Random Video Friday: Kalaripayattu
Posted on | January 30, 2009
I happened to stumble upon a very interesting 4 part series about Kalaripayattu. Check it out!
Now if that isn’t interesting, I don’t know what is. 
Tuesday Tips: Going with the flow
Posted on | January 27, 2009
When it comes to grappling, throwing, etc going with the flow is very important. In Aikido, the person who is having the technique applied to them is known as uke. I’m going to use this term for the duration of the article, but it really doesn’t matter what Martial Art we’re talking about. I’m just speaking of grappling and the like, in a general sense.
One of the biggest key points that I’ve been learning in Aikido is to make sure that when I’m the uke, that I’m going with the flow. There are many out there who see this as unrealistic, like when they watch videos of Aikido demonstrations. Yet, the reason behind why the uke does this, is often misunderstood. I believe the leading cause to why they have concerns is because they’ve never studied in an art that covers these topics. When you’re being manipulated, the problem with not going with the flow is that you’re only going to injure yourself. That’s not to say that you can’t attempt to resist in certain ways, but you’d better move with the movement or you may regret it afterwards.
For instance, if you’re being thrown and you don’t move with the throw, it’s not going to deter the nage(person throwing you) any, at all. It’s only going to hurt you even more than if you were to move with the throw. The same applies to arm locks. If your opponent(nage) has you in an arm lock and you straighten your arm out and try to resist the lock, you could wind up with serious damage. The problem with letting your arm go straight is that it is then easy for your opponent(nage) to accidentally hyper extend your arm, or possibly even worse, which isn’t a fun thing to do.
Most people focus on simply reversing techniques or evading them, but chances are that at some point in your life(of sparring, etc) you’re going to be caught off guard and evasion is not going to be an option. It’s at times like that, that you really need to know how to make sure you limit the amount of damage that is going to happen to you. Landing wrong after a throw may not be so bad on the mat, but if it happens to you outside on the pavement, you’ll wish you had landed correctly.
Tags: Aikido > arm > flow > grapple > Judo > lock > throw > wrist
Effective Teacher/Sifu/Sensei
Posted on | January 26, 2009
Everyone tends to question whether certain Martial Arts are truly effective or not, but the biggest problem isn’t whether the Martial Art is effective or not. It is whether the Sensei, who will be teaching you, is effective or not. I’m simply going to use the word Sensei as the representation for teacher, Sifu, etc for the rest of this article.
It’s one of those things where it doesn’t matter if someone has or hasn’t told you about them, you simply know that they are a great and effective teacher. They may teach the same content as everyone else, but the way they teach it, the methods they choose to use to demonstrate things, etc all add to together in unison and it no longer matters what anyone else says about that person because you now have your own well opinionated outlook on that person and their teaching methods. It’s a wonderful thing when it happens. Too bad it doesn’t happen more often. However, I got lucky, and over this past weekend I got to have this experience again. I’m not going to mention a name, because I don’t know that persons views on having it listed, so I’ll stray away from that since it really shouldn’t matter anyway. All I will say is that the Sensei is a woman.
The class began like normal, with around 10-15 people having attended, where we would stretch our muscles and ligaments as to not injure them later on. But as class further progressed, I noticed when practicing various things, that she made the class feel quite at ease, at least for me. I no longer cared what the others were doing next to me, because I was fixed on doing the things she said to the best of my ability. I’ll admit, Aikido is a big change for me, so I’m definitely a beginner all over again in a lot of areas and to be honest, I love it.
Later on, we were divided into basically two groups: the more advanced and the newcomers. The class was a beginner class but many higher ranked students attend to work on the fundamentals( and have fun ). When we got to the point where we were working in pairs, attempting to perform the technique she had just showed us, Sensei would come around and correct us. It wasn’t the fact that Sensei corrected us, it was the way she did it. Sensei made it very easy to understand and break down each movement into pieces. At one point, Sensei was demonstrating the move on me for my practice partner(nage) to see how he should put me(uke) down in a pin. The flow of her movements took me down effortlessly(on her part of course 
). When Sensei got me into the pin, she was able to demonstrate the slight difference of not having your knees close enough to the uke’s shoulders and the result of that difference AKA me auto-flinching in response to the sudden torque generated. I may not have much Aikido experience, but I’ve had enough Martial Arts background training to notice when someone is effortlessly performing techniques.
