The More you Know, the Easier it is to see your Ignorance.

[LordBucket]

I agree, sounds like you have a very cool father. Be sure to let him know. Sounds like he's also saving you from having to learn a lot of lessons first hand. Never underestimate an older fighter...training is one thing...experience is another. And, to quote Baron Harkonen: 'Youth and vigor will always sucuumb to age and treachery.' I've taken a few sucker punches in my life, and unfortunately it often only takes one to end a fight. The first one.

 

Bucket Man

 

---------------------------------------------

 

http://www.freewebs.com/ocmartialarts

[granmasterchen]

very good read, it is something that you will encounter as long as you train, you will start to think you know it all and such and then find out something that makes you think it all over again, it is good to reach the level where you know you are good and that you know alot yet you also know that you are still a child in the big picture of the arts, it takes a life time and many at young levels in training forget this, we must be humbled to fully learn our true potential, everyone has something to offer, no matter age or style and we can all better ourselves by listening to others.

[Bart the Lover]

A very interesting post, Cheeky. You're very lucky to have a father that

 

is willing to share his experiences and knowledge with you.

 

I agree with Kirves. Take advantage of the opportunity. The people we are

 

nervous of sparring with should be the ones we seek out. Challenge

 

yourself. You don't say how you spar at your club. Do you use light, semi,

 

or full contact? A mixture? How big is your club? I ask this because if

 

your club is fairly small you won't be exposed to a variety of approaches,

 

and it becomes even more important that you spar with your dad. Some

 

people are much more aggressive than others.

he told me to defend myself against him in a sort of sparring match, and I just couldn't keep up at all. I was far too scared of getting hit (as I know my dad wouldn't pull his punches, not because he wants to hurt me, but just because he doesn't really have the precision to pull them).

 

 

In a real situation, I think someone small (I'm small, too) should avoid

 

getting into a punch-up type situation. In sparring, there's a back and forth

 

to the action. But if you were confronted for real, you woudn't stop to let

 

your opponent respond. Ideally, as soon as you saw the first punch come

 

in, you would respond with a barrage of punches, kicks, knees, elbows,

 

or whatever you know. Remember that if you're small, you can still kick

 

your opponent (in the knees, say) at a distance they will be thinking of

 

using their hands only.

I was hitting "through" the pad. You know, giving it the whole swing of my arm and knocking the pad backwards, instead of focusing my punch on the pad. I hadn't even realised this until he pointed it out, and realised what a waste of energy my previous punches were (not to mention a waste of time, when I could quickly deliver the punch and then bring my hand back to my guard).

 

I wasn't completely clear what you meant by this. Do you mean that when

 

you made contact with the pad, your arm wasn't fully extended? You were

 

swinging past the target?

I really need to work on my aim...my kicks are not as powerful as I thought they were.

 

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but if you want to make your kicks

 

(or punches, or whatever) more powerful you should use the heavy bag.

 

Bags can also be used for accuracy. Pick a spot on the bag to hit, and try

 

to hit it. You don't have to pound away every single kick to benefit from

 

them. Try working on diferent things on different days. Bags give good

 

feedback--the sound you make hitting it, the way it moves. You can

 

measure your progress this way.

 

I hope you don't get discouraged by this. Pacificshore's point is a good one.

 

What you would be willing to use in a real encounter is not the same as

 

what you would be willing to use against your dad. Don't overestimate

 

yourself, but don't underestimate yourself either.

 

Keep training!

 

Regards,

 

Bart the Lover

[Icetuete]

kirves is right - not only that u can grow in martial arts while training with ur dad, its very comfortable, too. u can train any time u like, at home, as long as ur dad has time for u and its at no costs. i'd be happy if i had this opportunity.

[Shorin Ryuu]

Yeah, and you can make it a bonding experience too. What more could you ask for?

