A Warrior's Thougts on the Martial Arts

Yesterday night we returned from this year’s [open polish taekwondo championships in Czestochowa] . As expected of a [PUT] event, it was superbly organized. Everything went down smoothly with the exception of some misunderstandings regarding weight divisions, but this was also quickly taken care of and handled professionally. The schedule had weigh-in on Friday night, semi-contact sparring on Saturday and continuous sparring on Sunday. Now at most tournaments, you can never be sure when you’re going to fight – I had days where I spent 10+ hours at the venue before stepping into the ring. That’s not so much of a problem by itself, at least if you know it in advance. What’s troublesome is having absolutely no clue as to when you’re up, because that means warming up again and again so as to be ready to compete at every moment. Good luck going through a fight after having warmed up like ten times or so. This time, despite the fact that more than 550 competitors from four countries (Pol...

Come Sunday, I’ll fight in the [XX Open Polish Taekwon-Do Championships] in Czestochowa, Poland. Didn’t post a lot in terms of fight preparation this time, although I did line out what our [S&C sessions] and [T&T sessions] look like at the moment. I really just didn’t feel like thinking too much about things. Im trying to get to a point, where, to put it into [Martin Rooney’s words] , a fight is “ just another day at the office ”. Anyhow, today I did my last session before the fights. Up from now, it’ll all boil down to the [Warrior Warmup Routine] , some light stretching and easy shadow sparring. No point in burning out just right before the real thing. Speaking of fatigue, today was hard. Although we cut round times to 90 seconds to keep things fresh, I really had trouble going through all the exercises. Must be the carb deprivation kicking in – I haven’t eaten carbs in what feels like an eternity (but in reality is more like 3 weeks or so). Explosiveness and [the At...

No comment on this one. Just lean back and enjoy the show. So long, take care

Next fight’s up: this time, we’ll go to Cestochowa and take part in the [XX Open International Polish TKD Championships] . So far, the team consists of Chris, Frank, Alex and me. Now Frank and Chris are veteran, it’s the same guys I went to the [Open European Champions] with last year. Alex on the other hand is one of my students. He’s been with us since September, so he’s still a bit green. Nevertheless, he already competed twice: first, in the [Shinergy[battle] Autumn 2012] and immediately after that in the [Shinergy[battle] Winter 2013] . Never fought under any other rules than Shinergy rules, though, so it’s going to be his open style debut. If the setup remains as it is at this time, I’ll be the only one from our team to fight under continuous sparring rules. Everyone else is probably going to stick to semi-contact point fighting. Today, we went through our new training program for the first time (at least, I did. The other guys already had a session or two). Since Frank was s...

No comment on this one. just lean back and enjoy. So long, take care

Last Saturday, this year’s first Shinergy[battle] was on. Great fights, great event, Fighters competed in four divisions: Men, full contact sparring, +80kg Men, semi-contact sparring, +185cm Cadets, semi-contact sparring, catch weight Women, semi-contact sparring, catch weight For a short recap considering the rules, let me summarize the key points: Fights are “best of three”, so it takes two won rounds to win a fight Each round is two minutes, with one minute break in between rounds Low-kicks, throws and takedowns are prohibited. Pretty much everything else, including but not limited to the following techniques, is fair play: all kicks above waist level all hand strikes (closed and open hand) above waist level knee strikes above waist level, also to the head elbow strikes above waist level, also to the head, foot sweeps it goes without saying that dangerous and unsportsmanlike actions such as fish-hooking, biting, eye-gauging, etc. are prohibited full-contact bouts...

Below you'll find video on our fights at the Open European Taekwondo Championships 2012 in Wieliczka, Poland. It's neither a lot, nor is it particularly high-quality, but then it just has to suffice. Not going to comment much on what happened there - just enjoy the clips. Come saturday, the Shinergy[battle] winter 2012 will take place. Needless to say, my boys will be there and compete. Also, it's pretty obvious I will be there as well, coaching and taking video. I'll cover the event in a post sometime next week. So long, take care

Last saturday, I competed at the WKF national championships 2012 in Villach. Took silver. My first fight on that day was against Jakob (if I remember correctly), a former boxer from ATUS Weiz. Gameplan When my fight was up, I wasn't really warmed up properly. Therefore, I decided to take things rather easy and start out slowly. Now I'm not particularly good at sticking to game plans, but at least I stuck to the easy pace for around 15 seconds before rushing in for the first time. My technical goal for that fight was to "force choice", as video game players call it. Virtuafighter.com defines the terms as follows: "In a situation where you can move before your opponent can, you can threaten them with two different potential attacks, such as a mid attack or a high throw. These are difficult to defend against at the same time, and the opponent is forced to choose how to respond."  In my case, this simply means alternating kicks, punches, high and low ...

