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Mat Manual — The Martial Arts Reference

The definitive source of truth for all things martial arts.

Complete reference articles on six arts — written to a published standard, checked by instructors, and free to read in full. The companion guides turn each one into training.

6
Arts covered
77
In-depth articles
77
Printable guides
1
Published standard
Start HereA beginner path for every art
A Karate · Shotokan Shotokan Karate for Beginners: Your First 90 Days On your first night, you stand in the back row, because the back row feels safer. The instructor counts, ichi, ni, and twenty people step and punch t… → B Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu BJJ for Beginners: Your First 6 Months on the Mat Thirty seconds into your first roll, you're already in trouble. Your partner, friendly, smiling, half your age, steps around your legs like they aren… → C Kodokan Judo Judo for Beginners: Your First Month on the Mat Your first judo class, the instructor lines everyone up, sits down on the mat, and says: "Fall backward." Your body refuses. Every instinct you own,… → D Muay Thai & Ring Sports Muay Thai: A Beginner's First 90 Days Three weeks in, you check a kick the way you were taught and your shin meets his shin with a sound like two pool cues colliding. It hurts. It hurts h… → E Korean Arts · Taekwondo Taekwondo: A Beginner's First Three Months First class. The borrowed dobok is stiff as cardboard and the belt will not stay tied. The instructor counts in Korean, the class answers in Korean,… → F Wrestling · Catch Wrestling Catch Wrestling: A Beginner's First Months Three weeks into catch wrestling, the soreness changes character. The first week it was everywhere. Now it lives in specific places: your neck from b… →
Featured ReferenceShotokan Karate — the overview
A karateka in a deep front stance throwing a lunge punch
The front stance — the art's foundation
Karate · Shotokan · Start Here

Shotokan Karate: An Instructor's Overview

It's your third class. The instructor calls out in Japanese, the whole line steps forward into a deep front stance and punches. And you are half a beat behind, punching with the wrong hand, your stance a foot too short. The senior student next to you doesn't look annoyed. She just resets, glances at your feet, and shows you the turn one more time, slowly. Every Shotokan practitioner alive started exactly there: a half-step late, slightly embarrassed, and quietly determined to get it right. This guide is the map of the art you were standing in: where it…

Read the reference →
The ArtsSix arts, each with its own chapter
01 Shotokan Karate The most widely practiced style of karate in the world: deep stances, linear power, and the discipline of the single committed technique. 13
Articles · 13 Guides 02 Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Position before submission, survival before everything: the ground art that rebuilt modern grappling. 14
Articles · 14 Guides 03 Kodokan Judo The first time you see it done properly, it looks like a magic trick — a hundred kilos of rugby player, thrown by timing instead of strength. 11
Articles · 11 Guides 04 Muay Thai The art of eight limbs — fists, elbows, knees, and shins — checked, clinched, and conditioned the Thai way. 11
Articles · 11 Guides 05 Taekwondo The kicking art, in both its traditions: WT sport and ITF patterns, and the mechanics underneath the height. 10
Articles · 10 Guides 06 Catch Wrestling Your first class starts the way it has started for a hundred and fifty years: on your feet, one hand fighting for position. 8
Articles · 8 Guides
The Mat Manual Standard
Reference entries, not blog posts

Where the domain has a full list — a kata canon, a throw syllabus, a belt ladder — the full list is printed, never truncated into a top ten. Names, sequences, dates, and terminology must be correct; where schools genuinely differ, the differences are mapped.

Built the same way, every time

Every article opens with the problem, gives the definitive answer in full, makes structure visible in tables, covers how the thing actually fails, and closes with key takeaways. Knowledge is free; the guide is the training tool.

Corrected in the open

A source of truth that cannot show its corrections is asking for trust it has not earned. When a factual error is found, the text is corrected and the change is recorded publicly — and owners of a corrected guide receive the corrected version free.

For InstructorsWritten from the other side of the class
  1. The Technique of the Day TrapIt is twenty minutes before the evening class and you are at the front of an empty room, deciding what tonight's lesson…Teaching Craft
  2. Teaching Two Classes in One RoomYour beginners class has eleven people in it. One is a woman in her second week who is still learning how to make a fis…Teaching Craft
  3. The First 90 Days Are the Whole GameIt is a Tuesday night, an hour before class. You are looking at the roster because a parent just asked about renewing,…Running the School
  4. Grading Day Without the ChaosThe test starts in twenty minutes and three things are already wrong. A parent is asking what time it begins, and the h…Running the School
  5. Running on Empty: Instructor Burnout Is a Load ProblemIt starts respectably. You teach the Monday and Wednesday kids, the Tuesday and Thursday adults, the Saturday open mat,…Teaching Craft
  6. The Student Who Vanished Was Visible for WeeksNobody quits a martial arts school all at once. They fade. First the second weekly class becomes optional. Then a week…Running the School
  7. Great Assistants Are Grown, Not FoundEvery growing school hits the same wall. The head instructor can no longer be everywhere: two classes at once, a beginn…Teaching Craft
Across All Arts
  1. Tension: Why Trying Harder Makes You WorseNinety seconds into the round, your arms are stone. You run twice a week. You lift. On paper you are the fitter person…
  2. Stiff: Flexibility, Mobility, and Stretching for Martial ArtistsEvery martial arts class has one: the student who stretches faithfully, before class, after class, at home in front of…
  3. Good in the Gym, Gone on the Day: Training the Performance You Actually HaveEvery martial art has the same ghost. The student whose kata is the class standard on Tuesdays and a rumor at the gradi…

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