Few things create as much dread as the thought of being attacked with an edged weapon. By “edged weapon,” I mean anything that can cut, slice or puncture you, whether it’s a purpose-built weapon, a utility tool, a weapon of opportunity or an improvised weapon. The same characteristics that make knives so nasty offensively make them fantastic defensive weapons. For example, they’re easy to conceal, they can injure on extension and retraction, they can injure even when they’re deflected from reaching their primary target and, frankly, they don’t require a high degree of skill to be lethal. Like it or not, however, the use of an edged weapon, both offensively and defensively, is often regarded as insidious, felonious and just plain evil. The very fact that someone carries a knife can be used to demonstrate intent, whether that’s truly the case or not. The wounds a knife attack inflicts are ugly and can easily be construed—or may be perceived—as gratuitous maiming in court. Use of a knife likely means exposure to bloodborne pathogens. Finally, it’s often the case that it’s the cumulative wounding of someone that stops him rather than a single application. All that means a knife is far from the perfect weapon. LET’S TAKE A LOOK at a few of these observations. Although it’s true folding knives are easy to conceal, it’s also true many people who carry folders don’t put in any appreciable training time that involves opening them under duress. A fouled draw while under attack may mean you just lost your weapon. Worse, it can mean your previously unarmed attacker is now armed. Moderately sized fixed-blade knives are harder to conceal and still have to be drawn, but the draw is less complex because there’s no need for fine-motor skills to open them. Of course, a criminal doesn’t have these issues; as the predator, he’ll already have his weapon out and in his hand. A knife strike, unlike a hand strike, is effective while it’s being thrown, as well as while it’s being retracted. “Backcutting” can occur intentionally or by chance. People who train with knives often develop the awareness and appreciation of the ability to cut with the tip as the weapon is re-chambered. This is a nasty, ultra-quick way to catch someone. Imagine after a failed thrust or stab, just flipping the point of the blade up toward your opponent’s face as you re-chamber your arm for a forehand slash. It’s not a separate movement. It’s an incidental strike—in other words, the opportunity to hurt exists just by preparing to strike again. Another example: After a stab, you lift the tip slightly as you retract the knife. Not only does this make the wound worse, but it also enables you to clip him again if his arms or hands are in the way. When someone punches at you and you parry it, you don’t have to be concerned with where the fist went, but with a blade, you’d better be. If he punches at your gut and you knock it offline, you don’t care if it hits your leg. If he stabs at your gut and you knock it offline into your femoral artery, you’re screwed. AN UNTRAINED PERSON who’s closing on you with a death grip on a blade, slashing and stabbing like a madman, ought to scare the sh** out of you. If it doesn’t, you don’t have a grip on reality. As I say, “You’ve got to attack to prevail.” If escape isn’t an option and you’re being attacked with an edged weapon, you can’t defend to victory. Despite the speed, power and ferocity of his attack, despite your fear and the resultant duress dysfunctions that will diminish your abilities, you’ve still got to make the attack stop. If not, bad will certainly get worse, and it’s unlikely you’re headed for a Kumbaya ending. My point is, all offensive and defense knife training has to be carefully structured to replicate reality. It also has to be conducted with an appreciation for the law, as well as the realities of our justice system—and the two are different. Prancing around with a wooden tanto or waving a rubber stiletto at your partner isn’t going to cut it. Having experienced a few live knife incidents in my life, I’d prefer to have as a defensive weapon an 18- to 22-inch-long stick rather than a knife of my own. Next month, I’ll discuss the use of sticks in the same general vein I’ve used with knives here. Until then, put a little thought and a lot of training into that piece of steel hanging on the rim of your pocket; it’s way more than just a tactical decoration.

The martial arts world has lost a giant. Grand Tuhon Leo T. Gaje Jr., legendary guardian and global ambassador of Pekiti-Tirsia Kali, has passed away at the age of 88. But there are martial artists whose influence cannot be measured simply by the years they lived, the titles they earned or the techniques they taught. Leo Gaje was one of them. Leo Gaje and Apolo Ladra appearing on the 2018 cover His life was inseparable from the history of modern Filipino martial arts. Born in the Philippines in 1938, Gaje began learning Pekiti-Tirsia as a young boy under his grandfather, Grand Tuhon Conrado Tortal. What he inherited was far more than a collection of fighting techniques. It was a family system, a warrior tradition and a piece of Filipino culture that had been protected and passed from generation to generation. Eventually, Leo Gaje made a decision that would change martial arts history: he shared it with the world. When he came to the United States in 1972, Filipino martial arts were still largely unknown to the broader international martial arts community. Over the decades that followed, Grand Tuhon Gaje became one of the pioneers responsible for changing that. Through demonstrations, seminars, personal instruction and training programs, he introduced generations of martial artists to the sophistication of Filipino blade culture and to the principles of Pekiti-Tirsia Kali. His influence reached far beyond traditional martial arts schools. Military personnel trained his methods. Law-enforcement officers studied them. Martial artists traveled across countries and continents to learn from him. His students became teachers, and their students became teachers. A Filipino family art became an international martial arts legacy. Yet perhaps the greatest measure of Leo Gaje's contribution isn't how many techniques he taught. It is how many people he inspired to recognize the depth, intelligence and importance of Filipino martial arts. He belonged to a generation of masters who reminded the world that the Philippines possesses one of the great warrior traditions on Earth. For Black Belt Magazine, Grand Tuhon Gaje was more than another master whose accomplishments deserved recognition. He represented something at the heart of what this magazine has celebrated for generations: the preservation of martial knowledge through the people willing to dedicate their lives to it. He was recognized as Black Belt Magazine's 2018 Man of the Year, another chapter in a relationship with the martial arts media that stretched back decades. Those who encountered Grand Tuhon Gaje will remember the blade and the extraordinary technical knowledge. At 88 years old, Leo Gaje leaves