Just a quick head’s up to let you know my book is now also available on Smashwords right here. It took a bit longer than expected but the work in re-formatting everything for their platform seems to have paid off. So if you are an Apple, Kobo or Nook user, now you can get the book too.

Click on the image to get the Smashwords edition of “Martial Arts, Self-Defense and a Whole Lot More (Volume 1)”

If you have a Kindle, here’s the place to get it.

Next up, I’ll be working on the paper edition so I can release that one as soon as possible too. And once that’s done, I’ll be able to focus more on both Volume 2 of this series and my knife defense book. Lots of work but it’s a lot of fun too. I’ll keep you all posted on the progress.

I have a ton more writing projects planned and am looking forward to working on all of them. I haven’t written nearly as much as I wanted to over the last couple years. My last one, The Fighter’s Guide to Hard-Core Heavy Bag Training came out in 2008, which is a pretty long time without any new releases. There are many reasons why but mainly, life happened and I had to shift my priorities. As a result, writing consistently was hard to do. But with the changes in the publishing world over the last year, now is a great moment to jump back in so I am doing just that.

Like I said, the next two books are already in progress and I am collecting data and research for the third one. I don’t have a deadline yet because the final outline depends entirely on the amount of information I can get my hands on. And if some of the things I have planned work out (fingers crossed), there will be a couple of really cool extras that come along with the book. I think you’ll like those a lot…

Enough teasing for now. As soon as I can confirm everything, I’ll let you all know.

I also want to take this opportunity again to thank all of you who supported me by buying not only this ebook but also my other products. Your response has been awesome and I very much appreciate it. So thanks a bunch!

Just a quick update to tell you that “Campfire Tales from Hell” for which I wrote an entry is now available in paperback. You can head on over to Amazon to buy your copy right here if you like and I definitely think you should do so. Not necessarily for my own entry but for some of the others that are absolutely mind blowing. When I got my copy, I literally sat down and didn’t get back up again until I finished the book. Simply because all the stories in there are real. The information you get comes from people who’ve lived through what most others would call their worst nightmare. So I definitely recommend you get this book.

Also, it’s for a good cause (help pay medical bills for somebody with a chronic illness) so you’re building up good karma points at the same time.

To give you a taste, here are the first paragraphs of my entry for this book:

I met Louis right before a Pentjak Silat class a friend of mine taught. I spotted him straight away and saw he was in essence a human fighting machine. He was tall, muscular and had that tough-as-nails attitude soldiers sometimes get. He exuded that special kind of confidence born of surviving dozens of scrapes, knife fights and worse. But what stood out even more was the vibe he gave off of somebody who just loves to fight.

I later learned that this was true: he was a former Legionnaire with combat experience along with a checkered past as a civilian. This isn’t uncommon for men entering the French Foreign Legion. One of the benefits of joining is that you can get a new name and basically a new life after you leave the service. So the Legion tends to attract people who have no choice left but to start over.  Turns out this was exactly the way it went with Louis.

As we were standing in the bar before class, I kept a low profile and gave him plenty of space. When it got time to change into our training gear, I had to pass him because he was blocking the hallway. I calmly but confidently gestured that I intended to pass and smiled. He looked straight at me with a challenging stare, held that look for a second and then stepped aside.

If you want to find out how this story ends, go buy the book. And like I said, my story is far from the most impressive one in there.

Just a quick update.

My publisher, Paladin Press, is doing a discount of 25% on all its products sets. The discount is valid from now on through the 18th of June and all you need to do is use the code “25SET” at checkout. You can see all the different sets they offer here on this page.

I have a couple sets out with them so if you’re interested, please take a look at my Combat Sanshou set and the Heavy Bag Training set.

A great new book just came out and I think you should check it out: Campfire Tales From Hell: Musings on Martial Arts, Survival, Bouncing, and General Thug Stuff

For one, I wrote a piece for it called “Louis the Legionnaire” about my experience training with a tough-as-nails former Foreign Legion soldier. But there’s more to it than that.

Campfire Tales From Hell is a collection of knowledge and information on dark and difficult subjects you simply will not find easily elsewhere. The reason is that those who write about it usually don’t talk about these kinds of things to people they don’t know very well. There needs to be a high level of trust before they even consider sharing their story.

