A Warrior's Thougts on the Martial Arts

Recovering from a day of hard training. My ribs are aching badly, my neck is stiff, my muscles are sore to the point where just walking hurts like hell. Whatever doesn't kill us, huh? Anyhow, yesterday was carb feast time at my favourite chinese restaurant, so I guess I'll be back on my feet tomorrow. My first session yesterday was technique and sparring with Chris and Frank - basically, we had us a team training scheduled, but then we're not the most organized bunch around. Sometimes I wonder how things can possibly work out so well for the Shinergy[supreme team] with everything being as it is... But I digress. As stated above, my morning session was a proper warmup (going through our [Warrior Warmup] routine) 12 round á 3 minutes: 3 rounds of throwing combinations at each other 3 rounds of countering the pumping sidekick 3 rounds of countering burst attacks 3 rounds of semi-contact sparring Now semi-contact definitely isn't my strong side - as a matter of...

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...

The Background Over the course of the last year or so, I mentioned my new warmup routine on quite a few occasions. Now, after a lot of research and actual field-testing in the dojo, the gym and even the [competition area] , I finally feel ready to publish the whole thing. Just about time, considering the fact that come sunday the Shinergy[instructor conference] takes place and I've been invited to hold a class and teach the routine to my fellow instructors. You see, the Shinergy[instructor conference] is an annual meeting of all certified (and active) Shinergy instructors where new topics are discussed, presented and officially declared Shinergy standards. So, presenting this new warmup at this meeting is a great honor for me - after all, it'll be this exact routine that'll form the core of every Shinergy warmup in the future. On a sidenote, the Warrior Warmup routine is also going to be my black-belt thesis. You see, earning a Shinergy black-belt isn't limited to t...

Just finished another 5/3/1 cycle yesterday. Since I'll be fighting again soon, I decided not to include Squats and Deadlifts - I just tend to put on too much mass when doing these. Instead, my lifting sessions revolve around the olympic lifts: the snatch and the clean & jerk. Additionally, I do bench presses and weighted pull-ups. Hence, I cover all of the following functional movement patterns:     Vertical Push:    Jerk     Vertical Pull: Pull-Ups     Horizontal Push: Bench Press     Horizontal Pull: None, although some coaches classify the deadlift as such. Hence, it's safe to say that the clean serves this purpose just as well.     Knee-centered Stand-Up: Overhead lunge following the jerk     Hip-centered Stad-Up (aka hinge): Both the clean and the snatch     Anti-Flex, Anti-Rotation, Anti-whatever: Putting a big weight overhead and keeping it there ...

This one's rather short. After working out hard for three days, we gave it a break on wednesday. In order to avoid extreme soreness, however, I scheduled a morning session as a means of active recovery. Nothing special, you see, just some light shadow sparring and no-contact partner exercise. I'm a strong believer when it comes to shadow sparring. A quick search on this blog will produce quite a few posts on the topic, so I won't bother going into any detail here. I'll say a few words about what you see in the video, though. Basically, we were just throwing no-contact combinations at each other. I feel that this kind of training yields the following benefits: Distance control - throwing kicks and punches at a real partner instead of a pad gives you a more accurate feeling for distance. Natural reactions - even if the exercise is no-contact, most athletes (especially more advanced ones) will work their defensive skills. This will show you if feints or combinations w...

A couple opf days ago, Chris told me of this great fight between Miesha Tate and Julie Kedzie. I must admit I really enjoyed watching the fight. Still, the whole thing made me think... Before I spoil anything, however, take some time to watch the fight in the below presented video - it'll be well worth your time, in my opinion. So, over the course of the fight, Kedzie was definately the better fighter when it comes to the striking game - I seriously doubt anyone would disagree on this point. Still, Tate saved the day with an armbar. Like so often in MMA, grappling beats striking (no pun intended). Ever since Royce Gracie presented BJJ to the world at the UFC 1 back in 1993, grappling is huge in the MMA. There's been a boom on BJJ, some even consider it the ultimate fighting style. Let's be absolutely clear about this - I have no problem with grappling whatsoever. In fact, I did some BJJ before transitioning to Judo. Grappling is a very important aspect of any well-r...

Here's some more video footage of our summer camp, this time it's about tuesday, the third day. While sunday was all kicks and monday all boxing, tuesday was about mixing things up. I'm a huge believer in combinations. Playing with heights, distances and angles is something most of the martial artists I know neglect in their training. That's really a pity. In the TV-show "Human Weapon", featuring Jason Chambers and Bill Duff, Jerome Huon, a former Savate world champion said "Show me a maximum of variety... low, middle and high. If you always attack with the same thing... first thing he's going to take in... second time, ok, maybe, but after that he knows you. So, you have to change, to be different, to give the surprise for him." You can find the show on Youtube, check out the following clip: I couldn't have put it in better words than Jerome, though I believe there's more to combination than meets the eye. That's not the topi...

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 ...