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Seniors: Improve Your Quality of Life with Simple Changes to Your Day
Reaching your golden years gives you a freedom you’ve never had the opportunity to experience before. Unfortunately, it is not without its downside, and you’ll need to pay extra attention to your health in order to live your best life. From staving off depression to ensuring that you’re enrolled in the right Medicare plan, taking…
Read MorePartner Drills for Self Defense
At East Valley Martial Arts, we practice many different partner drills to build self defense skills. I would like to share many of them here and how they improve defense abilities. A big safety layer at our school is competent supervision. In other words, do not try this on your own. You are liable for…
Read MoreKata Builds Self Defense
If you have ever seen several martial artists doing the same series of moves together, that was likely a kata. With the correct understanding, this type of training helps the student build the correct form, or body positioning. When done properly, as intended in a life protection art, kata builds self defense. It is the…
Read MorePhysical Fitness and Stamina thru Karate
Karate is a great way to improve physical fitness and stamina. Its many payoffs include a lot of health improvement. This article from Health Fitness Revolution mentions 10 martial arts health benefits. Half of their 10 benefits relate to physical fitness and stamina. Those are: total body workout, improved cardiovascular health, weight loss, improved reflexes and muscle tone. At…
Read MoreBuilding Awareness of Surroundings
The physical training of karate has many benefits. Awareness of surroundings is important for self defense. That is the ability to move around and among people and objects. And for martial artists that includes doing techniques in crowded or unusual places. AWARENESS OF SURROUNDINGS AND PEOPLE A basic level of awareness of surroundings and people…
Read MoreLittle Dragons Holiday Dojo Kun
In December I once had only one five-year-old show up for a karate class. That was when he came up with the idea of a special Little Dragons Holiday Dojo Kun. I’ve mentioned this hard-working student, Payton, before in a blog. That December day, since Payton was the only student, we had more conversation than…
Read MoreKarate Builds Self Defense Abilities
All traditional Okinawan karate builds self defense abilities in many ways. Karate in the way we train at our dojo teaches a high level of self defense. With skill, that expands into life protection. Meaning you can protect others as well as your self. We teach those skills in both adults’ classes and kids’ classes.…
Read MoreTraditional Martial Arts vs. Sport Karate
Originally, and I mean way back, traditional martial arts took their place as the only fighting art. Their usefulness had to do with protecting one’s self, family and community. The martial arts evolved into art forms for people to learn a tradition of life protection while improving their lives. More recently, some martial arts branched…
Read MoreKung Fu Panda Messages
Kung Fu Panda came out ten years ago. This well-made movie has artistic animation, and whimsical lines and action. It has wise messages that still ring true in karate. KUNG FU PANDA SECRET INGREDIENT Toward the end of the movie a great fight scene takes place. Kung Fu Panda fights the bad guy, Tai Lung,…
Read MoreChuckle Moments in Little Dragons Class
In my nearly 20 years of involvement at our dojo and in the Alliance I have witnessed plenty of funny chuckle moments that are martial arts related. We practice an art that encourages discipline, so many times I have to keep a straight face while on the inside I’m laughing giddily. Here I would like…
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