A Warrior's Thougts on the Martial Arts

Awesome sparring session yesterday. One week out to the NMAC national championships. Everyone's sharp and ready.  Looking forward to seeing the team in action again. I'll keep you up to date, so stay tuned. So long, don't get hurt PS: I'm starting to upload the video material of the XXIV Open Polish Championships, so again, stay tuned...

Group training is a tricky thing. On the one hand, everyone has different needs and a different starting point that needs to be taken into consideration. On the other hand, though, it totally makes sense to periodize training in order to maximize adaptations.  In the Athletics class, this is easy. We run our athletes through an assessment that pretty much tells us all we need to know about their movement quality and strength levels. Then, when it's time to squat, everybody squats. For some, that means Pistol Squats. Others front squat with a barbell. If nothing else works, we'd have somebody bodyweight squat-to-stand just to prepare him to squat later on, when he's developed the mobility to do so. I've written a ton about this process, so I won't bother going into details at this point.  As for Martial Arts classes, things are a bit different. Of course I could just devote a part of class for solo training and assign individualized tasks to my fighters. Tha...

My student Anna fought in the NMAC state championships in Schwanenstadt last Saturday and took Gold! I can't say how proud I am of her. Anna competed in both pointfighting (aka Semi Contact) and light contact. While she lost the former by one point, I think it's safe to say that the latter was won without any doubt. Judge for yourself. Semi Contact Light Contact #1 Light Contact #2 Our next stop is the Tatami Open in Mai, so stay tuned. Also, as soon as I get my hands on the videos of our other fighters, I'll upload them here as well. So long, don't get hurt

Anna just won the NMAC state championships in light contact kickboxing! I'm so proud of her. She also took 3rd place in the state championships in semi-contact kickboxing. Congratulations, keep going!   Overall, the Shinergy Supreme Team did great, as usually. 5 Gold-, 17 Silver- and 4 Bronze medals ain't bad for a small team, huh?    Next, we'll be competeing in the Tatami Open in Mai, so you can await some more precious medal soon. So long, don't get hurt

Without further ado, just enjoy. Until next time, so long, take care

Wow, so it's been quite a while since I've last posted video footage of our training. So, without further ado, let's get ready to rumble... Music courtesy of Fallen To Flux.

So over the course of the last weeks, I've been dealing with all kinds of counters to standard attacks in the classes I taught. Countering goes well beyond the defensive side of things, though. Even and especially pressure fighters need to be able to counter any potential counters (here, fighting becomes a game of chess, huh?) and quickly regain initiative - otherwise, they might get beaten at their own game. So, without furter ado, let me present to you a short series of drills I use with my fighters to boost both their offensive and defensive skills. Enjoy! Going through each of these for a three minute round, followed by 30 seconds rest gives you a 22 minute workout. Alternate with a partner (each does the whole thing) and you're at 44 minutes, in the best case. Toss in some proper warmup, for example, the [Warrior Warmup Routine] , and you've got a structured, highly specific class all laid out. Feel free to use as-is or adjust to your needs. If you'...

Yesterday's sparring session. Enjoy! So long, take care

Yesterday's sparring session - enjoy! I'm proud of all my students- everyone has progressed so much... Looking forward to the next sparring session. So long, take care

There's a thing with [youtube] . As soon as a trainer / coach has the time to put up multiple videos every day, I can'thelp but wonder how much time he actually spends... well, coaching people. Or training himself. So, I consider most of what you see on youtube crap. However, there's always an expection to the rule. Some stuff you find online is just plain awesome. Well, I guess that on a platform as huge as youtube, it'd be against all rules of probability if there wasn't anything useful, right? Well, anyhow, one of those pleasant surprises turned out to be a canada-based boxing coach called Jason Van Veldhyusen, or simply ["JT Van V"] , as he calls himself on youtube. Jason also hosts a homepage at [http://www.precisionstriking.ca] , where you can order his videos over the webstore. You should definitely check it out, this stuff is great. Amongst my favourite videos is a clip onside stepping and the creation of angles. The idea of shifting your wei...

Recently, my friend and fellow Shinergy instructor [Elias K] fought at the WKF Austrian Open in Vienna. I didn’t have a chance to be there and witness the event first person, but fortunately, there’s full video footage of the fight. Without further ado, lean back and enjoy a great fight! Round I Round II So long, take care

Video footage of yesterday's sparring session. No comment from my side this time, just the visuals. Enjoy! Next sparring session is due next saturday. So long, take care

After defeating Jakob in the semi-finals of this years WKF national chmapionships in full contact kickboxing, I went on to face Andreas K. from the Fight Club Graz for a 3 round bout.You can find Andreas on his club's website . Overview Point-wise, I dominated that fight from the beginning. Andreas is a good boxer, but I just had an advantage whein it comes to kicking. Scored a lot with high kicks and follow-up strikes. Didn't look too bad when it came to boxing, either. But then this guy was tough as coffin nails. No matter what I did, Andreas just wouldn't go down. More than that, I never was under the impression that any of my blows had any effect on him. Well, maybe that's not entirely true - in the third round, I hammered him with a roundhouse to the body that had him fight for balance for a moment. Still, it did nothing to actually stop him. Made me think of a zombie. Anyhow, in the third round, Andy's tenacity won the day. When I was throwing a right over...

Here's a re-post of my fight against Jakob from ATUS Weiz. The following footage was taken from a different point of view, so it might be worth watching again. Next up, the finals against Andreas from Fight Club Graz. 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 on saturday I competed in the WKF national championships 2012. Took silver in the -71kg full-contact kickboxing division. Overall, our team did pretty well, in terms of medals: The results Thomas Reiss Shinergy[liesing] Semi-Contact MASTERS (+35years) Silver Frank Zauner Shinergy[zone wien] Semi-Contact -75kg Gold Semi-Contact -86kg Bronze Andreas Mehic Shinergy[stadlau] Semi-Contact YOUTH +71kg Silver Light-Contact YOUTH +71kg Bronze Lukas Pezenka Shinergy[stadlau] Full-Contact -71kg Silver           My 2 cents Not too shabby in my opinion, especially considering the fact we're note even kickboxers. Still, I'm not really satisfied. Should have taken gold. Got knocked out by my own fault in the finals. Did a stupid beginner's mistake. On a whole, though, I really can't complain - after all, I've won my first full-contact fight. Hence, regardless of the finals, I've scored quite a big personal success. Also, I found that there...

My next fight will take place in Villach, on May 19th 2012. This time, it'll be full-contact again. Today, I worked out with Felipe, one of my students. The session was very specific to the reality of a kickboxing bout. What we did was 10 rounds of shadow-sparring, each round being dedicated to some technical or tactical espect (at least, I did it this way). After those 30 minutes, we tossed in three rounds of boxing. Since boxing is an integral part of kickboxing and becomes even more important under full-contact rules, I believe doing some isolated boxing sparring makes perfect sense - as opposed to a pure kicking sparring, say, under olympic Taekwon-Do rules. As a means of active recovery, we followed the sparring up with another 5 rounds of shadow sparring. Then, 18 rounds or 44 minutes into the workout, we did another three rounds of sparring, this time under kickboxing rules. Finally, as a cool-down, another 5 rounds of shadow sparring. I feel that this type of training is ex...

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...