tallgeese

crossfit today (modified slightly) 20 mins of as many rounds as possible of: 15 pull ups 15 push ups 15 back extensions 15 roman chair type set ups short leg day with the weights

Developing a diet around defintion will depend less on what particular exercises you are doing and more about how many calories you are intaking vs. how many you are burning. To really get cut (like movie cut), you're going to have to seriously cut down (in all likelyhood) the intake of calories. Increase the burnt calories by incresing hte total workload of your activity. As to all the variables about whet calories should come from where, I'll have to leave you in more experianced hands. Check out crossfit.com (yeah, I know I always say that) and look in their diet section. I'm a big fan of their exercise protocol, although I can't say I use their dieting methods (a few more pounds isn't worth counting intake for me- I like burritos too much) but guys get really good results from what they push over there.

The easy (an most correct) answer is that it depends on the situation that presents itself. As a rule, I try to slip to the outside of the jabbing hand of my opponant, and circle that way as well. This keeps you moving away from the power side of his cross and other weapons. Granted, it's an ideal situation, and that isn't always the case. Also, there are plenty of good combinations going inside, however, I still try to work outside of his jab. The angle of the elbow really depends on you and what you are more comfortable delevering. Mine usually come out ot about a 45 degree angle, thus splitting the diffrence. To wide and you cant recover to protect well, too tight and you can get jammed up in your protective posture too easily. But, the angle will vary on what defense he presents that you need to jab around. Don't be afraid to vary the angle, just to make it harder for him to read your incoming attacks.

It's a great total body workout for sure. And light on the joint trauma. Your abs will get strenghened by it, but not on a focused basis. More on a "functional" level. On a side note, you can have really strong abs and good core strength and still not sport the "six pack" look. Most of the defination comes from diet.

today crossfit (modified) 100 squats 6 pull ups 6 dips 80 squats 8 pullups 8 dips 60 squats 18 pullups 18 dips 40 squats 24 pull ups 24 dips 20 squats 30 pull ups (had to go assisted with some here) 30 dips 1/2 mile on the treadmill, max elevation.

Agreed, the between the high cost of a redman and the loss of realistic mobility (lets face it, your attacker kind of moves like a zombie) it's pretty prohibitive for most clubs. Our DT program at the dept. just bought one of Blauer's suits and we've got some training planned with it come Feb. I'm looking forward to seeing if it's worth it's equally obnoxious price tag. As for what I use for gear regularly, full armor will usually include: A caged set of head gear (Pro Force makes a decent model, good cage and well built, great price- a little shabby on the padding but nothing is perfect) I have also, on occassion, substituted at full faced motorcycle helmet for head gear. It has it's uses but I wouldn't go out and get one specifically to use. Kempo gloves (again, I go with Pro Force, they've lasted the best of models I've had) This let's you not only strike with more padding than mma gloves (which will get used occassionaly as well), but will also protect your hand for knife v stick or knife v knife training. Knee and elbow pads. These are a must, first for padding during contact for uke-san, second for your own protection if weapons are being used. I've used all sorts over the years, just try to find some that work well and actually stay in place. For me, anymore, they have to fit over my knee sleeves as well . Shin gear is also a good idea for heavy sim beat downs. This lets you throw hard on quads with less fear of crippling people for the next days work. And of course, a good wrap under cup. Don't leave home without it. Yes, we allow groin attacks during this type of thing. Even with this stuff on, you'll still have to watch contact to some areas. The c-spine, the groin both come to mind. Also what the gouging to the eye area, even with the cage on simulated striked can still slip thru. It's actaually a good idea to have an outside person serve as a kind of referee to this type of training. Not to score points and such, but to remind eveyone in the heat of whaling away on each other to not poke each other eyes and such. It's a good safety net. Most of the time, I'm barefoot. I will usually put on wrestling shoes for this sort of thing, just so I don't get a toe seperated in the insuing melee. We have had vests in the past, but I've never found one yet that was worth it when you weighed how much it actually protected you vs. how much restriction it placed on my comfort and movement. That's just kind of the over view on what we use.

