Tuesday 26 October 2010

Week 28

Monday night class at Tristan’s. The theme was integrating the hands and feet to work as one.

Started by working continuous punches against the pads. The feeder’s job was to walking around the room backwards, the puncher’s job was to follow and maintain distance, same beat to punches and making sure the feet are active, alive and working. At any given moment the feeder can walk forwards, puncher then has to offline and step in with a punch then continue chain punching.

3 drill: focus with intent and footwork with moving forward with at least 1 of the 3 attacks in the 3 drill. I noticed with myself that whilst moving forward my laps tended to suffer. I was working with Stable and found the final lap with palm was always tough. Could not get enough extension on the lap. Must do better.
We then moved onto working the one armed 3 drill. Keys given was to keep the shoulders square, ultimately to make the movements small and compact and to ensure all attacks move towards the target.

Out of range entry: Using the 1 armed 3 drill. Make sure not to step in to close the gap but reach and turn the shoulders to get the inside gate lap. Why? Because if we step in then we have closed the gap and committed too soon. By reaching we are losing nothing. When contact is achieved, there is a strong possibility that he will throw the other hand. If so we can then move in and crash his centre.

Entry technique: Employing the above which is said to be 16B and ends with a trap and hot.

Sparring: 1 minute rounds.

Pad training: Pyramid to 7

Finished with a run through of SNT

Thursday 21 October 2010

Week 27

The first hour tonight was designated to grading specific work. So I had the pleasure of working with H on the 3 drill and lat sau.

3 drill detail worth noting is that all we need to demonstrate in the 1st grade is an ability to change when asked, to fully extend the lap as well as being relaxed in the arm when being lapped, all attacks forward to the face, defence energy is forward without zoning out. Thankfully Martin highlighted some gaping holes in my 3 drill in that I kept hitting the arms and not the face. So for me this is my target to sort out. Amongst the training, H chose to sidetrack me with his story of the week which was so funny that I bent over laughing. In addition we briefly chatted capoeria and the beauty of it and the merits or not of it’s effectiveness. H recounted a clip he saw where the said stylist got battered. This link suggests otherwise

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6oiADjOdFg

Lat sau: Previously the aspect of training I would have happily never done again yet tonight training with H we managed to roll correctly and for an extended period without the deltoid burn that was apparent in previous sessions. Nice relaxed arms were the key for me. As we hat to test each other’s forward energy of the punches I learnt a simple lesson. Whenever you take the hand away to cover the face, place the bloody thing on the face. Mine was a few centimetres away and deservedly got hit in the hand which twated me in the face. At least H’s punches were going where they were meant to.

Next we moved on to a pair of sparring techniques: Lap punch – chicken wing elbow – horizontal elbow to the chin. The extended version was an uppercut then elbow the face. Felt nice to use the elbow as a lever to enter and control their space. Martin also demo’d the tighter power of using the elbow to lever gaps in standing grappling.

Sparring: Felt like we had not this for ages. The routine was 1 minute defend, then attack followed by both attacking. I got a bollocking for shit footwork – my stance was far too shallow. We then had a brief break to work a low solid base. The drill was to push our partner back by using deep but short steps. Utilising the legs to do the work. From then on I endeavoured (when not tied up) to work the footwork. For me this was to the detriment of my hands but I feel like I really need to sort out the feet first. To get a better feel I was using the footwork to press my partner back. A few notes on who I sparred with.

H attacked with tight shapes and excellent forward energy. Made me believe that if I did not defend then a fat lip would be my gift.

The Last Samurai palm striked the crap out of my face. He likes to hold the wrists so need to muse a cunning escape plan. Maybe rolling and rotating elbows would work?

Kam was constant forward energy, no breaks but so relaxed and precise in his movements. Reminded me of the sparring technique we practised and managed to employ it just once. Too busy trying to keep my stance sensible.

Paul wants to tie up and grapple, very strong, will be a menace when that strength softens and becomes octopus-esqe in his grappling.

Z has great hip awareness, won’t let you get near him, posts his arms well into the hips when looking to tie up. Time to pull out the flying triangles... This video has some tremendous takedown action, a shame that it is so rare in judo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u41omoNO4U

Pure commitment to technique

We ended with a pad training circuit. A new one for me tonight was the 1-2-9-10-9-10-3-2. AS always, jolly good fun.

Finally and sadly tonight was the end of an era. After 16 years the school hall of Waddon Infants is to be demolished. The school has relocated so the developers are to move in and make a killing. I first walked through the doors of this school in 1997. When I came back this year, it was exactly the same. The old hall has served Martin and his students well over the years. I am sure he will be quite sad at leaving but change is an inevitable part of life. Time to look forward to a new chapter. Timely words I guess as no training for me next week I will be undergoing the small matter of a snipping procedure. Pics and audio files to follow...

