This file includes Fencing, Martial Arts, Wrestling and Boxing. Also see Sports.

Martial Arts

Page Toppers

• Above the Belt
• Alive and Kicking
• Getting our Kicks
• I Get a Kick From Karate
• I Get a Kick Out of You
• It's a Kick
• Karate Kid
• Kick Back
• Kick It!
• Kick the Habit
• Quest for the Black Belt
• What a Kick!
• XMA (extreme martial arts)

Quotes

• A black belt is nothing more than a belt that goes around your waist. Being a black belt is a state of mind and attitude. (Rick English)
• Caution: I know Karate...and six other Japanese words!
• Follow not in the footsteps of the masters, but rather seek what they sought.
• For me, the martial arts is a search for something inside. It's not just a physical discipline. (Brandon Lee)
• He who hesitates, meditates in a horizontal position. (Ed Parker)
• Karate begins and ends with respect. (Master Anko Itosu)
• Karate is a defensive art from beginning to end. (Gichin Funakoshi)
• Karate is a form of marital arts in which people who have had years and years of training can, using only their hands and feet, make some of the worst movies in the history of the world. (Dave Barry)
• Karate is for life, not points. (David Walker)
• Karate is not about winning. It's about not losing. (Master Shigetoshi Senaha)
• No matter how you may excel in the art of Karate, and in your scholastic endeavors, nothing is more important than your behavior and your humanity as observed in daily life. (Master Gichin Funakoshi)
• Of those who start TaeKwonDo training, only about 5 percent stick with it until they achieve the Black Belt Rank. Then perhaps 80 percent of those who earn a Black stop there. (Duk Sung Son, Black Belt Korean Karate)
• 'Ow' is not a Kempo word. (Jonathan Vance)
• Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to go to his class. (Hong Hi Choi, founder of Tae kwon-Do)
• Philosophy of Tae Kwon Do:
  To improve character, attitude and manners. To learn self respect and to project these attitudes toward family, society and nation.
• A punch should stay like a treasure in the sleeve. It should not be used indiscriminately. (Master Chotoku Kyan)
• The teaching of one virtuous person can influence many; that which has been learned well by one generation can be passed on to a hundred. (Jigoro Kano, founder of Judo)
• There are two rules for being successful in Martial Arts. Rule 1: Never tell others everything you know.
• The ultimate aim of karate lies not in victory or defeat but in the perfection of the character of its participants. (Gichin Funakoshi)
• You may train for a long time, but if you merely move your hands and feet and jump up and down like a puppet, learning karate is not very different from learning a dance. You will never have reached the heart of the matter; you will have failed to grasp the quintessence of karate-do. (Gichin Funakoshi)

Wrestling

Page Toppers

• And in This Corner...
• Attitude is Everything
• The Champ is Here
• Face to Face
• King of the Mat
• Miracle on the Mat
• Ready to Rumble!
• Take Down
• Taking it to the Mat
• The Winner and Still Cham-pe-en...
• Wrestle Mania
• Wrestlers Never Lose Their Grip

Quotes

• The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing. (Marcus Aurelius)
• As far as wrestling goes, as long as my body is able to withstand the physical beating, I will keep wrestling. (Trish Stratus)
• Do you prefer push or safety? 'cuz you're about to get pinned!
• I think the sport of wrestling, which I became involved with at the age of 14...I competed until I was 34, kind of old for a contact sport. I coached the sport until I was 47. I think the discipline of wrestling has given me the discipline I have to write. (John Irving)
• I wrestle with demons of doubt. With my past failures. With my injuries. With that unrelenting voice that tells me to stop. But I am a wrestler and one thing is certain. I will be victorious.
• It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it is the size of the fight in the dog.
• More enduringly than any other sport, wrestling teaches self-control and pride. Some have wrestled without great skill--none have wrestled without pride. (Dan Gable)
• Once you've wrestled, everything else in life is easy. (Don Gable)
• Pride separates excellence from mediocrity.
• There's no drama like wrestling. (Andy Kaufman)
• Wrestlers don't like to be put on hold.
• Wrestling is ballet with violence. (Jesse Ventura)

Songs about Wrestling

• Andy Always Dreamed of Wrestling - The Bobs (1995)
• Big Time Wrestling - Robert Pollard (2010)
• Let's Wrestle - Joan of Arc (1997)
• Song for Sonny Liston - Mark Knopfler (2004)
• Wrestling Match - Carolyn Edwards (2006)
• Wrestling Matches - Buck Trent (1976)
• Wrestling Moves - Native (2009)
• Wrestling Song - Danielle Howle (1996)