behind something few martial artists ever achieve: a living legacy. Every time a Pekiti-Tirsia practitioner picks up a stick or blade, every time an instructor passes the system to another generation, and every time a Filipino martial artist proudly shares his or her culture with the world, a piece of that legacy continues. Masters eventually leave us. Their teachings do not have to. Grand Tuhon Leo T. Gaje Jr. spent a lifetime ensuring that his family's art would survive beyond his own lifetime. Today, Pekiti-Tirsia Kali is practiced around the world. That may ultimately be his greatest monument. From all of us at Black Belt Magazine, we extend our deepest condolences to the Gaje family, his students, the worldwide Pekiti-Tirsia community and the entire Filipino martial arts family. Tonight the martial arts world mourns. But it also celebrates an extraordinary life. A teacher. A warrior. A proud son of the Philippines. A guardian of an ancient tradition. And a man who helped ensure that Filipino martial arts would never again remain hidden from the world. Rest in peace, Grand Tuhon Leo T. Gaje Jr. Your blade has been passed to the next generation

“It’s gritty. It’s physical. And most importantly, the martial arts feel real.” — Black Belt Magazine Photo credit Amazon Studios Orion Picture Mother Your Mother is an Amazon MGM Studios/Orion Pictures release. It begins its limited U.S. theatrical release today, September 25, 2026, with a wider theatrical expansion on October 9. The best martial arts movies have never been just about the fights. The films that stay with us combine great action with characters and stories that make us care. The Karate Kid, Rocky, Taken and The Equalizer all understood that formula. The fighting matters because the people fighting matter. Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother belongs to that tradition. At the center of the film is two-time Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali, best known for acclaimed performances in Moonlight and Green Book. Here, Ali brings that dramatic ability into a very different arena—one filled with street fighting, martial arts and swordplay. And Ali came prepared. Years earlier, he had been positioned to take on one of Hollywood's most iconic martial-arts action characters: Blade. Ali spent more than a year preparing for the role, training extensively in martial arts and sword work. “I spent a year training,” Ali has said of his Blade preparation. “I trained so hard till I blew my knee out.” Ali continued training as the production was repeatedly delayed, even relocating his family to Atlanta while waiting for filming to begin. Although Blade ultimately did not happen with Ali, all that preparation did not go to waste. When Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother came along, Ali was able to put those hard-earned skills to work. As Ali has explained, he was able to use the skills he had spent more than a year developing for Blade when it came time to make Your Mother. That background is visible on screen. He moves like someone who has trained—not simply an actor who learned a few moves for the camera. That athletic ability is matched by a first-rate Hollywood stunt team led by stunt coordinator Adam Hart, who faced the additional challenge of creating ambitious action sequences on a compressed production schedule. “I’m so blown away with what he was able to choreograph and pull off within the time that we had,” Ali said of Hart. The result is a refreshing style of screen combat. The action isn't overly polished or designed simply to show off technique. It feels gritty, spontaneous and dangerous. Street fighting collides with martial arts and swordplay in a way that fits the characters and the world they inhabit. But what ultimately elevates Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is something Black Belt has celebrated for generations: martial arts used in service of a great story. Movies capable of moving an audience emotionally while still delivering great fight sequences are rare. When the combination works, action becomes more than spectacle. It becomes part of the storytelling—and those are often the movies audiences remember for decades. As martial artists, we should be proud when our arts are represented this way on the big screen—not simply as kicks, punches and weapons, but as another language through which filmmakers can express struggle, courage, fear, sacrifice and humanity. Mahershala Ali has the acting ability to make us care about the man. His athleticism and years of martial arts preparation make us believe the fighter. That combination is what makes Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother special. — Black Belt Magazine

Before I start, allow me to come clean. I’m actually going to examine three submission grips: the sleeper grip, the rear-naked grip and the reverse lever grip. As you know, grips are vital in wrestling and grappling. Without laying your hands on your opponent, there can be no grip; but if you lay your hands on your opponent and don’t apply a grip, there will be no retention of your opponent. Here, I’m using the word “grip” in the idiomatic grappling sense. To nongrapplers, a grip is what you do when you shake hands or grab a baseball bat and is limited to what you can do with the closed hand. To grapplers, a grip is any retention of your opponent’s body using any portion of your own body. As important as gripping is in non-submission wrestling and grappling, it’s even more important in submission wrestling because the right grip is often the submission itself. GRAPPLING GRIPS INCLUDE the palm-to-palm grip, finger-hook grip, three-finger grip, butterfly grip and bar grip. These are a few of the ones that involve the hands; if you expand the category to cover grips that use the entire arm, you also get the tombstone grip, underarm (or pit) grip, sleeper grip, rear-naked grip and reverse lever grip. If you add leg grips to this list, it spans the figure-4 (or triangle) grip, scissors and so on. As you can see, to the submission wrestler, a grip is a weapon. In the remainder of this column, I’ll examine three of these weapons and explain how you can make your “handshake” a bit firmer by choosing the right one. Note: By “choosing the right one,” I’m referring to the importance of adhering to the principle of leverage. The greater the leverage you exert on your opponent, the greater the pain. With an eye on painful leverage, I offer an experiment that will transform you into the “Archimedes of hurt.” CHANCES ARE we’re all on the same page as to how the rear-naked grip is executed, but for the uninitiated, I offer the following: Place your right palm on your left biceps with the knife edge of your hand touching the crook of your left arm. Move your left hand toward your left shoulder as if you’re placing that hand behind an opponent’s head. Perform the flex a couple of times and pay attention to your right forearm. It’s the “barring” (attacking) portion of this grip. Mentally measure the travel of the forearm from pre-flex to the flex