A couple of thoughts here... First off, I see your point joe. I could see that without as much problems. I still think that there is something to be said for having an adult oversee such things, but given your above example, I could see how it would be ok. As far as being in charge of a warm up, then I'm all for it. Espically since it seems a less outgoing member of the class was asked to step up and run it. That seems like a good idea, and running warm ups are certainly more in line with the kind of responsibility that younger bb's should have to help build future instructions. Whoever said ealier that we needed more information was certainly correct .

I'd have a tough time taking sd instruction from him. A 13 yo kid just dosn't have the life experiance and probilby not the adult triaining required to adaquately present that kind of material. It's that kind of situation that keeps us from awarding bb rank in the combatives of our art until at least 16. Even with that, I think the youngest to ever reach bb status was 19 or so.

Adventure trip. He's got a climb planned. Nothing major but still, it's pretty cool. We did some training up in the Colorado high country together during winter conditions this year to help prep. We wanted to get out and do Casaval Ridge on Shasta as well, but that didn't work out. Man, I'm still smarting about not being able to join him.

short run crossfit: 21-15-9 reps of 95 lbs. thruster pull ups 3, 3 min rounds of weapons work knife single stick, focus on striking and moving to joint position with the stick double stick, basic patterns and strike work

Really neat. I have a buddy heading down there in the next month or so. Man, an I jealous.

You hit on a good training point here, the more that your knife training can mimic the same movements used in your unarmed strategy the better. This allows a good continous build of skill. This also goes to advanced stuff as well. Trapping and parrying will often lend themselves well to raking with the blade.

Yeah, it's a matter of degrees. Range changes from kicking to punching to the infight could easily be considered a form of transitioning. A bigger one would be to a clinch, then a bigger to the ground. Also to consider, transitioning to a weapon for personal defense would count as a big form of transition. Like I said, a matter of degrees of the transition.

I'll probibly pick it up. Maybe not right away, but I'll get it.

The japaneese jj actually will work very well for they type of things that you'll need to do in any sort of security professtion. I'm not saying a grappling art won't work well as well, I make quite a bit of use of both at my job. Japanees jj does incorporate striking, I should know, I came out of this kind of background. It also focuses heavily on standing manipulation of joints. This can be very handy when you're trying to handcuff someone, make someone leave an area, ect. It also h as the benifit of keeping you on your feet in case the mope in question has friends who'd like to kick you're teeth in while your tying him into knots on the ground. Is it perfect, of course not, if it was the be all and end all sd art I would never have started cross training. But it is highly useful in this type of field. And it never hurts to be proficient in striking, even in a field that's dominated by "control tactics". All too often adminstrators get caught up in the "control" part of this and forget the "tactics". There is a use of force continumn for a reason. You do get to escalate based on what the bad guys does. This does mean that he can get hit in certain situations. Again, I've also been able to utilize alot of my ground game in my profession as well. I'm just saying that there is certainly a place for Japanees jj in this situation.

I started because, and I hate to admit this, I wanted to learn to fight well. Now, I continue (and I'm even more embarassed to admit this), to keep learning to fight well. I'm just a bit more focused now.

Since we're starting to round down the year here, I thought that it wouldn't be a bad idea to reflect on how '08 was for each of us individually in the ma's. Did you meet your goals? Develop new ones? Acheive a rank you had worked for? Start up something new? Just how did the year treat us in regard to the martial arts? I'll kick it off I guess. It wasn't bad on this end. Personally, I got a lot of training time worked into my new schedule. So my game and timing got to be as good as it's been in a while. I spent alot of time making my ground game more mobile and crisp and that seemed to work out overall. As for the guys that train with me, I had one guy get competitive and do well in the grappling areana. A couple of mma guys I worked with had a good year. And one of the cops I train with got to use some of what we work on in a real serious throw down and credited what we're doing to how well he controlled it. On the downside, my older joints gave me a lot more trouble with the increased training load. Also, with alot of guys I'm working with wanting to focus on mma stuff, I didn't get as much time as I wanted to train with joint work or weapons. So I have to rack '08 up to an incredably successful year over all. Here's hoping to continue the trend (with some course correctinos here and there)as we head toward '09. Who else...

today- crossfit: each 4 min round consist of 20 seconds on, 10 sec rest and move immediately to the next round. Do as many reps of each exercise in each 20 sec. interval- round 1- pull ups 2- push ups 3- set ups 4 squats followed by back/bis Shoulder is so far so good. I'm increasing the weight and intesity slowly back to my pre flair up level.

