Liberation Martial Arts 🥊

UK Organizers Using LMA

Korean Fury — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 19:32:09 GMT

Organizers in the UK have been using the Liberation Martial Arts approach. Here’s a write-up about it.

Just as it’s normal to teach how a chud taught, let’s normalize using the LMA approach.

Long Chicken Fight

Korean Fury — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 20:21:19 GMT

Learn LMA’s version of a Korean children’s game.

Mandatory equipment

Shin guards

Possible safety equipment

Cleaning products

Part of a Long Tradition of Liberation Practices

Korean Fury — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 20:43:13 GMT

There’s already a tradition of Liberation challenging dominant frameworks within established fields. There’s Liberation Psychology, Liberation Theology, and Liberation Pedagogy. These traditions have drawn heavily from Marxist analysis to understand how dominant (read: Western) social and institutional frameworks reproduce themselves within these fields and to define what we mean by Liberation: breaking free from those frameworks. Liberation Martial Arts comes from that same tradition.

In contrast, offering no alternative and simply putting marginalized faces into the same framework is liberalism. From a Liberation lens, it’s not only who the class is for that matters, but how the class is taught.

I write daily about martial arts and other topics from a liberatory perspective. If you like my work, upgrade your subscription. You can also support me on Patreon or make a donation. Find Southpaw at its website. – Sam

SDS9 – S6E18: "Inquisition"

Korean Fury — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 01:14:35 GMT

SDS9

This episode was recorded on July 13, 2026.

We discuss “Inquisition” and the dark side of positive psychology.

SDS9 seasons 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 can be found wherever you stream Southpaw. Season 6 is only available to paid subscribers.

Transcript

Attached Turning Kicks

Korean Fury — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 00:20:27 GMT

Turning kicks are an important scaffold for offense. This activity limits trunk compensation, creating conditions for the kicking leg to find a clearer path to the target.

Mandatory equipment

Shin guards

Possible safety equipment

Cleaning products

SDS9 – S6E17: "Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night"

Korean Fury — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 20:02:31 GMT

SDS9

This episode was recorded on July 13, 2026.

We discuss “Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night” and sexual enslavement.

SDS9 seasons 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 can be found wherever you stream Southpaw. Season 6 is only available to paid subscribers.

Transcript

LMA Learning Lab Update 8/9/26

Korean Fury — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 14:32:23 GMT

We haven’t updated in a minute, but this is from our recent outing.

Dangling Turning Kicks

Korean Fury — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 15:03:28 GMT

This activity encourages leg mobility and dexterity, increasing your movement options.

Turning kicks are an important scoring option in most kickboxing arts and a scaffold for offense.

Mandatory equipment

Shin guards

Possible safety equipment

Cleaning products

How You Train and Think About Martial Arts Might Be Fascist

Korean Fury — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 18:16:37 GMT

“Militaristic perfection is literally embodied in the incessant practice of physical refinement and conformity.”

The martial arts lecture “Does my Forward Stance Look a Little Fascist? Meiji-Era Karate and Embodied Politics” by Dr. Peter Katz has a liberal lens to it and doesn’t extend its analysis beyond karate. It also doesn’t examine the pedagogy of drilling, or, more importantly, the intent behind drilling. Nonetheless, it’s insightful when thinking about the intent with which we train martial arts.

The way we train martial arts in the West is heavily influenced by Western militaries. Drilling itself is a military term and concept. This martial pedagogy is also influenced by the colonial education system, which even inspired belt ranks by way of Japan.

Belts and ranks were a way to transfer the American-invented system of letter grades to martial arts. Letter grades themselves were a way to stratify, judge, and rank children. Since it’s now so normal, we take for granted the significance and implications of grades.

Then there’s the Western industrial capitalist factory system. The student is treated not only as a product but as a potential future factory worker, soldier, or police officer.

There is one other major influence: Japanism. It not only shapes how we train martial arts, Japanese or otherwise, but it has also shaped the intent behind our training.

Nearly all martial arts and practitioners in the West have, in one way or another, become more Japanese because Japan has become the Western benchmark for martial arts.

But what is Japan’s appeal to the West?

From Susan Sontag:

“Fascist aesthetics ... they flow from (and justify) a preoccupation with situations of control, submissive behavior, extravagant effort, and the endurance of pain; they endorse two seemingly opposite states, egomania and servitude.”

This reflects the desire to live up to the largely mythologized image of the samurai and bushido (which is completely made up).

Peter Katz writes:

“Nazi imagery fetishized death through powerful Teutonic warriors. For example, the SS death’s head crest. Showa fascism fetishized death through imagery of the lone soldier who dies on the battlefield... In Showa fascism, death and violence become beautiful submission.”

This same logic transforms American individualism into something heroic and poetic rather than what it is: selfishness. Free-market hyperindividualism becomes the beautiful ronin, the lone samurai. You are correct in perceiving yourself as the main character.

This romanticization of death argues that, for you to live, the Other must die. This is the logic of “defense” used by both the United States and Israel: you must go out and kill them so you can be free, so you can live.

Bodily practices can be joyful somatic experiences. Fascism redirects bodily practices toward death and murder. Under fascist logic, you lift weights to increase your capacity to kill. Martial arts exist so you can become better at murdering another human being.

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Karate came from Okinawa, and Okinawa received it from China. It was once called the “Chinese Hand.” It was later reinvented as a Japanese art. Likewise, taekwondo emerged from karate, a Japanese art derived from Chinese traditions, and was later reinvented as a Korean national art by the south Korean intelligence agency.

