by Jennifer
In health-conscious, sports-oriented Boulder, Atlas Sports Genetics is playing into the obsessions of parents by offering a $149 test that aims to predict a child’s natural athletic strengths. The process is simple. Swab inside the child’s cheek and along the gums to collect DNA and return it to a lab for analysis of ACTN3, one gene among more than 20,000 in the human genome.
The test’s goal is to determine whether a person would be best at speed and power sports like sprinting or football, or endurance sports like distance running, or a combination of the two. A 2003 study discovered the link between ACTN3 and those athletic abilities.
BobSpar from the Middle-Aged Martial Artist-blog writes :
There is an Olympic long-jumper from Spain who has the “wrong” gene variant for his sport, for instance, and hundreds of genes are probably involved in setting the foundations for successful athletes. And there are lots of cautionary quotes in the story about narrowing down a child’s options for sports.
by Jennifer
Karate is a martial art developed in the Ryukyu Islands from indigenous fighting methods and Chinese kenpō. It is primarily a striking art using punching, kicking, knee and elbow strikes and open-handed techniques such as knife-hands and ridge-hands. Grappling, locks, restraints, throws, and vital point strikes are taught in some styles. A karate practitioner is called a karateka.
Doug writes about his latest class of Karate:
Sensei Gatch had us start class doing Heian Shodan and kata’s all the way up to our own rank kata. We have done this before but the part that made it interesting was the Karate history that he explained between every couple of kata’s.
by Jennifer
Chin Na is a Chinese term describing techniques used in the Chinese martial arts that control or lock an opponent’s joints or muscles/tendons so he cannot move, thus neutralizing the opponent’s fighting ability. The recent understanding that grappling is as important as striking, has also caused some Kung Fu systems to focus on their Chin Na techniques, even expanding the system by incorporating and developing new ones.
Dojo Rat posted a video of Efi Dinar from the Nanking Tai Chi School of martial arts in Israel. He demonstrates only a few of the various techniques taught in the ancient art of Chin Na.
I love the concepts and movement. Notice about half-way through when the “attacker” spins out of the shoulder/elbow lock, the instructor demonstrates several ways to salvage the technique for a takedown. My only criticizm would be that these techniques are pretty hard to set up against a resisting opponent, unless you have a set-up strike first.
by Jennifer
Gōjū-ryū Japanese for “hard-soft style” is one of the main traditional Okinawan styles of karate, featuring a combination of hard and soft techniques. Both principles, hard and soft, come from the famous martial arts book Bubishi, used by Okinawan masters. Go means hard, refers to closed hand techniques or straight linear attacks; Ju which means soft, refers to open hand techniques and circular movements.
Mario McKenna wriets about the series of secret guidelines published by Toguchi the Shoreikan Goju-ryu founder in his second English book. Toguchi stated that these principles were taught to him by the founder of Goju-ryu Miyagi Chojun.
Read more about it in his post the Kaisai no Genri.
by Jennifer
Aikido is a Japanese martial art developed by Morihei Ueshiba as a synthesis of his martial studies, philosophy, and religious beliefs. Aikido is often translated as “the Way of unifying life energy” or as “the Way of harmonious spirit.” Ueshiba’s goal was to create an art that practitioners could use to defend themselves while also protecting their attacker from injury.
Aikido is performed by blending with the motion of the attacker and redirecting the force of the attack rather than opposing it head-on. This requires very little physical energy, as the aikidōka leads the attacker’s momentum using entering and turning movements.
Formosa Neijia writes about the future of Aikido.
A while back I saw some research that Pat over at Mokuren Dojo had done. He had discovered that web searches for the term aikido were going down every year and those associated with MMA and BJJ were going up every year. This caused him to speculate about the future of traditional arts.
