The Home of Steven Barnes
Author, Teacher, Screenwriter


Sunday, March 07, 2010

690gym.com

I spent Saturday with Scott Sonnon and the U.S. Martial Arts Team. I am honored to participate as their Sports Psych coach. More on this later, but first I wanted to say that the gym (690gym.com) in Moorpark, California not only teaches martial arts and boxing, but Coaches Dennis Haggard and Brandon Jones are top-level CST coaches, and the 690 is one of the very finest brick-and-mortar gyms following the CST protocol. If you are ANYWHERE near the Moorpark area, you owe it to yourself to check it out. They have a full boxing/kickboxing training facility, clubbells, kettlebells...Wow. Highest recommendation.
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One of my students, LaVeda, has a knack for finding fantastic stories and quotes for the 101 board, and I thought I'd share this one:
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A boy decided to study judo, despite the fact that he had lost his left arm in a horrific car accident. He began taking judo lessons with an old Japanese master. However, after three months of training the master had only taught the boy one judo move. “Shouldn’t I be learning more moves?” the boy inquired of his master. “This is the only move you’ll know—but it’s the only move you need to know,” the teacher replied.

Several months later, the teacher took the boy to his judo tournament. Amazingly, the boy won his first three matches quite easily on his way to the tournament final. However, in the championship match, he would face an opponent who was bigger, stronger, and faster. In fact, the boy appeared to be outmatched. Concerned the boy might get hurt, the referee was about to stop the match. “No,” the teacher insisted, “let him continue.”

As the match resumed, the boy’s opponent made a critical mistake—he dropped his guard. Instantly, the boy used the one move that he was taught and pinned his opponent. The one-armed boy was now the champion of the judo tournament.

On the way home from the match, the boy asked his teacher how he was able to win the tournament with only one move. “You won for two reasons,” the teacher responded. “First, you’ve almost mastered one of the most difficult throws in all of judo...

And second, the only known defense for that move is for your opponent to grab your left arm.”
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Now THAT'S a story!!!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome anecdote! :)

You may also like Master Robert Benham's work in Tae Kwan Do:

http://www.disma.co.uk/

http://www.disma.co.uk/videos.htm

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I think that it is so interesting , I love it , On the way home from the match, the boy asked his teacher how he was able to win the tournament with only one move.!!!22dd

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I'd like to going there because I want to learn martial arts techniques because I'm a person who has been abused for different people, that's why I want to learn it.

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