On your marks; get set; GO! The starters orders as a race is about to begin. These remind me of how to and how not to hold yourself in sparring or when addressing pads or involved in any type of training. The picture illustrates the phases of the start of a sprint quite nicely; preparing, ready, off! If we compare the ‘state’ of a sprinter in each of these three phases to those of...
Part one used a highlight clip of Roy Jones Jnr’s exceptional timing as a kind of definition of what timing in fighting is. At Primal, Morris develops methods for learning the timing skill RJJ exhibits in the clip, which has several components. This post will describe one drill which helps develop timing, that is the ability to see the opponents’ strikes/kicks/shoots etc coming and get your response in before it arrives. In essence it’s...
As mentioned in the previous post, we ‘created’ a Superfrau strike. It’s not easy to describe, but I will try. The front (left) leg is on the toes, with the left side of the hip pushed forward and arm up, in guard, facing the bad guy. This position is adopted after moving from a fighting position that Steve Morris favours, which has the back in a concave shape. Meaning that the c-shape has been...
There’s a lot of stuff out there concerning kids karate and Martial Arts training. I’ve only recently started teaching my kids karate class, but I’m enjoying it more and more with time although it can be a little testing at times. When I started I wanted to make sure that I didn’t teach them bad movement skills. Often with kids karate training, and adults for that matter, people end up moving like robots, this...
We recently had a BJJ session with a very young coach who put together a great session for us. He really is a young man and is tiny, weighing only 50 kilos. His assistant told me how strong the coach was despite looking like he wasn’t. I mentioned that no-one would like to be hit with 50 kilos. It’s an important point but is often forgotten when considering how to increase punching power. When...
In professional sport the use of vizualisation or imagery is pretty widespread. It’s usually used to imagine successful performance of a particular technique, race or whatever. Sport Psychology categorizes imagery into internal and external types, from the of perspective of the person imaging, i.e. you are either observing yourself performing the technique or actually doing it. The recommendation is to get the images as vivid as possible and to be multi-sensory, to include sight,...
I recently watched some live Flamenco while away in Sevilla. That region is considered the home of Flamenco and as such there are a lot of live shows. The show we attended was in the Flamenco Museum, which we’d visited the day before. It’s a really interesting place, charting the development of Flamenco from impromtu dances at gitano (gypsy) gatherings. There are three forms of Flamenco; guitar, singing and dancing. I hadn’t really thought...
Muay Thai is often referred to as the ‘Science of eight limbs’ which actually refers to eight weapons or points of contact. Namely, elbows, knees, fists and feet which translate into close range elbow and knee strikes and long and short range kicks and punches. If weapon volume were a measure of effectiveness Karate with many more empty hand martial weapons than Mauy Thai, would come out winner. Restricted by the rules of the...
Or more precisely how to get the disinclined to bark…. In a comment on an earlier post Boris B asked for some tips on how to get people who can’t let go sufficiently to vocalise whilst striking. Often people will feel awkward about ‘barking’ when striking. People can feel a bit silly, ironic really if they are wearing pyjamas and bowing to each other! With kids its easy enough, they usually love to make...
I literally stumbled upon a blog post concerning the one inch punch, specifically Bruce Lee performing the punch on a judoka. Personally, I always thought it was a bit of a myth but did come across people who could indeed manage a one inch punch. People talk about ki expression when they try to explain the phenomenon. An old friend of mine showed me the one inch punch; he did tai chi and was...
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