position. THE SLEEPER GRIP looks like the rear-naked grip with the following exception: When placing your right palm on your left upper arm, place it higher on the biceps, if not all the way up to the front deltoid. Once your right hand is in position, perform the flex test again and note the barring forearm’s travel. FOR THE REVERSE LEVER GRIP, place your right palm not on your left biceps but on your left forearm so your right thumb is in the crook of your left arm with your entire right palm surface squarely on your forearm. Now perform the flex test and note the travel of the barring forearm. DID YOU NOTICE ANYTHING? If you followed the hand placement that’s described in this experiment, you saw perhaps one inch of travel in the rear-naked grip, one inch to zero inches of travel in the sleeper grip, and three inches to four inches of travel in the reverse lever grip. That, my friends, is maximum leverage. In a game of inches, an additional two, three or four inches is manna. If you want to achieve maximum leverage in your game and not pay mere lip service to it, you should examine all your grips and select those with the best leverage and retention qualities, then apply them where they’ll do you the most good—i.e., hurting your fellow human being in the appropriate context. Caveat: As good as the reverse lever grip is, it has a limitation—specifically, the exposure of the “long tail,” which is your protruding left forearm. This tail makes the reverse lever grip vulnerable to being countered when it’s used in a back-riding position. (There is, however, a counter to this counter: Switch-gripping usually does the trick). Where the reverse lever grip does excel is in practically all other realms, particularly head-and-arm-included chokes (the shoulder choke/arm triangle and D’Arce class of attacks). The superior leverage provided by this subtle variation pays generous dividends with far less work, and doing more work with less effort is what leverage is all about.

I’ve written about travel and the martial arts several times over the years. Some of the essays were diaries of trips to Asia or stories about living life as a martial arts expatriate. Others were about the nature of travel itself and how it can inspire or disillusion a person. Recently, I reread those columns to prepare for this special issue on travel. In spite of being about very different things, they had one underlying theme: how unexpected travel can be. Sometimes the unexpected is simply the overwhelming newness of a place. No matter how much you learn about a country before you visit, directly experiencing it is a shock to the senses. For example, you can read about road congestion or the local cuisine in the Philippines, but being in the middle of a traffic jam in Cebu or eating food that is as sour as habaneros are hot is entirely different. Being surrounded by new languages is even more jarring. You can research the local language before going to the central Philippines. You’ll learn a little about the Spanish-influenced Cebuano dialect and the fact that many Filipinos can speak English well. But it won’t prepare you for the ease with which everyone switches back and forth between Cebuano and English, often many times within one conversation. Hearing the mixture is surreal—so much sounds familiar, but you can’t understand it. The practice of the martial arts in new places can be overwhelming, as well. Sticking with the example of the Philippines, actually crossing sticks with someone there can be more intense than you might think. You may practice stick fighting at home, maybe even the same style as your new Filipino training partner, but chances are he started pretty young and is now comfortable with a much higher level of speed and power. That means what should be a comfortable, familiar set of interlocking drills feels more like a struggle to survive. Sometimes the Unexpected Sometimes the unexpected moments are just the happy accidents of everyday life. For a couple of years, I lived in Finland, where winter lasts five months and the sun rises around 9 a.m. and sets around 3:30 p.m. every day. That’s a lot of night, and it can mess with your head. But it also means that if you walk out your door to do some daily chores, you might see the northern lights overhead, huge curtains of green and red light bending and curling in a clear Arctic sky. Speaking of Finland, it’s worth considering countries that are off the beaten path for your martial arts travels. Nations around the world have stories of combat and courage that don’t make it into the history books. The area in which I lived in Finland is called Pohjanmaa. In the 20th century, it was where the Finns stopped the advancing Russian army in World War II, something they devote as much time to documenting as we Americans do our wartime victories. But 200 years ago, Pohjanmaa was home to a breed of knife-fighting tough guys called häjyt. They were more like cowboys than samurai, though, and their knife skills never congealed into a martial art. But to this day, knives and häjyt are part of the region’s identity to the extent that making old-fashioned puukko knives with sheaths meant to be slung from the hip is still a thriving regional industry. Even in Places Even in places that are on the beaten path for martial artists, you can be surprised. Large distances and cultural differences ensure that we, as foreigners, don’t see Asian culture any more clearly than Asians see our culture. Before you visit a country like China, Korea or Japan, you see your own expectations reflected back at you in the media and in your martial arts practice. Once you make the pilgrimage to your art’s homeland, a lot will catch you off-guard. When I first came to Japan, I was surprised by two things: how little the average Japanese person knows (or cares) about the martial arts and how much he or she equates them with strength. Of course, everyone knows what karate, judo, kendo and kyudo are, but if you say you practice something like iaido or jodo, the first response will likely be, “What’s that?” If you practice something like judo or karate, people will usually reply with, “Oh, you must be very strong!” For those of you raised on the notion that the arts are mainly about technique, the attitude that karate and judo in Japan are sports for muscular tough guys is hard to wrap your head around. Probably the Best Thing About Martial Arts Travel Probably the best thing about the unexpectedness of travel is that it forces you to learn and understand more. You confront a new language, and you have to learn some to get by. You practice a martial art in the context of its culture, and things that were mysterious or strange in the art suddenly make sense. You learn a little about other people’s struggles against invaders and oppressors, and you conclude that what we regard as American courage is the same quality all people share when war forces them to show it. All it takes to get this and more is to make some plans and buy a plane ticket. Whatever surprises you run into, chances are you’ll be better for it.

