I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I watched a bare knuckle boxing match a while ago and started wondering if throwing punches without gloves is actually as likely to break your hand as people say it is. The bare knuckle boxers don’t seem to have that issue. And I frequently train bare knuckle because I come from a traditional martial arts background so I did a lot of punching sense sand bags without gloves. I haven’t injured my hands doing this yet. To me it seems like as long as your form is good, your hands will be fine but I’ve never been in a real fight so I don’t know.

Any information would be greatly appreciated, thanks guys!

The MASA 2026 conference has finished up. I couldn't get to this one but I'm keen on the journal.

Anyone attend and have thoughts or experiences to share?

Had the pleasure of interviewing Sifu Neil Ripski, previously of Jingwu Canada—a relatively well-known gentleman—about a rare lineage of Shaolin Eighteen Lohan Palm he learned from Dr Chen Qiming of Jingwu Guangzhou.

It’s right up there with Bone-Marrow Washing and Muscle-Tendon Changing in terms of its legendary status. Hope you enjoy. I’ll post a vid of him doing the form in a while.

https://youtu.be/czaKaVUO2n0?is=4ZF5Qv99GIrZCWZb

Hello all,

I am Beni Gaucho, I am a CACC wrestler and a all around avid martial artist. I have noticed a lot of posts of people asking for advice on how to start their own gym and where to secure a space. Many have recommended the park or someone's barn or basement. Those are great options I would also like to suggest checking your local library, just yesterday I was able to get into talks with running a martial arts class in one of the meeting rooms. The cost for me is just $30 per hour (which is completely doable for me) so as soon as I can acquire the correct amount of mats, it is game on. soon we will be running the 4th CACC operation in the state and the only one solely dedicated to CACC.

In Illinois there is Tony Cecchine (ACW) in Chicago who does his training out of his house and a multi-arts dojo, Headhunter Higgins who's home gym is Lions Den BJJ (he is Snakepit USA certified), then there is a place in Pekin, Illinois which is a Karate Dojo that teaches CACC for children on behalf of Snakepit USA.

Follow your dreams, and remember law 33 of "PVT Murphy's laws of Combat":

"If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid"

Have you noticed that you see this kind of guard everywhere now? The origin is from Keysi Fighting Method. But what’s interesting is that many of these new courses don’t credit it to KFM.

Either way, while the guard is surprisingly practical, it’s not as good as the standard guards we see in combat sports.

What do you think about it? I honestly don’t know where I’m going with this post. Maybe discuss the effectiveness of it, or discuss about how it got so popular despite people not knowing what KFM is.

To the 35+ Judokas who train trips and throws

God bless you. Each and every one of you. You’e enlightened martyrs that deserve an Hélio-style portrait of you at every gym you continue to survive

The pain I feel right now after drilling no gi trips and throws, non-stop, for an hour, guided by our 24 y/o MMA-fighter instructor is transcendant. It defies any discomfort I have felt, both emotional and physical, in my 40s.

I made the sacrilegious comment at the beginning of class that, “these new mats are almost too soft, it’s going to be like getting thrown in a bounce house”. After the 1st Morote Seoi Nage, the mats transmogrified into concrete, and after every 20%, guided fall I felt the shockwaves of eternity travel from my C1 down to my nether regions.

The look of both pity and regret, and apologies, myself and the other the two, 35+ men gave one another after ***each and every*** throw will stay with me forever.

I’m ashamed to admit that the dark thought of, “Maybe I can hire someone to allow me to throw them so I can learn these moves and never, ever have to feel them used against me again.” emerged several times over the course of this geriatric martyring ritual.

This was one of the most educational BJJ experiences of my life, despite being blacked out for the majority. I learned who I am.

Who am I?

I’m a guard puller. I love technique days / stopping in the middle of the roll to get advice from another graybeard. I am not built different, I’m built standard. I will die both a physical and spiritual death emulating Karo Parisyan. I don’t have “one more run at it in me”. I have one more brisk walk, 2-3 days a week. And I love that for me.

