A Warrior's Thougts on the Martial Arts

Ok, so yesterday I had BJJ training at 12:00 at Miroslaw Okninskis school ( www.valetudo.pl) . Again, because of the clubs training camp, which is taking place right now, there was no instructor. However, just as wednesday, there were good MMA guys at the gym so one of them led the training. After warmup we practiced the various mounts and how to escape from them. This became something of a game where we started "fighting for the position", so taking a given position rather than actually submitting the partner was the goal. Of course, at the end of the training, we had lots of sparring. Great training. At night, I met a friend of mine, Jakub, who directs a TKD club here in Warsaw (www.ronin.waw.pl) . We talked a lot and covered just about anything, but here I'll present a short outline of the martial-arts relevant topics that came up: Instructor qualification One of the hottest topics at hand was the question what a martial artist needs to qualify as an instructor. We bot...

Had a hell of a day. At 12:00 I went to the MMA training at Miroslaw Okninskis Vale Tudo school ( www.valetudo.pl ). Unfortunately, due to the fact that Okninski himself is currently at his clubs summer training camp, there was no actual trainer to supervise the lesson. However, there was a BJJ guy (Christopher), a former wrestling now MMA guy (Maciek, if I remember correctly), a professional MMA fighter with 21 fights under his hat (Martin) and - me. The pro arrived late, like 40 - 50 minutes after the lesson started. Up to that point, we warmed up and started with some combinations of strikes and takedowns as shown by Maciek. After that, the BJJ guy took us through some exercises to pass the half-guard and get into a full mount position. Lastly, we did that free-form, so one partner would establish a half-guard and try to keep it or submit the guy on top, who, in turn tries to establish a full mount position. About that time, Martin came in and joined us. The whole training took abou...

Ok, I'm in Warsaw now, visiting friends and family. Of course, I'll use that time to check out some new styles and meet fellow martial artists. On my list are definately Sambo ( самбо) and MMA. On the самбо side, I'll meet the founder and president of "Sambo System Polska", Bartłomiej Mendak ( www.sambo.pl ) . As for MMA, I'll check out Paweł Nastula s Judo club ( www.nastula.pl ). With any luck, I'll meet him personally and have the chance to talk with or even do some training with him. Also, I'm looking forward to meeting a friend of mine, Jakub Demuth, a Taekwondo instructor in Warsaw ( http://ronin.waw.pl ). Anyway, gotta be on the run right now, I'll keep you informed. So long, take care

Everyone around me is taking up BJJ and Luta Livre in order to get stronger on the ground. My teacher, Ronny, always said that "you play their game, you'll always end up second to them". I think that's very true. So, instead of practicing BJJ, I've decided to take up Judo and improve my standup-grappling (aka wrestling) to a point where I don't have to go to the ground anymore. This way, I can stick to what I do best: striking and kicking. Standup. Mirko "CroCop" Filipovic and Chuck "The iceman" Lidell have always been role models to me when it comes to dictating the distance a battle is fought at. Mind you, Lidell has a purple belt in BJJ, so it's not like he doesn't know how to grapple. Which again attests my point: I have to learn grappling to a certain degree in order to minimize the time I spend on grappling during a bout. Now, luckily enough, Austria is home to some great Judo players. As a shining example I'll name Peter ...

It's been quiet on the blog for a reason. For two reasons, to be precise: First, I've been to the beautiful Yspertal here in Austria, looking after the Shinergy youth at our annual training camp. Second, a trip back to Vienna had me teach obese children at another summer camp aimed at bringing those girls and boys back to a healthier lifestyle. I really had a great - if exhausting - week. Here I'm going to summarize some of my impressions on the two camps. Shinergy Summer Camp '09 The instructor team consisted of Denis, one of three Shinergy master instructors, Chris, a good friend of mine, director of Shinergy[manhattan] in Viennas 19th district and co-director of Shinergy[aspern] in Viennas 22nd district, Sabine, my girlfriend and myself. Accompanying us were 23 kids and youngstars ranging from 6 to 16 years. Of course, such a variance in age and maturity put some stress on us when it comes to designing a program that suits everyones needs. Basically, the daily layout...