After defeating Alfredo in the semi-finals , I was up against Yuri, a slovakian fighter. Yuri's pretty young and exceptionally talented. Also, he's really tall for the -71kg division, which is a great advantage especially in light-contact fights. Having seen Yuri perform in the semi-finals, my coach and I decided it would be best to keep the pace rather low, fight defensively and wait for an opportunity to out-box the slovakian. I don't know why, but I just dumped that gameplan a couple of seconds into the first round. Tried to score with an axe-kick. The ring canvas was slippery, though, so I fell. Now usually I'd try to close the gap and outbox tall guys. However, this time, I just went for that classical light-contact strategy and poked around with the lead leg. To my big surprise, Yuri didn't seem to have an answer to that. It's not like I'd score with those kicks, but I kept the center of the ring and had Yuri move a lot. A lot comes down to e...

My first opponent at the WKF Austrian Open 2012 was Alfredo S. from Venezuela. It'm been one of very few times that I faced a fighter who wasn't taller than me. Competeing in the -71kg division (rather than -75kg) definately is a good idea for me. Granted, there's still a lot of tall guys around at that weight, but then I'll always have to face that challenge, regardless of style and division. All men are simply not created equal. Anyhow, Alfredo displayed a rather unorthodox style. Don't get me wrong here - he's not a bad man, by any account. (On a sidenote, he took gold last saturday at the national championships in his division.) His stepping was just unline anything I've encountered so far. But then that's not exactly true, either. Felipe, one of my students, moves in a very similar fashion. I guess that's just the latin american genes showing. Since the fight was under light-contact rules, I decided to make heavy use of the lead leg. When ...

So today's installment is dedicated to Gabriel's light contact fight at the WKF Austrian Open 2012. The out was fought under light contact rules in the -67,5kg youth division. Gabriel fought at a Shinergy[battle] before but in terms of kickboxing, this was his debut fight. Considering this fact and his relatively limited training time - Gabriel first came to my Dojo about 6 months ago with no prior martial arts experience -, I'd say his performance was outstanding. Now since I was warmup up for my own fight, I haven't had a chance to take the coach's role, so Chris worked the corner. From what I heard, Gabriel just implemented every single coaching instruction. Watching the video, I can absolutely believe that, too. Gabriel's opponent - who I believe was from Slovakia, while Andreas, another fighter from my team, keeps telling me he heard him talk in bosnian - obviously had some tournament experience. Also, he displayed more than solid technique. In terms of...

Introduction So last saturday me and my team competed at the WKF Austrian Open 2012. Let's start the review with some facts and numbers: General/Starters Result 5 starters for the Shinergy[supreme team] 4 gold medals 4 of which are from my school 4 silver medals 3 injuries 1 bronze medal 2 of us got away without a scratch We all competed in Semi- and Light-contact events. You can find the team roster in the table below Name (alphabetically) 1st Event / Division 2nd Event / Division Result Eppensteiner, Christian Semi-Contact Men / -75kg Semi-Contact Men / +91kg Silver / Bronze Krzan, Gabriel Semi-Contact Juniors / +71kg Light-Contact Juniors / -67,5kh Silver / Gold Mehic, Andreas Semi-Contact Juniors / +71kg Light-Contact Juniors / +71kg Gold / Gold Pezenka, Lukas Light-Contact Men / -71kg - Silver / - Zauner, Frank Semi-Contact Men / -75kg Semi-Contact Men / +91kg Gold / Silver A chaotic schedule Now you might be wondering why everyone was starting in so many different classes. T...

Tomorrow's weigh-in. Still need to lose quite some weight. I never attemted to make that much weight before. If this actually works, it'll definately be something to be kept up for future full-contact bouts. Jesterday's session was short and technique-centered. 5 rounds of shadow-sparring, 5 rounds of padwork, for a total of 10 2-minute rounds. While the technique-goals were rather strict while working the pads, the shadow-sparring was rather freestyle. I didn't ask Chris what he was doing, but my concept was very straight-forward: Stepping / Movement only Boxing, freestyle Boxing, freestyle Kickboxing, freestyle, Kickboxing, freestyle Nothing fancy here. Since Chris is competing in the semi-contact (a.k.a Point/Stop) division while I'll do light-contact (a.k.a continous), our padwork obviously differed a lot. Chris devoted his rounds to the following: Roundhouse kicks only Spinning kicks Lead leg kicks Adding punches and mixing it all up Punches only On the other h...

