Tiredness and training

I'm tired out today. It doesn't help that one of my children had a nightmare and I tended to her at about 2am. But I can't blame her, poor thing! The reason I'm physically tired is that I've had training sessions, non-stop for the past couple of days. Shorinji Kempo on Monday night, boxing for an hour and a half on Tuesday morning then Tang Soo Do on Tuesday evening.

I feel a bit run down but I like the tightness of the muscles and the feeling of having worked at something.

Shorinji Kempo gave me insight into the way I learn a martial art. The philosophy discussion was based on this and as a Zen art has some fairly regimented attitudes towards learning. What I found on Monday was humility works quite well at learning. Being there, present for training and willing to soak up knowledge goes a long way. It's sometimes very easy to become over-confident about one's own abilities if one is never challenged! You can potentially get an over inflated estimation of your own abilities. Of course confidence is a good thing and I believe martial arts training delivers this in bagfuls: not the confidence to beat someone up or defend yourself (which is achieved) but the confidence of knowing yourself, your limitations and your ability to train within a process or system.

Boxing was fun. I was completely tired out after it and all the younger scamps looked like they could have trained for another hour! Interestingly the teacher told us that the best way to box is to not get hit. Sounds like a no-brainer but there were a couple of big guys there trading slugs at each other and I think this was meant for their benefit. We looked at turning the body sideways to minimise the target area, laying back, parrying and countering rapidly. I was amazed at how these similar elements crop up in more traditional martial arts. I shouldn't be I suppose because fundamentally there can be only a limited number of strategies to striking another person in 'sparring'. Very good practice of laying or leaning back, out of range and then returning with counters. Very tiring!

Tang Soo Do started off quite up tempo as well with light sparring straight off to warm us up! I realised quickly that my body was tired and I wasn't recovering as quickly as I would like! When this happens I try to focus on core technique, slowing it down if I have to but maintaining good posture. It's easy to shoot out tired limbs to make the technique *look* ok but it's another do the technique well under stress. This was what I was trying to do but very often I ended up gasping...and sweating! Later I had the pleasure of working with a young woman for her hyung. This was made a pleasure as she was reacting very well to my coaching to the extent I saw a great difference between starting and finishing the session! We mostly looked at engaging the whole body from foot through hip rotation and ending up at the arms. It's a difficult thing for beginners to grasp but she did a great job! Younger practitioners tend to fling their arms and legs out without engaging their whole body and this, in some ways, is normal: they haven't seen or been shown the intricacy of the body mechanics involved. I find, however, that once the whole body is being used to generate power it becomes an entirely better experience! And you get more feedback from your body when you do this. Otherwise you just end up flapping your arms about...!

These guys seem to be trying REALLY hard to engage their entire bodies...

(oldie but goody!)

Cambridge fighter Tommy “Two Gunz” Maguire wins MMA Welterweight title

Cambridge fighter Tommy “Two Gunz” Maguire wears his soubriquet well as he shot down title holder Nigel Whitear at this Anger Management MMA Welterweight title fight in the first round.

There was much anticipation regarding this Mixed Martial Art fight and the local crowd in Kidderminster gave Maguire a hard time as he made his way into the packed hall. The atmosphere was electric as these fighters entered the cage and Maguire looked pensive as he focused hard to keep out the boos from the audience. As they lined up toe to toe we knew one way or another the fight would be explosive. Little did we know just how explosive.

Maguire, representing Tsunami Fight Gym, came out swiftly while Whitear seemed to be gauging the lie of the land, possibly planning his moves. Before he could do anything Maguire struck. Maguire pounded into Whitear rocking his opponent back onto his heels before rolling him over and onto the ground. Maguire, on top, faked an arm bar getting Whitear to respond one way but before he knew what had happened Maguire had flipped it and went for and succeeded with a Triangle choke, forcing Whitear to submit in a total of one minute and nine seconds.

Maguire, buzzing from adrenalin, took the belt still punching the air and Cambridge's Tsunami gym added another title to it's cabinet. Given Maguire's emphatic win he'll be relishing the next three defence fights for this title and the opportunity to use those 'Gunz'!

Martial artists leave man in wheelchair stranded up Snowden!

So much for 'integrity', 'No retreat in battle' , 'perseverance' and 'indomitable spirit'...

This shocking story shows a real lack of moral fortitude or at the very least of intelligence. A group of martial artists ascend Mount Snowdon in a very noble fundraising attempt carrying a wheelchair bound guy with them. Having just checked out some photos of Llanberis Pass where they climbed they must have known they had their work cut out for them. Little did they know that when the hike up the path became too tough they'd decide to leave the man in the wheelchair and finish the climb, returning to pick him up some time later. This seems crazy already but there is still more to come! When they came back to pick him and his wheelchair up for the descent they realised they were too tired to take him down and called mountain rescue!

I don't think mountain rescue were that impressed saying that it was "cheeky"and a call-out could have been avoided if the group had decided to turn around altogether rather than ascending to the summit.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/8313108.stm

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6880145.ece

Milton Park and River Cam run

On my way round during the river leg I overheard a rowing coach say to his ladies four boat to just maintain balance, don't worry about anything else and enjoy the beautiful morning. What sound advice! A lovely October morning: bright and cool. I tried to enjoy this lovely morning and to forget about the other runners I saw who I was convinced were: a. running faster than me (even though they were running in the opposite direction!) and b. were ridiculing me for my shuffling speed.

Enjoyable too as you pass through the Country Park, pass Baits Bite Lock, the river Cam and a Local Nature Reserve called Logan's Meadow.

Final tally: 4.71 miles at 47 minutes. No change on my speed, but I didn't stop!

View Milton Park and River Cam run in a larger map

Pro Am Fight Centre flyer

Ok, so it's flyer season and I'm helping Pro-Am Fight Centre out with some marketing communications so here's the second flyer in the series.... :)

They do pretty much what it says on the tin..er I mean flyer. MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) training in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, boxing, muay thai as well as full on weights gym and training cage, all in the centre of Cambridge!

Go...fight!

Fencing Foil Positions

Is her back hand supposed to be that far over?

Teaching at Tang Soo Do

Tuesday night's Tang Soo Do was less sweaty and more cerebral. It's good to explore lesser taught aspects of the art and tonight meant much in-depth teaching of forms and one steps. I love to teach forms and their applications: it's somewhere you can find real depth in karate so needless to say I had a fun time and loved grilling students to make sure stances were in order. I enjoyed seeing a beginner react to my tuition and 'get it'. She was executing movements in the last phase of the step and from the elbow. A step through and punch should be one fluid movement starting from the front stance, flowing through with the step, arms engaging and body weight and momentum adding power to the torquing punch. Once I'd explained that this step and punch was one movement she stopped prodding the air and got it together! Fantastic. I hope she gets more from her forms now. Hyung is a connected and organic entity not really a series of movements. Describing it as a series of movements almost implies that the movements are disparate. It really shouldn't be considered as 35 moves nor should it be thought of as one 'process'. Usually forms can be conceptualised as 4 or 5 grand processes within one entity. (See also Rhythm in Hyungs)

On that note I am pleased to say that I learned a new form. Something I haven't done in years so it was a pleasant experience. It seems a completely different process from when I was a white belt. Back then I struggled with basic concepts such as low block or front stance or (as above) dealing with chunks of form rather than piecemeal. Now I know how to execute a low block so I don't need to expend energy on that but I do need to dig deeper into the application and rhythm (or punctuation) which is challenging but in a different way!

This is not the style of Rohai I learned but this is beautiful to see: