Training Center

Prior to WW II there were several publications which discussed vital points and how they could be used to knock out or kill a...

We all search for personal refinement and fulfillment, but in the martial arts we work tirelessly to help empower others to become the total...

Dear Michael, A friend who practices traditional karate recently told me that the best defense in a street fight would be sidekicks to my opponent’s...

In this How to Spar for the Street series of articles we are discussing how to make your sparring relevant to real situations. The...

How will you perform under combat stress. When the moment of truth arrives? What's going to happen to you emotionally when you're locked in...

The first time I trained in Malaysia was in August of 2009. At that time my Chinese-Malaysian friend, Sheung Di, arrange for me to...

The best block is no block at all!! With that said, it is well known and documented that if you try to block an...

A karate chop, or shuto strike, is one of the few things in life that offers visceral proof of the power of physics. If you are untrained in the martial arts and you karate chop a brick, you may break a finger or worse. But if you karate chop that brick with the proper force, momentum, and positioning, you’ll break the brick instead. “Amazingly, there are no tricks involved,” says Michael Feld, a physicist at MIT. “What you have here is one of the most efficient human movements ever conceived.”

I slowly formulated a plan as to what I would teach the men. For years, I had been developing a system of practical fighting...

Ancient Chinese military strategy evolved over thousands of years of conflict. As commanders rose and fell, the heart of their philosophies were saved for...

In this My Self-Defense Instructor video Jim Wagner, of Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection, discusses zigzag run away from an active shooter. SUBJECT: Zigzag Run...

Reaction times in knife defense will differ with distance, but good news is many individuals can improve their reaction times with practice.

Have you ever heard this argument during knife training before? The attacker swears, “I cut you! You would have been dead!” Then the defender says, “No...

Kata (exercises or forms) are performed in many styles of martial arts. With the help of these particular forms of exercise, many diverse techniques...

Many karate systems teach the Sanchin kata as an external training method to strength-condition practitioners with a series of breath-controlled tensions. This mainstream understanding...

After the attacks of 9/11, I was running self-defense classes out of my martial arts academy outside of Chicago. A couple higher ups from...