About

James Cravens

Martial Arts

History

As of 2021 my martial art involvement has spanned 58 years. Starting at 12 I was motivated to start martial arts because of being attacked on the first day that I was coming home from Junior High School. Nothing happened that day, but I asked my Father about self defense and he indicated I should be able to protect myself. I asked him about taking lessons and he agreed.

My first teacher was some kind of Kung Fu teacher but my lessons were limited. Soon in the fall my Dad said there was a Karate Class at the University where he taught. I began going to classes on Saturday and Mondays. The Karate was a mix of Japanese and Okinawan Karate. A lot of basics and a little bit of Kata or form. The main thing we did was spar and then after a few months we began to go to lots of tournaments.

Philosophy

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Martial Art can be studied and appreciated in numerous ways. One can enjoy the art, the science, the competition, the self defense, or the realistic fighting, My own journey started with self defense having been attacked with a knife when walking home from school. The options were few commercially so word of mouth was the way most found a place to study.

It was 1965 so I ended up with a teacher at the university where my mom and dad taught. The focus then was tournament competition and doing demonstrations of various martial art stunts. Although my teachers changed I remained in the tournament aspect of Karate and Kung Fu and it was more about learning the game and influencing the judges back in the day. The reward was to be noticed and possibly become ranked in some of the circuits. Being quite busy with college , then teaching high school and marriage and a family, tournament competition was about my only involvement. I was drawn away into a more isolated martial art group, the sort of group that gave most of its time to the head teacher who had great charisma and magic . He was very persuasive, but finally his antics drove me away. At this time I had students and wasn't sure what direction I would go.

People

Many people have influenced and effected my martial art training and thinking. One Chen Tai Chi teaacher said to me that he felt that from being around several of the grandmasters that Chen Xiaowang was the one that would think through everything. In the Bruce Lee world, of course his bigger than life persona overshadows the excellent thinker that he was. You can simply read his notes in the Tao of Jeet Kune Do to understand how he thought through things.

Ultimatily Christopher Casey was the biggest influence in my martial art thinking. He gave me the vision and structure with his uniqueness of his energy and Chinese Boxing. The detail of thinking through the problems of realistic fighting and training for realistic fighting has made an enourmous influence on my development.

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