I’m a nerd who fights. Started my professional life as a programmer, then switched to telling stories in advertising and entertainment. But my passion for technology and martial arts have always played a role in my life. Influenced by my father’s stories about judo, I studied a lot of styles of fighting, including kung fu, karate, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and also dabbled with boxing, Muay Thai, capoeira, taichi, bagua, Silat, and judo. Along that journey, one of my favorite ways to learn was by watching my female training partners, and how they had to develop a much more nuanced and sophisticated technique. An experience that would later inspire the birth of The Girl from Wudang.
This is my favorite book, ever. In part because it’s the story of the greatest of all Samurai. But there’s more to that.
In the long run, martial arts are an exercise of self-development. Of tapping into your inner beast, setting it free, then controlling it back. No book ever written tells that journey as beautifully as Musashi, by Eiji Yoshikawa.
Often called “Japan’s Gone with the Wind,” the book marches from cliffhanger to cliffhanger through the glorious life of the protagonist, although for me its mark was deeper than any of these electrical moments of adventure. For my eyes, once I crossed the last words of the book, what was left was the realization of how long and chained true change really is.
The classic samurai novel about the real exploits of the most famous swordsman. The classic samurai novel about the real exploits of the most famous swordsman. Miyamoto Musashi was the child of an era when Japan was emerging from decades of civil strife. Lured to the great Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 by the hope of becoming a samurai-without really knowing what it meant-he regains consciousness after the battle to find himself lying defeated, dazed and wounded among thousands of the dead and dying. On his way home, he commits a rash act, becomes a fugitive and brings life in
A little confession: fighting awakens a beast inside of me.
Sometimes when I’m in a crowded place, I walk by someone, usually a bigger person, and wonder: “Can I take him down?” Other times, especially in situations of conflict and mostly in the business world, I catch myself looking at my opposition and think “I can totally crush you if I want.”
I’m not sure Palahniuk has ever traded punches with another human being. But one thing he got right: learning to fight, especially at a place that makes you spar at every session, often creates this maddening sense of power, that can be dangerous, but is a little fun too.
Chuck Palahniuk showed himself to be his generation's most visionary satirist in this, his first book. Fight Club's estranged narrator leaves his lackluster job when he comes under the thrall of Tyler Durden, an enigmatic young man who holds secret after-hours boxing matches in the basements of bars. There, two men fight "as long as they have to." This is a gloriously original work that exposes the darkness at the core of our modern world.
East and West have massively different approaches to fighting. To how it’s trained, to what’s the goal of training… this book is about that contrast.
About the cultural shock experienced by the first American to study at the legendary Shaolin Temple, in China. That’s what my brain said, at least. But if I have to be honest, while I let Polly carry me through his report, I was mostly living the ultimate fantasy of any martial artist of my generation, which is becoming a Shaolin monk, just like those I grew up watching on TV. Thank you, Matt.
The raucously funny story of one young American's quest to become the baddest dude on the planet (and possibly find inner peace along the way)
Growing up a ninety-eight-pound weakling tormented by bullies in the schoolyards of Kansas, Matthew Polly dreamed of one day journeying to the Shaolin Temple in China to become the toughest fighter in the world, like Caine in his favorite 1970s TV series Kung Fu.
American Shaolin is the story of the two years Matthew spent in China living, studying, and performing with the Shaolin monks. The Chinese term for tough training is chi ku ("eating…
“Many mixed martial artists claim they experience something like bliss at the moment they lose consciousness from a choke.” That’s a real quote from the book, which tells a personal journey of a 33-year-old man trying to to understand what it’s like to hit and get hit, and why some weirdos like me love it so much.
Count that as self-discovery if you’re fighter or an observational expedition if you can’t understand how someone can be one. Either way, keep that quote away from my wife, before she starts to rethink the decision to get our son into martial arts too.
Shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing
A physical and philosophical mediation on why we are drawn to fight each other for sport, what happens to our bodies and brains when we do, and what it all means
Anyone with guts or madness in him can get hit by someone who knows how; it takes a different kind of madness, a more persistent kind, to stick around long enough to be one of the people who does the knowing.
Josh Rosenblatt was thirty-three years old when he first realized he wanted to fight. A lifelong pacifist with a…
I guess Rowling’s world of wizardry doesn’t show very often in lists about violence. But for me, it read like it.
The saga (in particular its fifth volume, The Order of The Phoenix) is not too different from the gnarliest Kung Fu legends and bloodiest stories of Samurai. The only difference is that the martial arts practiced in Hogwarts uses Wands instead of fists or swords. So, if you liked Harry Potter, here you go: like me, you enjoy stories not only with violence, but *about* violence.
About its lure, its bliss, its improvisational intelligence, and its incredible ability to shape individuals of any kind. Just like it did with my father, myself, and now my son.
The fifth adventure in the spellbinding Harry Potter saga - the series that changed the world of books forever
Dark times have come to Hogwarts. After the Dementors' attack on his cousin Dudley, Harry Potter knows that Voldemort will stop at nothing to find him. There are many who deny the Dark Lord's return, but Harry is not alone: a secret order gathers at Grimmauld Place to fight against the Dark forces.
Harry must allow Professor Snape to teach him how to protect himself from Voldemort's savage assaults on his mind. But they are growing stronger by the day and…
They call her Tigress. Headstrong, untameable—a beast—Yinyin defies the warnings of her late shifu, her martial arts master, and carries her ferocity from the kung fu school in the mountains of Wudang to the mixed martial arts fighting cages of California. There, surrounded for the first time by Western technology, she ignores voices of reason when offered an implant that could end her crippling headaches. It could end her pain. All she has to do is allow the doctors to implant tiny, super-intelligent nanobots directly into her brain.
Making her mark as an MMA fighter in California, Yinyin is poised to become part of something big. But what that “big” turns out to be is beyond her imagination when the scientific experiment she participated in makes her—unbeatable.
After Dr. Shawn Jennings, a busy family physician, suffered a brainstem stroke on May 13, 1999, he woke from a coma locked inside his body, aware and alert but unable to communicate or move. Once he regained limited movement in his left arm, he began typing his story, using one hand and a lot of patience.
With unexpected humour and tender honesty, Shawn shares his experiences in his struggle for recovery and acceptance of his life after the stroke. He affirms that even without achieving a full recovery life is still worth…
Locked In Locked Out: Surviving a Brainstem Stroke
After Dr. Shawn Jennings, a busy family physician, suffered a brainstem stroke on May 13, 1999, he woke from a coma locked inside his body, aware and alert but unable to communicate or move. Once he regained limited movement in his left arm, he began typing his story, using one hand and a lot of patience.
With unexpected humour and tender honesty, Shawn shares his experiences in his struggle for recovery and acceptance of his life after the stroke. He affirms that even without achieving a full recovery life is still worth…
