A Warrior's Thougts on the Martial Arts

Awesome sparring session yesterday. One week out to the NMAC national championships. Everyone's sharp and ready.  Looking forward to seeing the team in action again. I'll keep you up to date, so stay tuned. So long, don't get hurt PS: I'm starting to upload the video material of the XXIV Open Polish Championships, so again, stay tuned...

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

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...

Disclaimer: This is the first part of a new installment on sparring. In this first post I'll outline the general idea and make an introduction. More specialized and practical posts will follow. Everything comes at a cost. This can be an increased risk of injury, unfavorable anatomical adaptation, or simply a missed opportunity of doing something more sensible. As a martial arts trainer, it is my job to make each of my  rip to the Dojo my fighter's trips to the Dojo worthwhile. Biggest bang for buck, so to say. I'm a teacher, after all, not an entertainer. Therfore, before jumping ship on anything I do in my classes, I ask myself the following : "What is the purpose of [insert activity]? What is the cost of that? Is it worth it? Is there a way of achieving the same result at a lower cost" In general, that last question boils down to finding something that is more time efficient or comes at a reduced risk of injury. What is the purpose of sparring? W...

Without further ado, just enjoy. Until next time, so long, take care

Wow, so it's been quite a while since I've last posted video footage of our training. So, without further ado, let's get ready to rumble... Music courtesy of Fallen To Flux.

Ok, so as usually, here comes last Saturdays sparring session. By the way, I'll be on my way to Linz in a couple of minutes, where I'll spend another week at the olympic center in pursuit of my state certified trainer's diploma. Hence, there could be another post today - stay tuned! So long, take care

Without further ado, this was yesterday's sparring class. Enjoy! So long,  take care

Yesterday's sparring session. Enjoy! So long, take care

Yesterday's sparring session - enjoy! I'm proud of all my students- everyone has progressed so much... Looking forward to the next sparring session. So long, take care

Video footage of yesterday's sparring session. No comment from my side this time, just the visuals. Enjoy! Next sparring session is due next saturday. So long, take care

At the end of october, the [TKDI European Championships 2012] will be held in Poland. That'll be my first fight in Poland since 2007. On the team, there'll be Lukas (Me) , Continuos Fighting -70kg Chris, Semi-Contact Fighting -70kg Frank, Semi-Contact Fighting -76kg Roman, Continuos Fighting +82kg Thomas, Semi-Contact Fighting Veterans -76kg In order to get down to -70kg, I'm following a diet based on [this idea] . You see, while I love the original Warrior Diet, it never worked for me in terms of weight loss. I feel that the changes presented by Maxwell make sense in my case. Still, I eat once per day, though - no changes here. I train with weights twice a week, following [Wendler's 5/3/1] system, although with some tweaks. A summary of my actual routine can be found [here] . That means two high-carb, low-fat days, usually tuesday and saturday. The rest of the week it's moderate-to-high fat. Obviously, it's always high protein. Yesterday, for exampl...

As promised, here's the first piece of video footage from our summer camp in august. I'm not a VJ, so I just packed all the clips I have into one big clip, so don't expect any fancy art here. Anyhow, I think this footage gives you an idea of what sparring looks like at my Dojo - sometimes we play it fast an rough, sometimes smooth and easy, but always with a big deal of respect and caution. Sparring is just a form of training, an opportunity for both participants to learn and grow. Getting injured in sparring is a waste of time. Let me emphasize that: Being injured sucks. That's not just me being a softy, I've been there, done that and bought the t-shirt. All it ever did for me was keep me from competing. Not something I envision for my students. Took me a while to realize the true meaning of sparring, even longer to introduce a sensible sparring culture in my classes, but I believe it's been well worth the effort. Since this is primarily a post about the ...

Here's the edited video footage of last saturday's class. Elias, one of my fellow instructors (who also happens to be a great semi-contact competitor) joined us for a sparring session, so things got pretty intense. Took some nice video footage. I've eliminated everything except for the sparring part from the film, so here's a quick breakdown of what we did: ZaZen (meditation) Joint mobilization Shadow Sparring Boxing, lead hand only Boxing, rear hand only Boxing, Combinations, start each from a block Boxing, Combinations, start each from an evasion Boxing, freestyle Sparring, Boxing, 3 rounds Shadow Sparring Kicks, lead leg only Kicks, rear leg only Kicks, Combinations, start each from a direct counter Kicks, Combinations, start each from an indirect counter Kicks, freestyle Sparring, Semi-Contact, 3 rounds Shadow Sparring Kickboxing, Combinations, Punch-Kick-Punch Kickboxing, Combinations, Kick-Punch-Kick Kickboxing, ombinations, start each fr...

