Steppin up - training '07

[stricker]

11 days since last post... i've been doing a lot of yoga/stretching/bodyflow stuff, also seeing some body therapists (private yoga session, osteo, rolf, etc) some involving trying to get my shoulder moving, others taking advantage of time off to get my hips/core etc kick ass...

shoulder coming good, a few things i've tried have really helped, still some areas of pain/weakness, and it clunk-cracks about, so still going down the surgery route

today,

went for a run, 30 mins

[stricker]

Monday :
Did 1 min lunges, 1 min crunches, 1 min back extensions 3x though straight

been lazy rest of week... actually, just physically lazy, doing a lot of research/learning stuff, but anyway...

Today,

MMA

warm up
5x3 min rounds holding thai pads for beginners, no lead hooks or uppercuts, jabs ok as not power hitters. brutalized a kickboxer for not keeping his hands up in combos hahaha
5x3 min rounds working pads, no lead hooks or uppercuts, just flicking jab out. beginner holding for me so was quite easy.

LOL@me being a ****head comparing attitude holding to being held for :p

then top pro thai fighter teaching a few bits and bobs on knees, kicks, fighting strategy...

then went over basic mount escapes. i went over the more advanced ones i've been learning with a couple of people...

rounds rolling.

i got about 3 rounds in, mostly went quite light, but then last round was with a guy who i'm really competetive with. arm ok, strong and no pain if i keep it in defensively and its ok to set up triangle, armbar etc, just being careful...

[stricker]

Groundwork session.

Training partner back from thailand, i HAVE to get out there some time...

Drilled rubber guard primary route.

Detail on getting hand to mat:
- Zombie
- Night of the living dead
- other one i forgot the name of
Cant get hand to mat:
- 2 techniques, again, i'm bad with names

Then watched some lumpini stadium vcds, awe inspiring...

[stricker]

MMA

warm up
round of shadow boxing, lots of shoots, no lead hand punches
went feather light with pummelling round + techniques drilled

did loads of ground mobility/technique drills:
open guard hooks, spin, passing, 3x variations of drill
triangle drill
armbar drill
omoplata drill
armbar to triangle to omoplata drill
armbar escape to kneebar

then got a few rounds rolling in. I rolled with couple of beginners giving lots of pointers, stop and talk bits. Good chance to drill my techniques too...

stretch to cool down

was chatting to coach about pistols, apparently he does some number more than 7 with a 25kg plate, i'd never done one with that, there was a 20kg plate in the gym so i did 2 reps with that to see what it was like, coool :cool:

[stricker]

MMA

warm up
round of shadow, no left hooks
round of pummelling, numbers even so i showed a kickboxer how to do the drill, real light

today we did a sparring progression for the groundies learning to strike :
1. boxing drill : jab-cross, circle, jab-cross, circle...
2. +kicks : jab-cross, other person fires kick back, cover sets up cross-hook
3,4,5 +more till its a jab-cross,kick,cross-hook,kick,hook-cross,low kick,shin block-cross-kick,low kick,step away... one person doing kicks the other blocking and punching back...
6. then one person in guard, NO movement, head or hands, other person punches, just practicing not flinching
7. add head movement and covering, slipping, bob and weave, covering...
8. speeding it up, adding counters...
9. light boxing sparring
10. 1 person kicks, other just blocks, keep eyes up NOT looking down
11. light kick sparring
12. light kick boxing sparring
then more rounds of that, swapping partners...

i shouldnt have joined in this, but its been ages since i've done any stand up... couldnt do lead hook, which is such a nice tool off the jab, but kept it nice and light for the most part.

then groundwork.

rounds rolling.

some nice half guard stuff came out, got 2 or 3 good sweeps from it to start improving my top game... been doing well against some really good people :)

[stricker]

went for a run, somewhere between 20 and 30 mins, a friend wanted to start getting fit, kept stopping and walking lol... nice active recovery i s'pose

