Black Star Martial Arts

Black Star Martial Arts Northern Praying Mantis ("praying mantis fist") is a style of Chinese martial arts, sometimes called Shandong Praying Mantis after its province of origin.

12/31/2025

We have been raised on a diet of false modesty. We’ve been told that to be “humble” is to be quiet; to tuck our spirits away so we don’t disturb the peace of others in the room. But I want to suggest to you that this isn’t humility at all. It’s a performance. It’s a mask.

And as so eloquently reminded us, “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”

When we lower our shine to make society comfortable, we aren’t being modest; we are participating in a lie. We are shrinking to fit a shape that was never meant to hold us. We must understand that the “humility” the world often demands is actually a request for us to be invisible. It is a way of keeping the status quo intact by ensuring no one gets “too big” for the boxes they’ve been placed in.

But the truth is, and this is the heart of the matter; your excellence is not a threat. It is a testimony.

If we are “humble” to the point of self-destruction, we have nothing left to offer our brother or your sister. We cannot light a path for someone else if we’ve already extinguished our own flame. We owe it to ourselves, and we owe it to the generations coming after us, to be exactly who we are, at full volume, without apology.

Because the moment we stop apologizing for our light is the moment we give someone else the permission to find their own. That is the only way we move forward. Not by shrinking, but by soaring.

12/27/2025

We are living in a dream, and we have mistaken our comfort for our safety.

We walk through this world as if the peace we enjoy today was a permanent gift, forgetting that peace is not the absence of conflict—it is the presence of the ability to handle it. You have been lulled into a dangerous sleep. You’ve been told that to be civilized is to be soft, and that to be “prepared” is a form of paranoia.

But a man who cannot defend his own life, or the lives of those he loves, is not “peaceful.” He is simply harmless. And there is a world of difference between being a man of peace and being a man who is merely incapable of violence.

• The Illusion: “It won’t happen to me.”

• The Reality: The wolf does not ask for permission; he looks for the sheep who forgot how to use their teeth.

• The Result: A generation of people who are physically, mentally, and spiritually unprepared for the one moment that might define the rest of their lives.

We spend years training our minds for a career and our fingers for a screen, but we cannot spend an hour a week training our bodies to survive.

We have abdicated the most fundamental human responsibility: the preservation of the self. This isn’t about “toughness”; it’s about sovereignty. If you cannot protect your own body, you do not truly own it—it belongs to anyone strong enough to take it from you.

The “individualism” they sold us made us think we are safe because we are isolated. But true strength is an inheritance you must earn through sweat, through discipline, and through the refusal to be a victim.

The revolution begins in the body. It begins when you decide that your life is worth the work it takes to defend it.

Stop waiting for a hero. Become the person you would hope would show up.

12/27/2025

We are trapped in a lie that we can only be “free” if we are alone.

We have been sold a version of the “American Dream” that is actually a spiritual nightmare. They call it rugged individualism. They tell you that your success is yours alone, and your failure is a private shame. They’ve convinced us that to be strong is to be an island, to be “self-made” is to be superior, and to need another human being is a form of surrender.

When you strip a human being of their connection to the collective, you don’t make them “rugged”, you make them fragile. You make them easy to break because a single stick snaps, while a bundle of wood endures the flame.

This myth forces us into a room full of mirrors where we are constantly measuring our worth against the shadow of our neighbor.

The Trap: We aren’t looking at our brothers and sisters to see how to help them; we are looking at them to see if we are “beating” them.

The Death of Self: You cannot be who you are meant to be if you are constantly busy being “better” than someone else. Comparison is the thief of identity. It turns your life into a performance for an audience that doesn’t even love you.
The Great Deception

The Myth: “I don’t owe anyone anything.”

The Reality: We are the heirs of every hand that planted a seed before we were born.

The Result: A deep, systemic loneliness that no amount of private property can heal.

My freedom is inextricably bound to yours. I cannot be a man if you are not a man; I cannot be whole if you are broken. This “individualism” is a tool used by the powerful to keep us from organizing, from loving, and from seeing that our neighbor is not our competitor—they are our mirror.

The revolution isn’t just in the streets; it’s in the radical act of needing each other again. It’s in the courage to stop performing and start belonging. It is the realization that “I am because we are.”

Stop trying to survive the world alone. We were never meant to.

12/22/2025

READ THE CAPTION

We are told that time is a vast, but it is NOT a debt we can settle tomorrow.

If we are fortunate—God grants us this rare mercy of 75 years of life.

That is seventy-five brief rotations of the earth. Seventy-five times the leaves will turn gold and fall, and seventy-five times the frost will bite. When you realize how small that number truly is, the “rat race” doesn’t just look exhausting; it looks like a betrayal of the soul.

We spend our brilliance chasing shadows, preoccupied with the superficial, while the only thing that actually belongs to us—this precise, aching second—slips through our fingers like sand.

We must decide. Will you continue to be a spectator in the theater of your own life? Or will you finally dare to be a seeker? To love with a terrifying honesty, to take the chances that make your blood sing, and to look into the eyes of your kin while there is still light to see them by.

The clock is not your enemy, but it is a witness. Do not let it testify that you were too busy surviving to ever actually live.

Save this for the days you forget why you’re here. Share it with someone who needs to wake up.



12/22/2025

To be the father of a little Black girl is to be the architect of a sanctuary built in the middle of a storm.

In a world that would rather see her hard than see her whole, my task is not merely to protect her, but to prepare her. I am teaching her that her self-determination is the only compass she will ever need. It is a fire; not the kind that consumes, but the kind that lights the way through the thickest nights of history.

I look at her and I see the ancestral weight of my ancestors truths and songs. I refuse to let this world tell her that being “strong” means being silent.

