Detecting Intent
Posted on | November 24, 2008
Often in sparring we try to detect, or read, our opponents intention so that we can tell what their next movement is going to be. There are key signatures, as I like to refer to them, that give away an opponents intent.
Out of all the different things to do to detect an opponents intent, here are some of the main points to pay attention to:
- The Elbows. The elbows are one of the biggest hints as to when and where an opponent is going to throw a punch. As most people throw a punch by moving their elbow before moving any other part of their arm, you can usually count on being able to get at least a faster reaction speed by just noticing their elbows.
- The Shoulders. After the elbows, the shoulders are the next best thing to focus on, because they move when the opponent pivots or throws a full punch.
- The Eyes. People have a bad habit of watching where they are punching. If you watch your opponents eyes and he happens to have that bad habit, you can get an idea as to where he is going to make his next move.
- The Knees. When an opponent goes up for a kick, you can rest assured the first thing that is going to move is his knee. Obviously, you can’t always detect what type of kick is going to occur just based on him lifting up his knee but you now know he is going to do something with it(Or at least attempt to fake you out with it).
- Nervous Habits. Many people have nervous habits that are easily distinguishable if you pay proper attention. It’s the same thing as in poker, such as twitches, facial expressions, etc.
Just remember that most people tell everything about what they’re going to do, before they even make their move. We’re all pretty guilty of it, but if the other person doesn’t know how to pick up off of those, then they can’t use those to his/her advantage.
Mixed Martial Arts – Day Eight
Posted on | November 24, 2008
Last Thursday we worked out a lot on the bleachers(The kind that are found around parks, or fields, that are only 6 or so rows high). Anyone who has been to a couple of my instructors training sessions quickly learns that the bleachers are one of his favorite work out tools. We do all sorts of push-ups up and down the bleachers, as well as along the sides of them.
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We stood along the side of the bleachers, starting at the lowest bleacher, and placing our left hand against it and our right hand on the next highest bleacher. Doing this made us a bit off balanced and worked out the different areas of muscles as we did push-ups in this stance. After we completed one set at that angle, we’d move up one row, and then continue. We did this till we did the whole side, then went over and went down the other side. The bleachers are also great for leg stretches and sit-ups. We would sit on the lowest row of the bleachers, facing the higher rows and lock our legs in place and then lean back. Our upper bodies would be free and not limited so, if we were able to to, we could lean all the way back where our head would touch the ground and then sit back up. We’d do this at a slow pace which makes it a decent deal more difficult, all while usually pounding on the different sides and areas of our stomach and chest. There are so many great exercises you can do on the bleachers. I suppose this is why my instructor loves them so much. 
Eventually, after warming up and practicing combo’s, we did something a little bit different than we usually do. Since there was four of us out there, we made two circles in the sand with about enough for two people to circle around each other, but barely. We practiced in pairs, having to keep inside the circle and not step out. There was very little room to make mistakes, but the fact that we were told we had to do push-ups every time we stepped out of the circle, kept us trying a hell of a lot harder not to mess up. I only had to do one set of push-ups because I happened to be listening to the instructor explaining something and stepped a bit out of the circle. Apparently that counts as well, so I quickly did them and got back in the circle. 
While in pairs inside the circle, we also worked on basic Wing Chun techniques/practice. The goal was simple, one person would attempt to block and the other would attempt to find a hole and get a fist through. We weren’t using speed nor strength, just sensitivity. In fact, we had to close our eyes and turn our heads to the side so that we got use to relying on working on sensitivity with our arms versus using our eye sight. One of the biggest problems I have that I’ve been really trying to work on is my tension. When doing forms of Wing Chun practice like that, when I start to attempt to focus, my arms suddenly tense up and I begin using muscle(which any Wing Chun practitioner knows is a horrible thing). If I don’t think and just let things flow, I can maintain my “looseness” for a while but I have a habit of getting tense at different points. Hopefully this won’t be a habit that takes long to break. This habit already really effects my arm muscles and energy noticeably.
I think the best thing for me right now is to continue practicing my Sil Nim Tao form, maybe even more frequently, when I’m not out at training.
Tags: bleachers > form > Sil Nim Tao > stomach > tension > Training
Exactly One Step Ahead
Posted on | November 20, 2008
Students sparring with other students that are around their same level is usually a roll of the dice, as to who will end up winning. Obviously, some have a greater chance of winning but it’s never known 100 percent as to who is going to win. Yet, when an instructor decides to spar or practice with someone of a lot lower level, it’s completely obvious to everyone who has greater skill and who is going to be victorious.
Even though everyone knows the instructor could literally wipe the floor with the student, there shouldn’t ever be a thought of that possibly happening. A good instructor would never do such a thing to student who is simply having a friendly spar with him to practice and learn. The same can be said for students who are on completely different level than who they are sparring with. Yet, many people(including instructors) aren’t always clear on how far to go. Should they go under the skill level of the student? The same? Over? I can only best describe how I feel about this by telling you how my instructor deals with me in these situation since I work one on one with him all the time.
Every time I am out training with my instructor, my fighting mood can vary back and forth, even all in the same day. Some times I am simply in a more defensive mood. I wait a lot for attacks and then counter at the same time. Other times, I’m more aggressive and full of energy. I’ll be the one throwing all the swings first. How hard I decide to hit also depends on my mood. I never go full contact, considering I’d crumble before my instructor would , but when I’m aggressive I tend to put more “Umph” into my hits.
