Why Train In Martial Arts?

When it comes to martial arts there are many paths – empty hand or with weapons, Chinese (Kung Fu), Japanese (Karate, JiuJitsu), hard styles, soft styles – and even then there are different strands within disciplines.

Unfortunately practitioners of the different disciplines and strands will sometimes dismiss each others’ training and I always think this is a real shame.

Firstly, because no one style IS the complete system of anything except itself as an art form. To be the greatest fighter, one needs to train across many disciplines covering the four main fighting distances – kicking range (Thai boxing, Tae Kwon Do, Karate for example), punching range (boxing), trapping range or grab the opponent by the scruff of the neck range (Wing Chun or JiuJutsu for example), and grappling range (JiuJitsu for example). Continue Reading →

How good is the ‘Insanity’ workout?

It seems that everywhere I look at the moment, I keep coming across the Insanity workout. Whether it is being hailed as the next best thing on someone’s Facebook status update, or someone I train with is telling me they are getting great results from it. I am probably one of the only people who haven’t seen the official advertisements for it as in my research on the subject I am told these are hard to miss. I guess I am too busy working out to spot the working out advertisements.

So just what exactly is Insanity, how does it work and why is it different from other workouts? Well, when I have researched this on the internet it has been pretty hard to come across anything that wasn’t advertorial in nature, selling the product rather than really reviewing it. The telltale signs were all there, telling the reader where to get the product, making sure readers avoid the pitfall of buying fake copies. One of the few reviews that seemed to critique the workout was pushing another cheaper alternative. I haven’t experienced the Insanity workout so I am not going to pretend to be an expert but this is what I found out. Continue Reading →