Martial Arts News:

Let’s get the weekly Lord of Pasta report out of the way!

• Want to win a free Steven Seagal DVD? Then check out this link.

“We are going to give Dangerous Man on DVD to three randomly drawn winners from this contest.”

• Manny Pacquiao may co-star in a movie with Steven Seagal. You can read all the reports at this link.

“We discussed the possibility of working together in movies and making joint concert appearances. “

• Here we have a report of what many would consider a high honor in judo.

“Only a handful of people – usually Japanese – are ever given the status of 10th Dan in judo, but the honour has been bestowed on the President of the British Judo Association, George Kerr.”

• All I can say about this one is only in the Bible Belt! I have to ask: what WOULD Jesus do?

“The young man was a member of a fight team at Xtreme Ministries, a small church near Nashville that doubles as a mixed martial-arts academy. Renken, who founded the church and academy, doubles as the team’s coach. The school’s motto is ‘Where Feet, Fist and Faith Collide.’ “

• Children of Bollywood star do well at taekwondo tournament.

“I was a nervous wreck… love gold especially when the kids earn it,” Shah Rukh posted on his Twitter account Sunday.”

• A sumo wrestler in MMA? Now that could prove to be interesting.

“Asashoryu may want to consider how his predecessors have fared. Competitors with sumo experience have a poor record in MMA, including Chad “Akebono” Rowan (0-4), Henry “Sentoryu” Miller (6-9), Tadao Yasuda (2-4), Alan Karaev (2-3), Emmanuel Yarborough (1-2) and Teila Tuli (0-1).”

• Ken Foss declares the Gracie era over!

“Perhaps those are the best words I can summon after the putrid debut showing from Rolles Gracie at UFC 109 last night.”

• MMA is legalized in Wisconsin — inane photos like this one are likely to follow.

“Wisconsin’s governor, Jim Doyle, signed legislation making the Dairy State the 43rd state to regulate MMA.”

• A karate legend visits New Jersey.

“Tokey Hill was a trailblazer for the United States National Karate Federation, becoming the first American to win a gold medal at the World Karate Federation Championships in Spain in 1980.”

• Shammi Akhter of Bangladesh scores gold at a taekwondo tournament.

“She won by 4-2 points to grab the gold she never expected. Even the team officials were at a loss for some moments when Shammi was declared as the winner.”

• A Kyokushin Karate school is attempting to give home-schooled children a place to get physical fitness credit. Regardless of what you may think about home schooling, this seems like a good idea to me.

“Estero Martial Arts is also attempting to get certified as a place where home-schooled children can get physical education credit.”

• Roddy Piper’s son and Hulk Hogan’s nephew debut in MMA? Very interesting.

“The Fresno Bee newspaper in California provided local coverage on Roddy Piper’s son losing his MMA debut and Hulk Hogan’s nephew winning his second MMA fight at a fight card in California last night.”

• Forbes has an interesting article about strange sports that were featured in past Olympics. It caught my eye because it mentions savate.

“In the 1924 games in Paris, the French perhaps had some post-WWI frustration to let out, as included in the demonstration program were la canne, a French form of martial arts using a cane, as well as savate, a form of French kickboxing.”

The blogs:

- Cook Ding brings us a video that demonstrates how effective aikido can be! I almost made this one my sidebar video of the week.

“I love the vintage clips.”

- I’m really pleased to see that Formosa business is taking off. Check out some of the great photos from his recent seminar! If you are at all interested in adding kettlebell training to your martial arts training you really should peruse his blog — I know that I did!

“We had a great seminar yesterday in Kaohsiung. Thanks to everyone that came and I hope you all had a good time.”

- Gaijin Explorer figures out a way to combat his language barrier as he attempts to learn aikido in Japan.

“After my last Monday class of frustration I decided to do three things: First, drink a beer … then practice for an hour … and then buy 6 books about Aikido in Japanese from Amazon.com! If I don’t understand my Sensei because he’s using Aikido vocabulary all the time, then I’m going to learn it.”

- Steph has an interesting post about the Japanese Naginata. She also gets the Bob Patterson chuckle of the week award.

“The naginata was abandoned by the Samurai as a weapon of war at the turn of the 17th Century, after which, it was primarily used for women’s self-defence, which is one of the reasons I like it — it’s a real pussy power weapon.”

- Kris Wilder’s book makes it into the hands of the military! How cool is that?

“So when I get a picture like this one of our book, The Way of Kata, I am sheepishly proud that our book has made it into the hands of those who serve.”

- Womens-self-defense.co.uk has had an excellent run of articles. If you are at all interested in this topic I’ll just send you to the RSS feed.

“Our main training centre is in Brighton a fantastic training centre in beautiful location right on the seafront at Rottingdean a small village on the outskirt of Brighton.”

- Dojo Rat features some kick-ass military hapkido!

“But strip away the sport aspect of Korean martial arts and you have one of the most bad-ass fighting systems on the Planet.”

Incidentally, the video that DJR features makes my sidebar video of the week. Cool stuff and a great find!

The videos:

The first video I’m featuring comes from Cook Ding’s post. You have to admire the dynamic beauty and martial effectiveness that this video demonstrates.

The second video was inspired by the Dojo Rat find. Little known fact: Sammo Hung studied hapkido in the 1970s. I’m fairly certain that this clip is from the movie, Fist of Anger. Those of you familiar with the Korean martial arts (esp. taekwondo or hapkido) should be able to spot the hapkido in this clip — you really have to look for it but it’s there.

-BCP