So many legends and half-truths about the history of some martial arts get spread that sometimes it’s nearly impossible to sift through them. That’s particularly true of arts that have left behind few written documents, such as those of the Philippines. Practitioners just accept what their teachers tell them or go by rumors from those who seem knowledgeable. Few bother to do real research into the history of these styles. Those who do often find themselves pilloried as unbelievers. Case in point: Mark Wiley. Wiley spent a decade not just training in the Philippines but also interviewing anthropologists and museum curators there, sometimes traveling the length of the island chain to interview old masters in an effort to get to the truth about the history and nature of the Filipino arts. But his efforts have often met with scorn from the martial arts community, particularly in America. “When I first went to the Philippines, I was really looking to just confirm the legends and history I’d already heard,” Wiley said, “but what I found was the opposite of what I expected.” What Wiley found was that legends about blind warrior princesses and ancient mother styles for all Filipino arts were just that—legends. But the truths he uncovered were almost as fascinating. BASED IN PHILADELPHIA, Wiley, 42, began studying taekwondo as a child, eventually taking a part-time job at Asian World of Martial Arts, a popular supply store in the city. There, he came across a book Dan Inosanto had written about the Filipino fighting arts and was inspired to make the switch. Four-time Black Belt Hall of Fame inductee Dan Inosanto the cover of Black Belt's June 2009 issue. Initially training with noted arnis instructor Remy Presas, Wiley saved his money so he could fly to California to work with escrima master Angel Cabales. Together, they set out to write a series of books on Cabales serrada escrima. Unfortunately, Cabales died just before the first book was completed. Unable to sell the manuscript, Wiley ended up going to college, where he wrote his senior thesis on Filipino martial culture. Being a fan of the historical work of martial arts writers like Donn F. Draeger and Robert W. Smith, Wiley decided to turn his thesis into a book. By this time, his manuscript on Cabales serrada escrima had been purchased by Tuttle Publishing, which offered him an editorial job in Japan. From there, Wiley traveled to the Philippines several times, eventually marrying a Filipina and moving there to continue his training. He was soon introduced to the man who would become his most influential teacher, Antonio Ilustrisimo. “I had trained with a number of Filipino masters and thought I was hot stuff,” Wiley said. “But I sparred with grandmaster Ilustrisimo, who was in his late 70s, with padded sticks, and I couldn’t hit him very much. I did hit him a few times, but then I watched a videotape of the session and noticed that the whole time we were sparring, Ilustrisimo was watching a television playing in the next room. If Cabales and some of the other masters I met were like Jedi, then Ilustrisimo was like Yoda.” WILEY BEGAN RESEARCHING the history of the Filipino arts, meeting with numerous masters and talking to local scholars and historians. What he found was quite different from the impressions many Westerners have of the nation’s fighting systems. “I asked all these older masters about certain arts you hear about in the United States, like dumog (Filipino wrestling) and panantukan (Filipino boxing), and they had never heard of these things,” Wiley said. “The boxing they have in the Philippines is basically Western boxing. They do have some native wrestling styles, but they’re mostly confined to isolated local tribal groups.” Wiley said there’s also a difference between native Filipino battlefield arts, which had been practiced by tribal groups and are now all but extinct, and modern Filipino arts in the form of arnis and escrima. Arnis and escrima came into being when local Filipinos moved into the towns built by the Spanish, who occupied the islands for centuries. There, he said, they developed systems based on dueling or self-defense. WILEY RECORDED SOME OF HIS FINDINGS in Filipino Martial Culture, which was hailed by many as an outstanding piece of research. And although the book was rather tame, with Wiley passing on the oral histories presented by many masters without offering commentary on their veracity, it still made him enemies in the Filipino martial arts community. Oddly, the main cause of this hostility was the seemingly innocuous assertion that there’s no historical basis for the term “kali.” Although it’s a popular name used by many Filipino martial artists in America to refer to a mother style from which all Filipino weapon arts sprang, Wiley said there’s no evidence for it ever having been used before the 1950s. As for there being one parent art that’s the forerunner of all modern Filipino styles, Wiley said he broached the subject with many scholars in the Philippines, who pointed out the variety of languages and ethnic groups in the archipelago. “One of them told me they don’t even have one cooking style there,” he said. “How would they have one martial art that all the others came from?” Wiley said he has a lot more information that explodes cherished myths about the Filipino arts, but after being attacked online for so long, he’s leery about publishing it. His recent books have stayed away from such controversies. And that’s a pity. Sometimes what martial artists need the most is for someone to toss a hand grenade into their dojo bunkers and explode a few of the old myths.

