tallgeese

Yeasterday- I'm at my families home this weekend, so I got the chance to go and train with my instructor at my old school. 4, 3 min rounds on the mitts, combo and defensive work to takedown defense and counter to warm up. 30 min of clinch drills, progression to free form takedowns 40 min spontaneous attack/defend drills, add club and knife attacks 30 min of free roll 30 min of sparring, sd to mma focus Great workout, followed by watching the ufc. Today will probibly be an off day as I travel home. we'll see if I can sneak anything in when I get out of the car, but I doubt it.

Yeah, joe. I think this sort of thing pretty much happens everywhere there is free fighting as part of the training protocol. It can be a trap if you let it I think. I take time to make, and I mean make, myself work on different things with the partners I'm familiar with. Even if it means I don't do my best in that particular match. That's what keeps me brining up the level on some of the skills I don't use all the time. It's easy to use the same movements over and over again and never develop new skill sets. Espically when you are familiar with your opponant and know what will work agaisnt them.

Wa-no, I agree with you. Tons of junk out there being masked as combative. The best bet is to use common sense. If it looks like junk, it probibly is. Sharp, crisp, effective, common sense will go a long way. But you're right, sometimes it's tuff. I agree with joe, ask everything you want up front. Don't be ashamed a bit. You are a consumer, you have the right to know what you're getting in to.

Today- 2 mile run fast circuit, 5 rounds of- 10 pullups 10 push ups 10 sit ups 10 dumbell swings, 35 lbs.

I'm with the others. I haven't heard of it. That dosn't make it bad, it just means it could be a small in numbers form. It could be a club or an affiliation, again, it dosn't make it bad. What's important is it's effectiveness. IF you check it out and it's working for you then go for it. If you want to know the lineage, ask the instructor or one of the senior students. Most people can't help but want to tell people how their stuff came to be. Now, if the instructor is being evasive about the origin of the art, and you're looking at the skill level of everyone there and they couldn't fight their way ot of a wet paperbag, then you should strat to question if you're getting a straight story.

Glad it was helpful. Good luck with your first student.

I see a certain of fitness as needed. However, I think that tests should be designed to showcase that by your mere successful completion. It should not be a the center of the pass/fail decision but you should reach passing easier if you have it. For us, the black belt test is kind of the exam on this catagory. An hour of continous sparring is required at the end of it. This is mandantory and covers alot of different ground. This final enduarance fest is kind of part of what you've been training to survive since white belt. There's no seperate fitness portion, but you have to get thru it. Most guys start a condition program if they aren't alreay on one prior to it so they can finish in better form. I do think a point comes, higher in the dan ranking for sure, where dishing out beatings and surviving them less important. We all age, this affects us, whether we like to admit it or not (still having trouble with this myself). A systems ranking procedures need to realize this and account more for a teaching/coach role as the years slide by. At the end of the day, what should matter most is how well one has learned the material useful for defending oneself at the assigned rank.

Living is good...

Agreed, striking will make the understanding of the distance gap much easier. You can also set up free-for drills to instill this. From a striking standpoint, glover up and try to hit her. Make her defend with proper body movment and maybe some accessory hand motions. A few rounds of t his everynow and agian will help show her the distance gap theory in practice. You can also do the same thing by grabbing. Start in a tight posture and grab her wrist (im working off the premis that your talking about standing jj here) , she can then execute a basic defense of some sort. Then start backing away to show her the drop in effectiveness when the arms become too extended. Now that she's at a range, have her avoid the grab all together (I usually use the same circular motion that is used for ecapes and tuite set ups). This will help her understand the extent of a basic (very) grappling range. As she progresses along, depeding on your system, you can incoportate any number of attacks, up to and including attempts to body lock or shoot and add them to the drill. It's really useful for making peopel understand shere the gaps extend to. Now for penetrating those gaps with commitment, I'd start with the above drills. Once she has them down, start calling out a command to engage. She then needs to decisively penetrate with either a strike or entry to grappling depeding on the direction you systems leans to. I often use this same kind of thing while sparring. If I'm watching someone being too hesitant and simply covering and soaking shots, I'll yell in to attack. Then, if they are listening to their trainer, they'll crash the gap and go. This too can be set up as a drill. Just some ideas that you might be able to adapt.

Glad you can make use of that variation, bushido man. Today- 8, 2 min rnds of mitts and kicking shields. stacked on a kick counter to open the combos. 6, 2 min rounds of limited engagement sparring/rolling. On the sparring, one attacker, one defender, strikes only. On the rolling, one escaping guard, one trying to sweep or submit from guard. 5, 2 min rounds of free roll 5, 2 min rounds of mma focus sparring, strikes all the way thru to ground.

They rehab. Usually at a very high level of complexity and monitoring. And bushdo man is corrcect, ligiments and tendons will get better with training. They just do do so in the same way as muscles will. Activity will keep them limber and stretching will do just that, stretch them. This will allow the collagin fibers (the building blocks of connective tissue) to align properly and result in less scar tissue formation. This will, in turn, lead to a quicker recovery process.