<porkchop's blog moment>then spent the afternoon with this chick from san antonio. she's dope. scored 290 out of 300 on the APFT...</porkchop's blog moment hahaha>

[stricker]

*truly bizarre* : went back to wing chun. strange, almost surreal. anyway, i'm sorting out doing some escrima, gonna be doing a session of that once a week now, single stick...

then onto groundwork session with training partner.

ran over rubber guard bits:
primary route warm up
duda
crocodile or something, an armbar anyway
pump

then did 6x5 min rounds of very light guard rolling, just working from technique to technique depending starting in guard and restarting when passed or swept etc, alternating whos working their guard for each 5 min round...

[stricker]

MMA

warm up
round of shadow (no left hand)
round of pummelling. went feather light, drilled duckunder, armdrag etc

A:
1 min mount escape
1 min keeping guard
1 min sprawls (i did squats)
1 min keep mount
1 min pass guard

B:
1 min clinch wrestling for position (mainly light, then upped it a bit played basically one armed 'on the phone')
1 min back escape
1 min sprawls (i did squats)
1 min clinch wrestling
1 min back escape (other way round)

Did A, B, A, B, 1 min rest between rounds, then last round :
30secs on floor-ceiling bag, 30secs off
30secs on punch bag, 30 secs off
30secs on hook uppercut bag, 30 secs off
30secs on long thai bag, 30 secs off

then drilled some techniques :
kimura from guard
2 escapes for kimura'd person, one of which is passing guard
past guard, using the kimura to turnover, control head, crank kimura
then variation, come right round the head, roll over shoulder to kimura

i joined in a bit of this, on my good side...

saw thai boxing coach i used to train with on mon/fri's, i have a new nickname down his club, "ju jitsu jon" LOL

[stricker]

MMA.

seminar with some brazillian geezer called Rod. was really good.

did a bunch of stuff :
pummelling
duck under
grabbing the shoulder wrapping the elbow/arm up, to take back
trip/takedown from the pummell
open guard, hooking the legs drill
open guard, hook the leg, grab wrist, sweep
open guard, hook the leg, grab wrist, other leg pulled back so single leg takedown
butterfly guard pass
nice closed guard pass
arm bar from having one hook in on back of turtle
escape from triangle choke (that's me ****ed in rolling :rolleyes:)

sure there were a few bits in there i've forgotten to write down, and some of the techniques we've already been doing, but some details were nice, and some of the other techniques really good.

[Nick Forrer]

Hey Jon

Glad you liked the seminar

Rodrigo is awesome.......there is an interview with him in MAI this month

Dont tell me youve gone back to wt tho:mad::p

I need to show you illustrisimo escrima sometime...that stuff is the business:cool:

[stricker]

nick,

yeah i got the impression he enjoyed teaching us, and everyone was pretty stoked on what he showed. he made a bunch of new friends :)

the escrima thing i'm gonna do for a bit for a couple of reasons. firstly i'm taking an enforced break from serious mma training, and i see limitations as opportunities ;). second i really dug the seminar with steve tappin i did, felt like a bridge between what i do in mma (or a more natural way of moving) and things i did in wing chun. thirdly, i've had it on good advice to pick up some weapons work for a while. fourth, well, touch upon all arts and all that...

anyway, i'm gonna be doing escrima (branded 'escrima concepts' i think) with my old wing chun teacher, the best training is the training that you do.

p.s. i'll drop you an email...

[stricker]

Escrima

stationary #1 strike : what it is, what it isn't
then quickly #2,#3,#4,#5

counter #1 with #2
counter #2 with #1
add footwork, 1, back to point, 2, back, 1, back ...

counter to #3
counter to #4
with footwork

more on striking with the stick, mainly #1, fig-8 motion, not using the wrist or elbow as a hinge, touched on suppressed hitting

Groundwork cancelled due to tp's knee and cold

[AndrewS]

Jon,

a few things for escrima

1). Mess with things from point (empty hand and with sticks)- it forces hip and body use

2). Try stuff from sitting- interesting where you can get power from

3). Start being aware of your head motion as a function of body motion early- try to get your head motion so you move off the attack line but into the other person- I think of it like headbutting behind my hit- it builds some nice power off evasion with forward motion.