Thursday 14 October 2010

Week 26

The main detail from this lesson was the work on entry techniques and swing defence.

Entry techniques.


1a: lap and punch, trap and punch
1b: lap and punch, lap and punch, trap and punch
2a: pak and punch, kau sau and punch
2b: lap and punch, pak and punch, kau sau and punch
3a: pak and punch, tan and punch, trap and punch
3b: lap and punch, pak and punch, tan and punch, trap and punch
4a: pak and punch, body shot, tan and punch, trap and punch
4b: lap and punch, pak and punch, body shot, tan and punch, trap and punch
5a: lap and punch, lift hands, gut hammerfist
5b: lap and punch, lap and punch, lift hands, gut hammerfist
6a: inside gate lap and chop, chop to neck
6b: inside gate lap and chop, arm x-trap and punch
7a: lap and punch, hit through centre
7b: lap and punch, lap and punch, hit through centre

Swing defence

Step forward and into him, extend left arm forward not out to the side hunting for the arm as the right hand connects with his chin. I was employing the palm to the chin as I felt this had a higher percentage of being successful. In addition I quite like the security of the palm over the punch. For me it is bigger and structurally better in this particular situation. My problem is I have small fists.

Friday 8 October 2010

No touch...

The no touch K.O. martial fraudsters

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM_qg5d1YGI

It bothers me deeply that ‘high ranking’ people are peddling this tripe. It actually saddens me too. If these techniques were so effective, so extreme and so deadly why are these not part of the basic curriculum in these styles? Why are the military, police and security personnel not employing these methods on the troubled in our society? Why am I as a school teacher not using this to restrain children without touching them? Why do we not see these methods employed in MMA, boxing or any other tournaments? Cleary because they are worthless, meaningless and do not work. I feel sad that someone like Leon Jay actually believed he could do this on a street guy. He looked rather embarrassed. As for George Dillman, it appears that all the money he is making is fuelling his rather robust appetite. Fatty, learn to control your palette and not the minds of your students. The benefits for all will be far greater.

However there are similar yet much more credible examples of ‘no touch’ style work that are not a fraud, that are much cheaper to learn and less reliant on pin point accuracy in the chaos of combat. For 3 years I trained in the Russian military art of Systema. The sparring in Systema is a game of sorts but essentially based on the notion of movement. If someone is going to attack you then there are several options open to you.
1. You get hit.
2. You move out of the way.
3. You do something to the attack.
4. You do not see it until the last moment and reflexively flinch out of the way.

Much of Systema videos out there look odd and as if the receiver is taking falls for the attacker. Not until you think about the hows and the whys of that type of training within Systema will you make sense of that type ‘no touch’ work. The main master Mikhail’s words have been translated into ‘Psychic work’ but this is wholly inaccurate as he is referring to using the flinch and escape response in the receiver of the hits. To learn the no touch work or flinch qork, get down to Systema gym and feel the sheer pain of their work and the very basic theory of proper no touch work.

So, Georgey Boy, do some hard work, loose the fancy badges and lofty titles and be honest with yourself and with your students. And out down that sticky bun as you read this.

Week 25

One armed 3 drill

No Martin tonight so Tristan did the majority of the teaching. Nice and thorough, technical yet appropriate to all levels, good job all round. The basic roll is inside gate lap - chop forward - roll over with backfist - pak sau and continue. Took a while to get used to, I was working with H. We seemed to get it down pretty well...

Lat sau

Hard and awkward. Z and Trist talked about crossing the wrists and why the arms do what they do. As I throw the punch to his chin, he intercepts by punching towards my chin, thus cutting the angle of my punch so it misses past the target. As soon as I feel him on the outside I must extend my arm by popping or straightening the arm. If this does not happen then his punch will land on my chin. As he makes contact on my arm he then throws a punch at my chin with his opposite arm. I then do as he did and cut/grind/attack his punch with one of my own.

I also found that my hands were jamming each other. Z noted that I was not pulling or retracting my hands quick enough after each punch. When I did, it seemed to flow better. Finally, in the air, both Z and Trist said lat sau is chain punching to the chin. Add a partner then they just become slightly interrupted by deflections. I also ran the gauntlet of checking H's punches and got one in the mouth for my sins. At least he was one target.

Pad training.

Ran throgh a range of pad training combos. (1 2 3 2, 1 2 1 14, 1 2 7 3 2, 1 6 3 2, 1 10 3 2) with the focus on use if the feet. Knowing that the first few hits are to damage and move him but the final 2 is the KO gift.

First form

Need to video this as too much info for my small mind to take in.