RECCE ROOM

A few days ago, I was scrolling social media for reconnaissance, and an article came to my attention: Australian father sets world record with more than 3,200 push ups in an hour Naturally, I was more than a bit curious, as I had witnessed the record set back in 2003 (gosh, has that been 20 years ago now!?!?). Tim Sikes performed 3669 push ups in an hour at Bill Taylor's Bushido School of Karate in Murfreesboro in 2003. I was one of the official counters. Heck, I went to dinner with Tim and his family & friends after the event. The links in this blog's 2009 article are all still active, and even more are available online with Tim's record.  On the other hand, it was easy to find a Sports Illustrated article about the Australian man, and a few others.  Make no mistake, what Helmke did was not easy. A definite accomplishment. And even the official  Guinness World Records  site lists Helmke as the record-holder. However, 3206 in an hour is not as many as 3669 in a...

In the martial arts world, there was major headline news recently. A jiu-jitsu student was awarded $46 million in damages. In writing and on YouTube, the jiu-jitsu community is apoplectic. Mr. Iturralde, the man who caused the injury, stated that Rener Gracie gave false testimony when serving as an expert witness. As of the publishing of this article, it has not been easy to track down what part of Gracie's testimony was considered false by Iturralde.  Gracie put out a video , explaining what he testified to, and correct application of the technique in question.  YouTube personality and MMA coach Ramsey Dewey put out a video in which he decried what he stated were Gracie's claims, and made some other observations, as well. However, the video is chock-full of inaccuracy about Gracie's testimony, claims, and also relies heavily on assumption of things not stated. This is not typical of Dewey. Dewey is usually right on the money and very accurate. Here are the more erroneou...

New Label: "Misleading Slogans" Some years back, this author read a book, and there was a line in the book that was very poignant. "It is a slogan, and is misleading, as all slogans are." The irony is the statement is, itself, a slogan of sorts. Nevertheless, it is true.  As an example, this blog has an article from 2013 on whether to cross the feet when applying an arm bar. In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu ("BJJ") circles, there exists a slogan, "don't cross the feet!" The article from this blog goes into detail about why that slogan exists, and how it can be faulty.  As research was being done for future blog articles, it became painfully clear that many "known truths" in our society are deeply flawed. Since so many of these had slogans attached, the need for this new label became evident.  Some of the misleading slogans being worked on for future blog entries: Women communicate better than men.  Police / Military have a corner on firearms...