For those that don’t know of Iain Abernethy, he is one of the leading proponents of the study of pragmatic applications for classical karate and its kata. He maintains a blog, has a podcast, and was the guest on Episode 9 of The Applied Karate Show.

Iain has just released his monthly podcast’s latest episode

This month’s podcast is entitled “The most important part of practical karate training” and, as its name suggests, it covers the most important part of karate training! The podcast is just over 17 minutes long and should be of interest to all those who believe karate training should address the needs of self-protection.

I’ve yet to listen to this episode yet, but it sounds interesting.

Iain Abernethy - The blog » Blog Archive » The Most Important Part of Practical Karate (Podcast!).

I am a major believer in the importance of hydration in all that we do.  As a scuba diver, I have come to realise that dehydration is one of the biggest issues in decompression sickness, and over the past few years, the fact that dehydration is a factor in many other maladies (non-diving) has become clearer and clearer to me.

Over on the Men’s Health website there is a good short article on staying well hydrated, especially when exercising. 

In short, I aim to drink around 3–4 litres of water per day, upping that to 4–5 litres on days when I’m training.  I also work to the rule that any cup of coffee (or caffeinated soft drink) will “cost” me an additional 500ml of water.  Coffee now is a once a week thing for me in general, and I also limit soft drinks to a single can per week of a diet variery.  Apart from plain water, I drink mineral water (non–flavoured) and green tea, as well as protein shakes, and the odd fruit juice.

In the dojo, I allow, actually encourage, students to bring a bottle of water and keep it at the side of the room, and I give plenty of water breaks.  In hot weather, the number of short water breaks increases.

Consider good hydration to be an important part of your training and nutrition strategies.

Greetings and welcome to The Essential Karate Blog, and the associated newsletter.

My name is Des Paroz, and I am a long time practitioner of a style of karate called Shorinjiryu, founded by Shinan Kori Hisataka (1907–1988).  Over the years, I have had the fortune to live and train in Japan, and also to train in dojos in Japan, Okinawa, the USA, Spain, Switzerland and my native Australia.

Along the way, I’ve had a strong personal interest in karate’s histories, traditions, philosophies and personalities, as well as of course the techniques and applications.

I am also a strong believer in the concept of Shin Gi Tai – the development of mind, technique and body.  In this regard, I am an advocate of strength and conditioning for martial artists, particularly using the kettlebell.

In this blog, newsletter I hope to share some of my experiences and opinions in karate, kobudo and kettlebell practice, so that others may read, consider, debate and challenge those.  I believe that through this we can all learn.

I have a small karate dojo in Sydney, Australia (the Kengokai Dojo), and am a member of Shorinjiryu Kenyukai Watanabe Ha Karate Australia.

I should also mention that I am the host and producer of a podcast called The Applied Karate Show, another vehicle which explores similar themes.  In that podcast, I have the good fortune to talk with a variety of people far more knowledgeable than I about karate and related arts.

Please feel free to comment on any of the topics. I look forward to any discussion and feedback.

Our web feed can be found at http://feeds.feedburner.com/EssentialKarate.

Nice post over at Total Karate on Karate Fads.

Having seen all those things come and go I realised the same old art is still sitting there letting the fashions and fads wash over it like waves at the beach.

There is a nice discussion on fads like “pressure points”, “bunkai” and “underlying principles”.

Nice sum up as well

There is no need to “train for this” or “train for that”. Training for itself and for your own purpose is good enough.