Prostar

Some few years ago, while on a trip back home, the guys from my old class put a get-together together. As we were walking out of the restaurant, one of my ex students stopped me and said he had to shake my hand and thank me. He said that my constant pushing of basics carried him on when he did quite a bit of visiting other clubs in the area. And as a result of his strong foundation in the basics, he was able to hold his own wherever he went. Another was that I would always try to describe the idea of, the opponent's elbow comes up a bit, your kick goes in, and then you realize that it happened. It was so cool to be standing there and watching when it happened. You see this light bulb come on and there it was!

OK, not bad for a first tournament. And you look very typical for your experience level. Let me mention a couple of things, if I may. There is nothing wrong with having a limited arsenal from which to draw your techniques. Some of the best fighters I ever saw only used a couple, ever. One thing that I would like to mention about your reverse punch is this. You look like you are trying to get your reverse punch in without really commiting yourself to it. So when you throw the punch, you are stretched way out there. This leaves big openings for either a counter punch or a faster punch than yours. You ate them both. Now, what to do? Go back to class and try this one little thing. Keep your guard up as you move in. Keep moving in till you are REALLY close and then unload it. Now keep moving off to his back corner and away to the side. Notice that I want you to use his corners and move to the side? Your match was very linear. Straight in, straight out. Work the angles and move around a lot more. Relax. I could go on but you don't need me to pile on you. All in all, it was better than not. Thanks for the video. Jeff

I believe you're the first to post striking to the ribs, Prostar, and you say that you used it by going "up and into" the target. Did you find that the ridge hand, by being "slim" compared with the fist, was able to get in there without worrying about his elbows getting in your way? Did you drop down a bit for the strike, or that wasn't necessary? Good call on the slim nature of the ridge hand compared to the fist. Ever notice that you have taken lots of kicks to the ribs. They generally spread the force around or else the kick slides down. "Up and into" has them sucking wind rather quickly. I would typically keep moving in deeper till my trailing foot is almost even with the other guy's body. Not so much down. In fact, the momentum doesn't stop till I'm completely clear and looking at his back. This has always been one of my favorite hand techniques.

We used to train in 3 & 4 on one back in the day. It was much more dangerous to be the attacker in that class as the defender goes on the offense and all rules are out the window. Wow, that was fun!

A guy used a ridge hand on my ribs at a tournament back in the 70s. I won the match but he beat me up. Next tournament was in York a month later. I was almost healed up from the last guy. Then I saw this guy I was fighting first. He had Somebody's Dynasty on his back and it turned out he was the Somebody. Oookaaaaaay! That was all the reason I needed to go pound on somebody. I used all the stuff the guy in Baltimore used on me. A lot of it was to move to the side of the guy, get his guard up and pound a ridge hand up and into the floating ribs. Works rather well.

I used to refer to the type of kick in video 1 as a flippy dippy side kick. Quick, but not much stopping power. I like snap side kick name better. I liked the guy in video 2. He had a nice simple and clean kick. Did anyone else notice that the guy in video 3 has a habit of dropping his left hand when he throws a side kick? Bad habit, that. You mentioned raising the knee and keeping the lower leg downward. That reminds me of the way they taught us in the 60s. A lot of people ended up lofting their kicks and getting them slapped down. Eventually, we changed our kicks so that the side kick, round house and hook kicks were all chambered at the same position. The kicking leg was brought up so hip, knee and ankle were all parallel to the floor. Supporting foot was turned away from the target 180 degrees. Three kicks from the same position made it difficult to see which one is coming. There are lots of ways. All the same thing, only different.

Generally, I was thrilled as all getout if a student stuck it out to BB. I would welcome each of them to the 2% club, as that is roughly how many people make it that far. On the other hand, I worried mostly about the group that retired within their first three months in the class. If I kept you for six months, I had you for the long run. Me? I retired at third dan after 35 years. I know, I could have chased belts a lot more, but family and other reasons slowed me down a bit there. I suppose the reasons people leave the arts fall into generally basic groups, but a constant has been that new bodies are always needed in the dojo. Even to replace retiring black belts.