Due to the high stress levels imposed on the knee joints when running HIIT style, I've decided to do my HIIT training on a spinning bike rather than the track. Also, since the boxing class I attend is rather low-impact but highly technical, I'll do the endurance work directly after the class, friday night. Basically, I'll do my HIIT work on a spinning bike, set to moderate resistance. This way, I'll spare my knees. After a short warmup of about 2-3 minutes of low/moderate intensity cycling, I'll do 10 intervals. Note that this training is done after a technical boxing class that takes me about one and a half hours, so I'm pretty much warmed up. Each interval is made up from 60 seconds of low/moderate intensity cycling, followed by 30 seconds of all-out sprinting. Going through my 10 intervals will therefore take me 15 minutes. I'll try and add an additional interval every week, so basically after 10 weeks my working time will be doubled. (Image taken from fl...

As mentioned before, I'm going to give a quick overview over the workouts that are listed in my workout plan. As a reminder, during July and August I'm doing off-season training in preparation for the TAGB "British Championships" on November 22nd 2009. Although I don't believe in running - on its own - as a suitable method of getting in shape, when done correctly, it can be a great tool to complete a workout plan. I'm using steady state cardio training as an active means of recovery and to keep my cardiovascular system healthy. Being able to breathe throughout a fight is very important. You see, it's not about what you can pull off after 30 seconds, it's about what you can do in the third round. If you're not able to think clearly, if your reaction slows down, if your technique gets sloppy because your lungs are screaming and all your thoughts revolve around catching some air, you're done. Now running - especially steady-state distance running ...

About 7 months ago, I got my hands on a copy of Ori Hofmeklers "Warrior Diet". Fascinated by the idea, I took it up. Before I go any further, I'll outline the main points in case you're not familiar with the concept: Eat one meal at night During the day, eat only raw, unprocessed food if you must eat In your main meal, start with raw veggies, continue with cooked veggies, protein and fat and finish the meal with carbos. Go low in the food chain. Now, basically that means you're fasting all day in a controlled manner - you're allowed to eat raw fruit, veggies, tiny portions of protein, just don't overdo it - and then, before going to bed, you feast. I'm certainly not going to elaborate on the scientific aspect behind the warrior diet, there's enough fuss about that already. No need for me to contribute. Quite frankly, the "warrior diet" goes against most of the stuff I've learned about nutrition in the past. To this time I've tried...

On July 4th, the Shinergy[battle] summer '09 took place. The winner in the men's heavyweight division was my good friend Dominik. Now altough that's great, it's not the sportive aspect of winning a tournament I want to adress here. It's something completely different. You see, Dominik works in the IT sector. He's a last-level support guy, meaning he fixes other peoples software - problems when noone else can do so. Now this isn't exactly a job that does a lot for your health and fitness. It's an office job, lots of sitting involved. Now I've known Dominik for about eight years now. We've been to tech college together. We served together as paramedics. We train together. You see, Dominik and I know each other pretty well. In all the time we've known each other, Dominik had weight issues. At the top, he was over 120Kg. Since Dominik's tall - he's over 185 cm (~6 feet) - this didn't catch the eye as much as it would have otherwise, e...

Introduction I've had knee issues in the past, but most of the time they didn't keep me from fighting. When I've won the backkick-destruction event at the open style TKD world championships in Birmingham, UK, back in 2007, I made my first attempt with my left (weaker) leg because I was suffering from a damaged meniscus in my right knee. I kicked right through those boards and on the second take I used my right leg - there was only me and one irish competitor left, so I was like "what the heck" - and decided those championships. My knee wasn't "ok" then, but I was able to kick, and hard to that. After that day, I took a break to spare my knee. According to the doctors, a couple of weeks rest and everything was going to be fine. Well, it was. For a while. Last year, I've decided to participate in the WTKA world championships under K-1 rules in october 2008. Needless to say, my training was made up of loads of anaerobic exercise, coupled with muay-t...