Martial Arts Articles By Lt. Colonel Dane S. Harden

Master Dane S. Harden formed his nearly life-long affiliation with the martial arts when he began studying Aikido in 1969 at the age of ten in a small program run at a local college in Frostburg, Maryland. From there he went on to train in Tae Kwon Do with the Jhoon Rhee Institute, and over the course of almost forty years, he would go on to study numerous martial art's styles, eventually earning Black Belts in Aikido, Isshin Ryu Karate, and most notably a Sixth Dan in Tae Kwon Do. He was a major tournament competitor on the U.S. National Karate Circuit from the 1970's to the early 1990's, frequently earning top rankings in both forms and fighting at the regional and national levels.
(Read Biography)

As martial arts instructors we will all face the occasional student training injury and we should be at least somewhat versed in the management of such injuries. The focus and intent of this article is not to make every Sensei out there a physician or EMT. My intent will be to focus in on a logical approach to dealing with dojo-related injuries and a methodology that can be easily adopted by instructors. It is the same methodology that has served me well as a Flight Surgeon and health care professional for more than 25 years. (Read Article)

If the mind is right, everywhere is a dojo! This is the concept that I was asked to evaluate and apply to some of my own life experiences. The idea that what you are taught in a dojo has overflow into every aspect of a student’s life is certainly not new to me. My parents pointed to my initial martial arts training at age nine as “the” turn around point in my life. The discipline, focus and sense of self-confidence I learned in a dojo have served me well over the years. The career paths I have chosen to follow were always influenced by my martial concepts of persistence and dedication. (Read Article)

Introduction: “The way you train is the way you fight and the way you fight is because of the way you train”…this is a common military pearl that applies to nearly every aspect of warrior arts. As modern day soldiers, we learn to adapt and modify our tactics, training, and procedures to address the various combat and situational environments in which we find ourselves operational. Warrior skills as outlined by Sun Tzu in the Art of War are as applicable today as they were centuries ago in ancient China. From personal experience the military (martial) training done for deployments to Bosnia and Kosovo was both technically and philosophically different than the pre-mobilization training my unit did prior to rotations in Iraq and Afghanistan…even Hurricane Katrina in 2005. That is because the situational environment often dictates the defensive/offensive focus. (Read Article)

I like to approach training as a concept with stages which I think in a detailed and outlined fashion, can be adapted for any martial warrior, competitor or martial artist. There is a Zen concept regarding the stages of a student’s knowledge. Initially we enter a dojo and we do not know that we do not know anything (stage one). Then we realize how much we do not know (stage two). We start training and at some point we consider ourselves proficient (stage three). Then we experience a different approach to martial concepts and arts. We realize that we do not know as much as we thought (stage four). (Read Article)