Had a great conversation about martial arts with host Dominick Izzo on Them’s Fightin’ Words! Podcast We talk traditional vs. modern and even express our love of martial arts cinema. This is an episode you don’t want to miss! While you’re at it, subscribe to his channel!
Look what came in the mail! The Korea Taekwondo Moo Duk Kwan Association has accepted me as a 3rd degree black belt and issued this certificate backdated to my original promotion date. They are the original TKD MDK organization established by members of the MDK who unified into the KTA in 1965. Rank is an obligation, not a privilege. As such, I will endever to live up to the trust they have put in me and will represent them to my hightest ability.
Solo Training 3 50 And Older is chock-full of information, drills, and exercise for the aging martial artist. Don’t let the title fool you; this book is great for any aging martial artist. I’m just hitting my mid-40s and I found the information in this book very helpful. I had the opportunity to borrow this book for free using my Prime Membership, and I’m glad that I did. If you find just one idea that you can put into use in your own training, then the time it took to read the book was worth it. I found plenty, and I was reminded of some drills and concepts that I had forgotten.
Christensen covers a wide range of subjects. He spends a good deal of time on resistance training—a very important aspect of solo training for any aging martial artist. He also covers proper diet, training your core, and speed training, among other topics.
This book is subtitled Karate, Kung Fu, and Taekwondo. That’s an important distinction. Christensen wrote the book with the traditional stand-up martial artist in mind. But even if you practice non-classical or reality based self-defense styles, I think you’ll get something out of it. Kata training is also covered. I’ve always felt that kata was best practiced at home anyway, leaving the time in class for drills and sparing that requires partners.
Chapter 14 gives you a fairly thorough look at “fight enders.” Just make sure you understand use of force laws before you employ them. But as we age, we don’t have time to mess around. If you’ve mostly focused on sports with rules, this is good information to know.
At the end of the book Christensen provides tons of drills that you can implement or modify to your liking. Inevitably a few reviewers will comment that anyone with an intermediate or advanced level of training could come up with the same or similar workouts. While that might be true, I just don’t see why anyone would want to reinvent the wheel. Christensen has done all the work for you in this volume, providing a template that you can modify to your heart’s desire. Since Christensen uses these workouts himself, you know they work. And that will save you time, and the trial and error of putting together your own workouts.
If you’re a student, you know you can’t improve enough by just training during class time. If you’re an instructor, you have to put in the time before or after class for your own improvement. This is a book that will help you to improve while reducing injury. It’s a welcome edition to any martial artist’s library. I know I’ll be adding a physical copy to mine.
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