Practical Martial Arts Association

On September 20, 1945, President Truman issued an executive order terminating the OSS, effective 1 October.    In the few days remaining to the agency, General Donovan ordered Lt. Edwin J. Putzell to assist him in microfilming select documents from Donovan's safe files for his own action and personal use. Donovan and Putzell worked, under pressure of time, with a Kodak Recordak Camera to produce 131 rolls of 35mm microfilm from the records of the Donovan files. You can find the summary of the contents of those microfilms here - not only is it a good place to look for other reference material, the summary itself makes for fascinating reading and shows just how many pies the OSS was trying to stick its fingers in by 1945.

I recently picked up a book by Mark Hatmaker at a second-hand book sale - No Second Chance - A Reality-Based Guide to Self Defense .   You may be familiar with the author from his No Holds Barred series.  Whenever I come across work like this I am immediately reminded of the television series Doomsday Preppers. I think we can draw some parallels between martial arts and survivalism that may be beneficial to people in either camp.  Indeed many people I know, with a few exceptions, started training martial arts with a view to 'self-defence'.  This in itself could be likened to a form of prepping, and I'm sure a lot of survivalists love to pull on the cargo pants and knee the hell out of the odd striking shield. In No Second Chance, the author focuses on the worst case scenario - you are accosted by someone who is pure evil and are in the fight for your life.  Every other scenario is considered a folly, not 'real' enough.  Many true examples of the grote...

In an interesting aside, W E Fairbairn witnessed a competition between Japanese and English soldiers whilst stationed in Korea around 1903.  The roughness and effectiveness of the Japanese left an impression on him.  “…For the first time, we had been hit with the butt of the rifle, tripped and thrown and what was worse, shouted at by our opponents.” I should begin by saying, as an outsider, I am a big fan of many technical aspects of Jukendo & Tankendo.  Previously, I had included Jukendo on articles on the spear however this did not do Jukendo justice and as Jukendo and Tankendo are separate forms of Budo in their own right I have elected to expand on some things (and ignore some others) in an attempt to give an overview of these two martial arts. Interestingly, the vast majority of current Jukendo & Tankendo ‘players’ are within the Japanese military and it is not as mainstream as many other Budo.  The profile of these arts has been raised recently with the...

There is a lot to be said for assessing the items which you have to have with you all the time in terms of their use as a weapon.  In the final section of the Lähitaistelu film, we see fighting with and against the small shovel.  It is important because it is something everyone in these circumstances had on them, so you can use it if you have to and someone may use it against you. If you gave me a choice I wouldn't select a fake metal fan to fight with, however, if it was all I was allowed to carry when I went to many cultural events then I would try to make the best of it as a weapon. Against the rifle, we see a common thread of short weapons - when the opponent armed with a longer weapon inevitably gets the first shot at you, deflect it and move in. You wouldn't equip a soldier with a baton (or a jutte) however there is a congruence with weapons of a certain size be it a small shovel, baton or the kama on a kusarigama. This is why weapons don't really become outdat...

In the final section of the film, we see fighting with and against the small shovel (or entrenching tool, which I presume everyone had to carry around with them). Lapio (Shovel)  Stance with shovel same as usual: Stance variation for the better-armed opponent: Striking targets: Unarmed against shovel: Shovel against fixed bayonet: