Start Sport

Martial Arts come in different forms and they are not only confined to Kung-fu or Taekwondo, which is popularized a lot in television and the movies. You would be surprised to know that certain forms of fighting are also called martial arts. To learn and practice martial arts, one should be well equipped with the proper supplies.

Martial arts have different origins. The term “Martial” is derived from the Roman god of war named “Mars”. Martial Arts simply mean “the art of war”. Although most people think that martial arts only came from the Asian cultures, it is also found in America and Europe. Martial arts feature a type of combat system that has codes within a single objective of physically defeating a person.

Aside from this, it is mainly used for self-defense against any bodily harm. Some martial arts techniques are actually based on a spiritual or religious philosophy such as Aikido and Judo. This is while others base it on a certain code of honor such as fencing. Hence, martial arts techniques are being practiced as a form of combat sports and some in the form of dance.

Thus, regardless of where the art originated, they have similarities with one another. Each style has a systematized fighting style. They even have forms and routines when they do sparring, which is practiced either alone or with a partner. Martial arts are grouped in a way that each style will focus on a certain area.

Below is a list of samples for each group:

Grappling

? Throwing – Judo, Jujutsu, Sambo

? Joint Lock – Aikido, Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, Hapkido

? Pinning Techniques – Wrestling, Judo

Striking

? Punching – Boxing (Western style), Wing Chun

? Kicking – Capoeira, Savate, Taekwondo

? Other Strikes – Muay thai, Karate, Shaolin Kung Fu

Weapons

? Traditional Weaponry – Fencing, Gatka, Kendo, Kali

? Modern Weaponry – Eskrima, Jogo do pau, Jukendo

For some, most of the styles are well known as a form of Martial Arts technique and only a few would know that boxing and fencing is also categorized as such. At present, most styles of martial arts are being used as combat sports. For the others, they are used in military or police training as a form of self-defense.

Hence, Tae Kwon Do, fencing, boxing, and wrestling are events in the summer Olympics. This is while other martial arts such as Wushu of China and Muay Thai have tournaments held around the world. Aside from this, there are also those, which are regarded both as a form of dance and as a type of Martial Art. Good examples would include the Capoeira of Brazil, Yolah of Oman/UAE, and Buza from Russia.

Here is short description of some of the techniques mentioned above.

CAPOEIRA

The slaves in Brazil created this martial art during in the 16th century. It’s a blend of dance, game, and as mentioned already – martial art, where in, music is incorporated. It’s more of a skill based art rather than injuring the opponent. The players’ form a circle called the Roda, where in, they will take turns in playing inside the circle.

The basic movement in Capoeira is called the ginga, in which, they need to swing and rock back and forth. They should move with the rhythm of the music being played by the bateria. Hence, the players usually use acrobatic movements such as cartwheels, handstands and use kicks, sweeps, and head strikes as a form of attack. They also do rolls and ducks, as their defensive move and as type of preparation for an attack.

Thus, this is more of a combination move for self-defense that makes use of a cartwheel with a blocking kick and an attack at the same time.

BOXING

The ancient Greeks first introduced it as a sport and there are different forms of boxing done around the world. As a combat sport, usually two persons with a similar weight class fight with each other using their fists. There is the presence of a referee, one who needs to watch over and control the fight.

Since boxing is a type of contact sport, certain precautions must be taken in order to prevent injury. Hand and wrist wraps and boxing gloves are worn in order to protect the bones in the hands. During practice or sparring sessions, a headgear is also worn to protect the head and face. A mouthpiece is also worn to protect the insides of the cheek and lips from getting cut and also the jaw joint when the face gets hit.

Boxers practice their punches on a “speed bag” or on the heavy “punching bag” in order to develop speed, agility, and strength. Other training equipments include free weights, jump ropes, and medicine balls. The trainer uses focus mitts as padded targets for the boxer during practice.

MODERN ARNIS

A Filipino style of martial arts founded by the late Remy Preses was created as a self-defense system. Influenced by the style of the Bolo (machete) and the art of Balintawak (Stick-Dueling), rattan sticks are used as weaponry, in which, it is called a “baston” (baton) or cane. Two techniques are taught using the baston – the single and double stick technique.

The cane is considered sacred to the practitioners of the art. This is the reason why, during combat, the arm or hand of the opponent is hit and not the cane. This method was called “defanging the snake”, where in, the opponent will drop his weapon, making him less of a threat. Then this technique has been discouraged a lot from learning the art. This is because it was too painful to learn.

Plus, this caused the Filipino martial arts to become almost extinct! Therefore, what Remy Preses did is to preserve the Filipino martial art via developing a method of cane-to-cane combat during practice. This is in order to attract would be practitioners of the art. Thus, the “defanging the snake” method remains the practical application.

