tallgeese

sounds like a good time. today- 8 more hours of teaching DT. Again, focused mainly on the stuff I do. More time in the suit. Had a tough group and really worked on mindset for quite a bit. Most heavily I was involved with joint locking and takedown instruction.

I'm pretty individualistic when it comes to this, probibly having come out of a small organization really impacted how I feel about these sorts of matters to a big degree. First up, I think the teacher can and should develop his program to his specifications. It's up to everyone to decide it they are going to be part of an umbrella organization or not, but I'd never ask an instructor to sideline his own program for the sake of an organizations guidelines. If the two cannot be made to function within one another, then perhaps it's not a good fit and the instructor should find a different group. And, I think that if the instructor should allow for some student directed progress during the course of his learning. By focusing on certain aspects that one might be physically and mentally more successful with, one can mold a student into a much more formidable fighter. Lastly, yes, I think that teachers should be good at passing on their system. It's one thing to be good, it's another to teach others to be good.

As I said, it's a tool. The more it mimics a real fight the better. The more it utlizes weapons that you'll use to targets you'll use them against in a real fight, the better. I allows speed and precision work agaist a target that is moving and activly trying to hit you, this is a stress innoculation factor that will gain much ground mentally in a fight. It's not the only tool. What you're describing sounds like what we call "spontanoeus attack/defend drills". They work at differnt levels of complexity depending on time in, but the long and short of it is that one guy makes a committed attack or series of commited attacks agaisnt a defender who has to manage it. This can get ratched up to using armor and really resisting and full on defending. It to is a valuable option. As both of you have stated above, the attacker in a live fight might be on top of you already (another good reason to have a ground game and spend some time working it) but he might also be throwing haymakers at you, making you need to crash the gap and penetrate. Likewise, the individual might be imploying some sort of weapon, meaning that you'll either get away to esclate, or penetrate that gap to elicit control. Again, there are too many possibilities in a fight to rule out any specific skill set or drill as unneeded if it is trained against realistic movment and intent. I agree, there are plenty of ways to do things. But sparring for alot of schools holds a solid place in sd training tools. It's a matter of training it right, training other useful drills as well, and above all maintaining mindset for what you're doing constantly.

Just finished The Looming Tower. On to Terror at Beslan by Giduck. Yeah, charmingly light reading of late. I can say that I'd strongly recommend Looming Tower. It's a study of Islamic radicalism since the late 40's thru to 9/11. Amazing read, I couldn't put it down.

Welcome aboard. Glad to have you and no, if you want to try certainly try. 23 is a prime age, go for it.

True sparring is just another training tool. It should be viewed and valued as such. And no, it does not perfectly mimic a fight but this can be overccome by working with differnt sparring focuses. I do have to respectively disagree to it's just as realistic or not so than other methods. When done correctly, it trains one much better for a real conflict than do non-resistive methods such as kata and trad one steps. Based on my experiances, a fight is much more like sparring than any other thing I've used as a training modality, outside of defending agaist armored attackers which should also be included in the mix. It really depends on the type of sparring done and the mentality behind it. Not to say other stuff isn't important, but it's hard to overstate the importance of a fully resitive partner. Personally, I'm not a kata/bunkai guy. There are plenty of others here who can answer that aspect of your question better, so I'll let them. As to the last two, I'll kind of group them under the same heading. There should be no seperation between the art and defending ones self and all training should be geared to fighting. The idea of haveing a "self defense" part of class is foreign to me. The whole class should revolve around the idea. However, this is not always the case these days and many people don't even join ma's wanting them to be this way. The best bet is to see if what you're doing is meeting your needs and realistically addressing the concerns you have.

I'd say that at it's base level, the instructor is one who, in our cases, passes on combative knowledge. That's really the extent of his responsiblity. Now, I can't honestly say that the realtionship ends there. I've had an insturctor or two that have had a profound impact on my life. One certainly that changed it's course and they both remain very good friends to this day. But all that is an outgrowth of the first.

Well, I don't know anything about shoto organizations, but to me it sounds like the dude just has personality issues and booze in his system. A winning combination. I don't think that I'd even worry about finding the root of the problem, just because it sounds like his problem.

today- Spent 8 hours teaching DT at the dpt. Mainly striking, locks/takedowns and weapon retention/disarming. I'm not a big fan of our cuffing and pressure point stuff so I tend to pass that off to other instructors. Broke out hte armor and let them work stuff at speed agaisnt a mover, baton and all. Good time, and I even got some reps of my own in. then, 1 mile on incline treadmill. Mostly walking to work out the quad trauma from the day. back/bis

Well, bushido man, at least you've got a couple of sympathetic ears in the group. That's got to count for something. Maybe getting those guys together for an independant workout time during the week sometime might give you an outlet for what you want to do. I know that I spent quite a bit of time doing this, just to work on stuff we were doing. Peer work can be real benifical if you're all striving for the same thing. You'd probibly be surprised at the forward progress you'd make. Good luck. today- crossfit (modified)- 1/4 mile run 21 push press, 95 lbs. 1/4 mile run 18 push press, 95 lbs 1/4 mile run 15 push press, 95 lbs 1/4 mile run 12 push press, 95 lbs. ches tris 5, 2 min rounds of: hands hands/feet shoot/sprawl ground n pound bag knife defensive scheme

Gotta be Halo at the top of the list.

today- 1 mile run crossfit: 5 set, 3 reps each of front squat as heavy as possible legs ab work- heavy 1 mile run 3, 2 min rounds of knife work to cool down All in a vain effort to burn off the calories consumed while watching the fights on Sat. night. Given the amount of appitizers and sammy's consumed, that's not likely. Still, I missed a good chunk of the Oscars that my wife was watching .

today- 1 mile modified crossfit: 21 R- arm DB squat cleans 21 pull ups 21 L- arm DB sc's 21 pull ups 14 R-DB sc's 14 pull ups 14 L-DB sc's 14 pull ups 7 R-DB sc's 7 pull ups 7 L-DB sc's 7 pull ups 1 mile run

Here's my take. Terms are difficult to lock down and everyone uses them a bit differently, hence the confusion from time to time on things. We might be talking about the same thing but can't quite put it together because of a terminology breakdown. Contact levels are that way, you really don't know how someone defines them until you've been on the mat a couple of times with them. It's not a bad thing, it's just the way it is. The "parry" term we're discussing on another thread is the same way. Each lineage has a slightly different take on it. Again, this isn't a problem, it just means we have to really tease out what we're talking about. As to my feelings on semi or light or point contact (to clarify, I view all of these as just shades of the same thing), it's not so much the contact level that I have a problem with, it's the way it's trained for and the focus. Many movements that score points in these tournys are so far removed from the reality of a fight that they have almost nothing to do with actaully mimicing hurting someone in a life or death contest. Action is often (not always) stopped after each contact, clearly a bad habit to form for anyone studying ma's for the purported idea of defending one's self. Tactics are largely determined by the"off- limits" rules of the tourney as to what is and isn't a point. These limits are often so restrictive that, again, we move very far from the reason that ma's exsist in the first place. Those are my major issues. As to contact, I prefer a contact level for day to day training that lets me know I was hit but let's me work tomorrow, now personally, I don't mind working a bit beat up. I'm not sure what you'd call that contact level but it's the best I can descibe it. I've always referred to it as "functional" contact. I do think that heavier contact should be used periodically to ensure that you're conditioning mentally and physically for that eventuality, this is espcially true of doing sd scenarios with an armored baddie. More than that, I prefer to use tool that actually could hurt someone in an altercation, thown at targets that would get this done with a methodology behind them that leads to improving your survivability in a fight, not just being good at sparring. To me, sparring is a continuation or part of the self defense training process, not a seperate entity to be practiced. One should lead to the other and the utilization of tools in sparring should directly realte to improving sd skills. Otherwise why do it? Now, all that being ranted, I think everyone might not have the same goals at the end of the day as I do. This took me years to figure out, but not all ma-ist view fighting as the end result of what they do. So, if you like to point spar under those rules- go for it. And enjoy it. I'd just ask that people teaching and doing it realistically approach what it is that they are getting out of it. It might save a good deal of grief if faced with the threat of a real altercation.