Nick,

the stuff coming from Mr. Latosa is a different beast than most other FMA. You've met Steve Tappin- go hit one of his practices and glove up with his guys.

Andrew

[Nick Forrer]

Andrew

Dont know enough about FMA to make fine discriminations between styles. Certainly the couple of times I trained with Steve Tappin I was impressed by the simplicity and practicality of it (as opposed to the gratuitous stick twirling and billions of disarms that some FMA go into)

But my teacher Mark Wiley has seen or studied many many systems of FMA (I think he said over 50) and says that Illustrisimo is light years ahead of everything else hes done. Certainly everything Ive seen in terms of footwork, blade motions and how they interrelate with one another makes perfect sense. Also Illustrisimo is first and foremost a blade system not stick and so the energy and tactics of the sword (as Im sure you're aware) differ from the stick.

Ive got about 2 hours of footage of tatang illustrisimo with edgar sulite and tony diego and his skill with the blade is sick. I recommend you look into it if you have the chance (I think Roy Harris does it in your area).

When I get a bit more competancy with the stick im gonna go out and do somw sparring/competing for sure.

[AndrewS]

Nick,

(Jon sorry for hijacking your blog, btw)

I glanced at some Illustrisimo clips on youtube and would love to catch Roy's take on it. The beauty of Latosa's approach is in the abstraction and variability. He has actively thrown out the silly disarm stuff and the ornate counter for counter and pattern drills, favoring random practice from very early with patterned drills being present for reps only. Teaching-wise this is much more in line with modern motor learning stuff (see criticisms on chi sao, etc). As far as weapon use, each weapon is itself- you don't use a stick like a knife, you use it to club the h*ll out of someone. That being said, each weapon informs the others (the idea of transition)- so the stick has an 'edge', helping focus power, and zoned shots are draw cuts (so you don't have to swing through with every shot); conversely every knive attack should be backed by the whole body spiralling so you can both change and easily shuck off arm based attempts to stop a stab, and so on and so forth. As Mr. Latosa has a good bit of boxing experience (and still spars), his empty hand grows well off his weapons work. Personally, I think his approach to escrima bears the same relation to other escrima which Yi Chuan holds to Xing Yi. It's an attempt to focus on the meat of what makes FMA work.

Andrew

[sanjuro_ronin]

A thread about Latosa would be cool guys, *hint hint*

[stricker]

MMA

warm up
round of shadow (no left arm)
round of pummelling (soft)

partnered with guy with a broken rib, so we worked real soft, doing circuits :

round A:
1 min clinch wrestling
1 min clinch wrestling again
1 min squats
1 min clinch wrestling
1 min clinch wrestle

round B :
1 min mount escape
1 min guard pass
1 min squats
1 min mount hold
1 min keep guard

A-B-A-B, 1 min rest interval

straight into :

30s on heavy bag, 30s off while partner on...
30s on hook uppercut bag, 30s off
30s on long thai bag, 30s off
30s on floor ceiling ball, 30s off
1 min clinch wrestling (light)

2 rounds of that, 1 min rest interval

ripped the **** out of the hook uppercut bag with my right hand, sweeeet :)

then rounds rolling, went super soft, just flowing from technique to techniqe giving each other stuff for a few rounds with a couple of different people, then last round was resisting, maybe 60-70%, barely using left arm...

interesting chat with mma coach about how to get good.

[stricker]

Jon,

a few things for escrima

1). Mess with things from point (empty hand and with sticks)- it forces hip and body use

2). Try stuff from sitting- interesting where you can get power from

3). Start being aware of your head motion as a function of body motion early- try to get your head motion so you move off the attack line but into the other person- I think of it like headbutting behind my hit- it builds some nice power off evasion with forward motion.

