Black Belt Magazine

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Surprised right? Me too. I thought I would never be telling anyone to buy Black Belt Magazine. But there have been some changes at Black Belt which are kind of the martial arts publishing equivalent of the Berlin Wall falling and the Soviet Union dissolving. The Editor and Chief was given the boot. Who could even imagine?

Black Belt has spent the last couple of years going out of its collective way to make NHB fighting look bad. This was not just bad reporting, this was intentional attacks. NHB fans were greeted with a slap in the face each month. This is hard to believe with all the NHB and BJJ tape sets being advertised in the pages of the magazine. Normally a magazine bend over backwards to promote people who place ads in their mag. Hello, the whole point of magazines and newspapers is to have the readers look at the ads. The content mainly serves to as enticement to keep the readers coming back to look at the ads. This is why many newspapers have no problem with giving their content away for free on the Internet. Who cares, as long as reader look at the ads and the advertisers are happy. This was the complete opposite with BB. BB was pimp slapping its advertisers.

BB knew they were the really the only game in town for a national martial arts magazine. No other magazine has had the longevity and has their kind of readership. Martial Arts magazines disappear faster than sushi at a sumo wrestling convention.

All I ask for is balanced and accurate reporting. I think you now get this from Black Belt. I would still tell you that as a particular martial artist you will still be better served by specialty publication that focus on one martial art.

For example:

- for NHB get full contact fighter and HOOKnSHOOT's video magazine
- for Aikido get Aikido Journal and Aikido Today Magazine
- for Karate get Dragon Times
- for Sumo get Sumo World
- for Traditional Japanese Martial Arts get Furyu

The point is, go to specialty magazines first and you will usually be better served.

One last point on Black Belt Magazine. Black Belt gives you a free watch or T-shirt for subscribing. Both of these items are a complete waste of time. I won't even talk about the watch. The T-shirt is so small that with one wash you will hardly be able to say "Yo Quiero Taco Bell" while wearing it, let alone fit into the shirt. Thus the shirt is used to clean the car, etc. This is a huge mistake on Black Belt's part. Instead of having a happy customer who is giving you free advertisement, you end up with an unhappy customer who has a small Black Belt washcloth. If you are not going to do it right don't bother.

Below is a the letter that was sent to me that sparked this whole discussion of Black Belt Magazine's recent change of heart and management.

> The only thing that sort of rubbed me the wrong way was the "litter
>box liner" comment about Black Belt magazine. That might have been true
>when Jim Coleman was editor but it's not any more. The new editor, Bob
>Young, actually knows a lot about the martial arts (he lived and
>trained in Korea, China , and Thailand over a period of 4 years and has
>studied with the Machado Bros. and Gokor too) and has changed the
>magazine for the better. You should give Black Belt another chance.

I actually agree. However, Jim Coleman used the Magazine to go out of his to piss off the whole NHB community because he got stiffed by Kathy Kidd. The TKD guy who had never even tried to get in the UFC was the last straw for me. I almost canceled my subscription. I was so close.

I think the first break in the Coleman BS storm was the Mario Sperry article. After that there have been several articles on BJJ, Sambo, etc. It wasn't so much that BB did not report on the UFC or BJJ it was more that they went out of their way to the piss readers off. 1/2 the ads were BJJ ads. Coleman was clearly pissing in the tent, so to speak. What was he thinking?

I am thinking about adding BB to the list of useful publications. At the very least, BB has been dropped from the proverbial enemies' list. :-) Now it is sort of a "trust but verify" kind of thing.

I don't mean to get off on a rant here, but . . .I really hate DePasquale's Mag (I think it is really a FUMA newsletter) even though he does a hell of a lot to promote NHB, etc. If I see Bruce Lee on the cover of another Mag I think I will puke. There are so many fine marital artist out there, young and old, that just dedicating a single entire issue once a year to his memory I think would be sufficient. European marital artists have generally viewed US martial artists as being too "Hollywood." "Karate will be my stepping stone into the movies." Depasquale takes this image to the next level. I have learned more about being a stuntman than a reverse punch from his newsletter. Actually, I take that back, Karate International is more of a public family photo album than anything else. It is sort of a happy soap opera with the same characters every month. Stay tuned to see what Mike Sr., Mike Jr., Joe Lewis (no relation), Joe Hess, and Graham Lewis (also no relation) pose for pictures at things like Arnold's Expo. Did anyone actually compete or did everyone just stand around and get their picture taken? I know these are all fine martial artists any everything, but if I want to see their vacation photos I will stop over for a few beers. Please remind me what Graham Lewis has done that gets him a mention almost every issue? Times up, pencil's down.

The most useful thing about the Mag is the techniques that Mike shows. I use them as quick quizzes for new students. I show them the photos for one technique and ask them how many things wrong they can find (with their couple months of grappling knowledge.) For example, page 24 -25 of the latest issue with Bruce Lee on the cover. (I was so happy to see all this new information and perspective put on Bruce's life) I would be upset if the student did not notice, at the very least, that in picture 5 (of the top photo series) that Mike has his feet crossed and has the back mount. This is day one, make sure you got your uniform on straight grappling knowledge) I think he should go back to his NINKADO. At least when he teaches this we all knew he was BS'ing us.

Bill "I don't mean to get off on a rant here" Lewis

ps I might just put this up on the www page in the future. That felt kind of good. :-)