Archive for Buying guides
Discount on my books and videos: last day!
Posted by: | CommentsJust a quick update on the discount you can get right now on my books and videos at Paladin Press:
You get 25% off on all of them (except Tiger and Snake) by using the code WIM25 during checkout. But you need to act now! The discount is only available throughout today, tomorrow’s too late.
Click this link to get your discount right now.
Tip: if you want to avoid shipping charges or import taxes for my videos, pick the “To download” option. This lets you download all my videos (and others by Paladin Press) on your PC or Mac for easy viewing, anywhere you want.
Click this image to get your 25% discount!
Leading the Way by Tim Bown
Posted by: | CommentsA while ago, an instructor I knew passed away unexpectedly.
Tim Bown was an amazing man who managed to pull off an impressive feat: he was a good man, a good traditionally trained martial artist, a very good instructor and an amazing RBSD instructor who excelled at scenario training. That’s a very rare combination.
Tim was one of the best Bulletmen out there. He put on the suit and then was able to not just take the beatings but also act convincingly to elicit the adrenal response in people. He was good, real good.
This is the last clip I saw of him in action:
I was floored when I heard Tim died. We’d been mailing back and forth a while before, when he asked me to take a look at the manuscript for his book. I quickly scanned it, liked it and the last words I wrote to him were:
Got it, thanks. I’ll read it and get back to you.
I never got to do that. Tim literally dropped dead, his body riddled with cancer, before I got back to him. This is one of the big regrets in my life.
He left behind a wife and a little girl, whose world was shattered.
Rory Miller took up the task to make sure this book would be published as a means to support his family now that Tim no longer can. And now that day is here: Leading the Way by Tim Bown was just released on Amazon.
Click this image to purchase Tim’s book.
If you’re a martial arts instructor, you’ll want to read this book: it’s bound to give you new ideas to help you both teach better and increase enrollment in your school.
If you’re a practitioner, you’ll definitely learn something: how to learn faster and make progress in your art.
I’d like to ask all of you to help out a bit, it’s not difficult and won’t take up much time. Here’s how:
- Please buy the book. It’s not expensive.
- Please share this post far and wide. The more people set eyes on it, the more chances of it selling well.
If you can help out just a little, we can make sure his wife and daughter can have a better future now that Tim is no longer with us.
Thank you.
How to use an android tablet computer for martial arts training and teaching
Posted by: | CommentsAs I mentioned before, I’m a bit of a nerd and have been using computers and IT products for over thirty years now (Remember the Apple II? I do…) Just recently, I bit the bullet and bought a 7-inch Galaxy Tab2 to replace both my paper planner and all the printed-out client files I always had to drag along. Now I have everything in one place, can keep it synchronized on all my devices and can do a whole lot more too. This gave me the idea to write a post on how to use an Android tablet computer for martial arts training and teaching. As you will see, with a little bit of preparation and creative thinking you can make your life a whole lot easier while you improve both your own skills and those of your students.
A couple of things before we get started:
- This guide is not only for practitioners but also for students, teachers and coaches. You can use the information here for your own needs, though you might have to adapt it a little bit so it fits your particular situation.
- If you do buy a tablet, pick the one that is right for you. I’ll give some recommendations here below but do your own research to make sure you’ll be happy with your purchase. Everybody is different and needs different features, there is no one-size fits all approach.
- If you buy a tablet without a camera then certain things I write here won’t work for you. Today though, there really is no reason anymore to buy one without a camera, so make sure your tablet has one.
- To a degree, this information also applies to Android phones. However, the size factor does make a difference: showing something on a 7-inch screen instead of a 4-inch one makes it a lot easier to show things to others. Handwritten notes or drawings are also not very practical on a cellphone. And so on. But feel free to give it a try on your phone and if it works for you, then that’s great.
- Input takes some getting used to. I use a 7-inch tablet and found that the best way to type is to hold it vertically. Then the on-screen keyboard has the best compromise between lay-out and button size for my fingers. Landscape mode didn’t work for me. For you, it may be different so go out and test a few tablets in stores before buying one. Also, don’t forget that there are multiple input methods: different kinds of on-screen keyboards, with or without predictive text, speech-to-note, etc. If one doesn’t please you, another probably will.
