“Yī’, èr, sān, sì, wǔ, liù, qī, bā, jiǔ, shí!” “Ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, shichi, hachi, kyu, ju!” “Hanna, dul, set, net, dasot, yasot, elgob, yadol, ahop, yol!” For those of us in the martial arts, there are, I would imagine, very few of us that cannot count to ten in the language… Continue reading Fighting Words: The linguistics of martial arts.
Continuing the examination of the Four Words in Chinese swordsmanship brings us to the character Ge 格. To block, arrest, impede, obstruct, deter, halt, hinder, intercept, parry. The seemingly simple idea of stopping something from hitting you by placing something else in the way has 10,000 permutations, 10,000 synonyms, and 10,000 interpretations of what it… Continue reading S-words: Ge 格 Parry or Block
Greetings all! I just recently got on to the LK Chen Bandwagon. You may have seen Ben Judkins reviews here on the blog. Well, I finally jumped in and got a few things from this up and coming company. One of these things is a full sparring gear set with one and two handed weapons!… Continue reading Playing with the LK Chen sparring swords.
https://youtu.be/mkmDR9gV-6k In a follow up to my last post about forms practice in Martial arts, I wanted to go over 3 truths of forms to balance out the myths from last time. In that piece we talked about how forms are not fighting and that any skill or lack of skill in fighting must be… Continue reading 3 Truths about Forms
At long last and at the behest of many of you loyal viewers, we have officially announced our “Terra Kasi” project. This is a play on the Star Wars universe martial art named “Teras Kasi” using two Finnish words for “steel” and “hand” respectively. This is the martial art of the mandalorians and of many… Continue reading Terra Kasi: to Fight a Jedi
https://youtu.be/ZF3ZZr2bij0 Star Wars day is here! and this marks the return of TPLA Live! Joining us for a discussion on all things Star Wars, Charley Cummings: Owner of The Saber Legion. Kyle Vaz: Owner of Ki Sabers Darth Alice: Our good friend and Master Saber-smith and progenitor of the now ubiquitous "Katana saber", Todd Johnson.
