Courtesy of HellInAHandBasket, I learn about tgace’s blog, “The Things Worth Believing In.”
I just flipped through it. Martial arts, guns, various other things… I like. I shall be reading.
Martial Arts
After class…
Just got back from another class. Tonight was Muay Thai/JKD technique work, and western boxing.
I am pooped. 😎 I am pumped.
Lots of people in class tonight, including at least 3 new folks. That was cool. It’s nice to get to know other people that start at about the same time as you as you become a “class” (like a graduating class) together, going through the same things, learning, getting hit, bruised, banged up together.
During the Muay Thai/JKD class, I realized how much I need to unlearn from what I did in the past. Changes in mechanics, how to approach things. Working to break the old paradigm, leave it behind. Don’t discard the knowledge, but allow myself to accept the new motions without the old stuff tripping me up.
I also found it interesting that for all I know, how much of it I don’t really know. That is, I know it in terms of having it memorized in my head, but not memorized in my muscles, if you will. So much of the Kuk Sool work was memorization and very little on practical application of what you had memorized. This was one of my problems with my practice. So while I’m here in class working, my brain recognizes a lot of angles, joint locks, throws, sweeps, but my body doesn’t know how to put them into play smoothly and dynamically. This is one reason why I left, and one reason why I started at this new school. Theory is good, but you need application of that theory to make it truly useful.
I shouldn’t paint the picture that I’m totally inept. Rather, the difference between my previous martial arts study and my current martial arts study is one of actual application and practice. So far every class I’ve taken at this new school, I’m coming home exhausted, sweaty, smelly, muscles are tired and sore the next day, I took a few shots, I have some bruises. There’s no cooperative dancing. Sure we’re learning, sure we’re doing drills, but it’s work. I like this.
Another thing I’m finding I like is the limited focus. In Kuk Sool, there’s such a broad curriculum that you dabble in little things all the time. Plus each class was a grand unknown as to what was to be worked. Here at Warrior’s Edge, the classes are well-defined as to what you will be doing. If you go Monday at 7:30 PM you will be doing western boxing, period. But note, that’s the only western boxing class all week. But so far, I’m liking that. It allows me to go to class to learn, then I go home and spend the week practicing the few things that I was taught. Come back next week, show what I learned, learn a little more. It seems to be a better fit for actual learning: the class is a class, meant for teaching, not to just come and “get a workout” (tho certainly you get that). At my old Kuk Sool school, I don’t think a lot of people there practiced outside of class (apart from ensuring stuff was memorized); thus, class time was practice time too. I think that detracted. Go to school to learn, then leave and do your homework.
Speaking of all that tho, after tonight’s MT/JKD class, I thought to myself that I might want to review some Kuk Sool techniques, such as Ki Bohn Soo. Keep the locks, angles, sweeps, and throws in my head.
Well, this post has been rather rambling. Just a lot of disjointed thoughts after tonight’s classes. I’m happy I made the switch.
Brock Lesnar
Watched the Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir (2) fight from UFC 100.
Brock Lesnar is just awesome. People might look at his time in the WWE, that is “fake wrestling”, and scoff at him. Go ahead, scoff. He’s the UFC Heavyweight champ and proved last night he’s no fluke champion. You cannot deny his NCAA wrestling history, how he dominated there. Even when he did pro wrestling, he was a dominant figure demonstrating high athletic ability and showmanship; he sold tickets, he sold merchandise, he was a main event draw. Out of the blue he opts to leave and try his hand at pro football and while he didn’t make the final cut, that he got as far as he did and received the complements that he did shows something about his will, determination, desire to learn, desire to improve and excel at whatever he sets his mind to. He’s very strong willed. Then he opts to go into MMA, which was a natural place for him to now, and here he is now, on top of the world.
Lesnar is a beast, plain and simple. He is huge, strong, powerful. He is amazingly athletic and dexterous for a man of his size; again, look at things he did in pro wrestling (e.g. a “shooting star press“). He’s smart and willing to be a student of any game that he works at. Watching the UFC 100 fight, it’s evident that Brock is relying less upon his brute strength and is improving his overall game. He obviously respected Mir’s jiu jitsu skills and looked better on the ground (tho he still has a way to go). He took his time, didn’t just go in blazing fists. Nevertheless, he knows his strengths and used them well (e.g. staying on top of Mir, chest-to-chest, kept Mir’s hands tangled up, kept his head grinding against Mir’s head, and kept popping Mir hard in the face). He also knows his weaknesses and his opponent’s strengths (e.g. start of second round, Brock got the takedown on Mir but was too far away to capitalize on the takedown and he wasn’t going to play Mir’s ground game so he let Mir get back up). He’s still a young guy, and as long as he continues to listen and learn from his trainers, he’s going to continue to dominate.