Obviously, you can’t really describe all that well how, what, and why that Sensei is so great at teaching, because you just have to be there to experience it for yourself. But, for those who have had the chance to train with people that make you feel like this, you’ll understand what I mean. It’s not what they teach, it’s how they teach it.
Random Video Friday: What NOT to Do!
Posted on | January 23, 2009
This week’s RVF will be going over a topic that doesn’t get covered too often: What not to do! 
The last video is obviously fake but I had to include it because of its greatness.
Sometimes we need to stop and think about how not to do something, rather than how to do it.
Hope you guys enjoyed the videos!
Tuesday Tips: Aggressive Relaxation
Posted on | January 20, 2009
I’ve had problems in the past(and still do to a degree) relaxing when I’m sparring. I’ve always tended to throw a punch with a good amount of stiffness. Even if most people don’t notice it, its been there. My instructor has told me about it, and others as well. The problem isn’t necessarily that the impact itself is tense, it’s the motion.
This reminds me of the way my arms use to be: Stiff.
My method for trying to filter out this stiffness and adapt to becoming more relaxed has always been to shake things out and try to slow down. I use to argue a bit with my instructor over this sometimes. He’d alert me to the fact that I was using too much strength(muscle) or was too tense while we were sparring, and every time I’d try to slow myself down. The problem with slowing down is that now he’d step his game up just a bit more and completely dominate me. Either I’d be dominated or I’d be tense(but still keeping up). I would get frustrated at the fact that he’d tell me I have to be able to do it all. I must be relaxed while maintaining speed, but also packing a whopping of a punch if I decided to choose to. I like to refer to this as Aggressive Relaxation. And for the longest time I couldn’t get it down. I felt like I wasn’t gaining anywhere in that area even as I improved in other abilities.
Finally, one day while I was sparring with him, it hit me like a brick to my face. The solution for me was so simple. “Open your hands!”, is what suddenly came to my mind and for some reason I followed its command. The moment I opened up my hands and stopped trying to hit was the first moment I began to be able to fight relaxed. Rather than worrying about throwing a fist or a punch, I was simply throwing my empty hand out. This allowed me to feel how I should be throwing my fists. I could tell the difference significantly. When my hands were open, I was able to easily release a fury of punches out, but not become tense because I wasn’t focused on what happened when my hand hit. My hand would simply tap or slap my sparring partner, enough to prove that had I closed my hand at the last moment, they wouldn’t have gotten off so easily.
Once I got the feeling down of how it should feel, I was able to use fa-jing and at the last moment close my hand into a fist and put power behind it all. I will have to work at it for a long time to perfect it though, but I’m okay with that, as long as I know I’m progressing. Standing still is the most frustrating thing for me.
Everybody is different and so the method that is needed to produce relaxation will be different for others. But for me, for some reason I had it built into my subconscious that the moment my hands closed became the moment that I was going to tense up. Maybe it’s that I wished to bash or break through whatever my hand came into contact, or maybe not, I’m not really sure. All I know is the instance that I changed that one little attribute to what I was already doing, my eyes were opened.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suddenly the most relaxed fighter, nor is it something I don’t still have to work at, but the most important thing is that I now understand it all. Therefore, the tip for today is to try this method for you if you are having the same problem as me. It may or may not work for you, but it can’t hurt to try it. Already, because of this small change, which caused me to not only realize the change but feel it, I can now throw punches with my fist closed that are quite relaxed. There are times I still get too tense, but I know what and how to work at it. Just rest assured that you have something holding you back from becoming more relaxed, but it can be found and eliminated. I’m sure there are other things holding me back from becoming even more relaxed, but I’ll be sure to find them over time.
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