10 Things You Can Do Outside the Dojo to Become a Better Martial Artist

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How 'Will to Win' Affects Martial Artists

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Muscle Memory & Confusion for Building Technique & Strength

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Shorinji Kan Orange Belt Test De-briefing

Yesterday I tested for orange belt in Shorinji Kan Jiu-jitsu. Today I feel like I've been hit by a Mac truck. I am happy to report, however, that I was awarded my orange belt with 3 mons (the highest level of pass for orange). :) I think the person who ordered the belt over-estimated the size of my waistline though.

Many people were interested to hear my impressions of my Shorinji Kan Jiu-jitsu grading so I'm happy to oblige now. My grading was intense, more intense than any other orange belt grading I've ever done (I've done three others in different styles). There is a reason for this.

One of the primary goals in Shorinji Kan gradings at all levels is to push the student to their mental and physical limits and see how well they do once they're there. Since the limits of what I can handle are fairly high, given my prior training and physical condition, the intensity was that much higher to push me there. Because of this, I was glad that all the ukes (attackers) for the test were brown belt or higher, mostly Dans (black belts) of varying degrees actually. They could dish out higher intensity attacks and take what comes back their way.

As for my own personal goals for the test, I'm happy to say that I achieved them. My main goals in training in Shorinji Kan were to get more opportunitues to focus more on different locks and throws that aren't as commonly used in my style of Jiu-jitsu (Can-ryu) and when I tested I felt there was a noticeable improvement.

Of course, there is always room for improvement in some areas and the testing process gave me insight as to what I'd like to work more on. I want to make my disarms quicker and smoother so that I have more time to react to additional attackers in V's. I'd also like to use V's more in practice since I had only got to do them once or twice before going into my grading, so I think I could have benefited from more training in them.

V training is something I've only seen in Shorinji Kan and now that I've had the chance to do a high intensity V, I really want to do more of them. If you don't know what this is, basically one person stands in the centre of the mats and at one end of the mats, a Sensei stands with two lines of attackers (sometimes they're armed with various weapons, sometimes they're unarmed). The Sensei runs the V, sending one attacker at a time from each line. The tori (defender) defends against each attacker as they come. As the V progresses, the Sensei sends attackers in progressively faster so that the tori ends up having to deal with additional attackers while not quite finished dispatching current ones. It's a great training drill that I would like to explore further.

If anyone is looking for advice on how to best handle the rigors of Shorinji Kan Jiu-jitsu gradings, my biggest tip is this: BREATHE! I breathed on every strike, throw, lock and fall (some of my breaths took the form of kiais). Also, when you get to a break and sit down while other students perform, be sure to take the opportunity to do deep breathing to slow your heart rate. Take a deep breath, hold it for 3 seconds, then slowly exhale. Good breathing strategy helped maintain my energy level and focus throughout the test.

Anyway, overall I very much enjoyed the challenges of the Shorinji Kan grading process. We also got to take part in a pretty cool seminar run by the Dans immediately after the grading. It was a lot of fun despite the lack of energy I had post-grading.

A Little Girl Shows Us What Boxing Form Is About

I stumbled across this video on YouTube recently and am completely amazed by it. This little girl who doesn't look any older than 6 shows us great boxing form on the pads. Her speed and reaction time is very impressive. Makes me wish I had taken up boxing as a kid. Enjoy!

Dynamic vs. Static Stretching in Martial Arts

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How to Do Shadow Boxing Effectively

My MMA coach was away on holiday last week, so I met up with my Vancouver personal trainer friend Louis Sargeant (also a professional boxer and martial artist) a few times to keep my training up. We worked exclusively on my striking form and strategy. We did pad work mostly, but he also had me doing shadow boxing as part of my workouts.

Shadow boxing is more than just a warm-up drill, though it is an effective, sport-specific way of warming-up the muscles. It also helps you develop and apply your striking skills. If you shadow box in front of a mirror, you can watch your form and technique to ensure you're striking properly.

Shadow boxing without a mirror is just as important, if not more so. All the best fighters, practice visualizing their opponent when they do shadow boxing. They throw punches and kicks, imagining the reaction of an invisible opponent, then react accordingly themselves. The best shadow boxers look like they're actually fighting someone. Check out Fedor Emelianenko as he does a shadow boxing workout:



Louis tells me that he does a lot of shadow boxing when preparing for a fight. He loves doing it and often does it for as much as 30 minutes. He tells me that if he or my coach isn't available to hold pads for me, that's what I should be doing to practice. I'll definitely be taking that advice on board.

Practicing Grappling Transitions

Last night I taught an off-curriculum Jiu-jitsu class in which I taught grappling submissions, specifically arm bar, triangle and omoplata from the guard position. When I do teach grappling or submissions, I always teach them in sets along with defenses against each move so that students can learn transitions. I'll explain.

First, I taught the basic arm bar from guard, similar to the way it is taught in the following video:



Then I taught a defense against the arm bar called "The Telephone":



I followed up by teaching the triangle from guard:



After which, I showed how some people defend against the triangle by tucking their arm back behind them. I therefore demonstrated how to do the omoplata in answer to this. (*Note: The following video only shows the omoplata from guard, not as a transition from a failed triangle.)



