The Triangle's Home For Traditional Martial Arts
Years ago, if anyone had told Longview resident Robert LaMont he would have a career in martial arts, he would not have believed them.
But three decades and more than 15,000 students later, that’s exactly where the former chemistry instructor’s career path has led him.
“I would have never believed that I would teach martial arts for a living,” LaMont said. “When I was a child, I would tell everybody I wanted to be a preacher.”
We all know karate is a martial arts discipline that is also a great form of exercise. But what about using it as a treatment for a debilitating disease?
One local hospital is taking an unusual approach to treating Parkinson’s disease.
Patients at Rush University Medical Center are kicking away the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease by practicing Karate. It all started as part of a clinical trial to see if the kicks and movements of Karate could benefit Parkinson’s patients. It was a 10-week study in which the patients trained in Karate twice a week.
“We found a significant change in how often people were falling which is wonderful, that’s a huge predictor of problems and it’s a big risk factor in people with Parkinson’s,” said Dr. Jori Fleisher.
SALT LAKE CITY — Carole Taylor may be 83, but she now has a fifth-degree black belt in karate — an honor she received from Chuck Norris himself.
The Utah woman’s passion for martial arts began 15 years ago at the age of 68, when she started taking her 11-year-old granddaughter to lessons.
“I thought: ‘Wow, this is mental and physical. This would be a good thing for someone my age to do. … So I asked the teacher if it would be all right if I joined the class, and so that’s why I did it,” she recalled.
Taylor learned karate alongside her granddaughter.
“We both got our first-degree black belts at about the same time,” she said.
But he knew there was a lot of room to improve, and remained in Detroit to get in more work with the coaching staff than almost anyone else on the team. He added about 10 pounds of good weight in the strength program, then used his off days on Tuesdays and Thursdays to get in some martial arts training with assistant strength and conditioning coach Morris Henry.
CHICAGO – We all know karate is a martial arts discipline that is also a great form of exercise. But what about using it as a treatment for a debilitating disease?
One local hospital is taking an unusual approach to treating Parkinson’s disease.
Patients at Rush University Medical Center are kicking away the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease by practicing Karate. It all started as part of a clinical trial to see if the kicks and movements of Karate could benefit Parkinson’s patients. It was a 10-week study in which the patients trained in Karate twice a week.
“We found a significant change in how often people were falling which is wonderful, that’s a huge predictor of problems and it’s a big risk factor in people with Parkinson’s,” said Dr. Jori Fleisher.
Tang Soo Do started with the early Korean fighting arts, which paintings and murals tell us were utilized during the time of the three kingdoms in Korea. Eventually, these kingdoms were united under the Silla Dynasty, where evidence of the fighting arts in Korea became even greater. From the evidence, it appears that the arts continued to progress and be practiced, usually taught within families or passed down from one individual to another, until the Japanese took control of Korea between 1909 to 1945. Looking to quell any opposition to their occupation before it started, the Japanese forbade Koreans from practicing martial arts. Some history was lost as a result.
That said, the arts were still practiced secretly, and were influenced by the rare Japanese karate practitioner willing to share his knowledge during the period. Eventually, when the Japanese domination was lifted, martial arts schools began to pop up across Korea, the first of which was the Chung Do Kwan, whose founder was Won Kuk Lee. Lee is regarded to be the first to use the term Tang Soo Do to describe what had become the Korean fighting art that had been influenced by so many other styles. The term “Tang Soo Do/ Dang Soo Do” was initially a Korean pronunciation of “The Way of the Chinese Hand.” These days most Americans translate it as, “The Way of the Open Hand.”
A recent study conducted by Rush University Medical Center in Chicago showed that Parkinson’s patients who did karate for one hour twice a week for 10 weeks performed better in several areas, including frequency of falls, quality of life and overall well-being.