But what does Lesnar really know how to do well? Work the crowd. He knows how to be a “heel”, a “bad guy” if you will. You can love me or hate me, doesn’t matter, so long as you care about me — the worst thing is to have the crowd indifferent to you. Lesnar primarily worked as “the bad guy” in WWE, he knows how to do it well. Last night he played the crowd well right from the opening (refused to touch gloves with Mir) to the closing (flipping the crowd off after the fight, getting in Mir’s face throwing the “talk all the shit you want now” back at him); they hated him. What makes this great? Because you know when you see Lesnar fight, you’re going to get an awesome fight. You know the action will be good, you know the hits will be strong, you know it will be exciting. And the best part would be if you could see Lesnar get his ass kicked. That’s the appeal of the “heel” character, that you want to see them get their ass kicked. It probably won’t happen to Lesnar any time soon, but if Dana White books future fights for Lesnar correctly, they’ll be good opponents that will challenge Lesnar and offer that chance of being able to kick Lesnar’s ass. While the may give him a fight, they won’t win. But when that match comes that does get the win over Brock, the crowd will go nuts for it (and the rematch). Bottom line: it’s all good business.
Updated: Lance Storm put it well:
One reporter [at the after-fight press conference], who was very offended by Brock’s comments about Mir post fight, pointed out how others who trash talk seem to be able to hug at the end of the fight and show sportsmanship. Dana [White] pointed out that UFC was real and we didn’t want any of the fake hype and pro-wrestling antics that Brock showed in his post match promo including flipping off the crowd.
I see things the exact opposite. Brock was the real deal and all the other guys are the fakers. How many times have we seen fights hyped with guys trash talking an burying their opponents only to see them touch gloves before each and every round, hug at the finish and then put over their opponent after the fight claiming all the trash talking was just hype to sell the fight. Brock genuinely (at least in my opinion) hated the fact that Frank Mir beat him in the first fight and wanted to kill him in the second one. He believed everything he said, and Frank’s cocky trash talking really pissed Brock off. Brock’s emotion was REAL, and he was so jacked up after the fight that he likely spoke, not from his head or likely even from his heart, but from that pure competitive rage that fuels a competitive combat athlete of that caliber. Brock sent a message, a simple and clear one: “If you mess with the Bull, you get the Horn” end of story.
In the Randy Couture fight, Couture was a total pro and so was Brock Lesnar. You treat Brock Lesnar with respect and as a professional, he acts like one. If you run your mouth, disrespecting him and do everything you can to piss him off, expect to see a very pissed off angry man come fight time.
The Fence, and other non-aggressive stances
Geoff Thompson coined a term, “the fence”.
The fence is a self-defense technique. It’s so simple, but it’s not easy. Basically, the fence is putting your hands up and out in front of you. Poor description, but watch the first video and at about 0:46 you’ll see the fence. Watch the whole video to catch all the subtleties.
The fence aims to control a person: attacker, offensive person, someone in front of you. You’re working to maintain distance, so they cannot get in on you. The thing about the fence is that it’s not necessarily obvious nor aggressive. You have your hands up, you have your hands out. If you’re a person that speaks with your hands, this may not feel too awkward to you but you’ll just have to adapt how you move your hands so they don’t drop below your waist. The fence creates just that — a fence between you and the other person. From there you can control distance, you can use verbal skills to deescalate the situation. If however the situation escalates into violence, the fence puts your hands in a place for immediate action. You can block, trap, strike, parry all from a fence position.
Related to this, consider mantis blocks.
Another such stance some term the “chin-and-elbow cup”. Let’s assume you are right-handed. You will have your right hand cupping your left elbow, and the webbing between the thumb and index finger of your left hand will cradle your chin. This gives you an appearance of being in thought about whatever the dude is talking to you about. Some will say that you should also blade your strong side away. What does this do? It provides your body with coverage: right arm is protecting your mid and lower body, left arm is covering your upper body including having your arm in front of your throat. There are many possibilities and variations on this theme that you can do. Explore.
