Bob Approved

Meet Bob. Bob loves karate stickers on his water bottle. Be like Bob!

“Bob” is our dojo’s Body Opponent Bag (B. O. B.). He’s especially good with our younger students. The kids climb on his head, pinch his nose, and put him in headlocks. Even we adults enjoy giving him a solid round kick to the ribs from time to time. He never complains. Of course, he never smiles either.

When I started making my karate stance images into stickers a few years ago, Bob was especially excited. You can see it in his eyes in the above photo.

You see, there’s a lot to remember when you begin training in a martial art. Your limbs may all be doing different things at the same time. Mental pictures help me keep things straight. The neat thing about the type of karate we do is that it has a lot of built-in imagery.

So I decided to start making fun illustrations for the younger karate students. So far, I’ve illustrated four of the most basic stances: cat stance (‘neko ashi dachi’), horse stance (‘kiba dachi’), crane stance (‘tsuru ashi dachi’), sanchin (‘sanchin dachi’ —the hourglass stance).

Check out my store for merch with these images on them.

If you are a martial artist and have a fun idea for a related illustration, send me a message! If I make your idea into art, I’ll send you a free t-shirt with the image on it.