A month ago I found a YouTube video where a submission coach was explaining how an eye gouge was not the best defense against the rear choke. I agree that a proper applied choke is very difficult to defend in many cases, however it was the way this person was applying the eye gouge that […]
Author: northernchinesemartialarts
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 […]
Da Dao Footage 1930s
Hope everyone is doing well during this quarantine. As many of you we are also working and schooling at home. It has been a while since we posted anything for the blog. In part because there is always something to do with the family and by the time the weekend arrives we are busy and […]
In Memory of Brian L. Kennedy
It was the summer of 2008 when I was casually reading through my emails that I found a nice message from Brian who at the time I did not know. After a short introduction Brian was very kind to compliment us on an article we wrote back then when were really starting to scratch the […]
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 have been aware of the Big Spear (Da Qiang) training for a few years now after attending a competition in […]
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 […]
A Blast from the Past, Martial Arts Publications in Colombia
By W. Acevedo In a previous post we presented a general overview of the introduction of different Asian martial arts to Latin America and the state of martial studies which has continue to evolve as new contributions towards our understanding of these and other fighting practices e.g. machete fighting, have being published in these countries. […]
Feng Yuxiang’s Big Knife Soldiers
One of my favorite topics of research is the history of the Da Dao Dui (Big Knife Teams) whose most famous promoter was Feng Yuxiang. Once in a while new photographs come to light as the ones in this short entry. I originally came across them in the Scherl/Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo website a while back […]