Three more days until the WKF Austrian Open in Steinbrunn. I'm fighting a hard battle against my weight - for the first time since 2004, I've decided to fight in the -71kg division. Weigh-In is friday from 4pm to 8pm. I'm drinking quite a lot, more than 7 liters a day. Thursday, I'll cut to 3,5 liters. Beginning thursday at 6pm, I'll stop any water or food intake until the weigh in. Really curious as to how much weight I'll be able to drop. Anyhow, when it comes to training, we're not doing a lot anymore. No hard training whatsoever. You see, recovery is becoming an issue when food intake is limited. Probably the single most limiting factor is the absence carbs. This might be less of an issue with traditional diets where you're eating 5 to 6 times a day - with the warrior diet, however, this definately makes a difference. Coming back to the topic at hand - training -, I did 15 2-minute rounds of shadow sparring today. I really come to like this stuff bet...

So with this fight, I'll finish analyzing the fights that were fought at the Shinergy[battle] autumn '11. We're looking at the bout between Felpe (Shinergy[stadlau]) and Gerhard (Shinergy[zone vienna]). For both boys this was the second fight on that evening. In Felipe's first fight, the columbian proved he could deal with brawlers quite well. Gerhard, on the other hand, already proved he's a decent boxer and strong - if slow - kicker. They say that styles make fights and this one promised to get interresting. In terms of action, this certainly was no dissapointment. Both guys got at it from the start. Kept a proper distance, too - the fight never got slowed down by either clinching (too close distance) or standing off (too far distance). Over the course of first minute, it looked like this was a more or less balanced match-up. It was easily to be seen that there was a technical advantage on Gerhard's side, but nothing drastical. However, Felipe got too confiden...

This time I actually have an excuse for not posting for such a long time: on 1st of March, I had my last exam for my BSC studies. Obviously, that involved quite some learning. Training suffered, too. However, now I'm done with that, in a couple of weeks I'll have my papers and officially be an BSC. Anyhow, back to the topic at hand, it's time to look at another fight. This time, I'll analyze Gabriel's second fight at the Shinergy[autumn battle] 2011. He was up against Florian, a boy from Tom's Dojo in Liesing, Vienna's 23rd district. I guess you could dub that fight "Speed VS Power". The whole fight had something of a play of catch after the first couple of seconds: Florian chased Gabriel across the mat, Gabriel tried to land indirect counters. Having said that, let's take a (very brief) look at the details. Gabriel Let's start out with the positive things. Gabriel consistantly made those direct roundhouse counters work. This can already be...

Today I'll cover quite an interresting fight: Andy M (Shinergy[stadlau]) VS Gerhard (Shinergy[zone vienna]) Now this fight is interresting in that winning wasn't an option for Andy to begin with. You see, Andy was pretty badly handicapped by knee pain, so he was in no condition to throw kicks. To make things even more challenging, Andy competed in the adults division despite only being 16 years old. Also, it was only his [second] tournament (and third fight), while Gerhard took gold at a previous Shinergy[battle]. Hence, basically all advantages (bigger technical repertoire, weight, experience) lay with Gerhard. Knowing all this, we decided to treat the whole thing as a specialized sparring session rather than a tournament fight. Andy's task was to out-box his opponent and resist the temptation to throw any kicks whatsoever at all cost. Now while this approach sometimes actually leads to success in kickboxing bouts, it takes quite a big advantage in another area (experien...

Yesterday I got my hands on some more video footage of the Shinergy[battle] autumn cup '11. Below you can see Gabriel and Andy, two of my students. Both performed pretty well. Gabriel fought under Point/Stop rules. That's pretty much our equivalent to "Semi-Contact" Kickboxing. The main difference is that, although the fight is interrupted after each clear hit in order to score the point, strikes are always performed with full force. Andy, despite being 16 years old (therefore officially falling into the 'youth' division), competed in the 'adults' division. Also, he's suffering from some knee trouble at the moment, so kicking was not an option. Considering that and the fact that Andy faced the guy who in the end won the whole thing, Andy really impressed me (and a couple of spectators, who approached me after the fight). Anyways, here you go - enjoy! Gabriel #1 Gabriel #2 Andy #1 As soon as I have it, I'll post Felipe's fights as well and ...

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...

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