tallgeese

Tao of JKD is very useful in developing a good combative outlook, not to mention it's filled with useful info and tactics. Lot's of stuff to think about and easily integratable into your overall game plan. Living the Martial Way is really a tretise on developing a warrior outlook and training in a way to cultivate that spirit. It's really good for reaching beyond just "doing" ma's and making them part of you. My Way of Life is both a great historical perspective and a charater study of one of the modern pioneers. Really a nice look at what goes into the education of a warrior and the committmet it requires. Secrets of the Samurai is entirly historical. But very good and complete. You'll learn alot. The classics are more for training your mind to think in a combative and martial pattern than anything specific to ma's. The picture books are just ones that brought good elements to my game and presented them well.

He was definatly one of the greats. It is time and probibly has been for a while. I'm glad he's doing so before it gets well past the right time. Great career adn a great fighter. He as probibly the last fighter to make me want to watch boxing.

today- modified crossfit: 50 inverted burpees 50 normal burpees 1/2 mile run, max elevation on the treadmill

Not real adept, but I will use them when the opportunity presents itself. It's usually after I've screwed up and been tagged, but I happend to get ahold of the kicking leg. Mostly, when I do a takedown off a trap, it's most reminicient of your video. Then I'll utilize a inside reap like the next two articles if I can. Sometimes, you can get adaquate force for a takedown just based on yanking the leg and twisting. I'll also add on a trip from this motion as well to aid in the takedown if the distance it right. More recently, I've started incorporting high single leg takedowns from wrestling from this position. Most people will quicly pull the foot back once they realize it's trapped and wil lgive you the opportunity to "run the pipe" alont the leg and either trip or spiral from there. Just some thoughts. It's been working out pretty well for me.

Suprisingly, when I realized that motions from the mawashi-uke movements in kata were training trapping and parrying. Yeah, we're going back a ways here. Once realizining that I was already doing said motions in two man training, I started leaning away from kata as a training tool, prefering the two man apprach as to avoid not knowing what I was practicing. Still, it was a revelation moment to me.

You could try checking out a local wrestling club. You'd be suprised at how many of them have, at one time or another, checked out a jj class out of curiosity. Not to mention, you'd get a world of practice with body contact takedowns and hip work on the ground. It'd be a good starting point.

today- 5 miles legs (yeah, this stunk by the time I got here)

Glad to have you and welcome aboard.

I use my perephial vision. My focus is probibly around the lower chest. This allows me to pick up elbows moving a tad easier. Definalty never the eyes.

I'll have to check out the one one History. After watching the Sam v Viking eposide I was "ehh" about it. Not awful, but hardly scientific other than the measuring devices they used. For instance, the big argument about the katana vs. the chinmail was it's lack of ability to slice it. Yes, we all know that the katana is a cutting weapon, but I didn't think it was fair to ignore the pointy tip at the end either. I would have like to see him thrust it. Still, not bad on the breakdown. I was more irritated by the highly juvenile and relitively forced trash talking going on between the participants. I won't take it off my list yet, but I probibly will save it for insomnatic spell. My impression was, "So this is what happens when Spike tries to do the History Channel." I'll have to check out the Warriors show.

Nicely done.

today- 4 mile run chest/tris

You're probibly not limiting yourself too much if you have a handful of kicks in the arsenal. Front to the groin/bladder and shin, round to the quad (maybe floating ribs, maybe), side stomp to the knee and you're pretty much covered from a sd aspect. As was said, what's required on a grading might be more intesive on the kick side of things. Might want to ask. As for putting together and adaquate thrat response, you'll be fine with a small handful of kicks. I'm ceratinly not say that a shin to the head isn't a great thing. It's just that, for most of us, taking that much time gain and maintian realistic abilities at that level isn't worth it given the envornmental (and use of force) limitations outside a dojo.

On of the systems I train in has it's roots in RyuKyu Kempo. One of my instructors was heavily influced by his time in GoJu. It's just part of my lineage though, I'm ranked in neither.

It's definalty a ma, for sure. I guess that classifying it as traditional would be about as good as any, unless you'd put the "sport" classifier on it depending on the format. For instance, folk style would really have a sport feel to me. That dosn't make it bad, it just focuses on that aspect. Greco-Roman might be more of a trad ma given it's development. Good point bushido man.

Definalty go for it. It will only help you in the long run and give you another range option in a fight. I take a slightly differnt apprach that JusticeZero to these things, respectfully, it's only my opinion. You've got a pretty good feel for Go-Ju by now as a purple belt, enought that you should understand the main concepts and principles of what you're doing. Once you've got some mat time under you, start interfacing the two. Figure out how you can best utilize the ground work into you overall gameplan for conflict resolution. It'll take some time, and you'll need to develop skill in the ground game first, but you'll find that the two should compliment each other pretty well.

Maybe it will end a fight, maybe it won't. Hard to tell. It's still a good viable target. I just can't stress the mental side of preparing for things NOT to work enough. Even if he does drop, it's easy enough for him to get hands on you and drag you down wiht him to a ground fight. There's plenty of chemical additives that dull pain reception, making any strike that dosn't physilogically destroy joint function suspect. Then there's adreniline to deal with, it's entirly possible that a target won't even know he's been struck there until after the fight is over and he starts coming down off of the effects of being in combat. On a different idea that came up over the course of the thread, I do think that there is a differece in having men and women on the floor. There are women that train on my floor, and men. The two often have distinctly different reasons for being there, and thus are more adaquatly trained for their goals by adjusting training accordinly. This is true individual to individual for sure, but I do fing a pretty common distinction between men and women in this regard. It's also good to consider the physiological differences between the two archtypes and build around those capabilities. Just food for thought from a differnt viewpoint, that's all.