TAEKWONDO

Taekwondo is the national sport of South Korea and perhaps the most popular martial art in the world. It is a combination of self-defense, sport, and combat techniques, which makes it an official event in the Olympics. The training of taekwondo usually involves the use of the power of the hips and legs. It also has blocks, punches, sweeps, and joint locks.

Taekwondo is distinguished from other techniques because of its kicking techniques. They believe that the leg is the most powerful weapon especially with the back kick of taekwondo. The union of the mind and body is developed and practiced in this art, while developing other aspects such as discipline, strength, flexibility, and stamina.

The “dobok” is the official uniform of a taekwondo student and is usually white, and with it, a belt is worn around the waist where its color will indicate the person’s rank.

FENCING

A European martial art that involves the use of swords, knives, bayonets and other similar weapons used in armed combat. Presently there are three weapons used:

? Foil – light thrusting weapon

? Epee – heavy thrusting weapon

? Sabre – light cutting and thrusting weapon

Dueling gained popularity with the Europeans in the 17th up to the 19th century, where in, the cutting style of swordplay became a thrusting style or “foining”. During that time fencing involves defending one’s honor so no duels using sharp blades took place unless a formal insult was made.

After World War I, dueling was almost non-existent and went out after the Second World War. Therefore, the training and using of sharp swords disappeared. Plus, the emphasis was more in the technique and training styles of fencing.

As a form of martial art, the goal of fencing is to be theoretically trained for a duel. In classical fencing, where in the art of swordplay is applied and even expected to become applied in their training for an actual duel or fight, they utilize the standard foil, epee, and the blunted sabre. As for historical fencing, the use of a variety of weaponry with realistic weight will demand a different way
of handling them, even affecting the movement of the body.

Today, fencing, as a type of sport, uses protective clothing during practices or events. The complete set includes the following:

? Croissard – form fitting jacket covering the groin with a strap that goes between the legs.

? Gorget – small fabric to protect the neck

? Plastron – under arm protector

? Glove – to protect the hand and prevent the blade from going into the sleeve

? Breeches or knickers – short trousers

? Socks – knee length or thigh high

? Shoes – with flat soles

? Mask – with a bib to protect the neck

? Plastic chest protectors – required for female fencers

Things you need when you are planning to join a martial arts class:

1. Uniform – most students are required to have a uniform. There are available uniforms for students of the following:

? Taekwondo

? Karate

? Judo and Aikido

? Kung-fu

? Ninja

? Belts

2. Protective gears and sparring gears

? Head gear

? Hand gear

? Foot gear

? Chest guard

? Shin guard

3. Weapons

? Practice swords

? Escrimas

? Weapons cases

? Weapons stand

? Knives

? Bo’s and staffs

? Kubotan

4. Training gear

? Breaking boards

? Mats

? Conditioning gears – hand grips, double end ball

? Hand held pads -mitts and arm shield

? Heavy bags

5. Boxing equipments

? Gloves

? Cardio wraps

? Jump rope

? Leather speed ball

6. Exercise equipments

? Medicine balls

? Chin up bars

? Heart rate monitor

? Free weights

? Ankle weights

? Stretching equipment

Correct muscle building nutrition and a quality muscle building diet are often the most neglected parts of a weight training program.

Building muscle requires the right nutrition. Make no mistake, it’s an essential part of weight lifting and if you want to build muscle, you have to get it done. Bottom line — if you want to build muscle, you need to consume quality calories.

How many calories?

You need to consume more total calories in your muscle building diet than your body uses each day. It’s important to understand that the human body is constantly working, using and storing energy day and night.

It’s also very important to understand that in order to keep the machine rolling, you need to know what and how much to feed it. This is the single most important element in the muscle building process.

You need to feed your body a correct balance of calories, protein, carbohydrates and fat. Complete muscle building nutrition is the key. If you can find this key, your muscle building efforts will sky rocket.

Complete muscle building nutrition leads to optimal nutrition and optimal results. Over supplementation of certain nutrients will lead to imbalances in overall nutrition and is damaging to your weight lifting diet and health.

It is very important that you understand the importance of nutrition when building muscle. Without good nutrition and diet, your muscle gains will be non-existent and at best, poor.

As a muscle builder, it’s important that you get your muscle building nutrition down to a science. Your success is dependent on a well-balanced and complete diet that includes your optimal nutritional intake.

Poor dietary habits will hinder your progress and may eventually lead to injury to muscles and bones because they are not supplied with the nutrients needed to support the added stress of weight lifting.

What builds muscle?

Protein builds muscle. Without an adequate supply of protein, your body will not support any kind of muscle growth. If you supply your body with the optimum amount of protein, you ensure optimal growth; it’s as simple as that.

After all, you want to build muscle and to do that, you need a steady supply of high quality protein. You must include an optimal amount of protein in your muscle building diet in order to build and sustain muscle growth.

So how much protein should you include in your muscle building nutrition for maximum performance and muscle gain? Each of us has very different body types and the amount of protein will differ from individual to individual.

Protein intake will also depend on the amount of activity involved and how frequently you do it.

Your muscle building diet should be comprised of 30% to 40% protein, or about 1 to 1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight. You will have to do a bit of experimenting at the beginning to find out your optimal protein intake.

What fuels muscle?

If you want to build muscle, you’re going to have to take in a lot of quality, complex carbohydrates. No question about it. You are going to have to fuel your body to handle heavy weight lifting.

You must include an optimal amount of carbohydrates in your muscle building nutrition program in order to fuel heavy weight lifting sessions.

Carbohydrates are a very important source of fuel for the muscles as well as the leading source of energy for your body. When you have a hard workout, your body draws on carbohydrates, which is stored as glycogen in the muscles.

Glycogen is the product of glucose, which comes from the breakdown of carbohydrates after the digestion of food. Glycogen is stored in the liver and muscle.

During a long intense muscle building session, you can easily deplete your glycogen reserves. When your muscles cannot get enough glycogen, fatigue sets in and your body begins to lose endurance and performance drastically reduces.

However, there is a way to delay the onset of muscle fatigue. By taking enough carbohydrates each day in your muscle building diet, you are ensuring that the amount of glycogen stored in the muscles is being constantly replenished.

Every meal must have sufficient carbohydrates to sustain your hard intense workouts It is suggested that your muscle building diet consist of 40% carbohydrates. If you want to build muscle, you need quality carbs every meal.

If you don’t consume enough quality carbohydrates, your body will resort to other fuel sources such as protein.

Protein is a second rate energy source. Protein’s primary job is to build muscle, not fuel it. Therefore, keep your body filled with grade A fuel to support and maximize your hard, intense muscle building workouts.

If you use the tips written above in making your own personal muscle building nutrition, you’ll be a lot healthier and you’ll succeed in having the rock-hard body you’ve always wanted.

But this can happen only by having good muscle building nutrition.

Many people are planning to start learning about martial arts nowadays but may not have taken into account the fact that they will need martial arts equipment to be able to practice this hobby or occupation. Here are some tips on how to get the best martial arts equipment you need:

1.Try to figure out which martial arts equipment you want to become proficient in. The uniforms in martial arts differ in design, color and use so you have to be specific about which uniform you wish to use. This also applies to your martial arts equipment since the martial arts equipment for one martial art may be unique to that martial art.

2.Find out what protective gear you need to be able to spar and train in your preferred martial arts. Protective gear as martial arts equipment is very important because the last thing you want is to get injured in a sparring session. Protective gear as martial arts equipment can be categorized either as head gear (like face masks and helmets), gear to protect your torso (like chest shields), gear to protect your groin (which is more for men than women, and may consist of a crotch guard or sports cup to shield your privates from being punched or kicked), shin guards to keep the shin area of your legs from being injured when you block a flying kick with your legs (since getting hit on the shin tends to be rather painful since there isn’t much flesh and muscle to shield your shin bone), feet gear (such as kicking boots, designed to keep your opponent from being critically injured if you should hit them with your legs or feet), and hand gear (such as punching mitts, used also to shield your opponent from the full force of your punches.) You need to invest in quality martial arts equipment as protective gear so you get the best protection possible.

3.You can also invest in practice martial arts equipment. This means getting punching bags (like those used in boxing), and martial arts dummies (which attempt to give you an idea of how to punch and kick a real human being.) Your punching bag can consist of either the teardrop bag or the bigger boxing-type punching bag. Martial arts dummies are basically like punching bags except they may be a bit bigger and shaped like human bodies. Though these martial arts equipment are no replacement for sparring and training with real-live opponents (because these practice equipment cannot dodge your blows or retaliate), they are very important to have around so you can get the feel for the sport.

4.There will be sports that require you to become proficient in certain martial arts weapons (which are also martial arts equipment.) However, you should always be careful when trying out such weapons in the first few sessions because you might hurt someone badly (such as yourself) if you don’t know what you are doing. If you are at the stage when martial arts equipment like weapons are necessary, then always pay attention to your instructor and learn how to master the weapons first. Often, such weapons were designed to maim your opponent and maybe even kill him so caution is always necessary in training with weapons.

Martial arts equipment were designed to work a certain way. Many martial arts equipment have a long history that can help you study how your preferred martial arts evolved. Study carefully how martial arts equipment are meant to be used and they can really help you become a better martial artist afterwards.