 You wanna talk to your doctor remotely from the comfort of your own home? There's an app for that. You wanna order a bunch of groceries without having to go to the store. There's an app for that as well. You wanna practice and train the martial arts at home? There's also an app for that too. Today, we're gonna talk about martial arts apps. On a couple of different occasions, we've talked about the idea of training martial arts online, you know, the pros and cons to it. And one of the main questions I get is, Mr. Dan, do you know where I can find a program on XYZ or what's the best, specifically Kempo, what's the best online Kempo program I can buy? So because of that, I was starting to play around and do some research online, and I started coming across a whole bunch of different apps intended for the martial arts. And I thought it might be fun to take a quick look at a handful of them, see if they're any good or not, what apps can offer. And if you guys like this, then we can explore this deeper in future episodes, you know, more art related specific. But, so today we're gonna talk about different martial arts apps, what they're used for, the pros and the cons to them. And if they're even worth playing around with. The first app I wanna bring up is simply called Fighting Trainer. And it's available for both Apple and Android. And what I like about this app is that it's definitely geared for beginning martial artists. So if you're just starting off in the martial arts, particularly kickboxing, MMA, I love your karate and kick based arts and striking arts, this is a good reference tool. I'm gonna go on the record and say none of these apps, no online program is a proper replacement for a live instruction with a real instructor. You can learn only so much on your own through a computer and through digital training. You still need, in order to defend yourself and actually properly learn an art, you need live training. So I just have to get that out there. And I think this particular app, Fighting Trainer, is really good for the entry level student. It teaches you basic punches, kicks, blocks, takedowns, submissions, combinations. And I really like the way it's presented, but it's almost like an index. So you kind of click on your category if you want punches or kicks or combos and click on the one you want and it plays a 3D animation. You can actually grab the screen and rotate it. You can change different angles. So if you can't quite see a particular detail, you can change the angle. You can also slow down the speed if you want to see it in slower motion for more detail and you can even put a timer to it. So if you want to see certain repeats, if you're gonna do it yourself and you kind of want a timed version of it. So this app is available for both Android and Google Play, but it is free with ads. And they seem to have features that they're working on. Like right now, as of the recording of this video, there's a workout program regimen they're adding. It's just not activated yet. So hopefully that's coming soon, but I'm definitely curious to play around with this a little bit more. I just thought it was a very easy to use presentation to work as an index in a very quick reference. So if you're new at martial arts, if you want to just kind of check out some striking techniques, might be worth taking a look at this one. Martial arts, training and workouts. This one's kind of a cool idea. I think it could be implemented a little bit better, but it's definitely a good start. And I think it's a definitely creative project. What the app basically is, is a YouTube aggregate. It's categorized in different styles. So you've got a choice of Kung Fu, Karate, Muay Thai, BJJ, Krav Maga, Akito, Taekwondo, Boxing. It's got a lot of different topics. And when you click on each one, basically what it does is it's collected a whole bunch of videos from YouTube and it brings them into the app. But what's nice about that too is like, it doesn't steal views from anyone. You're still supporting channels because the views through this app, it's just connecting to those videos. And so they still get their subscribers, they still get their views. But what's nice though is it's all in one place. And the use for this is if you're exploring an art, if you want to try different martial arts or get into the martial arts to begin with, you could spend hours on YouTube, searching, Googling, looking, watching videos. This app might be a good place to start because at least it'll be a whole list of like-minded videos, enough to give you a taste. And you can see the difference between one art to the other. Some caveats to this though are there's a little bit of a lack of quality control. Since the app itself is not in charge of the content, the content's very mixed and kind of random and all over the board. Some of the videos are very well produced or obviously professional videos. Some of them are to use in the backyard with the cell phone camera. So what you really have to do is you kind of have to vet the information yourself, watch a couple and see if what they're presenting makes sense to you. At least all of these videos are should be somewhat of enough to give you an idea of what the arts were like. Another caveat is to realize is if you click on a category, it's a little bit broad. So if you click on Jujitsu, if you click on Karate or Kempo, it's not necessarily one style that's mixed. Like the Kempo I know, there's at least Tracy and that Parker Kempo mixed in there and they're similar systems but the curriculums are different. Just try to understand that you're not necessarily get, you're not gonna get a full curriculum of any system but it's a wonderful resource to see what others are doing, to explore your own, see if it's, so if you're looking for an art, this is a great way to look. It just kind of does the work for you in terms of organization, it brings them all in one place. Now the one thing I didn't like about the app is that it does have ads, it's free with ads but the ads are pretty intrusive. You can watch a couple videos and it goes to a full screen ad that you gotta sit through the 15 seconds that you can't skip and then you kind of have to just kind of wait for it to run its course and it's gonna come up every so often and I haven't seen an option, maybe I'm wrong or I've missed it but I don't see an option for a premium version to get rid of the ads but other than that though I think it's a pretty cool app for simple as it is. It can save a lot of work and it just opens up a lot of opportunities to see what other arts are offering and it's available on Google Play. Now I know a lot of people like to use certain apps for a workout routine like you just wanna maybe have a playlist going of a workouts because you know, when I work out, you know, I bring out my curriculum, I've got a sheet of paper and something I gotta look at it and put together my own little routine which is not a big deal but sometimes it's nice to just pick up your phone, hit play and have your device call out to you and you just follow along and you focus on the workout. So plan along