Some books I consider a must in any ma library are: Secrets of the Samurai Living the Martial Way Tao of Jeet Kune Do Bushido: The Soul of Japan Karate Do: My Way of Life Some other ones that are worth contmeplation: Code of the Samurai Book of Five Rings On Combat (or on Killling, Combat is an easier read) There some other good ideas on a couple of other threads around here that would be good as well.

Yup, good luck!

My slipping and angles can go either way, off the front of back with footwork. I like using the lead to move to the outside of the cross or inside of the jab (assuming a closed type stance arrangment). I don't cut too much the other way, but instead circle and try to stay to the outside of the jab hand. This makes it harder to bring the cross to bear on me. When I utilize the back foot, it's more of a circular motion. I cut this alot with joint manipulations. However, it can be real useful to change directions while moving as well. For instance, I too have the problem of moving straight back sometimes. What I got in the habit of doing was using the thrid backward step as mental cue to swing the back leg out and turn my facing about 90 degrees (just like you'll sweing that back leg in several aikido throws-something else i picked up from that cross training). Espically if the bad guy was pressing hard. This breaks my backward motion and reorients me agaist a charging foe. It's pretty useful and I've had a lot of luck coupling it with the off-line step with the front foot and circling.

That's a pretty good breakdown of the "challenge" ShoriKid. Taken that way it's not suprising that no one's gone running to give it a go. Actually, that's a pretty well constructed set up to gain exactly zero responses. Nice breakdown.

Hey everyone, just getting everyone's thoughts on knife presentation, or how you primarily hold the weapon during drilling. I'm not referencing som much as how you practice defending against it (although feel free to comment on that as well), but more on how you primarily utilize it defensively for yourself. For instance, do you mainly work with the knife in a traditional blade out posture or in more of an "ice pick" hold, regardless of what angle you choose to attack from. For me, coming out of the arts I've spent time with, we use mainly the blade out position. This allows better opportunities to "defang" so to speak, or make cuts to the structures allowing an opponant to hold his own weapon. It's also the grip that most naturally one falls into, even when presenting a folder. I think that some reverse grip work should be done, espcially in regard to facing longer weapons while utilizing a knife, and combinations should be learned from that position and practiced. I just see the blade out posture as being more useful. We also try to keep the presentation hidden until the weapon is deployed. Any other thoughts on the knife presentation or grip? Who uses primarily what and why?

I've always been of the thought that strategy is the grand plan of an encounter. For us, that's the primary principles that we use to format our responses to attacks. Evade Stun Unbalance Control The tactic aspect of it the those things that we use to actually acomplish the strategy (or in this case, fulfill our principles). It is more than a list of movements. It is more of how those movements are successfully deployed. For instacne, anyone can name a punch, however, using it in effective combination with others to create an opening which will allow it to do maximal damage is a tactic. It could be used in reference to defensive measures as well. Ex.- now that you can throw a combination, it dosen't do much good if you can't integrate in either parrying or trapping or other such componant to keep yourself up and fighting to throw the combination effectively. Excellent question. I'm looking forward to the responses.

I've got a pair of homemade makiwara's that work great. It's still not the same as working a bag, and they excel at differnt drills, but they can be a good alternitive. I took two, 2x4 about a foot to a foot and a half long. I went to Wal mart and bought a blue camping pad for around 5 bucks. Cut down two pieces of padding to fit on each (total of four). Then duct tape them to the wood. I left about two inches of wood showing at each end. Now, mount one at head height and another around shin height. I just drilled into a stud and used lag screws. It's held up well even with pounding. You might want to go back now and pu t some scrap foam over the bolt heads with more tape. If you're a neat freak, you can scallop out one piece and cover it with a second form a better look. Now you have a good striking surface with some give that will let you work technique and focus. It's great for folding strikes into and working stops and such lowline. It should work out for you pretty well. I used scrap lumbar so my cost for duct tape and foam plus the bolts was around 12 buck. Add a 2x4 and you're probibly around 20 or slightly less for a great training tool. Good luck.