While maturing throughout the 1980's, I was fascinated by just about all the extraordinary martial artists I experienced on television and in film. Considering I was born in 79, the years of Bruce Lee were gone and the most in demand martial artists on the big screen were Norris, Seagal, and Van Damme. These karate masters were so enjoyable to observe thanks to their tremendous explosiveness, skill, and their ability to demonstrate fighting maneuvers that we had never even thought possible. It could possibly have been the camera tricks, but clearly there was a mysticism about the way they moved and fought that helped you to believe that they were interminable. In my opinion, these were absolutely the best years of the martial arts.

I began taking martial arts classes in the mid 80’s. Soon after watching the 84 great movie "The Karate Kid", my Mom signed me up at the neighborhood karate school downtown and I immediately fell in love with the lessons. Despite the fact that I did acquire a great deal about defensive strategies, the most crucial items that the martial arts presented me were respect and discipline. As I got more mature and significantly better at Kung fu, my self-confidence grew, but I had learned to be very humble and not street fight except if in self-defense. Even as I watched almost all of my teenage childhood friends participate in drugs and alcohol, my devotion to karate kept me far removed from trouble. I’m a solid believer that karate is a good activity to get your young children involved in.

Skip ahead to 11/12/93, the day the U.F.C. aired on pay-per-view for the first time. The UFC was designed to be a battle of students from many various martial arts in a trial to help determine which style or instructor was the very best. From this competition, a very important factor became obvious....ground fighting is some thing that shouldn't be under-estimated. Before having this event, the martial arts were characterized by men and women kicking and karate chopping to gain victory in a battle. Upon observing Royce Gracie win match after match by choke or submission, it became clear that the martial arts would never be the very same.

Because of the very first UFC, things have evolved tremendously. Even though there are still martial arts schools that mainly teach punching and kicking tactics, most martial art schools that I stop by now train Jujitsu or ground fighting strategies in combination with their standard regimen. Martial arts are entirely about adapting to your adversary, and I think that it is incredible how many of the traditional dojos have implemented these techniques. We only need to be very careful that we do not loose the fundamental values explained when studying the martial arts in a classic class.

Nowadays at age 31, I’ve spent a number of years practicing in MMA dojos, and even while I enjoy the informal atmosphere so many mixed martial arts classes accept, I miss a bunch of the old practices like bowing and memorizing the philosophies of the martial arts style you are exploring. Although the mixed martial arts may seem to be the path everything is shifting to, I will still always hold a profound respect for the traditional arts I grew up with.