[CheekyMusician]

 

I agree with Kirves. Take advantage of the opportunity. The people we are

 

nervous of sparring with should be the ones we seek out. Challenge

 

yourself. You don't say how you spar at your club. Do you use light, semi,

 

or full contact? A mixture? How big is your club? I ask this because if

 

your club is fairly small you won't be exposed to a variety of approaches,

 

and it becomes even more important that you spar with your dad. Some

 

people are much more aggressive than others.

 

When we spar at our club we usually just spar as hard or as soft as we like, taking into consideration who we're sparring with. Eg. there's one woman who hates being hit, so when I spar with her I just use light contact, or no contact at all (just pulling my punches before they hit her), with most of the men I spar semi-contact, and if I'm sparring with one of the instructors I just hit them as hard as I can (although they usually take it quite easily on me. )

 

My club's pretty big, so I usually get a range of fighters to spar with, the think that worries me about my dad, though, is for a start he's not a trained fighter (apart from his limited experience in boxing when he was a kid) so his style of fighting is completely random, and he is totally incapable of throwing a light punch. He always hits you at full power, which is a bit scary! But yeah, sparring with him teaches me good self defence techniques.

 

 

I wasn't completely clear what you meant by this. Do you mean that when

 

you made contact with the pad, your arm wasn't fully extended? You were

 

swinging past the target?

 

I mean I was making contact with the pad and knocking it backwards, but not with the power of the punch. I was knocking it backwards because I was swinging everything into it, so it was really just the momentum of my body that was causing the pad to be knocked backwards, not the power of my punch. My dad pointed out that this was a bit of a waste of energy and time. He told me just to focus all my power on the pad at the moment of impact and try to get my hand back to its original position at my guard as quickly as possible after making contact. At first this made my punches weak and pathetic, but then I got the hang of it and my punches were stronger than before, and it did make sense. I wasn't wasting so much energy anymore.

 

 

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but if you want to make your kicks

 

(or punches, or whatever) more powerful you should use the heavy bag.

 

Bags can also be used for accuracy. Pick a spot on the bag to hit, and try

 

to hit it. You don't have to pound away every single kick to benefit from

 

them. Try working on diferent things on different days. Bags give good

 

feedback--the sound you make hitting it, the way it moves. You can

 

measure your progress this way.

 

Yeah, I've got a heavy bag, but I prefer pad work 'cause then you get the human imput. Someone who can tell you when there's even the slightest change in power or execution of a technique. I just bought an air shield today, so I can practice side thrust kicks and stuff, and I'm waiting on my dad to come home so I can try it out. Ah, my dad must've so much fun being kicked about the living room.

[GrrrArg]

A few people have picked up on the point about hitting through the pad. Following through your punches is a must. If you've ever done or seen any breaking (boards etc:) they aim to hit below the board.

 

---hand

 

----------------------board

 

----target

 

This means that instead of just hitting the board you strike through it and it should break. Hitting a persons the same. If you're going for a stomach shot visualise hitting them in the spine - via the stomach

 

A great exercise I was once taught was to get a training partner and some balloons, blow up the balloons so they are taute get your partner to hold it against his/her stomach, now try to pop the ballon with a punch. Hitting the ballon won't work, you have to hit through the ballon and make contack with your partners stomach. I suppose you could also try taping the ballons to a heavy bag for the same purpose.

 

Hope it helps and feel free to argue with me cos I have a harder punch.. J/K

[Kirves]

Yes, if you hadn't heard about striking "through" the target, there's something wrong with the instruction you are getting. Just my opinion though.

[CheekyMusician]

Yes, if you hadn't heard about striking "through" the target, there's something wrong with the instruction you are getting. Just my opinion though.

 

No, I'd heard about it, but I don't think you're all getting what I mean.

 

I wasn't striking "through" the pad with power, I was striking "through" it with momentum and no power. Like, my dad was holding the pad and I was aiming to make the pad get pushed backwards, and I was pushing it backwards, but not by means of power, but by just swinging my arm and my body and "pushing" the pad backwards, but there was hardly any power in the punch.

[Kirves]

But had you been taught to actually visualize the target a couple inches inside/behind the target?