HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Another year has come and gone. Now it’s time to embark on another chapter of your martial arts journey. Did you accomplish what you set out to do last year? Did you fall short on anything? Now is the time to reassess your goals whether that is strength, flexibility, balance, stripes on your belt or even your next belt. Set short term and long term goals to accomplish your task. Keep in mind that there are times when you may have multiple goals going on at the same time and that is okay. Always remember that is your martial arts journey and no one else’s. Set your feet on a path and enjoy where it leads you.
--Mr. Williams
PROMOTIONS
Chance Barr Green Belt
Rob McCaleb Green Belt
Alex Johnson Jr. Purple Belt
Dakota Douglas Jr. Brown Belt
Jean Gaeddert 6th Dan Black Belt
AMERICAN KARATE CLOSINGS FOR 2015
American Karate will not be open on the following holidays.
Holidays for 2015
| New Year's Day | Thursday | January 1, 2015 |
| Martin Luther King Day | Monday | January 19, 2015 |
| Memorial Day | Monday | May 25, 2015 |
| Independence Day | Friday | July 3, 2015 |
| Labor Day | Monday | September 7, 2015 |
| Veterans Day | Wednesday | November 11, 2015 |
| Thanksgiving Day | Thursday | November 26, 2015 |
| Thanksgiving Friday | Friday | November 27, 2015 |
| Christmas | Thursday | December 25, 2015 |
| Christmas Friday | Friday | December 26, 2015 |
KARATE KIDS: The Benefits of Martial Arts
With a bloodcurdling cry, your 6-year-old leaps into the air in a karate kick, raising your hair and blood pressure simultaneously. Before you panic and pad the walls, try channeling this urge into a martial arts class.
Activities like tae kwon do, kung fu and aikido are a fun way for both boys and girls to achieve fitness and focus. Some parents may think they also promote violence, but that's a myth, according to experts. The martial arts actually help teach self-discipline and socialization skills. In fact, many parents whose children have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) report great success with these programs because self-control and concentration are exactly the skills underdeveloped in ADHD kids.
A typical hour-long class begins and ends with a bow to the teacher, or master. After a warm-up, students practice the art's particular skills, which may include kicks, punches and blocks. Each requires concentration and strict attention.
Progress is often marked by the belt system, which takes the beginner from a white belt through a variety of colors until black. Testing for each new level, generally every three months, is a good exercise in setting and achieving goals.
But, say experts, it's the respect kids learn, whether from bowing or standing still and waiting for the next command, that can be the most important benefit: It often carries over into school, helping to improve behavior and even grades, according to recent research. "Six is usually a good age to start classes," says Mimi Johnson, M.D., a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Committee on Sports Medicine and Fitness. By that time a child should have enough muscle control to punch and turn properly and safely—essential to getting a real kick out of the martial art he chooses.
--By Alison Hendrie
PARENTING: Modern Families* Fresh Ideas
MARTIAL ARTS
Martial Arts refers to the various traditional and modern combat systems practiced around the world. Some martial arts are rigidly structured with organized traditions and practices for combat, self defense and spiritual development. While others martial arts are amorphous styles of combat designed specifically for sport competition or self defense.
MARTIAL ARTS STYLES
Martial arts include a wide range of styles such as Karate, Kung Fu, Jiu-Jitsu, Capoeira, Filipino Kali, Bando, Silat, Savate, Kendo and much more. There are actually hundreds of different martial arts styles in existence today. (For a complete list of martial arts styles, see below). Regardless of its style, martial arts are generally divided into one of four categories:
- Traditional martial arts
- Modern/eclectic martial arts
- Sport combat martial arts
- Reality based martial arts
Traditional martial arts are practiced in their pure, unaltered state. Traditional martial arts or classical martial arts train and practice the exact same way they did hundreds of years ago. In traditional martial arts, to change or alter a technique or maneuver is considered heresy. For example, traditional shotokan karate which is still practiced in it pure, unaltered form is considered by many to be one of the quintessential traditional martial arts.
MODERN/ECLECTIC MARTIAL ARTS
Martial arts that have been modernized by stylistic integration are considered to be modern/eclectic. These non-traditional martial arts are a hybrid or an amalgam of several different martial art forms. Unlike traditional martial arts, modern/eclectic martial arts are not “fixed” or locked into set methods and patterns. Many traditional techniques and movements have been either modified or discarded to meet the specific needs of their particular innovator. Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do is a good example of an eclectic martial art that utilizes stylistic integration. If you would like to learn more about this process, please see my article on martial arts innovation.
SPORT COMBAT MARTIAL ARTS
Sport combat martial arts or Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) are modern/eclectic martial arts designed specifically for sport competition. It involves both striking and grappling techniques from a variety of different martial arts styles such as boxing, submission fighting, catch wrestling, jiu jitsu, judo, thai boxing, karate as well as others.
REALITY BASED MARTIAL ARTS
Martial arts which focus exclusively on real world self defense scenarios are considered to be "reality based". And just about every reality based self defense system will have street fighting techniques integrated into their curriculum. Like modern/eclectic styles, reality based martial arts or reality based self defense (RBSD) are also not locked into traditional methods and they regularly employ the concept of stylistic integration into their own combat methodologies. While all reality based martial arts are considered modern/eclectic not all modern/eclectic martial arts are considered reality based. My Contemporary Fighting Arts system is one example of a reality based self defense system.
--Sammy Franco, Founder & President Contemporary Fighting Arts
THE SOUND OF MUSIC
So, which really came first the chicken or the egg? Better yet which came first the sound of music or the musical note? Every now and then one of my colleagues or students will get beside themselves in regards to understanding, training and application of a tool or set of techniques. Although I came up in the classical martial art of Moo Duk Kwan, Taekwondo, I tend to be more of a contemporary/eclectic type of artist. When you look at world history, you have to subscribe to the fact that combat on earth started somewhere outside the Garden of Eden. Some place where Cain slew his brother Abel. It appears that from that point on someone was always fighting someone else over what they perceived was the better ground, the better food supply or just plan ole’ I want what you have so I am going to try and take it. There was no method or art to it. Conquerors conquered by any means necessary. What we know as classical martial arts came out of the need for large numbers of people being lead to war and trained in formal combat strategies, weapons and techniques. It was organized and discipline had to be instilled in order for the needs of the many to survive over the needs of the few or less trained. I think having a sound beginning in a classical system is a good thing. But we are no longer at war using primitive weapons or tools. You can start out any student with the basic training of stances, blocks, kicks, weapons, kata and step sparring. Just as we start out children in daily life and living. At some point that child is going to leave the home and with him he/she will take all the basics you gave them. Unfortunately they are not you. They are their own person and they will have to make what you gave them work for them. So it is with the martial arts student. In one hand we say take what I give you and make it your own. On the other hand we want to correct you when you do because it is not the way we did it or would do it. The martial arts future is here! We are living, training and teaching right in the middle of it. We no longer have to worry about what a technique looks like or how a student is supposed to handle or swing a weapon. The true test is can that student hit, strike or cut what they need to in order to expand their chances of survival in the street, which is the contemporary battle field. The classical martial artists tend to be comfortable in a box. But I say to you and them, How can you tell a musician he can’t hold and play an instrument a certain way. Peoples of the world made sounds we call music today way before there was a concept of a note! Someone created a note, told us what it was and then told us how it had to be played thereby putting us in a box. Once you understand the basics of a thing. Never let anyone prevent you from expressing how you use that thing.
--Thomas Williams, Chief Instructor
American Karate & Martial Science