- Consider using a stylus. Especially if you are training hard, your fine motor control will go down, making it harder to use a touchscreen. In that case, a stylus could be the answer for you, especially when you want to draw on your tablet.
These are some practical considerations to consider before you decide to get a tablet. Of course, the crucial factor will be your budget. How much money you can (or are willing to) spend on non-essential gizmos plays an important role in just how much satisfaction you’ll get out of it. Spend too little and you buy crap that doesn’t work well or breaks down. Spend too much and you’ll piss off your significant other or end up disappointed that there isn’t more whiz)bang to the thing for all that money. My view is that you should spend the most money you can reasonably afford to come as close as possible to your ideal tablet. In my experience, that always leaves me at the very least happy with the amount of money I spent even if the product ends up being less amazing than I thought. But again, to each his own so consider this aspect carefully too.
My Galaxy Tab, showing the video I took in class to show a student he was dropping his covering hand when he punches. The quality is very good but I made this image low-res so it wouldn’t suck up bandwidth.
All that out of the way, let’s take a look at how you can use a tablet for your martial arts needs. Read More→
Price cut on my latest book
Posted by: | CommentsJust a quick update:
It took some time to get this sorted out but both the Kindle and paper version of Martial Arts, Self-Defense and a Whole Lot More: The Best of Wim’s Blog, Volume 1 are now available. I was in the US when the paper version came out and couldn’t handle everything from there but I got on it right away when I got home. And the result is, a significant price cut on both versions of the book.
The price of the Kindle version is now officially $3.99 instead of $6.99.
The paper version is now $15.99 instead of the original catalog price of $18.99.
And for all Smashwords fans (Apple, Nook, Kobo, PDF, etc. versions) the price is now also $3.99. You can get this one right here.
Click on the image to get the Kindle or paper edition.
If you’re wondering why I did the price cut, the answer is simple:
Because I can.
I have no say over the price of my other books and videos; for those products that control belongs to my publishers. But for this book, I am the publisher, so I call the shots. I want to give this book all the chances in the world to do well and a reasonable price is one aspect of that. The book is now available in all possible formats instead of just as an e-book, which is why I decided to lower prices across the board. The “loss” of the lower price is made up by the increased availability across all platforms. I still get extra sales I didn’t have before, you get a better price, everybody wins.
Like I did in the past, I might experiment with prices a little bit every now and then. That’s just a part of self-publishing; looking for the sweet-spot where a product sells the best (which strangely enough isn’t always the low figures.) But I will always keep prices at reasonable levels, which means conforming to the norm in the market or go lower. That way I can make sure my products are available to the widest audience possible and not just to those with deep pockets.
Finally, if you want to help me out a bit, please leave a review on Amazon after you read the book. That is actually one of the most helpful ways to promote the book, aside of word of mouth recommendations. Also, feel free to get in touch with me here if there was something in particular you enjoyed reading in it or the opposite, didn’t like at all.
With all that said, I can now officially consider this book finished and move on to writing the next one. Good times ahead!
Karate for Life Foundation
Posted by: | CommentsLast year, I met Iain Abernethy and noticed he was wearing a cool T-shirt. Turned out it was from a non-profit organization that promotes life skills development and fights HIV/AIDS mainly in Uganda but also elsewhere. The way they do it is by teaching martial arts, which is demanding on both the mental and physical level, in combination with other skills.
It all started in 2004 when Eric Parsons went to Uganda with the Peace Corps. He started a karate club there to give the college students something to do they would otherwise not have access too. One thing led to another and the result is a program that simultaneously forms karate instructors and life skills coaches. If you know anything about the problems in Africa, you know such skills are desperately needed.
After moving back home, Eric created the Karate for Life Foundation to help the students in Uganda keep the program going. One of the things he does to raise funds is sell a kick-ass T-shirt, which you can see me wearing here:
The T-shirts are a great conversation starter and, well, they just look cool.
So don’t delay, head on over to the Karate for Life Foundation website and order yours today!
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