New TKD Videos Posted

Check out my new playlist on YouTube with several new Tae Kwon Do forms that I shot while I was back in Lloydminster AB for my birthday and a friend's wedding.

A Return to Shaolin

I've been watching a lot of Bruce Lee and kung fu movies lately and it's really making me want to train again. I found this clip of my Shi De Cheng, my Shifu ("master/teacher" in Cantonese) from when I used to train Shaolin Kung Fu in Dengfeng, China, doing the form Xiao Hong Quan (Little Red Fist) and thought that I'd share it for nostalgic purposes.

Below that I also have a clip of my doing the same form after 6 weeks of training under shifu Shi De Cheng.





And another of shifu Shi De Cheng just being an absolute don with the rope dart:

More Of My Stuff On YouTube

Yeah, it's been pretty much forever and then some since my last post, but here it is. I just finished uploading a couple vids to YouTube. The first is a short promo that i work on with a friend (Brett Webster) for a local DJ group -- still needs titles and stuff though -- and the second many of you have already seen, is that teaser trailer that I worked on for the movie Chemical Evil.

More to come sooner than later!

Olympic Taekwondo Freakout

I know it's been a long time since the last post, and this is just a short one, but I'm going to be getting back into the grove of things rather shortly. So enjoy this little Olympic snippit and I'll be posting up some other stuff again soon! ;)


Ktick - MyVideo

If the embedded video doesn't work, check it out HERE.

Wanderlie Silva is a Psycopath!

Watch the video below and you'll understand why...
Raw Vegas Video

And go HERE and watch the 3rd video from the top to further solidify that understanding

GSP Rocks UFC 83

Last night was one hell of a good fight night. Aside from Surrey, BC's Kalib Starnes running away from his opponent, Nate Quarry -- who did his best to press the action -- almost the entire fight, the night was packed with solid bouts. Of course, the highlight of the night was my boy from Montreal, George "Rush" St-Pierre absolutely dominating UFC Welterweight belt-holder Matt Serra, Regaining his much deserved spot as the UFC Welterweight champion! GSP solidified his victory by continually taking down the Brazilian Jui Jitsu blackbelt in Matt Serra, and a stop was call to the fight mere seconds before the bell in the second round, due to an absolutely vicious and unrelenting barrage of knees to ribcage of the turtling Matt Serra.

The fight between Rich Franklin and Travis Lutter was impressive and rather high-energy, but I have question what Franklin's strategy and interest in ending a fight since Lutter looked to be a dead man walk for the last minute or more of the before, before finally getting KO'd by Franklin. Franklin could have very easily came at Lutter hard with a few good combos (which I know he's more than capable of) and knocked Lutter out much earlier, but instead he played it safe, I just went in with one-twos, creating distance again, and setting up for another small shot or two, even though Lutter could hardly hold his hands to his face and had no chance defending himself. I'm not sure Franklin was scared to go in too fast and get caught, or if he just wanted to postponed the inevitable of a KO win over Lutter, but either way it was a little bit of a lack-luster and anti-climactic way to end an otherwise really good fight.

Check out the fights while they're still there that at www.pancrase.org/

Video of Tae Kwon Do Form

I find it next to impossible to find Tae Kwon Do forms (aka. hyungs or tuls) on the internet. Most of them are slow, bouncy and weak, with bad timing and atrocious footwork. When I was at home last, I recorded one form called Hwa-Rang, with my phone when I was at the TKD gym (aka. Dojang or Dojo) working out by myself. This a low-res video, so bare with me.

I hope you enjoy and get to see what I consider to be a proper TKD form.



I've got some belt test footage on my computer that I just dug up recently so hopefully soon I will get some more up here.
I'm also planning film a more cinematic version of my black belt form, Kwang-Gae, and will have that up online as soon as I'm finished shooting and editing it.

Until later,
Joki

Videos of My Shaolin Kung Fu in China

I know it's been like two-and-a-half years now, but I finally got around to posting up some of the Shaolin kung fu forms (AKA "tao lu") on YouTube.

The following are after only 6 weeks of training, so the technique is still a bit rough.
Enjoy.

Xiao Hong Quan ("Little Red Fist")


Lian Huan Quan ("Continuous Linking Fist")


Tong Bei Quan ("Through-the-Back Fist")


Yin Shou Gun ("One-Section Staff")



My training took place at the Shi De Cheng Wushu Center of Song Shan Shaolin Kung Fu, in the city of Dengfeng, Henan province, China, under the tutelage of former Shaolin Temple monk, Shifu (master/teacher) Shi De Cheng. I trained there for a total of 6 weeks before heading back to Thailand to continue my training in Muay Thai. The city of Dengfeng itself is only hours away from the original Shaolin Temple -- Shaolin Si -- positioned at the foot of the Song mountain range ("shan" translating as "mountain" in English).