I have a Renzo Gracie book, Mastering Jujitsu, which discusses a stance called the “prayer stance”. Basically it appears as if you are standing with your hands in a prayer-like state, submissive. But of course it’s a deceptive stance in that it allows you to block, strike, drive in, whatever may be necessary.
There’s Tony Blauer’s “flinch” response:
There’s a lot out there that aims to look at self-defense from a non-agressive yet defensively advantageous position. Fences, flinch-response, and other such stances can be a vital part of your self-defense system, useful to help you avoid the problem in the first place or to help you survive and win if things get ugly.
ShivWorks
I believe I first heard of “SouthNarc” and ShivWorks through KR Training. SouthNarc runs a lot of seminars on his own, but my angle in was via “full-spectrum” courses offered in conjunction with Tom Givens’ Rangemaster. Specifically, in September 2009 I’ll be taking a “combined skills” course with Givens and SouthNarc via KR Training. I’m looking forward to it, as both Tom Givens and SouthNarc are well regarded trainers. It should be a humbling but educational experience.
I’ve also become interested in checking out all I can from SouthNarc because he has a background in Filipino martial arts, which I’ve just started studying. As I tend to do when I get involved in new things, I like to devour all the knowledge I can on the topic, so I’ll seek out books, videos, websites, people, forums and obtain all the information I can. I’ve read numerous things online from and about SouthNarc, and watched some videos on YouTube. So the next step? ShivWorks has produced 4 DVD’s:
- Reverse Edge Methods, Volume 1
- Reverse Edge Methods, Volume 2
- Fighting Handgun, Volume 1
- Practical Unarmed Combat, Volume 1 (my review)
I purchased them through MD Tactical, who were very quick with order turnaround. I just received them in the mail and have started watching. I’m sure I’ll post some reviews as I complete each DVD.
Updated: added link to my review of PUC v1
Math for victory
A video from SouthNarc describing the HideAway knife:
The knife itself, useful information. What stood out to me as more useful?
1. Emphasis on the draw.
I’ve heard SouthNarc focuses a lot on drawstrokes, because if you can’t assuredly get your weapon into play, your chances of successfully dealing with a self-defense incident are drastically reduced.
2. Simple math for victory:
Good training + aggression + simple tactics = victory
Updated: Added a link to the knife company, and fixed the video to use an embeddable one (don’t know how that happened). Thanx Linoge.
The importance of striking
Matthew Apsokardu at his ikigai blog talks about the importance of striking.
I recall much of the same from my Kuk Sool study. So much emphasis and time spent on locks and throws, and not enough time spent on how to get into those locks and throws (tho some instruction given, not always practiced). Things like needing to throw a strike to the eyes to blind and/or distract so you can gain entry to perform a lock. Or say someone has you in a bear hug from behind, you use your foot to stomp down on the instep of their foot, perhaps raking your foot down their shin as you go, to create the initial pain distraction so you can throw them.
I just discovered Matthew’s blog (due to him commenting on my blog) and my initial look around his place seems pretty nice. He wrote an eBook called The Student’s Guide to Surviving a Traditional Dojo. I haven’t read it fully but I did skim it. It’s actually a pretty nice eBook. What I liked is how he talked about mindset, about longer term troubles like burnout and fading away. I mean, everyone talks about uniforms, basic etiquette and such, but he approached some topics that are very real but rarely discussed. The eBook provides a nice overview, touching on many subjects. The only problem? The book is geared towards traditional Japanese martial arts. That’s OK, especially since that is the author’s realm of experience. Myself, coming from a traditional Korean martial arts background, I can see how there are many similarities, but also some differences. This isn’t to say the eBook is bad, just it depends what the focus and potential audience is for the author. If he’s attempting to discuss traditional Japanese arts, then it works very well towards that purpose. If he’s wanting to discuss traditional Asian martial arts, then it may not work so well. If he’s wanting to discuss traditional martial arts (including non-Asian), then it again gets a bit further away. As well, I noticed no mention in the eBook itself about who Matthew is… no bio. There is a link to his website, but as websites can come and go and the PDF file could stick around, it’d be useful to have such things within the eBook itself so people can directly know who the author is and with what authority they speak on the matter.
Nevertheless, it’s a good effort that he made and one worth reading. I’ll be spending more time on his blog in the future.
A “Systems” Approach to Building a Profile
All this talk of Jeet Kune Do. Of studying various martial arts. Take what is useful and discard the rest. How do you determine what is useful and what to discard?
Over at ShivWorks there is an article “A ‘Systems’ Approach to Building a Profile” that discusses this.
