A Warrior's Thougts on the Martial Arts

I'll be hosting a couple of events in the near future. For a good beginning,  professional MMA fighter and BJJ purple belt Michelle Rirsch will be teaching a three hour workshop on MMA strategies such as the transition between standup fighting / striking and ground fighting / grappling sweeps and escapes on the ground selected submissions The event takes place on Sunday, Mai 15th at my Dojo. Participation costs €25,- , which in my opinion is a bargain. There's still some free spots, but they sell by the minute, so now might be your best time to ring me up or write me a mail if you wish to participate. Of course, there'll be photos on the blog after the event so you know what you missed. So long,  Don't get hurt

The third day of the fight-for-fun camp has just ended. Today, I took a kickboxing class with Mr. Zaar and two MMA classes with Andre Reinders . Just like yesterday, the total training time today was 6 hours. My plan was to take Mr. Mack's class for the morning session, but I ended up on the wrong mat and so took another class with Mr. Zaar instead. Looking back, I really don't regret that twist of fate. Now I have no idea what Mr. Mack did with his students - I'm sure the class was great - but Mr. Zaar's topic today suited me just fine: we practiced kicking on the inside and outside lane as well as the corresponding counters. Coming from a TKD background, most of that stuff appeared rather basic to me, at least in technical complexity. Anyhow, obviously the kickboxers do things in a different way than we do, so I learned quite a bit from a tactical point of view. Most important, Mr. Zaar told us to secure every single kick with a technique from the lead hand, someth...

It's my second day at the fight-for-fun camp in Ötztal, Tyrol. Yesterday, everything was too stressy to post, so I'll quickly wrap up yesterday's events before going into detail about today. First off, what is the fight-for-fun camp? Well, basically it's a training camp sponsored by Budoland GmbH, a martial arts supplier. Now while most camps pretty much focus on one fighting art, here they offer lessons for virtually any striker. Check out the schedule HERE. The trainers here are top-notch, the best of the best. Living legends in terms of kickboxing. Also, there's quite some former and even reigning world champions from all kickboxing disciplines amongst the ranks of students. Definately a place to learn and grow. I'm here with Elias, a friend of mine who's also a Shinergy[instructor]. He's taking the semi-contact classes while I'm rather into MMA and Muay-Thai. This is great, because back in Vienna we can exchange ideas and share what we'...

On Friday, December 11th 2009, Mariusz Pudzianowski, polish strongman with an impressive record of 6 european titles and 5 won world chmapionships, made his MMA debut at the "Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki", or short KSW. Pudzian, as Mariusz is called in Poland, was facing Marcin Najman, a professional boxer. There'sa good intro on both fighters on youtube, for your convenience I've posted the video here: As you can see, Mariusz is obviously the bigger, stronger fighter. There's a weight difference of approximately 25kg. Although Mariusz is a strength athlete, he's been doing Kyokushinkai Karate and Boxing for years (according to his homepage boxing for 7 years, karate for 20+ years, see http://pudzian.pl/mariusz.php ). Also, the guy was practicing BJJ with Miroslaw Okninski, propably the number one expert in poland when it comes to the brazilian art. You can look it up on their homepage, www.valetudo.pl , all that training is no urban myth. Of course, there's a...

Well, if you're observing the scene, you'll know by now that Mariusz Pudzianowski, "world's strongest man" will be competing in December at the "Martial arts confrontation" ("Konforntacia Sztuk Walki, KSW"). In a Black Belt Magainze interview, Rickson Gracie said that "Just being strong and well conditioned gives you an advantage" and "makes the other guy the underdog, no matter what". I have to absolutely agree on that one, although power and conditioning alone don't win fights - Rickson's brother Royce proved that at the first 3 UFC events. Of course, in Mariusz case, there's no need to think about that in the first place. Apart from doing Kyokushin Karate, Boxing and Wrestling, this guy is practicing BJJ, so this fight is going to be an interessting one from a technical point of view as well as from a physical one. Now what put a smile on my face is the fact that he's working out with Miroslaw Okninski - m...

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...