And that's my quick lesson in Shaolin history for today.
Later!

The Training Begins... Again

Terrific news, everybody!
I finally started my martial arts training again! I signed myself up to boxing gym, just to use their equipment and so forth; get my body back into close the same shape it was before -- stamina/endurance wise -- and get my abilities back up to par before I start taking classes/seeking instruction from anyone. It'd be a backwards step to start learning something new and forget everything that I learned before.

I found a really dope Muay Thai video too, for inspiration. It seems to the the promo for a television series that I'd watch religiously if I had the chance:



On another note, we've decided to all come together and completely rework the movie idea that we were going to be using for our Antigua excursion. I was highly skeptical as to whether we'd actually all be able to settle on a basic premis, but things seem to be moving along quite well. We're pretty close to solidifying a single whole story that we can give to a writer (be that one of the members of our group, or someone else who writes professionally) to fill in all the cracks and flesh everything out, etc.

But that's It for today, Peace!

Website: On-Line!

Finally, I've got v1.0 of my website up and running. There's still a few things that I need to add but the basic look and feel is there so you should be able to expect what it's going to look like when it's all finished. Check it out at http://student.vfs.com/~fd21mathew/. I've got pictures and videos posted up, with more to come soon!

In other news, two of my final video projects for this term have been fully completed and are up on the net--both on my website and one YouTube. Definitely check them out on YouTube though so I can get a little bit more coverage for them. Here are the two latest video works of mine:

Ascension/Descension:


The Appraiser - Trailer:

Little Timmy's Appraiser Link

And the last thing I'm going to note for this post:
UFC 70 tonight! Free on Spike TV too! But for some crappy reason, we don't have Spike on our TV so me and Nic are going out to a bar to watch it. It'll be busy as all hell though what with the hockey game on as well.

What I'm looking forward to in this fight: Mirco Cro Cop going to work on Gonzaga; Arlovski destroying Werdrum (and in turn putting himself back into the much deserved heavyweight title contention); and a strong match-up between Bisping and Sinosic.
UFC 70 Fightcard

Peace and Karats,
Mathew Joki Esq.

Shattered

This is a short post 'cuz I got a LOT of school work I gotta tonight, and an Art History exam that I haven’t even started studying for yet.

Basically, it’s all my fault!I missed the fight and he lost!George St-Pierre; how could it happen!? He’s a god in MMA/UFC! UFC 69; GSP’s first title defence; and he lost it; KO in the first round.
I’m shattered! This is more upsetting than Arlovski “losing” to that poonbitch Tim Silvia!

I managed to find a clip of it on the net… unfortunately.
So here it is, watch it and cry:http://pandachute.com/videos/ufc_69_matt_serra_vs_georges_st_pierreThe only other thing I can really say is that I’m glad Big Jon didn’t call the fight on the first few staggers that GSP had and let Serra go in for a legit KO.

Serra got lucky as fuck though, he’s not going to be holding the title very long.

www.ufc.com

Muay Thai Sangha Fight

I was on YouTube and found a muay thai video of one of my friends and training partners that I trained with in Chiang Mai, Thailand, out of the Muay Thai Sangha gym. It's pretty exciting to see him fighting (this is his third fight now), since Kruu Villalobos tends not to send his students into the ring untill they're as tough as the nails that they mix with their cereal! ;)

Here are the 3 clips:

Wai Kruu; a ceremonial dance preformed at the beginning of most fights to pay respect to the teachers and founders of Muay Thai.


Round 1:


Round 2:


And a link to another one of Jay's fights.

Congrats to "The Iron Priest!"

UFC 68 in Retrospect//On The Lot: Video Online

Well, my first 3 picks where succesful, but the one I made on gut instinct was a flop.

Randy completely OWNED Silvia right out of the gates; awesome fight! He even managed to out-box the guy who has nearly a one-foot reach advantage over him. To reitterate, it was awesome!

Franklin came out on top and MacDonald threw in the towel after taking a vicious beating in the 2nd round.

Hughes also brought his A-game knocked Lytle around a bit -- although Lytle did put up a decent fight.

All in all it was a pretty good fightnight, nothing spectacular on the whole, but seeing Silvia get pumped like he did made my day! :D


ALSO:

Our movie (Flatline) has finally been posted up on the On The Lot Website, so check it out HERE and vote for it as often and with as much "rank" as physically possible!
I promise that I'll remeber all of you if I become rich and famous off of this!
(http://films.thelot.com/films/22426)

Much love,
Mathew Joki ESQ.

