A Warrior's Thougts on the Martial Arts

'tis last Saturdays sparring session. Enjoy! Until next time, don't get hurt

Just had my first grappling session since I ruptured my tendon. Had to quit after three rounds of sparing, but still - I'm back! Tomorrow I'll participate in some light kickboxing sparring again. Good times ahead!

So over the next couple days I'll post the videos of our fights at the Opole Open 2015. I have to say, the [PUT] people really did a good job on organising the event, and while international participation was a bit lower than usual, the level of competition was awesome. What I like most is the non-dogmatic approach these guys take. Most schools offer both Taekwondo and Kickboxing, some also do other styles such as MMA or even Krav Maga. As long as they adhere to the rules, everyone's welcome to fight. Contrast this with the rivalry and bad blood that dominates the martial arts world here in Austria. For example, I've once witnessed all participants of the [WKF] being barred from entrance to the [OEBFK] national championships due to inter-federation rivalry. Needless to say, the level of competition suffers from stuff like that. Now you could argue that the situation in Poland is different in that there's no competing federations from the same style involved.

Here we go - some footage of yesterday's sparring session. I have to say, everyone did me mighty proud. I won't go into a lot of detail here, but truly, everybody either performed at their best or accomplished something they've never done before (e.g., score with clean bodyshots in the short distance, stop an advancing sparring partner with a rear straight, or scoring with a high kick). Best of all, [Andy] is back in training! Even after his long break, the boy still knows his game. He's still exhibiting some phenomenal reactions and head movement. Some things never change... Well, without any further ado, enjoy the show! Our next stop is going to be the international polish championships in Wieliczka, on March 12th and 13th. After yesterday's sparring, I'm convinced we'll do at least as good as [last time], most likely even better. As always, I'll keep you up to date. So long, don't get hurt Music: The Four Seasons (Vivaldi) ( John H

So this is 2016. For me, the year started with opening two new weekly classes in the [Seestadt Aspern], a new "city in the city" on the border of Vienna. So far, the start went pretty smooth - after three classes, I can record an average of around 14 students in the adult classes. Now I'm really more of a small-group teacher (classes in [my Dojo] usually run closer to 6 students per class), so overlooking a larger group is kind of unfamiliar. Thankfully, around half of the people in the class are my advanced students, who are more than able to guide beginners through the session and offer valuable pointers and advice. Hence, quality doesn't suffer. Overall, I'm totally convinced that the hard core of advanced students and the gym culture they live is more important to the learning rate of beginners than the instructor's work. Of course, it's down to the instructor to build up that core of advanced students and establish the desired gym culture, but at so