Once my students had practiced all these moves, I had them pair up and try them live. Rather than free-rolling, I told one to take guard position, from which they were to attempt any of the three submissions I taught. The person defending from the guard position was instructed to defend against the submission attempts, trying to pass and end in side control, but not trying to do any submissions him or herself. Once either a submission or side control was achieved, the pair would start over, switching positions.

Rather than simply doing free grappling where anything is allowed, this method allows students to specifically practice the moves learned in class in a live context.

How to Do Shrimping Drills and Why

Shrimping was originally introduced in Japan where it was known as "ebi aruki" or in English, shrimp walking. Judo and Jiu-jitsu schools use it to develop the lateral hip movement that is used to escape from many holds on the ground. The hands are also used in conjunction with the hips to simulate pushing an attacker away. The video below demonstrates this drill very well.



With all the core body that is used to move the hips, shrimping is also great for strengthening the abs. My coach often has me doing this drill for my MMA training. I personally like drills that develop both skills and strength simultaneously.

How to Use a Speed Bag Properly

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M.I.C.E - The New Injury Acronym

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30-Second Blitz Conditioning

My coach gave me quite a work-out last night. After warming up, he had me and my training partner Gina doing 30-second blitz training.

As far as conditioning goes, this is one of the training styles I quite enjoy. Basically, we cycle between a variety of strength and cardio training exercises, doing them each for 30 seconds with only a 10 second break in between each exercise. We did this for each of the following:

Squats, leg lunges, double foot jumps up and down the ring, push-ups (2 sets), skipping, cone jumping, medicine ball tossing (with a sprawl in between tosses), mountain climbers.

This kind of training really gets your heart going, but what I like best about it is I never get bored since we don't do any one exercise for very long.

Once we were done this, my coach had us do three 2-minute sets of suicides, alternating three 2-minute sets of jumping over a heavy bag on the floor and sprawling. Once we were done this, Gina and I were made to do two 5-minute rounds of pummeling drills. Then when we were nicely tired out from all these exercises, our coach sparred us, alternating between us, 2-three minute rounds with me and two with Gina.

It's good for us to be tired out like this before sparring with him. It trains us to be good at fighting when we're gassed. Though by the end of it all, I had little energy left for my own Jiu-jitsu class that I had to teach that night. As a result, I decided to make my students go through a slightly easier version of my MMA training session that night. Needless to say, they really felt the burn that night.

Fighting the Flinch

I was doing some MMA training with a student of mine today who is still finding his feet (and fists!) in his stand-up game. One trouble most people encounter when they're new to sparring is dealing with strikes to the face. Inevitably these people flinch at incoming blows, making it difficult for them to defend.

The best way to learn to fight the flinch reaction is to do drills that involve hits to the head. I like to exchange jabs with a partner, practicing a different defense against each incoming jab. I switch between using a parry, a slip, or simply dropping my chin and taking the blow on my forehead (where the head is strongest). This was a drill introduced to me by my coach.

While doing each of these defenses, I force myself to keep my eyes wide open in order to fight the flinch. I do this by actively raising my eyelids as I do the drills.

This is a good way to train yourself not to flinch, an important skill to learn in order to train yourself not to get hit in the face. :P

When Knee Meets Groin

This image shows the back of my dojo's club t-shirt. It is tongue in cheek, but I feel it is pretty relevant for pretty much all martial arts training. Last night, I failed to adhere to one of these tenets with disastrous results.

In my Jiu-jitsu classes, groin protection is mandatory. When I do my MMA training, however, I don't typically wear my cup. I usually wear a rash guard and a pair of grappling board shorts.

Well last night, I brought along one of my Jiu-jitsu students to my MMA training session so that I would have a partner that doesn't outweigh me by 130 lbs. During the session we worked on the knee kick. To do this we held up a padded stomach protector to our bodies while the other person drove their knee into the pad.

We were using a Muay Thai style knee kick for which you lean back in order to drive your knee harder using your hips. This worked quite effectively. It was particularly effective when my partner's knee slipped down the pad and landed square on my unprotected pelvic bone.

I yelped in pain and dropped in a similar fashion as you would expect a man to drop, clutching the effected area. My coach immediately ran to my side rolling me onto my back telling me, "Bring your knees up to your chest and breathe, Lori."

I knew exactly what he was doing. "Mark, I'm not a man! There's nothing down there that that will help!" The collective laughter of everyone in the room ensued.

My coach was acting on instinct. He was trying to get me to do the only revival method he knows for a kick to the groin. By rolling me on my back and having me raise my knees, he would have helped me to lower my testicles back into their rightful position, theoretically relieving the pain. I couldn't help but be amused by this even in the state of unbelievable pain I was in.

What is really ironic is that in every martial art style I've ever trained in, I wore my cup out of force of habit. MMA is the only exception. But after this incident, I will be operating under the following mentality:

"It's better to have a cup and not need it than need a cup and not have it."