Nick,

the stuff coming from Mr. Latosa is a different beast than most other FMA. You've met Steve Tappin- go hit one of his practices and glove up with his guys.

AndrewAndrew,

cheers for the input.

1. I'm not 100% sure what 'point' is yet. I think its the bit before you step off to 45 right? like escrimas equivalent of neutral stance?

2 & 3. will play with, cheers.

[AndrewS]

Jon,

Point can mean a couple of different things- the first is the one I'm talking about.

1). The position where both feet are together, a single point. Typically, a transitional point in footwork.

2). An ideal state of balance, not tied to any particular outer shape. When 'on point' you can take force and put it in the ground from any angle (to an extent), move in any direction freely, and express power from any point on the body, with minimal telegraph.

SJR- where do we put it though? If Jon wants we can move this to my blog, but, being KFO, there's no FMA forum here.

Andrew

[stricker]

guys, its cool no prob with the hijack :) well, i say that, 20 page flame war later ... :D

Few things :

yeah nick, i was also really impressed with the steve tappin seminar i did. we did a couple of really basic drills almost exactly the same as i've done with in mma/boxing but with the stick... my being slightly tricky to steves assistants went down well, and they also did structure tests from within group/melee work ('freeze!'), which i thought was a nice touch

stick vs sword : this did come up in my first lesson ;) to do with the counter to #3, doing like a bong sao with the stick works with a bladed weapon better than just #1-ing it. yeah, transferability to different weapons (knife stick pool cue, chair) was brought up too...

roy harris : interesting. he's quite a dude then, i've picked up a few tasty submission wrestling moves of his off youtube which i've used

anyway, carry on... i've had like one lesson so far. my knowledge level is about equivalent to knowing jab is the lead hand cross is the rear hahaha

[stricker]

Jon,

Point can mean a couple of different things- the first is the one I'm talking about.

1). The position where both feet are together, a single point. Typically, a transitional point in footwork.

2). An ideal state of balance, not tied to any particular outer shape. When 'on point' you can take force and put it in the ground from any angle (to an extent), move in any direction freely, and express power from any point on the body, with minimal telegraph.

SJR- where do we put it though? If Jon wants we can move this to my blog, but, being KFO, there's no FMA forum here.

Andrewaaah, caught you online :)

yup, 1 is what it briefly got mentioned as on tuesday. i've heard you refer to it as 2 in emails/posts in the past, wanted clarification. 2 is a VERY nice piece of text, hmm maybe we should have a thread about universal principles of stance, posture, footwork :)

as for thread location, there is 'other related arts' forum? i hardly ever check it though, there's a nice blog there when i remember... i'm cool with it here, just people might not find it amongst the rounds of thai pads, wrestling circuits and perpetual injury. besides, its a bigger subject than anyone's blog, although andrewS does have other escrima discussion in it, so it could easily live there...

[AndrewS]

Jon,

I've been meaning to bug Mr Latosa about putting a forum up on his site- that would be the ideal place for such discussion in the long run. For the moment, if it's cool by you we can chat some here and on my blog as people chime in.

BTW- the low bong/roof vs #3 works, but isn't what we're doing over here- the box piece we use is a cut down #2 (inside defense) vs a #3. It gives more vertical coverage, keeps you in better position to double up with your following shot. Moreover, when you need to cover that line with a much lighter weapon vs a much heavier, motion and the cut down #2 will serve you much better as shucking off force with a mock bong won't fly with single stick vs staff, but the added shock from the offensive 'block' #2 plus moving can save you.


Andrew

[sanjuro_ronin]

SJR- where do we put it though? If Jon wants we can move this to my blog, but, being KFO, there's no FMA forum here.

Andrew

probably the "other arts" section or the 'reality based" one...