What exactly is a System? A lexical definition of a system is “an arrangement of units that function together”. Following this line of logic, we would assume that when we call the data in our profile a “system” then all of it would function together. But does it by definition or even in reality?
[…]
For what you do to truly be a system, as per Webster, your “units” have to work together, or more importantly be common. The movements to deploy tools, strike, etc. need to be as close to one another in execution as they can efficiently be.
If you just take a bunch of things and mash them together, is that a system? According to the above, not unless they function together. It reminds me of my discussion of mantis blocks. Sure you could have various ways of blocking a punch or of putting up a fence or drawing your concealed handgun, but looking at the mantis technique it provides a system-like approach in that the movements are close to one another in execution; they are an arrangement of units that function together.
In the systems approach to building our combative profile, all skill sets are as similar as possible. Gun-handling is similar to knife work, knife work is similar to striking, and generally all footwork is the same. A good system should allow for the appropriate skill set to be utilized with essentially zero conscious thought, following a streamlined, learned, decision making process. With the proper system and the proper decision making process, one’s success in battle should be high.
The analogy of the system’s approach is to a well-trained unit versus a collection of individuals. A good unit, which works harmoniously, will always be more successful because everyone contributes their specific role to the overall success of the mission. Good team members in a unit compliment each other. They know their job and how it relates to their buddies’ responsibilities.
Likewise, a good system’s individual skill sets work in conjunction with one another to accomplish the overall objective of survival.
Painting still lifes
In continuing my readings on new martial endeavors, I come across this statement from DaeHanL:
I think the mentality of having to use technique “A” when Attack “A” is used, and not understanding the endless uses for the concept, is very common for a simple reason. Much like how many artists can draw very well as long as they are looking at something, but have a difficult time drawing from memory or just by using their creativity. We must understand the composition so well, and have the skill necessary to create, before we can ever break away from painting still life.
It says a couple things to me.
First, having a foundation in “classical mess” has utility. It gives you a solid foundation upon which to build (which can include discarding). I’ve found that people that tend to do best in “free form” tended to have some sort of solid background. For instance, maybe they’re great at jazz improv, but they first had formal schooling in music theory, composition, history, performance. We must remember that knowledge is what others have learned and are willing to pass on. We can discover all of these things ourselves… eventually. How efficient is that? There are some that have no formal schooling and talk about how they discovered or invented blah blah, only to share this with a knowledgeable someone and then discover that blah blah is already known, has been for years, and sometimes you find out that blah blah has been discredited or discarded on the whole because it has problems. If we built upon the knowledge of those before us, how much more efficient, productive, and successful could we have been in our own search for Truth? This is the point of “formal education” thus, spending time to learn a formal system is not a bad thing as it gives you someones’ notion of knowledge and Truth. It allows you a foundation to build upon, and hopefully helps you to get to The Truth a bit faster since you won’t need to repeat the effort, mistakes, and failings that have already been made.
Second, to move beyond “classical mess” you need a way to be creative. If all an artist did when they painted was to paint still life, they could never move beyond it. Thus from time to time the artist will need to change their venue and paint from memory or paint in a creative free-form. Certainly at first their efforts will be below their normal still-life output quality, but with repeated work, the hope and intent is they will exceed that still-life quality; in fact, they will find themselves and their style of drawing instead of the style of their teacher. In martial arts, you can remain within the framework of a “classical mess” but if there’s never an outlet to freely apply that mess, to move beyond it, then you’re relegated to still-life… never aliveness. This was my problem with my Kuk Sool study. It’s “classical mess” and good for what that is, but it was always “still-life”. Even if we did spar, the sparring was simple striking-only tournament-rules light/no-contact point sparring. There was no venue for application of techniques: no sweeping, no throwing, no “fighting tactics” (e.g. in point sparring you never want to get hit else you have a point scored against you; in a real fight, you may be willing to eat a punch if it allows you an avenue towards decisive victory). However, point sparring is a fair way to start. It’s a way to look at fighting from a still-life perspective: it lets you look at the composition, obtain basic skills. The question becomes if you’re willing to move beyond it, or if you’re fine painting still-lifes.
What is Jeet Kune Do?
That’s a good question.
I’ve been reading this thread at martialartsplanet.com on that very question. It seems it’s difficult to come to a consensus. What follows is by no means a definitive statement nor answer to the question, just my own evolving thoughts on the question.
Stuff From Hsoi 