JusticeZero

I'm hazy on how people think muscle will slow them down. It's a bit like assuming that a Geo Metro sucompact will go faster than a Ferrari because the engine of the Ferrari is so much heavier. Speed comes from having a good power to weight ratio, and muscle adds lots of power.

Yesterday I got my one student back onto the floor. (The flagstone actually, as their SO wanted to watch the class and our usual training space doesn't allow for that.) They've been out for three weeks with midterms and the like. And apparently they haven't been training outside of class with the things I suggested! They did train some, but it was with some kicks. Easy flashy stuff, not the important stuff like stance. So after some review, i'm trying to show how to deal with an attacker to turn it into a throw. Problems appeared! The body of the lesson was that you can ward off an incoming force with the fence created by the blocking arm, then lightly hook with the wrist and twist to turn it into a throw. Not much physical strength involved! Just yielding and using the attackers' force to power a change of stance! Except that to do this you need to have this relaxed stance that can withstand a forward force and not be bowled over, so that you can control how, exactly to fall and deflect the force. That's a question of posture, not strength. They.. didn't have the strength to hold the posture properly, yesterday. As they tried, the posture deranged in ways that needed more and more physical strength to maintain, and suddenly they had to muscle their way through the movement, too. Very disheartening. But it makes it apparent that i'm going to have to push a lot of physical strength building exercises just to give them enough physical strength again that they can regain the ability to not use muscle to deal with things. It's a losing game to train a small-ish woman to try to get strong enough to outmuscle all attackers. It just isn't going to happen; attackers are going to go out of their way to attack someone well below their weight class, and i'm not about to try to get her to build enough strength to outmuscle people twice her size. With proper form, she can toss me around with some of those movements without using much strength, and I have twice her mass. Without proper form, it turns into strength versus strength for everything. This has served as a demonstration that that strength training isn't just to move other people. And hopefully also has explained why I suggest the out of class training that I do.

Water. *ade is mainly just sugar water. Not good for you at all, I mostly only drink them if i've had a nasty flu and have been having trouble eating. Worse yet are "energy drinks", because they have caffiene. That raises your heart rate for HOURS, far longer than you would expect. There have been a number of cases of high school athletes and other healthy people like that dropping dead in practice from heart attacks because they can handle the raised heartrate from training, but training + caffiene rush puts them over the top.

OK. We don't do diamond shapes like that because that splits the thumb and fingers enough that a lot of people don't put the heel of the hand down. Makes a hyperextension danger to the knuckles. As far as the slap, it's all about applying a total acceleration that counters or redirects the mass of your body, so I just blend the movement down. Makes it easier to redirect the energy to transition it into stances, I think.

Oh yeah - use low stances and punch at a somewhat high angle. Throw a plastic grocery in the bag and chase/juggle it with attacks, but only if you can keep good form.

To strengthen the fists, knuckle pushups is what a taiji teacher I had swore by. To add precision, do the punches reeealy slowly. Also, stand in stance. Reach out and casually point, with good punch form but no power. Do it a bunch, but point *at* something.

Eat the Snickers bar. Nay, SAVOR the snickers bar. Take each slow bite with deliberation and slowly bite through it, feeling the textures on your teeth. Let the chocolate melt a bit and examine every flavor on the candy bar carefully. Slowly work through the chocolate bar. Smile, take a deep breath, and sigh happily. Then get back to your healthy diet and be extra careful for a while to make up for it, knowing that you just enjoyed the heck out of one (1) not terribly large candy bar and aren't going to be gorging on vaguely snickers-like things for days. Oh, and do that with all your other food too, on small plates with good seasonings.

Try pulling your foot back, leaning forward and climbing them like a ladder. Also pull your foot back at the end of your kick and dont stick your foot in their arms to begin with.

I've shown/used a step in while doing a shin kick to head, walking in mule kick, and a scissor takedown from leg grabs at chest height. I dont know that any of those would be possible for you, though. What kick are you thinking of?

I've used techniques somewhat similar to those two a few times, but nowhere near the exact same thing. I have a suspicion I know more or less where the "bad example" in that video derived his technique from, if he learned from a Brazilian teacher who's done any of what we do, but if so, he's doing it very wrong nonetheless to the point where it is indeed an example of what not to do. Maybe because it is horribly twisted to fit into a roll on a mat.

I don't think that was ever debated. I assume i'm reading "ukemi" right as an equivalent to "técnicas de queda".

Yeah, that diagram looks similar. When i've seen that one explained by a japanese stylist though, possibly not the best or most detailed source but they all seemed to feel they were qualified, it looks like they're landing on their elbows immediately following slapping the ground with their palm; it always looked odd to me. I'm probably missing something on that.

