The Bargain Basement is bursting!

We've received a fairly large shipment of bargain basement titles, which means this is one of the best opportunities you'll have to pick up a slightly damaged discounted copy of just about any title we carry. Check out the full list of titles but don't wait. These bargain books never hang around long.

Visualization exercises not working?

Dr. Jacob Jordan, author of Total MindBody Training, offers this advice if you're struggling with visualization exercises:

I would recommend first taking more time on the first step to effective visualization: relaxation. Go through the exercises listed in the book for step by step relaxation before attempting any visualization. Adequate relaxation is a must to engage the right brain dynamics necessary for this technique.

Second, I would suggest trying to concentrate more on how the mental image feels rather than stressing the actual mental picture. If imaging a kick, try to sense how your supporting leg would feel, how your hips would turn with the action and the position of your back and shoulders. Some practitioners are simply more kinesthetically (physically) oriented and will ingrain techniques more effectively through sensation than by visual cues.

VHS Video clearance sale

We're clearing out our VHS video stock. All VHS titles are $9.95 until March 1st, while supplies last. Complete video list

5 Tips for High Kicks

Excerpted from Ultimate Flexibility: A Complete Guide to Stretching for Martial Artists:

• Build strength with flexibility, both through kicking drills and resistance and flexibility training. One of the primary reasons high kicks are so challenging is the sheer weight of your leg. To propel the full weight of your leg into a vertical side kick relies as much on the strength of the muscles as on their range of motion.
• Bungee cord training (a bungee cord wrapped around your ankle and secured to the floor) builds flexibility in motion. Like running in sand or up hills, this type of training will build the large muscles of the leg in a very specific way. During bungee cord training, 75% of your regular kicking height is a good goal.
• Quick focused kicking movements are better suited to high kicks than large or slow movements. Chamber your leg quickly and compactly.
• The knee of your standing leg should be slightly flexed, both to allow you to kick higher and to prevent knee injuries.
• The maximum force of a high kick is exerted just prior to impact. Whip the target rather than smashing through it. Kicking too hard will disrupt your balance and cause you to lose control of your kick after impact. Withdraw the kick immediately after impact, focusing on a light follow-through after the full dissipation of energy into the target.

New Lower Prices on Many DVDs

Our 4 day sale was so successful last month that we have permanently reduced prices on over a dozen titles including Complete Taekwondo Kicking, Muay Thai Knockout, Complete Sparring and Ultimate Fitness. Visit Turtle Press DVDs for the complete selection.

Sparring Drills: Improve your Reaction Time

There are two ways to respond in a fight, according to Sang H. Kim. "

The first is to respond passively; the second is to do it actively. Passively means just block and hit back. Actively means to counterattack followed by quick bodily movement such as footwork or weaving the body to avoid the opponent's attack then hit back. Moving and hitting happens almost simultaneously. I recommend an active response since it reduces your mental reaction time as well as any physical delay in motion."

Here are three drills to practice active counterattacking and improve your reaction time:

1. From fighting stance, slide back 6 to 12 inches very quickly, then move to the side (to the right if you are right handed fighter) at a 45 degree angle. Do 20 to 30 reps.
2. From fighting stance, slide back as in Drill 1, then make a quick rear leg roundhouse kick to the front. Do 20-30 reps.
3. From fighting stance, side step 45 degree to the right rear, and do the same round house kick as quickly as possible. Do 20-30 reps.
   

If you do these drills 5 days a week for 4 weeks, you'll see a significant change in your reaction time.

Jab Strategy

R. Michael Onello, author of Boxing: A 12 Week Course gives this advice about using the jab stragetically:

1. The jab keeps an opponent in a defensive mode, breaking his rhythm and timing. Throwing it does not alter your defensive position or stance so throw it often.

2. Measure distance or drive opponent back with the jab, keeping him off balance, blocking his vision and setting him up so you can create openings and move in to control the bout.

3. Vary the speed of your jab and the placement (moving it up and down) so your opponent cannot time it; this will confuse him.

4. Thrown in multiples the jab can be effectively used to block your opponent’s vision with the first punch and land the second or third (double / triple jab).