Yes, it has it's limitations. This it true of all systems and all practitinoers. And yes, it excels in situations that it's designed for, again, true of many systems. However, where the mma trained ma-er has an edge over alot of stuff out there is the intensity and realism of his training. It's more live overall than most trad ma's. More heavy sparring is done over a wider cross section of ranges and he's been conditioned by this to deal with contact. The methodologies employed in training them are often better suited to making an adaptable fighter, this is a paramount trait on the street. Despite being limited to only certain tools, those tools work thru a vast range of situations. Have you ever seen a fight that you couldn't make better with a good set of strikes? I always hear the "you can't eye gouge in the ring...you cant pull hair in the ring...you can't kick in the groin in the ring...ect." arguments. Don't you think that a highly conditinoed fighter who can execute highly athletic fighting movements can probilby learn to utilize these rudimentary tactics easily enough? I'd bet so, if a fighter is dangerous without "cheating" I bet he's even more so when he is. Granted, it's a slight shift in thinking, but not a big one. I hear the ground comment alot, and again, I state that despite everyone's best efforts, you might end up there anyway. Better be able to work from there than not, see my above posts in this thread for some feelings I have on this. I understand, mma rarely deals w multiple attackers in their training. However, the tools they give their fighters in routine trainning are often better suited to survivor mentality than things that other systems who actually practice this sort of th ing are using. Again, this is one of those short comings. Bottom line, in my mind, everything has limitations. It's about working with them and trying to eliminate them. MMA isn't perfect for sd, for instance, it dosn't deal with weapons defenses at all and those fighters probibly do like to initiate ground fights too often in the street, but it's a good platform from which to build. Or, conversely, an excellet stepping stone in one's progression to a complete ma-ist. The methods of training are "live" enough that this advantage often outweighs disadvantages.

bushido man, just out of curiosity, how did that coversation go? today- crossfit (modified): 50 dips 1/4 mile run 50 pushups 1/4 mile run 50 shoulder presses, standing 1/4 mile run I added a last 1/4 on just to even out a mile.

I don't have a specific Sat. class anymore due to the rotatin schedule we're on due to my schedule. However, when I was part of a club that did utilize them it was mainly a sparring day. Whereas other days might include sparring, it was in conjunction with drilling and skill improvement. Sat was kind of reserved for just sparring or sparring drills for warm up. Of coure, this included any kind of free fighting so you'd have guys rolling, doing mma, it was pretty wide open. More of a self dircected day.

Those kind of things are good training tools, even if you're not in one of the Chineese styles that they are normally associated with. They teach great body movement, hand checks, trapping and stirking. As for the martialarm, well, it's pricy for the limited appendages it gives you to work. Without a concern for spending funds it would probibly be alright. Personally, I'd build something similar to serve the same function.

welcome aboard KF. Good to have you.

Ineffectve or not really depends on how you define parry. Some longer more circular ones might indeed less than ideal. But, I've used open hand movements that I'd call parryies plenty of times with good sucess. Granted, mine tend to be shorter and pretty much work in an explosive fashion out of a boxing position, but they are still parries as I'd define them.

Honestly, that is a pretty neat tradition. Hmm...

Spirit is important. I call it mindset but that's just the terminoliogy I use, it's unimportant what you call it. And yes, without that you might as well be learning to dance. However, mindset or fighting spirit is like fuel. It drives everthing and gives intensity to your training and effort. But it's still just fuel. You need all the other componants to make an effective fight effort. It's like a car, it won't go anywhere without gas. But you still need the componants of an internal combustion engine to make it go. A system is like that aspect of what we're doing. Your fighting spirit is the fuel. But just as important is training methodology, tactics, tools, principles and strategy that allow your spirit to put together a response to someone elses aggresstion. All of these factors go in to making a style capable of being used in a fight as well. If a style is lacking in one or many of them then it will be less than effectual regardless of mindset. It comes down to a whole package in my mind. Mindset on our part and the mechanics on the part of the system. All of it works ogether.

My wife does ours. I wouldn't touch 'em .

It's cyclic. I think sparring hard is important. I also think that unless your training to be a competitive fighter, it dosn't need to be everytime you go. Usually we keep a pretty high intenstity level, this leads to a decent amount of contact during sparring regularly. However, real heavy contact in sparring we do maybe once every couple of weeks. Now, heavy contact with full armor on for simulations, that can occur more often. Once the armor goes on, you can go much harder more frequnetly due to the added protection. I think that any time you spar there should be contact of some sort that at least lets the other guy know you're there. Anything less is not conducice to what I'm trying to accomplish on the floor. That does not mean that there is no value in other methods, just that is not where my focus is. So, always some form of contact. Regular heavy contact. Occassional full on contact.

today- 3, 2 min rounds of working trapping to infight range. grab by opponant, elbow over release and backfist. add cross, add folding elbow to end of cross. strikes go to palm of opponants glove rather than mitts. this allows for grabbing to be more realistic. 2, 3 min rounds of free sparring, heavier gear, from the infight. lead legs tied together to make people stay in that range. focus on rolling the elbows and trapping to the back fist. make sure not to forget regualr striking when appropriate. 2, 3 min rounds free sparring, from normal start. to tie up only, then add to takedown. 15 min instructinal block on sweeping from an open guard, a couple of niche moves from being taken down vs. a still standing attacker. 2, 3 min rounds free roll from knees 1, 3 min round free roll from standing