UFC 68 Picks

I did this once already and lost it all so I'm gonna make it short a sweet.

My picks for the night (Sat. 3 March):

Randy Couture for the win over Tim Silvia
-I hate Silvia and just don't want him to win. Other than that, I think that Couture is a better fighter -- deffinitely more well-rounded -- and will be able to beat him even though Silvia has the height and reach advantage. This is going to be a tough, and close fight!

Matt Hughes for the win over Chris Lytle
-Hughes is an excellent fighter with an excellent record, not a man to mess with!

Rich Franklin for the win over Jason MacDonald
-I want MacDonald to win, but I just don't think he's a good enough fighter; especially after the last fight he had; that was a lucky win on his behalf for sure.

Renato "Babalu" Sobral for the win over Jason Lambert
-Just a feeling I got!

And the others I'm not going to bother with.

UFC 68 Fightcard
UFC 68 Official Website

UFC 67: From #1 to "Top 10"

What would have been – in my books – the greatest fight card in UFC history has no been dropped down to Top 10. The original card highlighted 2 tight fights: George “Rush” St. Pierre v. Matt Serra for the Welterweight belt, and Anderson Silva v. Travis Lutter for the Middleweight belt. Two other highlights on the card include the UFC debut of legendary Pride Fighting Championship fighters Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipović and Quinton "Rampage" Jackson.

Unfortunately, George St. Pierre injured his knee in training and was not allowed to fight with it. That alone took the fight out of “Best Card Ever” standing for me. The further letdown has just been announced, that Travis Lutter failed to make weight for the fight. Silva and Lutter will still fight but “despite two tries at the scale, TUF 4 winner Travis Lutter will not be challenging for Anderson Silva's UFC Middleweight Championship Saturday night after coming in at a final weight of 186.5 pounds, a pound and a half over the 185-pound middleweight limit.” The “main event will now be a three round non-title match, with Lutter being fined 10% of his purse by the Nevada State Athletic Commission (5% going to Silva, 5% to the NSAC).” The UFC allows a leniency of one pound of weight in order to still content, but unfortunately, Lutter was no able to cut that last half pound.

Title fight aside, the debuts of Cro Cop and Rampage Jackson make a pretty good promise not to disappoint. The fight night will still be a good one in my books, but not as amazing as it would have been with GSP and the tension on Silva that his belt is on the line. GSP and Silva are two of my favorite fighters, I would have loved to see them on the card together, especially one as stacked as this.

It may be a little late posting this since UFC 67: All or Nothing is on tonight (7PT—10ET) but being that I’m sick with dawdknowswhat, and can’t sleep, I thought I might as well post about it at quarter-to-seven in the AM. Hope I’m feeling a little bit more limber by this evening so I can actually make it out to sports bar to see the action.

I let you know how it goes in the comments after the fight!
Peace.

Fighting Shape

My new year’s resolution: get back into the shape I was in back in Thailand.

Well I started the gym a little over a week ago with some guys from school, and today I got my body composition analyzed at the gym. Surprisingly enough I’m not too far off from where I was in Thailand. I managed to maintain my body fat percentage—biking to school every day seems like it’s paid off—and in just the past week was also able to put on a few of muscle as well, so things are looking good. The only area I really need to improve on now to get back into “fighting shape” is drop my resting heart rate down from 60 bpm to the 40-50 range. Which means my cardio and endurance is gone need a bit of work.

And speaking of “fighting shape” a friend of mine I met in Thailand finally managed to get a protracted qualm he was having with the internet settled, and sent me a few video clips of me and some other students training in Thailand. Here is what I’ve got so far, hopefully he can get some more footage successfully sent to me so that I can post it up on here as well.

One note before you watch, there aren’t any frontal shots of me, so if you can’t figure it out, I’m the long-haired grub in the blue trunks. Enjoy:



And a little video that the same friend who gave me the footage editted and posted up on YouTube. Includes footage of some of the facilities and instructors at the Rawai Muay Thai gym (Phuket) that I trained at before aswell (but not at the same time he was), and other clips of training in Chiang Mai (the ones I'm trying to yank from him). :D

Martial Arts Pics by Request

Here are a couple photos of me in Thailand while I was training Muay Thai. The first is a frame capture from a short video a friend of mine made so it's not of very high quality.
Believe it or not, these are pretty well the only two pictures I have of me doing Muay Thai! I guess when you spend several months, training 5-6 days a week, 6+ hours a day, you start to take it for granted! :D


I have a couple friends that I trained with who I think have more photos, if I can find any of them then I'll post them up as well.

Peace, All.