I cultivate in her a “no” that is final and a “yes” that is hers alone.

I guard the edges of her wonder. I protect her right to be soft, to be whimsical, and to be entirely unbothered by the expectations of just any gaze.

We do not raise our daughters to survive; we raise them to dictate the terms of their own existence. I am pouring into her a trust so deep that when the world tries to lie to her about who she is, she will simply smile, knowing she has already heard the truth from me.

She is not a problem to be solved. She is a miracle to be witnessed. She is the crown, the roots, and the revolution all at once.

12/19/2025

Right now, my takedowns are like unrefined iron. Jagged, heavy, and raw. But I do not fear the lack of polish. I fear only the lack of movement.

To be a complete martial artist, one must be like water; water flows from the high ground of the Stand Up to the deep depths of the Ground Work without a moment of hesitation.

The takedown is that transition. It is the bridge. Without it, you are a divided soul, stuck in one realm or the other.

I am obsessed with this missing piece not for the sake of the technique itself, but for the unity of the whole. When the bridge is built, there is no more “standing” and no more “grappling.” There is only combat. There is only expression.

It looks rough today? Good. That is the honesty of the process. Tomorrow, through the fire of repetition, the edges will begin to soften. The friction will become flow.

Today we grind the stone; tomorrow, we reveal the blade.

I appreciate Coach and for the training and the best space to train!

12/19/2025

MY 7 (Seven) Truths from the Mat:

Listen, let’s be very clear about something: the world out there? It’s loud. It’s chaotic. It’s designed to distract you from the power that resides right here, within your own soul.

People ask why do I still step onto the mat. Why subject yourself to the grind.

It isn’t just about the fight; it’s about the liberation of the self.

Martial Arts isn’t a hobby; it’s a revolutionary act of self-mastery.

Here is what the journey has etched into my spirit:

1. Work Ethic: Excellence is not a gift bestowed upon a lucky few. It is a fundamental commitment to the sweat, the repetition, and the raw consistency of the grind.

2. Discipline: Real power is what you do when the cameras are off and the bleachers are empty. Every rep, every run, every punch counts. If you can’t govern yourself, you can’t govern anything.

3. Resilience: The system wants you to break. Your body will tell you to quit. But you don’t stop until the mission is complete. You keep moving because the struggle itself is where the strength is born.

4. Humility: Leave the ego at the door. On this mat, the champion and the beginner bleed the same. We are all students of the struggle.

5. Brotherhood: You cannot achieve liberation alone. We suffer together, we laugh together, and we rise together. That collective struggle? That is the foundation of real strength.

6. Purpose: Every movement, every tactical shift, is designed with a specific vision. We aren’t just moving; we are marching toward glory with intentionality.

7. The Ultimate Truth: At the end of the day, there is only one journey. It is the journey of Self-Discovery. It is the alignment of your spirit with your purpose and appointment from the Most High.

“The spirit of resistance is the spirit of life. When you master your body, you begin to master your destiny.”

12/17/2025

A lot of people want the oil but are too good to press the olives.

, or the pressing of olives to make oil.

Everything that is alive creates friction. What keeps you from being rubbed raw in the friction of life is the oil coming from being pressed from the oil of your destiny.

Don’t run from the pressing pressure, run to the growth which comes on the other side of your anointing from finishing your appointment.

12/17/2025

On the Folly of the Rigid Stance - Working Level Changing

In the discipline of wrestling, mastery begins not with aggression, but with humility in posture: the level change. To execute a successful takedown, one must immediately drop the hips, bend the knees, and get low. This shift transforms a tall, exposed figure into a compact, balanced, and potent engine, ready to explode with focused power.

We carry this physical metaphor into our lives and struggles. We often choose to remain fixed at a singular, arrogant elevation. A defiant, unforgiving stance of “I am master of my fate, and I have solved the riddle.” This posture is a brittle fortress, an illusion of complete control.

When we cling to this rigid altitude, refusing the necessary introspection and flexibility, we will inevitably profess bewildered shock when the very ground, the sudden, violent realities of life rises up to ensnare and trip our feet.

Our refusal to bend, to shift our perspective, is not strength; it is the source of our deepest vulnerability. The ability to change one’s level is the true key to survival and strategic action.

Thanks Coach for the lessons and friendship

12/17/2025

We all want to shield our children from the hardships of this world. It’s a parent’s first instinct. But if we clear every stone from their path, we aren’t preparing them for the journey and would be leaving them ill-equipped for the climb of life.

Building resiliency isn’t about the absence of struggle; it’s about the presence of character. It’s about teaching our kids that when they fall; and they will fall, they have the inner strength to pick themselves back up, dust themselves off, and keep moving forward.

Our job isn’t to build a world without obstacles for our children. Our job is to build children who can overcome any obstacle the world puts in their way.

12/04/2025

Happy Founders Day to THE GOOD BROTHERS of the OLDEST & COLDEST Fraternity on this side of the sky!

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated

December 4th 1906 - and Beyond

Bless Up the HomeTeam
🤙🏽

But still, yall old cats get in the gym!

#1906

12/03/2025

We out here finally drinking the water, seeing the therapist, and prioritizing our peace like we about to run for office. We look good, we feel good, and our blood pressure is somewhere below “I’ve been in this line for 15 minutes.”

But then, some emotional conflict pops up, someone tests yourr spirit, and suddenly, the ancestral reflexes kicks in.

“Oh, I got this dude right here! I was a knockout artist back in high school!

And when I see red and I start to freak out, ITS OVER!”



If you’re not training CONSTANTLY, you are grossly unprepared for a real world altercation.


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Crowley, TX
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