Rather than wiping the floor with me, my instructor keeps exactly one step ahead. He doesn’t go below my level, nor meet me at my same level, because then I’m simply fighting at an “average” level. What I mean is, that when my instructor goes exactly one step above my current level, whatever it may be at, I am always being pushed to try harder. If he were to match my level, no matter what I am dishing out, then I’d probably lighten up a bit and not try near as much since I’d know he is simply going to just keep up with me. But since he actually keeps a step ahead of me, I am forced to either try harder and harder or be hit more and more. He doesn’t go way above what I am capable of because that wouldn’t help me any, only cause discouragement.
I find that when I show people techniques outside of my practice with my instructor that simply staying one step ahead of them, gives them a lot of encouragement and allows them to freely attempt to perform what I just showed them without feeling worried about a level difference.
Natural Aggression
Posted on | November 19, 2008
There is a wide controversy that continues still today as to whether aggression is a good feature for a Martial Art student to have. Some argue that aggression is bad because it allows it to get the better of you and so you start thinking with emotions, aka your mind gets “clouded”. Others argue back that aggression gets your blood pumping and allows those who are even normally docile to immediately jump in and start fighting back if a situation arises that calls for it. I can see both sides of the situation, but both of those sides have it wrong and both sides have it right. What they don’t seem to realize is that there are different types of aggression.
Marks over at MarksTraining wrote an article about aggression: Aggression in the Martial Arts. In his article he wrote:
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Take the following example. A new student starts training and after a couple of lessons of learning basic techniques, his told he will start sparring. Really nervous as its his first time, he does not really try any techniques he has practiced, instead just stands there taking many controlled punches as his sparring partner decides to go light on him. This carries on for the next few lessons, but his sparring partner strikes him harder and harder in a bid to make him counter. Knowing that the beginner has to start throwing punches back, his teacher shouts, “hit him, hit him”. After a few more lessons of the same punishment, the beginner decides that enough is enough. However many times he gets hit, he makes up his mind that he shall also start hitting back, hard. His aggression increases immensely and as the weeks go by, he learns that he has to also strike back himself in order to save taking any punishment.
You may have been in this predicament or know someone who has. Someone who goes from being non aggressive to be becoming someone who does not take any abuse from anyone and uses aggression to overcome others.
Obviously for self defense situations, he would probably find that he shall be able to take care of himself but in the long run has the aggression he has built through training and sparring done more worse than good. Is today’s martial arts training producing bad people instead of good ones which is what the old masters intended?
I think in the situation he was talking about, yes, the way the teacher taught has caused the student to learn aggression in the wrong way.
The teacher is basically wearing the student down until he “snaps” and starts fighting back. That kind of aggression is angry aggression. The student should actually be learning natural aggression, as I like to call it.
In angry aggression mode, the student is caught up with emotions and thus that will actually decrease his skills and technique and not allow him to learn properly. In natural aggression mode, the student learns to be naturally aggressive and play rough, but at the same time he attaches no emotion to that aggressiveness. The same way when brothers or friends play rough, especially in sports, but each other is not really trying to hurt the other person. They attach no emotion to their aggression.
Each student will learn natural aggression differently, but one of the big playing factors is to quickly get him hitting back so that he feels comfortable in doing so. If you wait till he simply gets upset and starts swinging, he’ll learn the wrong type of aggression. After awhile, it can be a hard type of habit to break in a student. Because I’ve learned natural aggression I can safely say I can aggressively spar with anyone without attaching emotion to that aggression.
Aggression also spans off to more intricate areas such as “how much” aggression. For instance, I believe there is such a thing as relaxed aggression, but I’ll leave that for another article.
Mixed Martial Arts – Days Six and Seven
Posted on | November 18, 2008
I’ve been pretty busy with work and some other personal things so I have had time to practice but not enough to post often. Anyways, here is a post that’s combined about last Tuesday(last Thursday was wet so we canceled), and Today(Tuesday).
Both weeks we worked on distancing and power. For distancing, we went with the focus pads. The focus pads are great for working on distancing with both the legs and the hands. There is that obvious sweet spot, for both the hands and the legs, right in between where you’ll be jammed because you’re too close or too far back and not able to apply enough power. We worked quite a lot on finding that spot, as well as going over routines that we can utilize at home to train our bodies in distancing even on the days we don’t have practice. For the legs, we do various kicks where we:
- Bring the knee up and hold for a second.
- Slowly extend our leg and perform the kick.
- Attempt to stop the kick right against whatever we are kicking at(punching bag, etc).
- Bring the knee back to it’s original position and hold for a second.
- Bring the leg back down to the ground.
This method allows us to be able to train our balance, strengthen our muscles, and enhance our distance judgment. The foot should always simply tap the object you’re kicking at, not rest against it. It highly helps your distancing ability because you can tell whether you’re too far back or not. Again, if you’re too close your leg will be too bent and you’ll be jammed or if you are too far back then if it was a real kick, there would be no power behind it. Make sure to work each leg, while switching up the type of kicks, so that you get the full experience.
To help us develop both our power and stamina, we worked on going all out against a heavy bag that another person can hold. The bag is quite big and sturdy so we don’t need to really hold back on it at all. We usually tend to do this after we’ve been going for quite some time so we are already warmed up, etc, considering our usual “class time” is roughly two hours. It’s a very simple concept though, we simply go all out for roughly 30 seconds or so, then it’s the next person. It goes back and forth from person to person(only usually two or three of us out there to rotate between), until eventually we’re so drained that standing is a task in itself. Even though this work out always kicks my ass, I love it because of how effective it is. Don’t mistake this for a misuse of energy, because this isn’t how we’d really fight. The exercise simply has one purpose, and that’s to raise one’s energy level cap. In a real fight, a lot less energy would be used and the idea would be to let the other person drain down their energy before you do, which doesn’t usually take long if they decided to try to go all out on you, as long as you can avoid the blows well enough.
Tags: distance > kick > martial art > Muay Thai > power > stamina > Training
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