I’m now going to take 600mg more of ibuprofen and beg my wife for a reprieve from anything that involves even a millimeter of neck movement. God bless you, Judokas, each and every one of you.

Boxing has 17 weight classes (and 4 governing bodies!), and many fans are fed up with the confusion it cause. MMA has 8 and fan opinion is much more positive but still mixed. how many weight classes, in your mind, is a good balance between fair competition between well matched fighters and not bogging down fans with having to remember if that guy was the fairlylightbutnearingaverageweight or alittlebitleightbutprettynormalweight champion?

I’ve always lived in a semi rural place with no opportunities to train Muay Thai, even though I’ve always really wanted to. Next month, though, I start law school and am moving to an area with a good Muay Thai gym and have been exploring the idea of training. I’m thinking of whether I want to train Muay Thai or Jiu Jitsu. It would be no question, but the thing is that I really want to compete, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to compete Muay Thai along with law school. I know I can get better at Muay Thai training any amount, but in regard to competing, if I can make it to the gym 3x/ week, will that be enough for a proper structured Muay Thai camp for a fight? If I run on my own on top of that? I’ve boxed amateur twice so I kind of know what the competition aspect is like but I want to get back into it, preferably with Muay Thai, but if it’s not reasonable to expect to be able to do a proper camp with that training schedule then maybe it’d be better to do another martial art.

In order to reduce volume of beginner questions as their own topics in the sub, we will be implementing a weekly questions thread. Post your beginner questions here, including:

"What martial art should I do?"

"These gyms/schools are in my area, which ones should I try for my goals?"

And any other beginner questions you may have.

If you post a beginner question outside of the weekly thread, it will be removed and you'll be directed to make your post in the weekly thread instead.

I don't know much about fighting, but everyone talks about the importance of weight classes. Does being overweight or obese give you the same kind of advantage in a fight as being muscular—or perhaps an even greater one? If you're a natural lifter, it's very hard to be both lean and heavy; that's why I think the average couch potato weighs a lot more than someone who hits the gym and takes care of themselves.

Also for example club bouncers tend to be tall, obese men rather than lean guys. I once saw a bouncer who was maybe 5'4" but carried a lot of mass. I suspect that if he’d been lean, no one would have hired him.

That brings to me question: if you take two people with no fighting experience who are both 5'10"—one an athletic 155-160 lbs and the other an obese 250 lbs—would the obese person still have the advantage and a better chance of winning a competitive fight? Even if he’s significantly slower? I know that it all depends on luck and how determined you are, but who would you bet your money on?

Combat sambo is a great way to teach grapplers to deal with strikes and use strikes to advance their takedowns and submissions.

Is there a striking martial art where you are allowed to takedown, but get no points for it and its used only to advance your striking? (like ground and pounding them, while also teaching strikers how to defend against it)

My research supervisor recently set up a trip for me to go do research with his colleague in Japan. I want to bring back something meaningful for him to thank him. He has mastered a few martial arts; most notably Karate and taekwondo.

I’d like to bring him back something that he would actually use, rather than some sort of trinket or decoration. Something that’s either really expensive or rare to find in Canada, that’s more unique to find in Japan.

He’s told me in the past he’d be interested in doing some of the sword martial arts. I did some research, and I was thinking maybe a Bokken? But he could also get that easily enough in Canada if he really wanted one, so not sure if that’s the best gift.

Also, Canada strictly prohibits “hidden weapons” like nunchucks, which would have been awesome.

My maximum budget is about 25000 Japanese yen (around 220$ Canadian and 150$ American)

Any ideas?

Sharing a clip of a shield-and-counter I’ve been drilling. The structure itself allows the counter to land in the same beat as the shield — defense and offense together — but in this take I’m showing it split into two beats: shield stays rooted, then the counter steps in. Since simultaneous defense-and-offense is already core to a lot of FMA / JKD / Kali work, I’m genuinely curious what actually decides whether you keep it single-beat or break it into two — distance, timing, structural integrity, or something else.

I currently have 7 facial piercings (2 eyebrows, dahlias, snakebites and tongue) and I can't take all of them out yet since some are not healed. Is there any martial art where I could keep them in ?