those lines is this app called Kickboxing Fitness and ultimately what it is, it's an app that has already pre-established playlists for you if you just wanna jump in right into a workout session and it's kind of like the little bit that I played around with it's kind of like Tybo-esque. They've got 3D animations so that demonstrates each technique but so say you click on the beginning program and like you're gonna do like a 60 day weight loss thing and it's basically doing cardio and activity so you click on the program and you click day one and it's gonna give you a cycle of like say 10 videos and you're gonna do this program for 10 minutes and it rotates between jabs, elbows, kicks and it doesn't cycle. So it's good for just quick jumping into workouts. Now the downside is it's a bit limited in material unless you pay for the paid version which is as of the record of this video is about $5.99 and that will unlock the whole program for you and get rid of all the ads and the thing is I noticed is I wanted to check a little bit more out it won't let you skip ahead because they've got an intermediate, I'm sorry they got a beginning an intermediate and an advanced program and each one has like 30 to 60 days of drills which is a lot of material but unless you've got the premium version you don't get all the material and it doesn't let you skip ahead which I think is kind of weird so if you'd have it completed day one of the beginner you can't check out day two and they're 10 minutes long so I don't know maybe it's worth just going through it I thought it was kind of cool I'm gonna play around with it myself and maybe come back and do another review on it but if you're looking for just a quick workout playlist kind of like your own little Taibo cardio program this might be a good option to start with and I also came across a Taekwondo version which is pretty much the same type of program you know you've got your beginning, intermediate and advanced and it's the same thing as the daily workouts it's just Taekwondo themed instead of kickboxing things so if that's your jam, if that's if you're looking for a good cardio Taibo type workout does that might be worth checking out? Now when it comes to Kempo I have to bring this one up because this is the one I get asked most of the time is Mr. Dan, can you recommend a good Kempo program? My first answer is a school Kempo is very, very heavy on academic material and it's incredibly difficult to learn by yourself I will always recommend finding a good Kempo instructor that can teach you to break down the Bunkai and how the system works because there's a lot of bad Kempo schools out there that don't teach you the way it should be taught it's hard to learn on your own but if you're dead set to do it or at least you wanna get started and have an idea the one I can recommend if you're looking for traditional at Parker Kempo is the Larry Tatum Kempo Kratie app this app is a lot beefier than the other ones this isn't simply just a workout program or a reference guide it is a full curriculum so in theory if you wanted to learn the entire Kempo curriculum traditional at Parker curriculum on your own this is the app to do it with it's not free unfortunately but as of now it's a 14.99 per month subscription with a seven day free trial but it's the entire curriculum it's all techniques for all belt levels first through third degree black belt with the original system it has all the forms it's got all the sets he's got seminars on there he's got bonus videos on there there's actually quite a bit of content I mean there's hours and hours and hours of footage and Mr. Tatum is a fantastic instructor he gets into great detail so if you are looking for a a decent online Kempo program again I always advocate go find a teacher even if you learn stuff online go find an instructor that you can kind of fine tune it with but if you're gonna try it by yourself this is a pretty good one to start with at least try this seven day trial and if you like it you can sign up and you can cancel it anytime it's month to month but plenty plenty to watch there so if Kempo is what you're looking for in terms of an at home online program this is the one I can recommend now a Kempo app that I use on a regular basis and this is really for students who are already familiar with the Kempo system but this is a pretty cool program it's from EPACS Incorporated and it's called Kempo Cards and anyone familiar with Kempo knows what the Kempo Cards are they're basically a deck of cards featuring the famous artwork by Ed Parker Jr. that represents each technique and on the back of each card is a description of all the different concepts and the groupings and the family relationships and the attacks a lot of the principles and concepts are embedded in it so it's kind of like a study system Kempo's got 154 belt techniques I usually have to hang the picture up or my curriculum up and try to follow along or put it in the ground sometimes it's easier you just want to press a button on the app and it acts like a flash card system so it'll read out the technique to you so it's your cue to do a technique with a partner or you want to do it in the air you can shuffle it so you can do them in order you can shuffle it so it's random so you have to act on the fly you can set the timing that you have for each one so you can say, oh, I've got 10 seconds before it calls out the next technique or five seconds you can add in multiple people so if you're working with a partner it knows to call it out twice so each person can do it you can omit techniques there's a whole checklist you can do customized playlists you can do playlists by different attacks playlists by directions it's pretty flexible I like the app a lot so if you already are a Kempo person then I do recommend this app because it's a great little flash card system it's great for making you act on the fly and it's got a lot of customization and by using the app it helps you get familiar with the web of knowledge and kind of you start to see the connective tissue in the system so it's definitely a very good supplemental tool if you're already in the class it's a great supplemental tool to your training and a great reference point so I do recommend that it's called Kempo Cards and it's available for Google Play so those are just a handful of couple apps I've been playing around with and experimenting with myself there's a ton out there you know, I was doing some research there's a lot of apps to go through and if you guys like this let me know because I'll start doing focus episodes you know, maybe I'll start looking at Taekwondo apps and Wing Chun apps and Boxing and apps and there's BJJ apps and we'll start getting deeper into that if that's something that you would like this is another aspect another avenue that we can investigate so if there's any apps that you could recommend or you want to see or an art specific app that you're looking for let us know in the comments below we'll work together and we can do some follow-up episodes so thank you guys so much please be sure to like, subscribe and we'll see you next time