[stricker]

Appointment with Orthopeadic Surgeon

My old MRI from however long ago had a labrum tear from 2 oclock to 5 oclock, although this presents more like a SLAP (11 to 1?) so tear possibly extended. not getting another arthrogram, going straight in to surgery asap. Official waiting lists say that could be Feb '08, but i said i can do short notice/cancellations, fingers crossed it'll be quick. Its 3 weeks in a sling, drive again after 6 weeks, "normal" use after 6 months. I've scoured the web and competetive judoka, boxers and rugby players typically get back to where they were around a year...

My target is to be fit and healthy to start the am boxing season September 08...


Andrew,

no time, gotta run, but the low bonglike thing was explained to me as starting off a fig 8, so you start an attack based on a quadrant, using #2 was a 'default' option as its so natural a reaction and works...

jon.

[stricker]

Escrima

more striking technique practice, supressed hits
with footwork
basic defence/counters to 1,2,3,4,5
added rear hand to trap and second hit for 1,2,3,4,5 counters


Groundwork

drilled some bits from bjj seminar last weekend
then some more eddie bravo moves, this time from 'pyramid' position.

[stricker]

warm up

circuit :
1 min lunges
1 min crunches on ball
1 min back extension on ball
1 min rest
5x through

1 min windshield wipers
1 min side bends (+16kg kbell, 15 reps each side)
1 min oblique crunches (30s each side)
1 min rest
3x through

stretching

really should sort out what i'm doing with training at the moment instead of spur of the moment stuff like this, but i'm not really feeling very disciplined at the moment 8-)

[stricker]

Missed escrima :( woulda been 3/4 hr late so sacked it off and got a bite to eat

Groundwork with training partner :

****ed about with his new gravity boots, got some click crack out of my spine...

worked through more rubber guard techniques. too tired to type it all out...

[stricker]

Led Zeppelin

yes, i was one of the 20,000 out of 2 million people who applied for tickets :D

the gig was awesome, not just some ageing rockers, they were at the peak of their game. best rock band in the world, no one else can touch them.

otherwise been pretty busy recently, hmmm, gotta snap out of this laziness...

[stricker]

1. Escrima

did about 5 mins of chi sao with someone before escrima started, aaah memories...

then, more hitting, trying to get cyclical motion on #2 strikes, not as easy as for #1. hit, hit, suppressed hit, repeat...

drills from point, block\strike V-pattern footwork

worked out how to do that drill with a guy who was left handed.

played with retreat and strike, turning the V-pattern into an X-pattern.

2. Groundwork

went over more eddie bravo material. did moves from Jiu Claw. finding more **** ups in his book... my christmas project is to rewrite his book hahaha.

reckon we'll have covered all the material over the next two sessions. we've basically just 'tasted' everything, got more work to do, but the 'twister' book arrived this morning, and top game needs work... my training partner is disgustingly flexible in the hips, but not strong positionally. might embark on twister material (eddie's top game) sooner to remedy this...

[stricker]

Groundwork.

Did sweeps from Jiu-Claw

Things have been pretty crazy recently for whatever reason, so not much training going on...

[stricker]

Someone found a clip of me on youtube :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1yVgfrXLgc

This is the submission match from the last tournament I did where I choked the guy out, but the person with us filming missed it...

Pretty funny :D

[stricker]

Aaaah i just found they had the one i lost on there as well :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBFFJ1cVxcg

That one I did get on film and bits went into the hilight i put on here before... I was ****ing nackered in this one, and my opponent was really strong... this was the semi-final, and he lost the final... the guy who got 1st just won gold in the no gi blue belt division in the bjj worlds in LA recently...

It's wierd watching these now, i've come on so much since then, before i (re)did my shoulder i tapped a few people i'd never got before in training, and my positional fundamentals were really a bit sloppy back then... This guy would still be a really tough match...

