Can Anyone Defend Themselves? Of course the answer is "Yes", but each person has different circumstances. A 300-pound football player is going to have a different skill set than a 130-pound mother of two.

Just because you have a black belt doesn’t mean you can fight and just because you can fight, doesn’t mean you are a black belt.

Traditional Karate or Karatedo is one of the best known styles of martial arts and is considered to be and competition sport. It first became popular in the west in the 1960's, but Karate was originally developed for self-defense. Created with Chinese help on the island of Okinawa traditional Karate is brutal form of combat that employs vicious strikes with the hands and feet as and depending on the style throws, grappling, and joint manipulations are also part of the training. There are many different styles of Karate with each focusing on a different area, and countless other styles have incorporated Karate techniques.

“There I was, in the middle of my fist Black Belt test at the tender age of 22 ready to begin the Random Assault Drill. They were circling me, attackers with knives, bats, clubs and guns, but I was ready. I had been training for years.

In the beginning most martial arts styles start out of necessity of as a form of self defense that is simple and effective. However, over time things change and the original idea is becomes corrupted. Krav Maga started off as a rough and tumble form of street fighting, but like most arts; it has become “civilized”. Like with other martial arts Krav Maga’s own commercialization and popularity has become its downfall.

When many people look back at World War II they only see a string of Allied victories and think victory was always certain, but in the early days of the war things looked very dark. The Nazi war machine had ravaged most of Europe, but that still didn’t stop a handful of determined volunteers from answering their nation’s call to duty, instead it only served to inspire them.

Most people’s first reaction to this is bravery or heroism. These are the result of what the real answer enables us to be. Fear is an emotion so the opposite of Fear must to be an emotion. If you read Stephen Pressfield’s “Gates of Fire” you already know the answer.

As the Presidential Election Heats Up, Our Thoughts Turn To Our Citizen Soldiers in The Desert.

In United States during the 1960’s the civil rights debate raged on around the country, but a handful of men put aside their petty differences and banned together to chase a dream.

The subject hits home to everyone. At one point our biggest safety issue in school was bullying. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case. Over the past few years, school shootings have been increasing in frequency and in violence. Imagine, there you are, going through your every day routine, thinking about your next class, upcoming test or joking with your friends and then all of the sudden you are in the middle of a war zone, your world is turned upside down as you try to put your mind around what is happening around you. In the wake of the aftermath, the discussion is always the same and the conversation always leads to two main questions: can this be prevented and how can we deal with it when it occurs? The first solution is always increased police and security on campus. Unfortunately when this starts to happen, the issues of civil liberty violations and rising costs of funding the added security arise. As time goes on, the farther away from the atrocity, the urgency for a solution goes away. At the end of the day our children are left to fend for themselves while they wait for the authorities to respond.