Martial Destination: Sanda Training in Guangzhou with Coach Xie Guolin of the Zhongguo Ziyou Boji Xiehui – Chinese Free Fighting Association (中国自由搏击协会)

After spending 2 weeks in Hong Kong training with coach Fu, my family and I took the speed train to Guangzhou. I was very impressed with the comfort of the stations and train running as speeds close to 300 km/h. Last time we travelled to the mainland in 2017 it took us over two hours […]

Martial Destination: Self Defense Sanda in Hong Kong with Coach Fu of the Xianggang (Hong Kong) Ji Quan Dao Wushu Xiehui, Sanda Self-defense Method (Sanda Ziwei Shu, 散打自衛術)

My family and I spent a month and a half visiting Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Japan during the summer. As expected, the summer heat was quiet a thing to get used to for people like us, used to the Canadian winters. As is customary when I travelled, I am always looking for opportunities to learn […]

China’s Border Conflicts and Hand to Hand Combat

In the last couple weeks news about growing tensions between China and India in the Galwan Valley, an area disputed by both sides for decades have dominate the headlines. Tensions began to reach a critical point starting in early May 2020 escalating from push and shove, to an all out brawl using improvised weapons. According […]

Martial Destination: Dr. James Guo, Scholar and Warrior. Promoting China’s Ancient Battlefield Spear

Couple weeks ago, I had the chance to travel to Toronto for a few days and as I was preparing my trip, I thought I could squeeze in some training while in the city. I was gladly surprise when couple years ago I found the Facebook group IDaqiang and decided I had to contact them […]

Dagestan’s Peaceful Warriors – Part 3 – A Documentary

On October 2015, Al Jazeera released a wonderful documentary covering the life of Mr. Gusein and Olga Magomaev/a and their Five Directions of the World Martial Arts School. At one point in the documentary following Mr. Magomaev’s concerns for his pupils due to the raise of Islamic terrorism, the footage switches to a fire that […]

Martial Destination: Dagestan’s Peaceful Warriors – Part 2 – An Interview with Sabir “Cobra” Bagautdinov

Many people seek martial arts training from the source be China, Japan, Korea or Thailand; there is a draw in many of us to fulfill a long life dream to visit where “all started”. I was no different and did the “China Thing” over a decade ago. However, there are outstanding instructors closer to home […]

Dagestan’s Peaceful Warriors – Part 1

On October 2018 at UFC 229 Dagestani MMA fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov successfully defended his Lightweight title against the always colorful Conor McGregor putting Khabib and his native Dagestan in the spot light. Khabib’s victory is however, not the only one for fighters from the republic, in fact Dagestan has been a Mecca for combat sports […]