I'm dying to get back to proper training and competing

[stricker]

MMA

warm up
round of shadow
round of pummelling - taught to a newbie whos also an old friend :)

then we did a bunch of rounds of takedowns:
double leg
single leg
two more variations

we had a circuit, 2 people out in the middle, one orthodox one southpaw, swapping... I didnt go in as dummy, and worked very light

groundwork

rounds rolling. I did one fairly soft round that heated up a bit when i got them in my half guard, to rubber guard, to gogoplata to locoplata...

then took some time in the corner with him, thai boxing coach whos just had elbow surgery, swapping techniques

then I ran over rubber guard basics with the whole class

everytime i take some time out from training, then go back, i remember just how much i love it... today was a very funny session anyway, the last before xmas break, so lots of messing about and **** talk, mainly going over our 'results' from the dinner and later heading out to clubs last saturday night...

[stricker]

Groundwork

Troubleshooting the Rubber guard + MMA tactics (LOL)
Spiders Web

Finished the whole book now... handy i got this blog so i can go count roughly how many hours its taken, we've been putting in anywhere between 1 and 3 hours a session...

The plan now is to really break the material down. IMO the book, and possibly how eddie teaches, is over-complicated. I downloaded a copy in .pdf format thats getting printed and cut up and reorganised into a scrap book... We're gonna isolate each position and roll more from it, still light playing with the options and pressures and get more into the escapes/top tactics.

Also, ripped a hole in my best jeans knee-ing the heavy bag outside doing a **** about round of kicks and knees earlier in the day. ****ing typical.

Had some friends over for dinner, cooked a kick-ass thai green curry. Too much coriander and not quite enough chilli in the paste, but it still went down a treat...

[Dan_chi_sau]

nice to see we're not all slackers xmas eve...
good job jeans are a constant on most people's xmas list ;)
and (as long as you got the amount of chilli right) how can you ever have too much corriander? Merry xmas jon.

[stricker]

hey dan,

cheers, hope you had a good xmas as well mate... too much coriander, it's a concentration thing, more coriander meant relatively less lemongrass, galangal, chilli etc in the paste (handmade i'll have you know ;)). i've got a few things i want to achieve over this little break from work etc, one of them is learning to cook tasty (as opposed to purely functional) food. I did a tagliatele with dolchelatte and cream sauce last night that was super tasty...

laters, jon.

[stricker]

Ok now its (nearly) 2008 looks like this blog thread is coming to a close...

I called this "Steppin up" as i wanted to up my level of training from 3x a week hobbyist to 5-6 days a week, sometimes 2x a day more of a "amateur fighter" level, and i wanted to step up to the plate and compete.

Did I achieve that... well, yes and no... I think pretty much yes for the uninjured part of the year...

On the training level, i had a good few months of training hard six days a week, when i was doing the thai boxing mondays and fridays as well as the usual mma tues, weds, sats, and mma judo on thursdays. Man i miss that... Then, when extra muay thai got closed down, I added more little morning sessions, nothing great but just getting me moving in the a.m.... So, yeah i did achieve this goal.

Competing... well, I did my first amateur muay thai fight, that was awesome, learned so much from that one experience... I want more than anything to do more of them...

Also did my first, and second, submission wrestling tournament. They were fun, and again I learned a lot... The pressure of trying to win, and more importantly to not make any mistakes really changes things. Made me realise my ground game is more one dimensional than i thought it was.

Both my stand up and ground game have come on so much since then, most of it really is that mental thing, and just understanding what goes down and what the whole point of training is...

Looks like i'm now heading for a couple of months waiting around, then arthroscopic surgery, 3-6 months basic rehab, then another 3-6 months i'm gonna take to be in a GPP mode before getting back into competition mode.

My biggest aim actually is to be in shape for the amateur boxing season that starts in september '08. See how i can arrange training to do more am muay thai fights...

Meantime i'm learning escrima single stick while i'm one armed, hopefully doing more groundwork light 'learning' sessions, and learning a lot of stuff for the future...

Well i guess that wraps up 2007, cheers everyone who's helped me out and had a little chat here...