SW Portland Martial Arts Blog

Sometimes people want to study martial arts.  Sometimes people want to take a self defense class.  We’re fine with that.  We offer self defense seminars.  We offer martial arts classes.  We think that, long term, martial arts provides students with a thorough understanding of practical self defense.  We think that regular training helps students understand their capacity in terms of what threats they can realistically handle because they’ve gotten enough feedback from drills and against the active resistance of their partners.  We think that self defense seminars are fabulous at introducing students to actual threats that exist in the real world and giving them some basic physical and mental skills to cope with those threats.

So if you are interested a self defense seminar, check out our new Self Defense tab.  If you want martial arts, check out our Martial Arts tab.  We’re here to help, either way.

How much grappling is a Mo Duk Pai student expected to know?  As a starting point, for an orange sash, the student should be able to fall safely, get an untrained opponent (of their same size) off of them, and be able to stand up quickly and safely from the ground.

Tonight in class we drilled two of those ideas – falling safely and getting up quickly off the ground.  Falling safely means knowing how to sit down and reach towards the ground with your hips (and not try and break your fall by reaching with your hands. Getting up quickly and safely means being able to stand while a partner is taking swipes at you and not get knocked out – the technical standup is a great tool for this.

The video shows two students taking turns falling over safely and then standing up quickly and safely.  Hopefully that helps clarify (some) of the expected ground game competency we expect from an orange sash in Mo Duk Pai.

To ring in the new year we are offering a month of adult Martial Arts for only $25 for new students.  This means anyone ages 13 and up can sign up for a month of classes and save $55.

Here’s how it works: fill out your name below and then click on the PayPal button below to pay $25.  Once you’ve done that, you can come in anytime and start your month of training.  You don’t have to print anything out, as we will be sent an email with your name on it when you pay.  If you love the training, we will tell you about how to sign up.  If you don’t, there is no obligation to continue.

If you want to purchase this deal for a friend, you’re welcome to – simply enter their name in the field below and then use your information to pay.  This offer will only be available in January for purchase but you may redeem the offer anytime in 2017.