Wrestling

NO 1/2 time
NO substitutions
NO time outs
NO excuses

Page Ideas

• Cut pictures into circles and mount on squares of paper. Use design line stickers stripes around edges of square to replicate a wrestling mat. You could also make a big wrestling mat out of the entire page with a big circle of colored paper in the center and 1/4 strips around the sides of the page. Use school or team colors and mount the pictures on top. (Jenni ID)
• Take pictures of the clothes--i.e. state T-shirt, team shirt--and then cut them out. Put on the page with pics cut in circles. Then use letters, die-cut or stickers (in school colors) and add his name and weight he wrestled. (Julie)
• I have a customer who does wrestling pages. The group picture - She cut out around the tops of the kids in the photo as a group and drew a bleacher and placed them on it. It looked like they were seated on that. She cut a mat out of black paper and drew a wrestling mat using the silver pen. She cut out around her son wrestling and positioned him on the mat in several different areas. They were the small far away shots. Use school colors. (JL in KS)
• My husband is a wrestling coach and I did an album for the team of the year. I made a wrestling mat (large square) and then made a large and small ring with a circle cutter and put those on the mat and put our school's letter in the middle of the small circle so it looked just like our mat. Used the team pennant die-cuts across the top of a page and abc stickers to put our mascot name on them. (Tracy in IA)
• Use paper strips and triangles in school colors, mount any copied newspaper articles on school-color paper (reduced if needed). Certificates can be placed in photo sleeves or Portrait Pages or mounted directly on page using corners or trimmed and mounted on paper using school colors. We made circles out of main color which is black and then used blue and green to make rings to go on the circle. We placed school initials in center so that it looked like it does on the wrestling mat. Cut the circle in half and place in center of two pages if doing a double page spread. Place wrestling stickers on strips of paper in your school colors and use them for titles for your pages. Use title blocks and put wrestling stickers or ABC stickers on title block for where the meet was held.

A Wrestler? Oh, No!

(author unknown)

When first he said unto me,
"A wrestler is what I want to be,"
I did not know, I did not see,
All I knew was from TV
"Oh, darling boy" I cried in fright,
"Wrestling is such a terrible sight.
They bite, they gouge, they kick, they scratch."
"But, Mother Dear, that's called a match."
"Please, dear son, consider track,
That won't make you blue and black,
Or basketball, it requires great skill,
At least they don't scream kill, kill."

All my pleading was to no avail.
A wrestler he would be without fail.
I fussed, I screamed, I really went on a tear,
But all he said was, "Mother, don't be a square."
So about wrestling I tried to learn,
The midnight oil I did burn.
My son now thought I was a pretty hipped mother.
I read all I could, I listened with both ears,
What I learned about sets, and falls and pins,
I learned about takedowns, decisions and wins,
I never missed a match, even out of town,
Where my son was wrestling, there I could be found.
I can hardly wait for next season to start,
Because now I'm wrestling's biggest fan,
For there's no greater sport in all the land.

Why Wrestle?

Wrestling prepares a person to fight the game of life. The wrestler is the one athlete that must meet his opponent and do battle completely on his own; no one can substitute; no time outs are possible, He has no one to check, screen, block, or assist him in any way; there is no one to blame for his mistakes. When he wins, he must show quiet pride and modesty. When he loses the responsibility is his. Wrestling is a true sport. In other sports, when contact is made, they blow the whistle to stop the action; in wrestling, when contact is made, we're just getting started. No other sport requires more sacrifice than wrestling. The individual, through self-denial, offers more of his character than ever be explained here. It is something he carries with him throughout life, and through every trial, test, and tribulation.

Boxing

Page Toppers

• And in This Corner
• Boxing Champ
• Boxing Ring
• The Contender
• Dance Like a Butterfly,
  Sting Like a Bee
• Down for the Count
• A Fighting Chance
• I Coulda Been a Contenda
• In the Ring
• The Main Event
• On the Ropes

Quotes

• At home I am a nice guy-but I don't want the world to know. Humble people, I've found, don't get very far. (Muhammad Ali)
• Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them--a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill. (Muhammad Ali)
• Every time I hear the name Joe Louis my nose starts to bleed. (Tommy Farr)
• It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up. (Muhammad Ali)
• No one knows what to say in the loser's locker room. (Muhammad Ali)
• There's nothing wrong with getting knocked down, as long as you get right back up. (Muhammed Ali)

Some of the wrestling page ideas can be modified for boxing.

Songs about Boxing

• Boxer, The - Simon and Garfunkel (1968)
• Boxing - Cornel Campbell (2009)
• Boxing Champ - Kaiser Chiefs (2007)
• Boxing Gloves - Lou Stant (2008)
• Boxing Ring - Christy Kilpatrick (2007)
• Heavyweight Boxing - Rocky One (2009)

Fencing

Page Toppers

• Don't Fence Me In
• On the Fence
• Sword Play
• What's the Point of Fencing?
• Zorro in Training

Quotes

• The book deals with being an honorable person in a dishonest world. The Fencing Master does not sell himself. That's his tragedy, and that is also his strength and his glory. (Arturo Perez Reverte)
• Fencing is a game of subtlety, and bluff can be met with counter-bluff. (Charles L. de Beaumont)
• The great mistake is to anticipate the outcome of the engagement; you ought not to be thinking of whether it ends in victory or defeat.Let nature take its course, and your tools will strike at the right moment.
• Hold your sword as if you were holding a bird in your hand: not too lightly to prevent his escape and not too tightly to prevent him choking. (Justin Lafauger)
• I'm a ham. I was immediately attracted to fencing because it seemed like a romantic, melodramatic form of combat. (Bruce Dickinson)
• I've looked at photographs of myself during concerts and it sometimes looks as if I'm in a fencing move, with a guitar in my hands instead of a sword. (Neil Diamond)
• Lt. Dean: (during a fencing lesson) Interesting move, sir. What technique was that?
  Captain Picard: The technique of a desperate man. (from Star Trek: The Next Generation)