It's a question of when to tense. When you need to start contracting muscles, which you will have to, then by all means do so. Until then, relax, conserve the energy reserves in your body. Relaxing dosen't mean just going limp. There is always a modicum of tension in the system to maintain your position. As to the breathing, pre conflict, try to inhale for 2-4 sec., hold for 2-4, then exhale 2-4. This will lower your heart rate and leave you with more resources to actually deal wih the fight at hand. During the conflict, keep exhaling during exertion. This will keep your pattern natural and keep you from looseing all air if struck mid-punch by a good counter. To the fitness, it can be a real mental thing for some people. Higher levels of cardio and strentght is of course, a tactical advantage. All you can do for this is train, train, train. And accept that it will take time. Check out he site I listed above, hit the running and weights smartly, and you'll slowly see a change here too. Good luck.

Here's the thing...medical science can't say that it works yet. There's no proof that it works, yet it seems to help alot of people. The most common advice i've heard from orthos is that you should try it if your interested. Give it a month to work, if you're not feeling any different, stop taking it. Personally, I tried both a while back and they did nothing for me. Everyone's body chemistry is a bit different so to each their own.

Today- crossfit of 20 min running clock as many as possible: 5 thrusers 7 power cleans 10 sumo deadlift high pulls all 95 lbs. chest and tris 1 mile run hey bushido man- i was reading up a couple of post about your combo work with the jab, cross, hook. I apoligize if you already work it this way, but one variation I use a lot is doing the same combo with a half step to the lead side during the lead hook. This step also goes a touch forward. It works well for closing the gap to hook range and moves your center off line while you work around the opponents guard. Just a thought.

Yeah, it was out a couple of years ago. It's a direct to DVD marvel movie. They followed up with II, which is also good, but not as good as the first.

Gotta go with sometimes. Even with the commercial gym I help at from time to time we can have almost to many on the mat. Then you have to start getting creative with how you set of drills to keep eveyone moving. Where I work at home with my classes, we've got enough room for 5-6 max. Occassionaly this is a problem. More often than not however, our schedules keeps us at a workable number.

Exactly, and those are all great exercises.

I agree bushido man, it' s good to focus on a single or limited set of skills from time to time during live training. As for the "out" match that's my slang for the odd man out that occurs when you have an even number people rolling or sparring in matches and another sitting alongside the mats watching the action due to no parnter. So you have a live round, rotate to an "out" position, and then rotate back in for more live rounds. It's just my slang thats all. It's nice to occassionally have it where there's no big rest break for anyone, that way you all get the 30 sec. You can make the out guy do bag work or something as well. But we all know a match is more fun.

On a side note...it's great to see so many more people making use of the training log. It' s neat to see what everyone else is doing and their thoughts on training and drills. Hope this trend continues.

Today- 4, 2 min rounds on the mitts or kick shields. Worked from strike combos to combos w counters 3, 3 min rounds of limited engagement sparring. one person limited to setups and takedowns, the other to striking and sprawling and clinching 5, 3 min rounds of free roll. 30 sec rest, no "out" matches

Nice. Yeah, I really liked this last movie quite a bit. You should also check out "Ultimate Avengers" on dvd. It's got a pretty cool take on the Hulk charater.

I agree wholeheartedly with the advice given above. Try to find a school with a better demographic. Also, look around and try to find one that's doing things that you can get excited about. It might be as simple as sitting down and figureing out exactly what you want out of the ma's. Once you have this reason, try to find a school that matches this. Not having goals fulfilled is one real popular way to hit burnout fast.

Just like you'd fight anyone else. Like was said ealier, fight your game. I also agree with Throwdown ealier, alot of this kind of thing wil be determined by mind set. You've got to get it in your head right now that you could face this guy in the future. You then have to harden yourself to the probiblity of getting hurt. Then you have to decide not to care, because no piece of garbage is gonna beat you when it counts. It dosen't matter what he does to you, you'll do worse to him, and walk away. Everytime you step on a mat, get it in your head that this is the kind of thing you're thinking of. Not worrying about the outcome, just worry about how much damage you can inflict in a real situation. That being said, you have to train that way, learn to think that way. Hard, realisstic training on the mat will improve your chances not only physically, but also you mental chances of reaching that state. With more and more time practicing this, you should get to the point where this mindset kicks in when you need it. As to the tactics, adapt to what the situation gives you. Generally, I'd try to stay up to clear out. But he may take you down, be prepared to grapple him. He might throw tremendously hard puches, but he might not recover them well. Be perpared to take cotrol of that arm and use it toyour advantage. There may be weapons....you get the idea. Fluid mind, good tactical options, and a midset to go through him. That's it in a nutshell.

The status of the hulk within the team has changed from time to time over the years. Ealier story lines have him as a full fleged member, if somewhat at odds with the others from time to time. Now days, espically with the launch of the "ulitmate avangers" he's really treated as a force of nature rather than full fleged hero. Somtimes it works out that he's aiding the team, sometimes they're trying to keep him from stomping major metropolitian areas to rubble. He's certainly never pained as a villian. Misunderstood and out of control, yes, but not the bad guy.

Welcome to the boards.