The MartialBody Blog

As a competitive Athlete in my mid 40s, who trains with elite level competitors in their 20's, it would be fair to say that I have my fair share of niggles and injuries. These injuries can and have been minor problems with knees, all they way up to major injuries to muscle or joints. It is also very common for an older athlete to have less obvious 'aches and pains' on a daily basis that can be resolved through focused MartialBody training. In this article I share how I go about heali...

I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of martial artists from different disciplines. In this article we are going to look at a certain subset of individuals, specifically those interested in the 'internal arts' or Aiki arts. There is much mystery, misconception and indeed ridicule surrounding these ‘internal’ systems and they are often linked to MartialBody training due to my personal training in them. So if you are not from these arts this article may not make much sense but it cou...

The MartialBody Process can sometimes be confused for other methods or systems. I often get emails asking 'is MartialBody this or that'. So let clearly define what MartialBody is and what it aims to achieve.

When training a body skill it is common to have the impression that we are building something that is somewhat unique, or special, something that we feel is powerful enough to make a difference.  This attitude can be seen in the multitudes of people studying martial arts skill that are wholly convinced of their unique supremacy. However,the reality is that all of these powers, body skills and methods that we hold so dear can become undone in an instant by those with an intelligent approach.

In the connected body, we aim to develop whole body connection via the training of specific lines of tissue and neurology.  In the early stages of training it is important that we separate our body, working on one area and then the next, so that our mind can focus. However, later we must remove these imaginary boundaries between the various tissues and begin to think of the body as a whole. One of the ways that we can do this is through a process known as ‘linking the hands and feet’.

When I worked as a Doorman, I would spend many hours on my feet getting people into and out of the venue. I would be observing and monitoring problems, making sure everyone was safe and sometimes getting physical to remove trouble makers. If you were to observe my posture throughout the night, it would be in constant change. From the upright confident posture needed for the front of house, to the fluidity needed to get through the crowd, to the fighting postures needed to deal with attackers, to...

When we take a higher level view of the hundreds of practices that encompass the Martial Arts or Combat sports we see that, regardless of origin, cultural background or goal, they boil down to our ability to produce or deal with forces. Even largely solo training methods like Iaido are reliant on a refined understanding of forces in our body to produce smoothness and clarity in the methods. This higher level view of the Martial Arts, peeling away the layers of context from them, gives us an oppo...

‘We don’t do sport, sport is limited’ … ‘traditional arts are not realistic’ … ‘How would you use that flipping stuff in a street fight!?’ …. ‘Why would you want to fight on the ground’ …. “there are no rules in a street fight” … “ we train for self defence not to fight professionals”If you are a martial artist, the chances are that you have considered these positions, responded to th...

In this article I am going to explore one of my favorite joint and tissue rehabilitation techniques, one which can be used in addition to modern rehabilitation and physiotherapy techniques. This is a method that I have used for several serious joint and tissue injuries over the years and one which I always turn too first whenever an injury occurs.For many injuries, usually caused by hard sparring or competition, the time frame quoted for recovery has been cut in half as a result of this approach...