In 1980, Dr. Alex Sternberg appeared on the cover of Black Belt—a fitting recognition for a martial artist whose extraordinary journey has spanned more than five decades. After emigrating from Hungary to the United States with his family in 1961, Sternberg began training at Brooklyn’s legendary Tong Dojo—a culturally diverse training ground that produced some of America’s greatest karate champions. He earned his black belt in 1968 and ultimately rose to the rank of 8th-degree master in Shotokan karate. As a competitor, Sensei Sternberg captured more than 75 regional, national and international medals, earning recognition as one of “America’s Top 10 Champions.” After retiring from competition, he coached the USA National Karate Team at major international events, including the World Championships. In 1982, Dr. Sternberg became an international referee certified by the World Karate Federation. He later served as Chief Referee of the United States and was honored by the WKF for 25 years of outstanding service. Beyond karate, Dr. Sternberg has built a remarkable career encompassing physiology, medicine, sports science, Holocaust research and Jewish history. From competitor to coach, referee, scholar and master, Alex Sternberg’s life represents the discipline, excellence and lifelong pursuit of knowledge at the heart of the martial arts. A champion in competition. A leader beyond it. A true Black Belt legend.

As a serious karateka, do you need to travel to Japan? Do you need to go to the homeland of budo to gain the perspective necessary to understand your art? No. Yes. Maybe. No, you don’t need to travel to Japan to train. Not in terms of technical training. The notion that you do is decades out of date. True, there was a time when the technical level of karate in Japan was much higher than in the United States. Those days are gone. American-born karate teachers have mastered the technical skills of their art and polished their teaching skills in an extraordinary way since I took up karate in the late 1960s. There are some remarkably good sensei here. That’s not to say they’re common, however. (In my opinion, nine out of 10 karate “teachers” are not really that and have no business trying to teach an art they don’t understand.) Great karate sensei are hard to find, but they are here, and you can learn the technical aspects of karate from them. So in that sense, no, you don’t need to go to Japan to polish your karate. You’ll notice that in the above paragraph, I used the word “technical” several times. If you want to learn karate’s physical technique, yes, you can be taught it here. If you want to learn the spiritual aspects of karate, I would say, with some reservations, maybe you can learn that here. Maybe. THERE ARE SENSEI in this country who have some grasp of the spiritual dimensions of karate and budo. Their numbers are few. If one in 10 karate teachers is really a teacher in a technical sense, then one in 1,000 has a real understanding of karate as a spiritual path. Few American sensei speak or read Japanese with any fluency. Few have any in-depth familiarity with Japanese spiritual and aesthetic concepts. While their mastery of technique is sometimes quite high, their understanding of budo’s spiritual dimensions is often poor. Or nonexistent. In many cases, it’s compromised by having read too many silly books about Zen or samurai philosophy and by superimposing their own ideas on top of that. It’s very important, while we’re in the realm of “maybe,” to note that a trip to Japan for karate training is not a guarantee you’ll be exposed to the spiritual realities of the art. There are plenty of Japanese sensei who are clueless about these. There are karate frauds and sadistic brutes in Japan. There are karate teachers there who indulge in all sorts of goofy, pseudo-Oriental philosophies that sound exotic and profound but that are mostly nonsense with no legitimate historical connection to karate or budo—just as there are in the States. Your chances of being correctly taught the spiritual dimensions of karate are better in Japan, true. But just like in America, if this is your goal, the answer to the question of whether you’ll get it in Japan is maybe. AS FOR THE “YES” ANSWER ... there are some facets of karate you can learn only in Japan. They’re not technical or necessarily spiritual; they’re cultural. Karate developed in Okinawa and evolved as a budo in mainland Japan. The cultures of those places played as much of a role in karate as, for example, Christianity has played in the art and culture of Western civilization. Japanese culture cannot be removed from karate, not if it’s to remain real karate. That’s not to say one must be Japanese to practice or understand it. However, one must have some understanding of and appreciation for Japanese culture to acquire a broad and mature understanding of karate as a complete art and way. If your goal in the dojo is to develop the physical aspects of karate, fine. Go to a nearby school and challenge yourself. But if you want to grasp karate as a do, as an all-encompassing way, sooner or later you must go to where it became that. THE LESSONS OF KARATE to be learned in Japan are not all or perhaps even mostly taught in the dojo there. They’re learned as you interact with a culture that’s markedly different from yours. It’s learning that form and formality are not dead, not merely rote behavior but a way of teaching a perception that leads to an entirely different way of dealing with the world than you may be used to. It’s being exposed to a culture in which what’s not said is often far more important than what is. It’s experiencing a culture in which much that you’ve taken for granted doesn’t apply, one in which you must be flexible and patient and calculating to survive. Westerners have had a long and often strange relationship with Japan. Our ideas about it have been influenced by romantic preconceptions, by popular novels and movies, and by our own imaginations. For a karateka going there for the first time, the experience can be humbling, disillusioning and frustrating. It also can be exciting, educational and meaningful. And you’ll be surprised at how often it can be all of the above. So do you need to go to Japan as part of your karate training? No. Yes. Maybe.