New Review: Tang Soo Do Black Belt Forms DVD

Ko-Reivews.com has this to say about Master Young Kil Song's Tang Soo Do Black Belt Forms DVD:

Master Song, Young Kil is a very technical and strong martial artist. The demonstrations of the forms and the instruction are top rate. His movements are crisp and there is a lot here that is very familiar from Taekwondo. The forms are different but the similarities in the Korean arts are noticable. There are strong hard movements combined with sharp footwork and a great sense of speed. I am not familiar with Tang Soo Do forms, so evaluating a black belt forms DVD is difficult. But I have a strong background in traditional martial arts and I have to say that Song, Young Kil is the real deal. These are not "showy" forms, set to hip hop music. This is real traditional martial arts.

If you are looking for strong and straightforward forms training in Tang Soo Do, this DVD is for you. No frills, but filled with content. This DVD is a great purchase for a new blackbelt or an advanced martial arts who would like a solid reference for home study.

Martial Arts Speed Training: How many reps?

For speed training, quality is more important than quantity, says author and veteran martial artist Sang H. Kim. In Martial Arts After 40, he advises, "For speed training, keep the number of repetitions low - less than 10 per set - but the quality of each repetition high. Perform each rep with complete concentration and commitment, resting between reps. If you start to feel your focus or accuracy slipping, move on to the next set using a different technique."

From 1001 Ways to Motivate Yourself:

Changing your plans mid-way is not a sign of defeat, it's a sign that you have found a better way to go about something based on knowledge you didn't have when you started out.

Where should you look during sparring?

"If you ask 10 karate instructors how and where you should look at your opponent to best see his attacks, you will get at least three different answers," says Loren Christensen, author of Fighter's Fact Book.

"For the past several years, I have suggested to my karate and police students that they focus their gaze at their opponent’s chin and shoulder area. If you draw a line from your opponent’s right shoulder to his left and then a line from both shoulders up to his chin, the lines form a triangle. When you look in the area of the triangle, you can see and perceive everything he is doing. You don’t have to look down at his feet because you know they are directly underneath his shoulders (unless he has a really weird body). When he begins to throw a lead roundhouse kick, his lead shoulder lifts slightly and his rear shoulder dips. When he begins to throw a reverse punch, his rear shoulder rotates forward. You can even perceive his toes wiggling when looking at his triangle."

Does a vegetarian diet affect martial arts training?

Trish Bare Grounds, author of the Bare Essentials Guide to Martial Arts Injury Care and Prevention says that a vegetarian diet alone shouldn't affect your training but there are special steps you need to take to ensure that your muscles are getting the right nutrition:

Simply being vegetarian does not effect your stamina and muscle tissue repair, but too low of a protein intake will. Protein is the building block for your muscle which is damaged and broken down every time you work out, so therefore is a vital part of your daily food intake.

There are many very healthy alternatives if you do not wish to eat meat, fish, fowl, dairy products or eggs. Beans, nuts, tofu, and lentils to begin with have necessary protein from a non-animal source, but the addition of dairy products or even eggs would greatly increase your protein intake. Cheese, yogurt, ice cream, cottage cheese, milk, etc. are good sources of animal product, but not animal, alternatives to eating meat. If you are a vegetarian and a martial artists, I suggest you look at your diet and re-evaluate your protein intakes and adjust them as necessary.

New Book Release: Martial Arts Injury Care and Prevention

The revised second edition of Trish Bare Grounds' Bare Essentials Guide to Martial Arts Injury Care and Prevention has been released. New in this revised and expanded second edition:

Expanded strength and conditioning section:

• 12 additional upper body stretches
• 7 simple tests to gauge your fitness level
• 24 essential core strengthening exercises
• Weightlifting for conditioning
• Core strengthening TotalGym workout
• 25 strength-training exercises for the Swiss ball
• Weight training with dumbbells and free weights
• Resistive band exercises for strengthening and rehab
• Plyometrics overview

Expanded taping and wrapping section:

• Using protective padding on the feet
• Taping the Achilles tendon, knee joint, elbow and heel
• Wrapping the ankle, thigh, hip and shoulder

Added information on first aid:

• wound care
• treatment of lacerations
• skin infections
• hip and groin injuries
• shoulder, elbow, wrist, finger and thumb injuries
• torso injuries
• dehydration