In this book, you get just that. Even though some of the writers preferred to stay anonymous, they still openly share their experience.  Some examples of what you’ll learn about:

• Stage Fighting is not Real Fighting by Michael Johnson
• Let’s Talk Trauma by Eric Gaden
• How to Read Your Opponent by Terry Trahan
• The Independent, A Variation of the Alpha by Michael Johnson
• Talking to Cops by Marc MacYoung
• Everything We Know About PTSD by Dr. Drew Anderson
• Teaching, Training and Conditioning by Rory Miller
• Marc MacYoung Meets Barry Eisler’s John Rain by Barry Eisler and Marc MacYoung
• Zero to Sixty by Alain Burrese
• Bouncer Advice: What Your Sensei Didn’t Tell You by Clint Overland
• How to Stay Out of Trouble as a Psych Ward Patient by “D. Osborne”
• Martial Arts Cults by “Chop Ki”
• Antarctic Martial Traditions by Jesse J. Alcorta
• Kamioooka Prison by “Douglas Hill”
• Checklist for Leaving an Abusive Relationship by “Jael”

These are just a couple of the stories in the book, there’s a lot more. So don’t hesitate and get this puppy right now!

As some of you know, I turn 40 tomorrow. In the spirit of “it’s better to give than to receive” I’m doing a price cut on my e-book Martial Arts, Self-Defense and a Whole Lot More: The Best of Wim’s Blog, Volume 1”. So for the next 24 hours, you can get it at $4.99 instead of $5.99.

I made the price change already and Amazon will finish the update in the coming hours. Could be in a minute, but by tomorrow morning at the latest. I’ll then leave the price untouched for 24 hours and change it again afterwards.

I’m planning on pricing it at $6.99 then as an experiment, to see how small price changes influence sales. Compared to the price of my previously published books (over which I have absolutely no say), this is a great deal. At that price it’s still between 100% and 300% cheaper than to those others. So I think the price range I’m experimenting with is fair.

Click the image to get the book!

So if you’d like to support my blog, this 24 hour price cut is a good opportunity to do so.

What also helps is spreading the word to your fellow practitioners, so if you could share this post with them that’d be great.

Again, thank you for your massive support over the years and also for this book. And just so you know: tomorrow I’ll be very busy eating birthday cake and opening presents so I don’t expect to be on-line very much… :-)

After lots of difficulties, my new book is finally out: “Martial Arts, Self-Defense and a Whole Lot More: The Best of Wim’s Blog, Volume 1”

The title is the same as the tag line here on my blog. Simply because it describes the content perfectly: I write mainly about martial arts and self-defense but cover a lot more ground. If anything, I usually try to find the links between these topics and many other ones. To me, in many cases that’s more interesting than just explaining how to do a leg kick, though I cover things like that too.

This isn’t a book I had planned on writing though. The idea came to me about 2 years ago when I was reading a post of an A-list blogger. He mentioned that he had received numerous request for bundling his blog posts in a book so people could read it in a more practical way than having to sift through his entire blog all the time. So he did just that and to his amazement, it turned out to become a bestseller.

Not long after reading that, I received an email from one of you (Thanks Dave!) who asked me to do the same thing and I started thinking about it. A while later, I got another query for this, and then another, and so on. So I figured, what the heck, I’ll just do it and see what happens. And off to work I went.

The first part was selecting the most relevant posts. This wasn’t all that hard: I simply looked at my site statistics and quickly found out which ones got the most views over the years. Then I added a couple I particularly enjoyed writing and felt should be in there too. As I wanted as much as possible to keep the spirit of what a blog is, I asked a couple friends of mine to guest post for the book. They graciously agreed so I have brand new pieces of the following people in there too: Read More→

A few months ago, I had to replace my old phone and I got the Samsung Galaxy S Plus instead (here’s the review I based my decision upon.)  As this was my first Android phone, I went a little crazy with installing all sorts of apps. Some were cool, others not so much. But there were a couple I kept because, well, they were either pretty cool or useful.

So here are the five best free Android apps for martial artists:

1) Impetus Interval Trainer

This is a very useful timer, especially if you do a lot of interval training or train in a round system. The app lets you set different intervals, distinguishing between prep time before the round, the time you actually work, rest and a cool down period. There are a couple pre-set programs and you can also save your own. I use this app for both my own training, with private clients and in my classes.

The best part of this app is that you can set the sound loud enough. Especially when I’m working on the heavy bag, other timers just didn’t make enough noise to let me know the round was over.

There is a premium version of this one but I haven’t tried it yet. So far, this free version has proven more than plenty good for me.

Read More→