It's also a prominant riot control theroy. Sptters identify the primary insitigators and agitators and control elements press thru the line to get them in custory then bring them out. The thing is in those cases you're talking about having a team of several individuals to accomplish each task and watch each others back. Not to mention the availibility of all sorts of munitions goodies. In a one v. many brawl, you won't have all of those advantages. I still see the sense in the concept, and I'm certainly not saying it's a bad idea. I'm just saying that the realities of the situatin might dictate a different course of action being better at the time. That's all.

It's a situation that 's too fluid to make a blanket statement. I understand the psycology behind it, but it may or may not be impractical. What if he's too deep in the line up, you'll be exposed to attack from others to easily. What if you don't end up dispatching him quickly. Now your messing with the strongest dude there while someone else beer bottles you to the back of the head? I'd say that your tactics for such an encounter will be determined by the terrain that it occurs in, the numbers of the opposition, your access to weapons, ect. All this will determine the best course of action, not preset ideas that may or may not be acheivable.

I DVRed it after seeing the thread. I'll have to take a look later today. Maybe after the Patton show from History Channel.

second round for today (yeah)- 1 mile run on incline back/bis heavy ab routine

Granted, but you've got to have some defensible core pattern from which to build. Stance is about the best term to encompass that that I've heard.

Michi, you're forgetting the extent of my kata training--or lack thereof so I really can't speak to how to make the transition from forms to the kind of sparring and pre-sparring drilling I talked about. It's easier for me to realte it to moving from two man attack/defend drills than kata. To tie them together, you're simply using movements learned and trained during your two man work and integrating them into the above drill. If you're already doing spontaneous two man work, then this should flow pretty easily. If you're not, then the next step is to take the two man work you're doing and work thru 2 to 3 responses to a given attack that might address slight variations. Then, do the same for a similar attack. Say a jab for the first set and a cross for the second. Then, give the attacker the choice of attack. The defender will start to adapt to the slight variations in each to put together a response based on what he's given and not forced to make fit. Then, you easily build into the type of work I talked about in the above post. Now, as to exactly how I make the transition I'll go thru and example. For the two man work, we'll start with a cross punching attack. The defender will 1) evade by stepping off line to the outside with a parry; 2) he'll then stun by striking to the h ead with the lead hand; 3) he'll then unbalance by a bent ambar; 4) he'll control via a takedown with the bent armbar and maybe a reap as well. That's the two man drill. Now, to integrate that to sparring, we'll use the format I talked about above. Now, the mitt holder and armored holder will throw out several shots that force our trainee to defend. These should be spontaneous and, of course, appropriate to his skill level. Then, the mitt holder will "feed" a good solid cross every now and then, initally, he might even telegraph it a bit. Now, out trainee, who has been defending live shots in a realistic fashion, will adapt to the cross and apply the parry. We'll give him some freedom though and let him counter and do the "stun" portion of this however he wants, maybe incorporating the heavy padding at the body we didn't have access to in the two man drills. Now, he'll work to set up and apply the bent armbar. Unlike the two man drill, the holder can now actively attempt to counter and defend. What we'll do though is tell the holder to relax the defensive efforts after he's been suffficiently "stunned" by the trainee. Then the armbar and takedown will prgress. That's the pre-sparring phase. Now, once we move to full sparring, we'll have everyone working the bent armbar. This will allow them to work thru the set up and find the pit falls vs. a fully resistive aggressor. That's how I make the jump. Hopefully, it will allow some insight into how you could utilize the same method with kata. Sorry for the dissertation, I hope somewhere in there I answered the question .

today- sparring drills, mitt gloves and body armor on bad guy: 6, 3 min rounds. Start with defending punches and countering via combinations to presneted mitts. Move to add kicks to both sides of drill and clinch. Finish by adding knees and elbows in the infight and defending the takedown from the holder. Strike him down, n ot grapple. 20 min of drill work on escpaing the mount. Series from there to reversal via sweep. Mount esape, half guard, full guard, sweep 3. 4, 2 min rounds of free roll from negitive position. Today that was the mount. 4, 2 min rounds free roll from feet. Closed out with knife work, 15 min. Project is going well. Got the opportunity to try it agaist a guy who had previous knife training and it worked out well. Left to test cutting before really starting to impliment it.

I'm not sure of the term "shiai", my language skills are about as lacking as they can be . As for the best way to construct sparring drills based on your system, that's a real good question. We work off a principle set that is essitially evade, stun, unbalance and control. So when we build a sparring progression we'll generally work off an attacker throwing some shots and pick some evaion tactics to work. You can do this armored up for sparring or with mitt gloves and protective gear from a holder depending on how live you want to build it. So, start by defending a few shots. Then, you'll want to work in a counter combination. Again, either to an opeining we're working on creating or to a set of mitts. After a couple of rounds of that, add in some sort of destablizing tactic after the striking combo, let's say a shot to a single leg. After a round of that add on a controlling mechanism, here you could finish with the actual takedown portion. Just an example,you could use anything. Now that you've work the priciples thru, and have drilled a progression. Let things go live and let them focus on the application you gave them for a round or two. After that, open it up and let them go. You'll be surpised how much of what you just wen t over pops up as they subconciously get it into the memory banks. That's an example as to how we do it. I have to imagine the same idea would work across the board with whatever movement sets you chose to apply.