New chapter about pregnancy and the martial arts

Updated scientific research and medical information

Over 150 pages and 300 photos added

Kickboxing Strategy: Close Range Fighting

Keith Livingston, co-author of Complete Kickboxing, tells us why distance doesn't always equal safety in the ring:

The difference between the inside and outside is that the inside is a total power game, a seek and destroy kind of a game. A good inside fighter generally equates to a power fighter. On the outside, the jab is the dominant technique. It may therefore appear as though outside fighting is more strategic. But all the principles that apply to outside fighting also apply to inside fighting. When you get to the inside with a good defensive fighter, you can’t just punch away and hope to win. There has to be some method to your madness. You must vary your rhythm, timing, and strike patterns. For example, on the outside, you may jab high and throw a rear cross low. But on the inside, you may throw an uppercut to the head to open up the body. There are specific techniques which are more appropriate at close quarter range, such as hooks to the body, uppercuts, tight hooks to the head, short jabs and crosses, and overhand strikes. These inside techniques tend to favor power and allow for a better body attack. On the outside, you can land a lot of strikes to your opponent’s centerline. But on the inside, you can be successful with both the center and sides of your opponent’s body.

What is Dynamic Tension?

Loren Christensen and Wim Demeere answer this common question in The Fighter's Body:

Dynamic tension is a simple, but highly effective way for your muscles to gain power and increase size by working against other muscles in your body. You control the tension by increasing or decreasing the amount of resistance you apply. The exercises are considered progressive because you continuously increase the tension as you progress in strength.
Dynamic tension has been an important supplemental exercise in the martial arts for many years. It defines the word applicability because it develops power from the starting point of a technique and all along its track. This is called “specificity of movement,” meaning that you exercise the exact muscles you want to increase in power and size.

You can do dynamic tension as a supplement along with your weight training, by itself at the end of your martial arts workout, or on those days you don’t train in your fighting art. If you normally lift weights but for whatever reason you can’t for a while, dynamic tension helps maintain your weight-trained gains.

Is Stretching the same as Warming Up?

Sang H. Kim, author of Ultimate Flexibility answers this question, "While you may include stretching in your warm-up, stretching to increase flexibility should never be a part of warming up. A warm-up is best made up of 5-10 minutes of light aerobic activity that engages the whole body. It should increase body temperature and circulation but not be fatiguing. Stretching to increase flexibility should ideally be done after the strength and cardio portions of training, when the muscles are at their warmest."

DVD Sale: Save $10 on Select Titles

Now through Monday January 23rd, save $10 on select DVD titles including Complete Kicking, Advanced Knife Defense, Self-defense Encyclopedia and Joongbong Fundamentals and Patterns.

View the full list of DVD sale titles

New Wing Chun DVDs available

Four new Wing Chun DVD titles have just arrived from China to add to our popular Wing Chun forms series:

Wing Chun Footwork DVD

Wing Chun Punching DVD

Wing Chun Palm Techniques DVD

Wing Chun Elbow Knee and Foot Techniques DVD

Coping with Blisters on the Feet

Many martial artists, especially beginners or those training on a new surface, experience painful blisters on the feet. Trish Bare Grounds, author of Bare Essentials Guide to Martial Arts Injury Care & Prevention offers two methods to help heal blisters more quickly:

For blisters of the foot you can aid in the healing process and help toughen your feet up by one of two methods. The first is to use an ice bath (ice and water in a bucket) and add a substance known as povidine or Betadine®. This is done by adding one part povidine solution to ten parts water creating a ten percent solution. Soak your entire foot in this ice bath and solution for ten to twelve minutes, one to two times per day until the blisters heal and begin to toughen.

A second method is to simply replace the povidine solution with household bleach, in the same one to ten ratio, creating a ten percent bleach solution and soaking in the ice bath with bleach solution for ten to twelve minutes, one to two times per day. Both solutions will temporarily change the color of your skin, with the povidine giving a slight orange tint, whereas the bleach may lighten the skin a little. Once again, be cautious with children under the age 8, and those athletes with known skin allergies or sensitivity as they may have a reaction to these solutions.

Rare Kung Fu Wushu Competition Footage

Turtle Press has just discovered a DVD of rare Kung Fu and Wushu competition footage filmed in China over the last two decades. Many of the performances on the DVD are by masters who have since passed away, making this a special treat for the hardcore Chinese martial arts enthusiast.