previously seen ...

Few karate masters have exerted as much influence as Yasatsune "Anko" Itosu (1831 – 11 March 1915) - the alleged creator of the pinan kata and possibly the naihanchi series; teacher of such luminaries as Gichin Funakoshi , Choki Motobu , Chomo Hanashiro , Chotoku Kyan, Shinpan Shiroma, Choshin Chibana and Kenwa Mabuni - among many others. It would be fair to say that, while his legendary teacher Sokon Matsumura is regarded as the start point of the Suidi or Shorin school of karate, the real "father" of this school was Itosu . I will let you read Tom Ross's excellent articles on Fightingarts.com concerning the man and his legacy.  I also invite you to read my article on the Channan kata and on the origins of Naihanchi . But what did Itosu look like?  Is the picture to the right really him? Until 2006 the only images we had of Itosu were drawings - and conflicting ones at that.  Specifically there were 3 main ones to be found on the net. Two seemed ...

It is strange that I was in South Africa on a training visit only a matter of weeks before the release of Nelson Mandela on 11 February 1990.  I am ashamed to say that at the time I had only a vague idea of who he was and what he stood for. Nelson Mandela - the fighter Moreover, what little I did know was largely inaccurate . Like many whites living in South Africa in the late 70s and early 80s, the only information I had concerning Nelson Mandela was that he was a "terrorist" - and an unrepentant one.  I had heard that he had been offered chances for release on the condition that he renounce violence, but these he had refused.  On this basis, his continued incarceration seemed entirely reasonable. I first arrived in South Africa on 30 November 1976, my father (a civil engineer) having gone there for work. I was to stay a total of 8 years in an environment that can best be described as "carefully stage managed": a kind of "Stepford Wives meets Truma...