Today was rough. We did a last dedicated sparring session before the national championships next wednesday. The schedule was simple, but far from easy: Five rounds of shadow sparring (strict technical instruction) Three rounds of sparring (boxing only) Five rounds of shadow sparring (3 rounds pursuing loosely defined technical goals, 2 rounds freestyle) Three rounds of sparring (kickboxing) Five rounds of shadow sparring (3 rounds pursuing loosely defined technical goals, 2 rounds freestyle) Three rounds of sparring (kickboxing) That's a total of 24 rounds á 2 minutes. Hence, the net total time was  48 minutes, 18 of which were pretty high intensity. Speaking of intensity, there was some blood, which isn't necessarily a good thing just a week from the fight (wasn't my blood, though). Although I strongly advocate light sparring, I just couldn't help it today. Stuff happens. Anyhow, tomorrow's mothers day, so no training. Next week, I'll just stick to t...

My next fight will take place in Villach, on May 19th 2012. This time, it'll be full-contact again. Today, I worked out with Felipe, one of my students. The session was very specific to the reality of a kickboxing bout. What we did was 10 rounds of shadow-sparring, each round being dedicated to some technical or tactical espect (at least, I did it this way). After those 30 minutes, we tossed in three rounds of boxing. Since boxing is an integral part of kickboxing and becomes even more important under full-contact rules, I believe doing some isolated boxing sparring makes perfect sense - as opposed to a pure kicking sparring, say, under olympic Taekwon-Do rules. As a means of active recovery, we followed the sparring up with another 5 rounds of shadow sparring. Then, 18 rounds or 44 minutes into the workout, we did another three rounds of sparring, this time under kickboxing rules. Finally, as a cool-down, another 5 rounds of shadow sparring. I feel that this type of training is ex...

Here's some video footage of our sparring session on thursday, december 8th 2011. Probably not of much use to use if you weren't there, but for those that were, it's an opportunity to analyse. My two cents: Too much blood for a sparring session. Everyone was way too aggressive. Need to limit intensity next time, especially during the warm-up rounds. Feel free to post your thoughts on sparring intensity in the comments section. So long, take care

Next saturday, the Shinergy[battle] autumn cup '11 will take place here in Vienna. Needless to say, my dojo will be well represented. This time, 5 of my boys will compete and pressure test their skills. Yesterday we had the last sparring session before the tournament. The class layout was pretty straight-forward: 10 rounds of technical shadow sparring followed by 10 rounds of actual sparring. Below you find a short summary of what we did during each round. Note that when I say "striking", I'm referring to hand techniques only, while kicking, ... well, I guess the term "kicking" is pretty self-explanatory. Shadow-Sparring Movement only (no strikes, no kicks) Movement & Jabs Free Striking Lead leg kicks, lead hand strikes Free striking, free lead leg kicks Initiate combos with strikes, finalize with kicks Initiate combos with kicks, finalize with strikes Close-quarter only (i.e. striking from the clinch) Free shadow sparring Free shadow sparring Sparring F...

In today's outdoor session, I explained the concept of what we Shinergy-guys call "flow sparring". Before I get into the concept, let me tell you a short story. In 2005, we had just a handful of veteran fighters (particularly Tom and Harry) on the team, the rest of us was pretty green. Still, we decided to compete in the Open TaekwonDo World Championships in Cardiff, UK. Now don't get me wrong, when I say green, I'm not referring to athleticism or technical skill. We were doing fine in those areas. However, Shinergy looked and felt quite different back then. We were doing lots of Wing Tsun Chain strikes and none of us had an idea about proper boxing footwork. In fact, those open tournaments had a great effect on our style and curriculum. That's one of the things I love about Shinergy: it's an open-minded style, we adapt when things don't work out. However, I digress. Coming back to the topic, our problem was not an issue of athletics or technical skill...

Skipped training on wednesday and saturday. I wasn't feeling all too well and as I had to teach on both thursday and saturday, training just wasn't an option. So today, we did the RKC rites of passage for the second time with some slight modifications. As always, we started out with light sparring to properly warm up. Today, we donned the MMA gloves and implement throws and takedowns along with the standup fighting. Afterwards, it was all clean&press again. We decided to alter the system in favor of a more drop-set like approach. Basically, once one of us can't complete a rung on the ladder, he switches to the next lighter kettlebell. I switched after set 4, exchanging the 24kg 'bells for 20kg ones. Should have switched after I missed the first rep, but the idea was too late. Today I experimented with a smarter set scheduling. I set my Gymboss to 1-minute rounds and shot for a certain amount of swings per minute. When that amount was reached, I paused for the remain...