I was at a martial arts leadership seminar a few years back, and the speaker was talking about the glory of failure: “Failure is nothing but an opportunity. Failure should bring a smile to your face. When you fail, you should rejoice.” Glancing at those in attendance, I could see they were engaged by his enthusiasm, but I had to laugh at how ridiculous the scenario was. I cannot imagine that any of those people, including the speaker, if put in a real display of public failure, would feel enthusiastic. Failure is not fun. Although we all have had moments of embarrassment, disappointment and frustration, I doubt any of us would say the experience brought us joy. The speaker was right about one thing: Failure doesn’t need to be devastating. While I wouldn’t go as far as calling it joyous, it can serve as a great life lesson. As instructors, we have the opportunity to help our students learn how to handle moments when they fall short. Here are some suggestions: • Have standards written down. Consistent expectations draw out the best from students. Be prepared to enforce them. A standard that goes unenforced is not a standard; it’s a suggestion. A true standard is in writing and enforced all the time. If students have no idea what’s expected of them, their failure may come as a surprise. If they don’t understand why they failed, they’ll be unable to learn from their error. • Don’t sugarcoat it. If students have failed, they’ve failed. Be respectful but be honest. Making excuses for them or allowing them to make excuses for themselves won’t help them learn from the experience. The truth is all that’s needed. Simply tell them they didn’t do enough to meet the standard. It’s acceptable to say that—and to leave it at that. • Don’t be a “helicopter instructor.” There’s a tendency to withhold students from testing until you know they’ll pass. Although you may believe it’s in their best interest, it hinders their growth over the long term. If students don’t learn how to prepare themselves for an exam, how will they ever learn to gauge their progress? To better understand this, consider the plight of secondary school teachers. Much like martial art instructors, academic teachers have a curriculum they must teach. They also work within time frames and have students at varying levels of capability. Yet, in 21 years of being a parent, I cannot recall a single instance in which my children were guaranteed a passing grade on a school exam. The teachers taught them the information along with the proper study habits, and my kids had to ensure they’d done all they could to prepare for when their knowledge would be put to the test. As an instructor, you need to ensure you’re teaching your material consistently and effectively while allowing your students to reap their own rewards. Teach them the required skills, provide reasonable time frames and solid guidance, and then say, “Go!” • Be strong. Of course you don’t want to fail your students, particularly the children. The desire to help by allowing them to pass and then giving them “extra work” may be tempting, but it’s not productive. By enforcing a written standard, you’ve done your job. You should be considerate and respectful about how you inform them that they didn’t pass, but there’s no need to apologize. Navigating through such difficult moments is one of the greatest lessons they’ll learn on the mat. As they move through life, they’ll experience similar situations in which they fall short. If they’ve already learned how to recognize that emotion and move on, they’ll be better prepared. • Present a plan of action. If you’ve withheld rank from a student, take the time to explain the specifics, including which skills must be improved to pass the test the next time. I’ve yet to meet a martial arts instructor who doesn’t want his or her students to succeed. Helping them make progress is a huge part of why we love our job. It’s important to remember, though, that making progress doesn’t always mean providing a smooth path for students. Although it can be difficult, allowing them to fail an exam when they didn’t meet the requirements can be one of the greatest gifts we provide.

Photos by Peter Lueders An Ex-KGB Agent Who’s Also a Master of Combat Sambo, Systema and Judo Fills You In On Knife Defense! If you read our November 2010 issue, you no doubt remember Val Riazanov, the martial arts expert featured in “Punch Line: Mastering the Ballistic Strike.” For those who didn’t see the article and can’t wait to find out who Riazanov is, know this: The former KGB agent is a Russian special-forces vet and a systema instructor certified by Mikhail Ryabko. He’s also a combat-sambo master who owns a sixth-degree black belt in judo. Translation: He knows what he’s talking about. Val Riazanov launches right into his lecture on knife defense rather matter-of-factly, especially when you consider the lethality of the topic. “If you’ve ever been stabbed before, you know that what a lot of people teach isn’t very practical,” he says. I immediately believe he’s been stabbed, probably more than once. “A knife is a nasty thing,” he continues after a pregnant pause. For effect, he executes a simple low thrust with a training blade—the kind of attack most martial artists want their demonstration partners to feed them—and his opponent blocks easily. Just as the other guy starts to look proud of himself, Riazanov redirects his blade and stabs him several times while he fumbles to block. Point taken. “Even a man whose only experience with a knife comes from cutting a chicken should be considered dangerous when he’s angry,” Riazanov says. “If a man has ever put a knife into the flesh of a human, he should be considered really dangerous.” When faced with a blade, Riazanov continues, you have two choices: “You can give him whatever he asks for, and then you might or might not get stabbed anyway. Or you can try to do something about it.” You should try to do something about it, he says, only if you think you’ll have no psychological issues with the outcome, which obviously can entail you getting cut, him getting cut or both of you getting cut. If you get stabbed, get almost stabbed or actually do the stabbing, he says, there’s a good chance you’ll have psychological issues to deal with afterward. Once again, I believe he’s speaking from experience, and it’s that experience that’s pushed him toward a more realistic approach to knife defense. SERIOUS BUSINESS “The main thing about knife defense is you don’t play games with techniques,” he says. For emphasis, he has his opponent execute a half-speed horizontal slash, and he does a conventional two-hand grab of the knife arm, which is followed by a chop to the neck, a kick to the leg and a strike to the knife arm—each one punctuated by an exaggerated kiai. That bit of comedy sets the stage for one of his preferred defenses. “When the knife comes in, you’ll probably have time to move only your