Stuff We’re Learning

Wing Chun kung fu is a southern Chinese martial art built for fighting at close range. It aims straight down the middle, defends and attacks in the same motion, and wastes as little movement as possible. It is also the art Ip Man taught a teenage Bruce Lee in 1950s ...

I watched UFC 193 live, and I can still see the second round. Ronda Rousey came forward the way she always did. Holly Holm stepped back, took the angle, and a minute into the round put her left shin across Rousey’s jaw. Holly Holm had just ended the most dominant ...

Judo vs jiu jitsu is a family argument. Both arts come from the same Japanese jujutsu schools, and both were shaped by one man, Jigoro Kano, who founded judo in Tokyo in 1882. Then the rulebooks pulled them apart. Judo rewards the clean throw that ends a fight on its ...

Boxing came to me through my father, who was a huge fan. I grew up on every big fight he watched, and I still judge a fighter first by the hands. So when people ask me about Muay Thai vs boxing, I start where he would: what does each art ...

I learned to punch with my thumb on top of my fist. That is an Isshin-ryu habit, picked up as a teenager in a traditional Okinawan karate dojo fifty years ago, and it still feels more natural to me than the horizontal fist most people throw. I went on to ...

The UFC has 12 weight classes: eight for men, from flyweight (125 lb) to heavyweight (265 lb), and four for women, from strawweight (115 lb) to featherweight (145 lb). Each limit is the most a fighter can weigh at the official weigh-in, held the day before the fight. I have ...

To learn MMA, join a gym that teaches striking, wrestling, and jiu-jitsu under one roof, and go two or three times a week. Spend your first months on the fundamentals of each range, build your fitness alongside, and save hard sparring for later. I have spent four decades in martial ...

Every martial art claims it works. Very few prove it nightly, at full resistance, against someone genuinely trying to win. Brazilian jiu jitsu does, which is how a family art from Rio de Janeiro became the fastest-growing grappling sport in the world. I have spent four decades in the martial ...

Meditation and martial arts might seem like opposites—one still and contemplative, the other explosive and physical. Yet for centuries, the world's greatest warriors have known a secret: the path to true martial mastery leads inward. Through my four decades of experience in disciplines ranging from Isshin Ryu Karate to Aikido, ...

Bowing in martial arts is a sign of respect, not of worship or submission. It tells your teacher and your partner that you are present, that you are grateful for the practice, and that you will train with control. I have bowed onto a mat thousands of times. First as ...