We have our reasons.I know that when I started, we did the same basic thing that most teachers i've worked with did: We went out onto the parking lot in a t-shirt and jeans and started practicing breakfalling and tumbling techniques on the tarmac, and after awhile worked up to being able to take the falls from a running start. Usually with my students it's pebble concrete sidewalks, because they don't get you as dusty, and most of the time we're fine with staying indoors on a bare hardwood floor to practice falling and sweeps and takedowns for when we do our 'sparring' circles. Laid brick works too; that's my personal favorite surface to practice breakfalls on, and it's usually what is on the ground where we meet up and compete with people from different schools, given the tastes of the parks and rec people around here. Traditionally for the past century or so it's been cobblestone streets. I've never seen so much as a carpet in a school. I can't meaningfully brag about my lineage, since you don't know any of them, and I only know two steps back from the head of my lineage, who taught my teachers. I can't even brag about their rank, because they only adopted a cord system a few decades back to look more "legit", and saying that they have a white cord doesn't have any meaning to you. There are no higher ones. I don't really *want* to have some prestige-measuring match with someone whose art doesn't even originate on the same continent as mine does. It isn't how I learned how to fall, and parts of the description of how this foreign art does their falls don't make much sense to me. I have to go googling for videos just to figure out what angles are even being referred to. I'm sure it makes perfect sense to people who train in their school under their methodology, which I don't. I'm not about to go saying that they obviously are doing it wrong, because it seems to work for them for what they're doing, but it would be appreciated if a similar courtesy were to remain extended to me.

Uchi mata looks like a basic leprechaun drill that we fall out of a form of all the time, and osotogari appears to be highly restricted all the way to the floor. Plus has to account for the elbow or shoulder strike that follows it up, which is honestly more worrying to me than the floor.

Yeah, I saw that one. It's a very good work. Lots in there. Though I was definitely struck by the line about "It took them DAYS before anyone thought to ask me what I meant..." because that one was the most frustrating piece. Not only is there misery, but the people who are supposed to help can't even be bothered to acknowledge the humanity and voice of the ones it claims to be protecting.

Hmm. Which falls? I know that when I fall forward as if tripped, I put my hands down with my fingers facing each other, with my elbows bent at about a right angle to avoid absorbing the impact with a bone connection. That allows me several inches of distance to decelerate with muscle resistance without connecting with any rigid structural elements, as well as makes sure that if that distance isn't enough to eat the energy, that the first points of contact will probably be the side of my thigh and the stronger parts of my ribcage, through my hand. It's a small twist away from rolling into role. It's been far more than enough for all my awkward falls so far and has no "slap". I used it tripping in the hall while running to catch a phone call just last week in fact.

"terminate"? Is there some reason why you have to create an impact spike rather than keeping your hands curved and rolling them too?

Kicking pad for my students maybe? How many traffic cones can I buy for $20, we need some of those? Looks like $20 might buy me 20 of the teeny little marker cones, but I'd like bigger if I could. Beggars can't be choosers. I can probably buy two folding chairs for $20, and those are always a great investment in training equipment, but the gym might grump if they saw me carrying them in. How about a big broom that I can use to sweep off concrete with to train on?

I train Capoeira Angola. It's been very useful when walking on the ice, but I haven't had anyone try to fight me in many years. I've become very inoffensive, oftentimes because of the things i've learned about how to not go whacking the hornets nest, and I like it that way.

Hello Mouse! I look forward to reading some of your ideas. Kick back, stick around, ramble on, new voices are awesome. *nodsnods*

...people would probably actually know what he meant to say instead of what they interpreted from reading his disorganized notes. ...he probably would have been training with the Gracies before it was popular. ...he probably would have mellowed out and become a better student by now.

I've never been completely clear to me why a breakfall should "need" a burst of peak impulse impact force delivered in a way that captures and exaggerates a displacement of air, myself.

It's not "a year or two", it's more like "a few decades". If you're lucky, people will mellow before your children retire. Unless of course the art is very specific and specialized and has a clear purpose that you couldn't get before. If for instance you need to fight on sheer ice a lot, and modify all your footwork and stances for that purpose, you'll probably get a pass for having a different art and training in an ice rink.

Most martial artists distrust any newly minted martial arts for exactly this reason. It's usually more indicative of practitioner ego. Now and then you see modest claims that are acceptable at the ryu or specialty level.

I don't think Aikidokas ever move away from strikes. I know we do not have blocks either, but our hands are always in warding positions and gestures that serve a similar purpose. Identifying a movement as "a block" can take away from the application of the movement.