Hard-Core Masters Visit
Black Belt
Hard-Core Masters Visit
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Combat hapkido founder John Pellegrini visited Black Belt to shoot a feature story with photographer Rick Hustead and writer Floyd Burk. Pellegrini's combat hapkido has a worldwide reputation as a simple, effective self-defense system. It evolved over many years of research and development. Pellegrini began training in judo in Italy in 1964, then got involved in special-forces hand-to-hand combat training and counterintelligence self-defense with NATO forces in 1968 and 1969. While living in New York City in 1973, he started karate. He went on to train in taekwondo (in which he earned a ninth-degree black belt) and hapkido and to obtain instructor-level rank in jeet kune do and aikido. He opened a martial arts academy in the mid-1980s, then founded combat hapkido in 1990. The hybrid Korean art is now taught at more than 250 schools in a dozen countries. Pellegrini’s International Combat Hapkido Federation boasts approximately 5,000 members. In July 2005, he was inducted into the Black Belt Hall of Fame as the 2004 Instructor of the Year.
LYOTO MACHIDA Lyoto Machida visited for a weekend photo shoot with photographer Rick Hustead. Machida is a rarity in the mixed martial arts: a completely undefeated fighter. He’s the Brazilian-born and bred son of a Japanese shotokan karate master. He carries himself with the attitude of a samurai which is to take no hits in battle, because a hit is usually fatal. Apply this to MMA and you have an enigma who is untouchable yet deadly, like a poison cloud—a cloud that weighs 205 pounds. —Edward Pollard
CUNG LE San shou stylist, kickboxing and mixed-martial arts champion Cung Le visited for a photo shoot with photographer Rick Hustead. He was inducted into the Black Belt Hall of Fame as the 2007 Kung Fu Artist of the Year. Read an article highlighting his fighting techniques!
AVI NARDIA Maj. Avi Nardia visited Black Belt with a host of students and partners to film a four-DVD set to be released later this year. Designed to be an adjunct to and expansion of the full-color book Kapap Combat Concepts: Martial Arts of the Israeli Special Forces, this epic set is currently in post-production. Nardia is a Black Belt contributor and the head instructor of the Kapap Academy. He spent seven years in Japan studying kendo, iaido, judo, jujutsu and kyudo. When he returned to Israel in 1992, Nardia established the Israeli Kendo Federation and taught kapap techniques at the universities of Tel Aviv and Bar Ilan. Because of these courses, the Israeli Police invited him to lead the hand-to-hand combat department of the YAMAM unit. For more information about Nardia, visit www.kapapacademy.com.
ALAIN COHEN Personal-protection security expert Alain Cohen visited Black Belt for a four-day multimedia marathon, shooting a magazine feature with photographer Thomas Sanders and a six-DVD series based on the belt levels of his Krav Maga Security system with videographers from RossG.com. For more information on Cohen, visit his Web site at www.krav-security.com.
JEAN-JACQUES MACHADO Brazilian jiu-jitsu's adaptability is epitomized by the accomplishments of this amazing master of the art and legend in his own time, Jean-Jacques Machado. If you were to take away three fingers from one hand, leaving only a thumb, reaching the heights of competitive grappling might not be on your list of things to achieve. Machado has instead completely disregarded the logic of the odds and made a career in BJJ that few will ever experience. His story is so inspiring that it has become the subject of a documentary film, Force of the Spirit, which opened the screening schedule of the Monaco Charity Film Festival 2008 on May 13. Machado came in to shoot technique sequences for an upcoming feature story. 
Cung Le: 2007 Kung Fu Artist of the Year San Shou Champ Cung Le Reveals the Secrets of High Kicks and Flying Leg Attacks! Tad Nelson Avi Nardia Inside Israel |
