Dunoon Martial Arts

Bruce Lee in all his Glory

Enter the Dragon - still gives me goosebumps. Greatest martial arts movie ever!

End of styles?

I read an interesting article recently. John Graden suggests we go withthe flow and accept that people are looking for martial arts, rather than particular styles. The article is well worth a read.

To be clear, if your goal is to keep a system pure for your own satisfaction, I offer you a deep bow of respect and gratitude. I do not want the traditional arts to fall by the wayside anymore than you do. However, what you and I want mean nothing to the market.

Let’s consider a timeline and history of major trend movements in the martial arts over the past 35-years.

1974 – First World Professional Full Contact Karate Championships air on ABC TV. This is the launch of the Professional Karate Association (PKA)
1986 – The Karate Kid significantly drops the average age of the student as millions of kids join schools to be like “Daniel – San.” Karate was in the lexicon of anyone searching for a school. The film is now being shopped by Will Smith for a remake.
1988 – Olympic tae kwon do creates a spike of exposure for the fast kicking style.
1993 – The UFC debuts with a clear goal of pitting style vs. style. This is the beginning of the end for the style-based school.
1996 – I launch Cardio Karate at the first NAPMA Convention in Orlando. Two years later, Billy Blanks debuts the “Tae Bo” infomercial. Cardio Karate school practically print money since they were on the front edge and ready for the fitness kickboxing craze.
2005 –The Ultimate Fighter debuts on Spike TV featuring teams of fighters. Rarely is a system even mentioned. A fighter is referred to as having good or not so good, “stand up” or “ground game.”

Why is this timeline important? Consider this. If you were one of millions of 20-ish fans of the UFC in 1993, you are now a 35-ish father of kids ready to join a martial arts school. What kind of school would you seek out for your kids? Tae kwon do? Karate? Six wing butterfly kung fu? Personally, the only school I will consider for my kids would be an MMA school.

If that’s not convincing enough, consider this as quantifiable evidence:

In the past 30-days since December 10, 2007, here are the number of web searches for various martial arts. This actually represents about a quarter of the actual searches, but the ratios would remain the same:

Kung Fu:        33,289
Tae Kwon Do: 45,557
Karate:          71,669
Martial Arts: 257,460

How many of these searches are for instruction? I don’t imagine that it matters. The numbers are hard to dispute. If just 30% of the searches are for martial arts “instruction” the result is still more than all of the results for the other styles.

Shoes and freestyle

Solution found - back to Freestyle - I can teach and practice whilst wearing shoes seems ideal.
With that in mind check out Robbie Hughes if you want to see what 'real' freestyle is all about.