A Warrior's Thougts on the Martial Arts

Just two more days 'til the Shinergy[battle] autumn cup '11. Can't wait to see my students perform. Anyhow, to give you a taste of things of come, here's some video footage of the Shinergy[battle] summer '8. The fight was between Manuel Eberl and Harald Seidl, two proved veterans of TaekwonDo, Kickboxing and Shinergy. As for the location, the bout took place in the Ost Klub here in Vienna. Enjoy!

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...

So on Saturday, I had a full-contact kickboxing match. I've lost. Got knocked out in the second round. But first things first. From an organisational point of view, things were pretty fubar, both on the promoters side as well as on mine. In any case, I'll only cover my own mistakes here. First, I planned on fighting in the -71kg division but missed the weight by 2kg. This was the first time in my fighting carreer that I couldn't make the weight I planned on. Not that it had mattered at all in this case - there wouldn't have been anyone in the -71kg division anyway, so dropping more weight would just have left me in a (even) weaker state and I'd still have to fight the same guy. Nevertheless, next time I'll have to pay more attention to the weight issue. Second, I thought following a strict warrior diet even on the competition day was a good idea, which it apparently was not. You see, I've mostly trained around 10 a.m, as last time I had the first fight of th...

So tomorrow's the day. I'm not particularly anxious, which I guess is a good sign. As I'm writing those lines, I'm having my last meal before the fight. Today's choice is Dr. John's (delicious) chili, as it's pretty low-carb and the hot spices will most likely help me shed another pound or so. In case you never had Dr. John's Chili, check out http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/berardi85.htm#10 , go to the kitchen and start cooking. As a matter of fact, this is a staple in my nutrition. Since I'm cooking it quite often, I'm not sticking too strictly to the receipe. For example, a great modification is to use scarlet runner beans ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaseolus_coccineus ) instead of or in addition to the kidney beans proposed by Dr. Berardi. Anyhow, let's not turn this into a nutrition article. I'm having serious doubts as to wheter I'll make -71kg. Guess not. Not a big thing, though, I'll just fight in the -75kg category, t...

Todays session was really relaxed. Just a couple of rounds of shadow-sparring, followed by some situation training. Afterwards, I just followed up with some static stretching before finally calling it a day. Below you'll find a video of the session. Tomorrow, I'll tell you of my last session before the fight. So long, take care

When I stepped onto the scales in the morning, I was at 73kg. Obviously, this could be a result of yesterday's sauna session. Anyhow, I've decided to try to cut down to -71kg. Guess that'll suit my height better than -75. Since I'm on a rather strict warrior diet, I've decided against depeleting the glycogen storages (which is commonly done to re-load them before competition). I'll pretty much fight on an empty stomach, so depleting the muscular reserves probably isn't a good idea. As for today's session, I'm taking things easy right now. While some sweat is ok, I strongly believe that there's no place for serious exhaustion anymore. I can jump right back into circuit conditioning sessions from monday on, but until then, I can't risk soreness or fatigue. So today, I basically did what I did monday, minus the sparring. Joint mobilization, warmup, some soft tissue work, some padwork, some situation training. Wasn't a particularily hard sess...

Today I slept longer than I had planned to. Just didn't hear the alarm. This shouldn't happen again. Weigh-in is scheduled for 8 a.m., so I'll have to stand up around 6 or so. Need to condition my body to power up early. Over those last couple of days, it'll be bedtime around 10 p.m., I guess. For my training session, I hit the Shinergy[zone] (our headquarters, check out the homepage here ). The facility is top-notch in all regards, I doubt there is a more professional and up-to-date martial arts school in Vienna. I'm not going to advertise for them here, however, as this is not really necessary. Check out the page - better yet, if you live in the area, go check out the site - and form your own opinion. Now the funny thing is, I didn't really need any of the equipment there. I actually tend to practice what I preach, so I did what I've been propagating over the course of the last weeks and months: I shadow-sparred. After a spent some time going through my wa...