stomach away, so that’s all you do,” he says. Western martial artists often call this method of avoiding a blade “hollowing out.” Riazanov almost subconsciously uses his hand to “help” the weapon continue along its original path, which is to the attacker’s left, or across the front of his body. I say “almost subconsciously” because depending on the nuances of the attack and his position relative to the other man, he switches back and forth between using his left hand and using his right. It’s a minor detail, apparently. “At the same time, you strike,” Riazanov says as he pops a punch into the man’s chin. Earlier in the day, he talked about the value of even low- to medium-power punches that are delivered while the opponent is moving toward you. Seems the speed of your fist is boosted by the velocity of the attacker. Couple that with a precision strike to a vulnerable spot like the chin, and you have a blow that can sap the enthusiasm of any attacker, especially if he’s not expecting to be hit. Riazanov then demos a series of disarms that mesh with what he just did. Most of them include immobilizing the knife hand and stripping the knife, at which point he can opt to finish his opponent using the blade, to inflict pain using the butt of the handle on a pressure point or to coax him into behaving by judiciously pricking the skin with the tip. “Whatever you do now,” he says, “never let go of the knife.” JACK-OF-ALL-TRADES To drive home his next point, Riazanov grabs the training knife and instructs his partner to take it away. He can’t break the Russian’s grip even though he tries a variety of angles and hand positions. “See how much struggle there is?” Riazanov asks. “All it takes for me is this …” and he yanks his knife hand backward, breaking the grip of the opponent, after which he proceeds to carve him up like a Thanksgiving turkey. The lesson is clear: Mastering the art of the knife entails knowing how to use it, how to defend against it, how to maintain your grip on it and how to break your attacker’s grip. He hands the weapon to the opponent—“You hold it!”—and with his left hand momentarily placed against the back of the man’s knife hand, Riazanov uses the heel of his right hand to leverage the opponent’s thumb back, causing him to release the weapon. It looks so simple. Riazanov returns the knife to him and says, “This time don’t hold it that tight.” With his opponent expecting the same technique, Riazanov raps him on the knuckles using his own knuckles. The weapon falls to the floor. The third time, all he says is “Biomechanics.” With his left hand, he grips the man’s forearm, and with his right, he grabs the back of the knife hand—then brings them together as if he’s snapping a giant toothpick. The man’s wrist folds, and the pressure Riazanov applies to the knife handle in the direction of the thumb causes the knife to be released. The Russian establishes a grip on the weapon and pretends to slice his foe’s biceps. Quick to please, Riazanov runs through several more disarms, one of which involves using the knuckles of his right fist to drill the man’s forearm so he can effortlessly peel the knife out of his grip, again in the direction of the thumb. Another one has him fending off an attack in which the assailant gets close enough to press the tip of the weapon against his chest. Riazanov uses the back of his hand to push against the side of the blade, angling it down and then back toward the attacker. It winds up in his hand, so of course he uses it against him. In more than a few of the examples, Riazanov manages to cut the assailant with his own weapon even though he’s still clutching it. Biomechanics, as he said earlier—control the limb, bend it in a direction that severely reduces its strength and then apply enough force to ensure it does your bidding. The defenses that don’t involve counter-cuts take advantage of a quick strike to the chin or throat and even a short stomping kick to the nearest shin, followed by a takedown. RESOLUTION That takedown is Riazanov’s cue to explain his philosophy on effective follow-ups. “When you throw someone on the floor, there’s a very small chance he will come up—however much he’s trained—because the concrete floor is very different from the dojo floor,” he says. “With concrete, once you’re down, you’re down if you don’t know how to fall.” To illustrate the seriousness of the takedown and highlight a method for initiating it, Riazanov steps to the rear with one foot and then pivots as the opponent slashes—all while facing the weapon, of course. “When the knife is approaching, you let it go by and move away from the attack,” he says. As he steps and turns, he grabs the opponent’s wrist with his left hand and pushes down near the crook of the elbow with his right, taking him to the ground. “It’s a typical technique you’d see in sambo or judo,” he says. “Once he’s down, your knee goes just behind the elbow, into the triceps area.” A standing armbar results, but Riazanov immediately applies additional pressure with his knee to roll the man onto his stomach, his knife hand still trapped. “Then you take the blade, and if you have to hold him, you hold him,” he says. “If you have to disable him, you cut the tendon in his arm—you don’t have to get nasty. If you have to take him somewhere, you put the point of the knife against the crook of his arm—it’s not very nice—and he will come up as quick as he can. Then you stick it under his armpit and walk him. He’ll walk anywhere you like. If he resists, he bleeds a little.” “Even with the rubber knife, it hurts,” Riazanov’s training partner volunteers. THEORY AND PRACTICE Most of Riazanov’s knife defenses involve creating what he calls initial shock. For some of them, he hits the knife arm to distract, maybe causing the opponent to drop the weapon. For others, he clips him on the chin or drives his open hand into his throat before throwing. Occasionally, he kicks the inside of the kneecap with the bottom of his foot, collapsing the supporting leg so he can more easily take away the knife. “You have to be extremely precise with things like this, though,” he says with a smile. Once you’ve inflicted that initial shock, don’t get overconfident—even if your opponent is on his back, Riazanov cautions. “At that point, it’s not over. He will struggle and punch and kick—especially if he’s under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Here’s a little trick: As he desperately struggles to [regain control of his knife], you do this!” He drops his knee into the man’s gut. “Now it’s easy to take the knife away, and you didn’t do any damage.” He then demos a variation in which he drops his knee onto the man’s face. It would seem to be a bit more damaging—something he learned in the KGB, no doubt. “All this is good to practice,” Riazanov says before he ends the lesson. “But try to learn it from someone who’s been stabbed before—so they know what they’re talking about.”

