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Oct 20, 2023Liked by Tim Shaw

I once had a letter published in FAI.

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To my mind it was the best martial arts magazine ever published. Up on my shelves I have a near full set of editions.

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Oct 25, 2023Liked by Tim Shaw

Pukka martial artist was its driving force. Sad to see Terry is shadow of former self. Star shined bright ...

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Sep 22, 2023Liked by Tim Shaw

Fantastic pictures, thanks. Reminded me of when you could buy Combat, Trad Karate in WH Smith. great days!

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Tim, I cut my teeth on magazines "back in the day." I would say that the 80s introduced me to Black Belt magazine, where I lusted over the ninja star order form right there in the magazine. By the late 90s, they were a main source of information for aspiring jiu jitsu practitioners, in a land where information was scarce and sparse.

I created BJJ Path to be sort of a video version of these magazines. I tend to embed a video and then do a little description, kind of like the panel-by-panel martial arts instruction prevalent in these.

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This came out of my observations that all of the martial arts info that used to be printed/paper copies has all but disappeared. I gave up on martial arts books a long time back, but these magazines now appear as some kind of time capsule. Following their breadcrumbs is an interesting pastime - I even found my name in there a few times and could pick myself out in photographs. But, you can't live in the past.

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I felt a lot of nostalgia creating the site. It was a tribute to those days.

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