Kicking Like a Girl

After the blog post in which I discussed the value of kicks and the commitment required to become proficient at them, I decided to dedicate an entire class to training kicks. In our style of Jiu-jitsu, we don’t practice any fancy kicks, just practical ones. The ones we covered during that class included: front kick (to the groin or solar plexus), side kick, roundhouse kick, and lateral femoral kick (to the outside of the thigh).

For our warm-up we also did dynamic tension exercises using kicking positions. This involves holding the leg up in the cocked position of a kick, whichever kick you like. Then you slowly extend the leg out into the kicking position then back to the cocked position. We did this ten times slowly then ten times fast. We did these exercises for the front, side and roundhouse kicks. Inevitably, my students had sore butts after doing these exercises. In addition to the strength training one gets from doing these exercises, students get to practice emphasizing proper leg position while kicking.

For the rest of class, we trained our kicks in a variety of ways. The side kick, for example, we first trained from a horse stance to emphasize proper technique. We then trained it from a sparring stance (like the one used in boxing) snapping the kick out quickly using the front leg. I’ve used this type of side kick many a time during sparring sessions. When someone attacks me with their fists, the often open up with their ribs. They usually underestimate how close I can be and still kick with my front leg effectively, allowing me to snap my side kick out quickly under their punch, hitting home in the ribs (usually resulting in a bit of a grunt). We also trained the jumping side kick into the body shields. This allows you to cover a great distance and get more power, but has very little practical value. Unless the attacker is half unconscious, it’s not that likely that this kick will land since you can see it coming a mile away. Lastly, we trained the side kick from the boxing stance using the rear leg. This has practical value because it allows you to step into the kick. Plus, it is good for training balance.

During the class, I couldn’t help but notice that the women in my class showed considerably more natural ability with their kicks than the guys, even the ones that were learning these kicks for the first time. For some reason, they are generally more flexible and coordinated in the legs. I don’t like to make generalizations for the most part because it can cause you to see what you expect to see rather than what is actually there. But there is some truth to certain generalizations.

One exception to the rule was my student Dave. He has always been very nimble with his legs despite the fact that he is 240 lbs and top heavy to book. As I watched him kicking, I felt compelled to complement him.

“Dave, that is awesome. You kick like a girl!” I said, in an admittedly cheeky fashion.

“Hey! Them’s fightin’ words!” he immediately retorted.

I was making a point, however. “Why? Girls are generally better at kicking than guys.”

Dave opened his mouth, then closed it again. I couldn’t help but be amused by the look on his face that clearly indicated a struggle between enjoying the complement and being compared to a girl.

I made the remark in fun, obviously playing on the classic insult, “You punch like a girl!”. I’ve never been a fan of this comment. I’ve even heard male instructors try to light a fire under the asses of their female students by yelling this at them. The natural reply is a legitimate rebuttal. “But I am a girl!” Even though the instructors who say this are just trying to push their students, it can be frustrating to some women who don’t see the intent behind the remark, causing them to feel like they will never be able to punch properly because being a girl is the definition for punch badly.

I am by no means a femi-nazi, but I do believe in giving everyone, whether they are a man or a woman, every opportunity to be the best they can be.

Getting Out of the Strike Zone

I teach my Jiu-jitsu classes out of a mixed martial arts school and one of the instructors has offered to give me extra training outside my classes. This is great for me since I don't always get to push myself very hard when I'm focused on teaching my students. We've started out my training with some boxing.

In my style of Jiu-jtsu (Can-ryu), we incorporate boxing punches, stances and blocks to some degree in our training, so boxing is not unfamiliar to me. My instructor, a former professional boxer, knows this and is working on my already well-established base.

In my private class on Sunday, we did some general sparring then focused on getting out of the strike zone after doing an attack. I've always taught this in my classes, but my instructor showed me that, against a trained boxer like himself, I need to get even further out of reach if I'm going straight back, or I should exit more on an angle. Otherwise, he can use his reach or his speed to immediately launch a counter-attack. We did drills whereby I would enter the strike zone, do a combination of punches, then back out of the strike zone quickly, usually departing with a jab. We also did another variation of this theory that had me exiting while circling behind my opponent.

This exercise is also useful in self-defense, my main interest in martial arts training. After doing these boxing drills, I incorporated the theory into one of my Jiu-jitsu classes. In our style of Jiu-jitsu we focus on aggressively attacking the attacker, making sure he or she is immobilized, then getting away, while ensuring there are no other threats. So the next time we did striking exercises (both boxing and open-handed strikes) on the heavy bags in my class, I had the students focus on doing a combination of strikes, ending with a jab or similar parting shot as they exit the strike zone back and on an angle. The only change I added, was to have my students look over their shoulders while exiting to, in theory, ensure there are no other attackers. Though if I noticed someone wasn't really looking while they backed out, I went and attacked them with a striking pad from behind to make my point. In competition boxing, of course, you wouldn't want to do this since you'd be taking your focus off your opponent.