From the archives of Karate Illustrated, we remember Kaicho Takayuki Yamazaki — a martial arts pioneer whose influence reached far beyond the dojo. A 9th-degree black belt, internationally respected sensei and martial arts leader, Yamazaki was part of a generation that helped introduce and establish karate in America alongside legends such as Fumio Demura, Chuck Norris and Dan Ivan. His skills also made their way to Hollywood. Yamazaki famously helped prepare Arnold Schwarzenegger for Conan the Barbarian and worked with stars including Sean Connery, Dennis Quaid, Sting, Brigitte Nielsen and Rolf Möller, contributing his martial arts expertise to productions including Conan, Red Sonja, Highlander, Dune and Dragonheart. But his greatest legacy wasn't Hollywood. Kaicho Yamazaki lived and breathed karate. He was a teacher, leader, father and friend whose influence continues through the thousands of martial artists he touched around the world. One student perhaps described him best: “The most complete human being I’ve ever met.” Karate Illustrated — February 1971. More than 50 years later, we honor the masters who helped build martial arts history.

For Unbeatable Ground Skill, Why Stick With One Style? “Marcel Louzado is one of the most remarkable people in martial arts today. He has combined various disciplines, knowing that the truth lies outside any one martial art. His mixture includes Brazilian jiu-jitsu, wrestling and judo, [which] creates a unique and deadly animal. This high-octane hybrid has attained Mr. Louzado three world titles. If the proof is in the pudding, Marcel has already consumed three bowls.” —Paul Vunak Marcel Louzado embarked on the martial path at age 3 with lessons in judo. Although the style is often recommended for children because of the low potential for injury, under no circumstances should that be interpreted to mean that judo isn’t effective in competition or self-defense. The art, properly known as Kodokan judo, was established in 1882 by Dr. Jigoro Kano, who studied the tenjin shinyo-ryu and kito-ryu styles of classical jujitsu until he’d learned their deepest teachings. Kano took up the martial arts as a child because even back then it was well-known that consistent training strengthens even the frailest body. No doubt Louzado enjoyed the same benefits during his youth. Having to begin from that disadvantaged position is likely the reason Kano was inspired to transform the traditional jujitsu principle of “defeating strength through flexibility” into the judo concept of “maximum efficiency” through the proper use of physical and mental energy. The lesson was one Louzado took to heart. The boy’s first judo coach required all his students to bone up on the history, culture and tradition of the Japanese art. That course of study generated tremendous insight and respect for judo in the mind of the youth—so much so that he was inspired to help preserve Kano’s legacy by competing in it. In 1989, when he was just 10, Louzado became a national judo champ. IN THE BEGINNING Kano eventually felt a need to supplement his skill base with training in other forms of combat. He continued to integrate what he considered the positive points of each one with his own ideas and inspirations. Similarly, Louzado looked to expand his horizons. At 15, with his judo skills on point—as evidenced by his four national championship titles—he started training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu with the intention of becoming a world champion. As we all know, Brazilian jiu-jitsu originated from Kodokan judo, so the transition wasn’t particularly tough for Louzado. He immediately noted that cross-training in BJJ would help him complete his game on the ground. When he was 16, he entered his first jiu-jitsu tournament—around the same time he received his black belt in judo. When he was 17, he won his first BJJ competition and started teaching the grappling sport in São Paulo, Brazil. IN THE STATES If not for a foreign-exchange program that took him to Fresno, California, the teen might have been satisfied with his ground skills and stopped right there. However, his time at Hoover High School brought exposure to America’s grappling art. Louzado joined the varsity wrestling team and immediately became a standout athlete. Upon his return to Brazil, Louzado figured that more opportunity to excel existed in the judo and jiu-jitsu worlds, so he started competing in those arts again. He took first place in the Junior National Judo Championships. In 1998 he competed in the Olympic trials for the Brazilian judo team but didn’t make the cut. In his free time, he attended college, eventually graduating with a degree in physical therapy. At 19, he decided to make BJJ his career. In 2000 he placed third as a purple belt in the World Championships in Rio de Janeiro—and then won the Pan-American Championships in Orlando, Florida. The following year was an even better one for him: He won the “triple crown of Brazilian jiu-jitsu”—the Pan-American Championships, the World Mundial Championships Rio and the Brazilian National Championships. That achievement was capped by a ceremony in which he was awarded his black belt. IN TRAINING On the mat, Louzado likes to integrate the skills of all three grappling disciplines. He effortlessly switches from one to the other, often in ways observers don’t notice. Watching him, I’m reminded of the Filipino martial arts axiom “soft as cotton, hard as steel.” He can roll with anyone, and that person need not fear getting injured, but just like when you’re in a cage with a big cat, the claws can come out at any time. One secret of Louzado’s success is his emphasis on the transitions between the techniques. He’ll attempt a submission, and if his opponent evades it, Louzado will flow effortlessly to the next—from armbars to guillotine chokes, from foot locks to triangles. He transmits this ability to his students through lots of hands-on training. In other words, he personally rolls with all his people. Grapple with any one of them, and you can feel his influence. Ask him to divulge another training secret, and he doesn’t hesitate: Execute your techniques step by step while focusing on precise movements. Why? Because it will make you more aware of your body—scientists call this “proprioception”—as well as more aware of your opponent’s body and where it is in relation to yours. Once your body knows how to move, speed will come naturally, and the result will be a level of skill that won’t fail under the pressure of competition or the emotions of the street. With regard to techniques, Louzado loves to use his wrestling takedowns to meet his opponent on the mat. Once there, he seeks out submissions using his judo and BJJ skill set. He never fixates on one method of fighting, however. The key to victory, he says, is being able to go from one art to the other and back again when needed. When that’s done with proper timing, alignment, balance and mechanics, strength becomes a nonissue. Translation: You have enough energy to fight longer, ideally outlasting your opponent—which, interestingly enough, circles back to that “maximum efficiency” motto of Jigoro Kano. Photos by Robert Reiff