Venerating founders on the wall, belt systems, the warrior code and submission to the master (”bushido”) were carefully cultivated during Showa fascism before becoming pop culture and unquestioned. What many people believe to be the authentic ethos of their own non-Japanese martial art may actually have roots in Japanese fascism.

Japan even changed how we think about martial arts. Rather than skill, martial arts became militarized “ways.” The student seeking to learn skill was recast as a soldier. Not always literally, but in spirit, nonetheless.

In the military, you mindlessly drill and follow orders. But soldiers are adults. Martial arts became a tool to condition children to military culture much earlier in life. It’s the promise of ultimate discipline. Start earlier, and by adulthood you have the ideal soldier.

Peter Katz writes:

“Militaristic perfection is literally embodied in the incessant practice of physical refinement and conformity. ... [C]lass will likely spend most of its time repeating the same movement, aiming for every muscle in motion to be exactly, precisely the same in every execution across every body. Bodily differences are made to submit. There is a right way to perform this strike ... and it’s always this way.”

Is this not the standard way most people think about physical practice?

Is this not what people mean by perfect practice?

Is this not the dominant model that even non-fascists have adopted when it comes to physical training?

Is this not drilling and the intent behind it?

Peter Katz writes:

“The rendering of movement in grandiose and rigid patterns lies at the core of fascist aesthetics.”

The West loves the way Japan does things because it is so orderly, uniform, and militaristically perfect.

Then, there is the uniquely Japanese fascist aesthetic.

Stillness. Explosion. Chaos. Stillness. Explosion. Chaos.

Aesthetic in the sense of beautiful and awe-inspiring. A Western aspiration.

Fascist martial arts should be serious, powerful, intense, and deadly rather than playful and fun. Violence is treated as serious and sacred, and martial arts become merely a vehicle for violence. The human being becomes a weapon.

That should reveal itself not only in how you move or do a technique, but also in your joyless face.

If you want soldiers who will blindly harm Others, this is a useful “way.”

But people killed bushido-ly isn’t barbaric but aesthetic. For all their crimes, both Japan and the United States are still aesthetic rather than grotesque—according to each other.

Dangling Teeps

Korean Fury — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 23:18:28 GMT

This activity encourages leg mobility and dexterity, increasing your movement options.

Teeps are an early scaffold for your stance, movement, balance, and posture.

Possible safety equipment

Cleaning products

SDS9 – S6E16: "Change of Heart"

Korean Fury — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 22:39:38 GMT

SDS9

This episode was recorded on July 1, 2026.

We discuss “Change of Heart,” where writing choices are made.

SDS9 seasons 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 can be found wherever you stream Southpaw. Season 6 is only available to paid subscribers.

Transcript

LMA Intensity Guide

Korean Fury — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 01:11:23 GMT

This is an LMA style guide, not rules set in stone. These levels are guideposts for regulating intensity and can be modified.

If you’re new to LMA, start with our table of contents

Safety equipment

Cleaning products

Foam noodles

So long as you avoid the eyes, noodles are physically safe.

Hang Time Chicken Fight

Korean Fury — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 23:08:27 GMT

Hang time refers to how long an object stays in the air. In this activity, the object is your foot.

Possible safety equipment

Cleaning products

SDS9 – S6E15: "Honor Among Thieves"

Korean Fury — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 14:10:02 GMT

SDS9

This episode was recorded on July 1, 2026.

We discuss “Honor Among Thieves,” an undercover cop story.

SDS9 seasons 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 can be found wherever you stream Southpaw. Season 6 is only available to paid subscribers.

Transcript

Kneeling Chicken Fight

Korean Fury — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 22:36:14 GMT

By narrowing the movement possibilities, practitioners learn to expand their opportunities. The activity’s constant, real-time feedback drives adaptations and updates to movement strategies. It teaches more than a thousand lectures while encouraging practitioners to think for themselves.

Possible safety equipment

Cleaning products

Early to Stagnant

Korean Fury — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 14:51:44 GMT

In the history of sports, including combat sports, it's not early specialization that consistently dominates.

We see that in real time with no-gi grappling. Better approaches can and do overcome the gyms and systems that started no-gi first, despite their decades-long head start.

This happened in boxing: Cuba and Russia didn't get boxing first, but they innovated their approaches.

Similar things happened in wrestling, and you're seeing more of this in Muay Thai as well. You constantly see this in MMA, as old gyms disappear from the top and new gyms and coaches emerge.

What can we learn from this? If you're looking to learn a martial art or combat sport, the potential gym's approach and system matter. If you teach a competitive martial art, teaching on autopilot and doing what you've always done is a liability.

Single-Leg Attack Chicken Fight

Korean Fury — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 02:07:38 GMT

When a sparring activity is completely open-ended, it seems like you could explore anything. In practice, however, the more open-ended an activity is, the less people tend to explore. Counterintuitively, limiting the possibilities encourages practitioners to maximize what remains possible.

Possible safety equipment

On Proficiency

Korean Fury — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 21:53:08 GMT

If you’re new to LMA, start with our table of contents

In LMA, proficiency is the ability to drop into a gym, spar with a stranger, and reasonably protect both yourself and your partner.

Winning is not a measure of proficiency. Beginners can beat other beginners without being proficient.

Winning is a result. Skill is the ability to take what you know (theory) and apply it (praxis).

Proficiency is a measure of skill. It means you can reliably protect yourself and your training partner across typical sparring situations.

Middle and High Chicken Fight

Korean Fury — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 22:09:54 GMT

In this activity, you are Chicken Fighting only with middle and high turning kicks.

Possible safety equipment

Fight Study 171 – RWS 200

Korean Fury — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 23:06:10 GMT

If you’re new to LMA, start with our table of contents

Recapping RWS Muay Thai’s 200th show!