A Warrior's Thougts on the Martial Arts

After defeating Alfredo in the semi-finals , I was up against Yuri, a slovakian fighter. Yuri's pretty young and exceptionally talented. Also, he's really tall for the -71kg division, which is a great advantage especially in light-contact fights. Having seen Yuri perform in the semi-finals, my coach and I decided it would be best to keep the pace rather low, fight defensively and wait for an opportunity to out-box the slovakian. I don't know why, but I just dumped that gameplan a couple of seconds into the first round. Tried to score with an axe-kick. The ring canvas was slippery, though, so I fell. Now usually I'd try to close the gap and outbox tall guys. However, this time, I just went for that classical light-contact strategy and poked around with the lead leg. To my big surprise, Yuri didn't seem to have an answer to that. It's not like I'd score with those kicks, but I kept the center of the ring and had Yuri move a lot. A lot comes down to e...

My first opponent at the WKF Austrian Open 2012 was Alfredo S. from Venezuela. It'm been one of very few times that I faced a fighter who wasn't taller than me. Competeing in the -71kg division (rather than -75kg) definately is a good idea for me. Granted, there's still a lot of tall guys around at that weight, but then I'll always have to face that challenge, regardless of style and division. All men are simply not created equal. Anyhow, Alfredo displayed a rather unorthodox style. Don't get me wrong here - he's not a bad man, by any account. (On a sidenote, he took gold last saturday at the national championships in his division.) His stepping was just unline anything I've encountered so far. But then that's not exactly true, either. Felipe, one of my students, moves in a very similar fashion. I guess that's just the latin american genes showing. Since the fight was under light-contact rules, I decided to make heavy use of the lead leg. When ...

Introduction So last saturday me and my team competed at the WKF Austrian Open 2012. Let's start the review with some facts and numbers: General/Starters Result 5 starters for the Shinergy[supreme team] 4 gold medals 4 of which are from my school 4 silver medals 3 injuries 1 bronze medal 2 of us got away without a scratch We all competed in Semi- and Light-contact events. You can find the team roster in the table below Name (alphabetically) 1st Event / Division 2nd Event / Division Result Eppensteiner, Christian Semi-Contact Men / -75kg Semi-Contact Men / +91kg Silver / Bronze Krzan, Gabriel Semi-Contact Juniors / +71kg Light-Contact Juniors / -67,5kh Silver / Gold Mehic, Andreas Semi-Contact Juniors / +71kg Light-Contact Juniors / +71kg Gold / Gold Pezenka, Lukas Light-Contact Men / -71kg - Silver / - Zauner, Frank Semi-Contact Men / -75kg Semi-Contact Men / +91kg Gold / Silver A chaotic schedule Now you might be wondering why everyone was starting in so many different classes. T...