A Warrior's Thougts on the Martial Arts

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...

The event Last saturday (2012-12-15), the Shinergy[battle] winter 2012 was held in Amstetten, Lower Austria. The event was also something of an opening ceremony for [Dietmar's] [new dojo] . First, the children (-10 years) competed in contests that relied on agility, speed and technical skill. Then, the youngsters (+10 years) had some semi-contact sparring. From my school, there was only one competitor, David. This was David's fighting debut and he dealt with the situation just fine. You see, the fight was scheduled as a "best-of-5" match, meaning that it takes three won rounds for victory. In a best case scenario, the fight is over after three rounds, worst case is five. The latter was the case with David's match. Each of the boys took two rounds, so the fight was decided in the fifth - by just a couple of points. Seems like the match-up was nearly perfect in this case. Now the thing with David is that he always shows up for training, always pays full atten...

In my [post here] , I've mentioned something cool coming up. Never had the time to cover it afterwards, though. So despite the fact that it's been a month since then, I'll still fill you in on one of the coolest (imho) and most sensible event of the year: The Shinergy[charity battle]@U4Behave The idea To sum the idea up in a nutshell, the event was all about fighting for something instead of fighting against something. To be more precise, the agenda was to fight for ZUKI, a charity organisation here in Austria that raises money for children in India. ZUKI is short for "Zukunft Kind", which translated roughly to "Future Children" - though that translation gives the whole thing a slightly different meaning. Anyhow, you can check out their homepage at www.zuki-zukunftfuerkinder.at Ronny, founder and head of Shinergy[international], came up with the idea to promote a fight night where selected Shinergy competitors would meet in fightclub-style bouts. ...

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...

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...

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...

Today's sparring session was great, so was yesterday's. You see, to prep for the upcoming Austrian Open (WKF, Steinbrunn, April 14th), we totally commited yesterday's class to kickbox sparring. I'm pretty proud of my guys - not only did they perform good, everything was also very controlled. Having said that, I have to admit there was some blood and a broken toe, but then it's a combat sport, right? Anyhow, I've posted video footage of the entire session below. Alex took his new 1080p camera with him, so the video quality is quite astonishing. Today we had another great session, this time at the Shinergy[zone vienna], our official headquarters. I did plan on shooting some video footage, yet I failed to press the record button. Hence, no footage. Apparentaly, those headshots are becoming something of an issue after all... Enjoy the videos and feel free to post your opinion to the comments section below - looking forward to reading them! So long, take care

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...

Today, I'll go over another bout that was fought at the Shinergy[battle] autumn cup '11, Felipe (Shinergy[stadlau]) VS ??? (Shinergy[zone vienna]) Now after analyzing [Andy VS Pierre] , this fight was a completely different game. Felipe (black trunks) had his second fight after [facing Stan] at the last battle. Now I must say he improved quite a bit, technically and tactically. Obviously though, lots of work lie before him still. Can't say about the other guy, haven't seen him before. Therefore, I'll focus very much on analyzing the fight with a focus on Felipe. Before doing so, however, I'll do a brief gross analysis of the fight and sum up my thoughts in a nutshell. Little strategy on both sides, lots of hard knocks, quite a few forbidden maneuvers. From the looks of it, I'd say those guys were out for a kill. Definately a crowd pleaser, that one. Having said that, I do believe both boys got better even during the course of that very fight. While the ...

Today, let's take a closer look at fight #2, Andy (Shinergy[stadlau]) VS Pierre (Shinergy[zone vienna]) . That fight was particularly interresting in that it probably was the most tactical fight on that evening. Both competitors kept alternating between offensive and defensive styles. While it seemed that Pierre rather preferred a rather counter-oriented strategy, Andy was more interrested in attacking. However, none of them limited himself exclusively to his preference. Instead, they adapted and changed gears constantly. It was nice to see that kind of flexibility. Still, there were some points on both sides that need to be adressed. First, I'll focus on Andy, as he's one of my boys. After that, I'll analyze Pierre's perfomance. Let's start from a tactical point of view. If you look at Andy's very first action, as seen in clip #1 from 00:03 - 00:06, you'll notice a mistake that could have been avoided. Andy successfully feints an attack and causes Pierr...