We all have fighter's fists.

You might not consider yourself a fighter. More a lover perhaps? Well according to researchers at the University of Utah we may have fists which have evolved for fighting as well as loving.

"They found that the structure of the fist provides support that increases the ability of the knuckles to transmit "punching" force."

Not being a scientist myself I can hardly refute these findings but I must admit it seems a weird way of going about research. Is the University of Utah in need of some self-promotion? It seems to me from reading the article that they measured the force of a fist strike and a palm strike and conculded that the ….

"force per area is higher in a fist strike and that is what causes localised tissue damage [in the opponent]"

I could have told them that. In this article it states that the force delivered by the open palm and the punch were equal (or at least not greatly different), but that the buttressing of the fist and the boney knuckle protrusions caused the damage.

Surely this is a side-effect of having a fist which can manipulate tools. A serendipitous (well, not for the punched receiver) effect.

Can we deduce that elbows evolved for striking because they're hard and boney?

Encouragement for beginners to sparring

I offered some pre-tournament sparring practice to a friend who gladly accepted. Off we went to the country park...

As we searched for a suitable clearing to kick off our shoes I asked her what her 'problem' was (so I could focus on this in the following 45 minutes) and she replied that she found it difficult to score a point. She was a bit flustered by the plethora of techniques she knows and felt unable to bring them into play during sparring.

OK-let's bring up her confidence by concentrating on a few essential sparring techniques, after all much free-fighting is made up of front kick, round kick and a variety of straight punches. Of course we aspire to be able to use all our techniques in order to score the point but invariably we rely on a stock of well serving base techniques and sometimes the simpler, the better.

So with a minimum of time we set about improving her confidence (she'd only sparred twice in class before!) and this is how we did it:

Round 1: Just front kicks from her. I would encourage her to connect with the attack and I would counter at competition speed with anything I fancied but she must use only front kick.

Round 2: Same deal for me, but front and round kick for her.

Round 3: Front kick, round kick and punches.

Last round: Focus on these three but feed in any 'fancier' technique if she felt that there was a scoring opportunity availing itself. (In the end she only really added in back kick and possibly side kick).

I also emphasized kihaping.

How did it go? She's a natural. She didn't need my help she just needed confidence. It's easy to forget that when we started out in a particular style there is a bewildering amount of techniques that we are exposed to directly in our syllabus or indirectly in group classes and often this is just too much information and we cloud up. "Oh yeah but I can do this, no wait....Er, what about this technique...."

No. Stop. The object of competition sparring is to get the point. To score within whichever framework of rules exist. In order to score you have to react to the attacks of the opponent as well as look for opportunity to counter or initiate. My advice today was to use a core set of techniques (as the student is a relative beginner) in order to score points. Keep it fairly simple.

What I didn't do was go easy on her. My attacks were speedy and of varying heights: I wanted to get her flinching, checking out her blocking reactions, which were great!

Photos courtesy of my little girl...

Are you violent sir, madam? Mmmm?

Whatever you think of Michael Portillo's Tory politics you couldn't label him a violent man. He seems relatively charming, softly spoken and fairly self-assured but in the show 'Horizon' he's looking deep into himself (and probably all of us) to examine human violence and looking particularly at the questions: do we learn to be violent or is it instinctive? Or what drives people to beat the crap out of each other? (That's my line, not Mr. Portillo's).

An interesting programme in this series examines the South American idea of a tinku: a celebration of violence whereby locals congregate and literally pick fights with each other, even encouraging small children to emulate this sort of stand-off. Portillo is there to see if anyone can act violently or even enjoy it. Somebody, say who's had a posh upbringing, never been in a fight in his life and abhors violence. Yup, you've guessed it: Portillo faced his very own tinku.

A video of a tinku (not Portillo's)

Another thing the show looks at is the pleasure we get when we fight. Dopamine occurs when we experience pleasure through sex, exercise, drugs and indeed violence. Some people are addicted to violence it seems like others are to booze.

Interestingly some studies show that being taught to share before the age of three years old (upto when children can't really control their tempers) helps shape their pre-frontal cortex where violence control mechanisms are built for use in later life. 

Doctors have seen that patients who have undergone trauma to the pre-frontal cortex can become more violent. the damage to the brain injures the control mechanisms which are in place and this is why post-trauma patients can become violent.

There are other ways that our control mechanisms can be broken down too: through alcohol and drug use, sleep deprivation, extreme external pressure as well as something we can't change: ageing...

DAMN, DAMN-DAMN-DAMMIT!

AAARGH!

Watch the programme here.

Breathing out the bad

I had a bad moment during the day today so during training my mind was a bit mixed-up. I was focusing on the bad moment during training instead of leaving it behind me and outside of the dojang. I tried breathing it out: breathing in cleansing air down into the belly and all the dark thoughts out through my feet. Whether you believe in Chi movement & the power of breath or not, this sort of visualisation helps me 'reset'. It provides a tool for me to get out of the loop of negative brooding. Once I've reset I can (try to) focus on technique only. Or not focus on technique but have a free mind... That's the idea anyway.

Good sparring session with Master Campbell and I learned two things: Master Campbell can stop you dead with a reverse front kick. As I tired my technique combinations became sloppy and I was chasing him down (this sort of hot headedness was the reason I had a bad moment today!) and as I stepped in he stopped me: gasp

the second thing is that I need to work on my fitness levels (and lose some of my spare tyre). After three two minute rounds I'm facing AC. He's tall, strong and experienced and during the first minute I'm toeing the line, scoring points and pushing him (sometimes) onto his back foot. During the second minute I was paggered (tired)! My ability to fend off attacks diminished and needless to say I was clattered round the chops a few times. Your hands tend to drop somewhat when you're tired.

I need more training and less chocolate.

Indian VC who stuck to his gun

"The regimental machinegun section of the 129th...was placed in the portion of the defence held by the 6th Lancers.

Man after man was hit but the brave detachment continued to serve their guns, inflicting severe loss on the enemy....The enemy afforded an excellent target and the gun did much execution.

The heroic gun team, fighting tioll the last, were bayonetted at their posts, Khudadad Khan, the sole survivor, though badly wounded, managed after a time to rejoin his company, but did not quit his gun till he had ensured it would be valueless to the enemy."

An abridged version of the report in The Times of 27th January, 1915, headed, "Two Indian VCs".

Khudadad Khan won the Victoria Cross and returned home to India.

Another reference here.

Free fighting

Last night I was struck how little of interest is on telly these days. Granted I don't watch a lot of tv (I have two young kids!) but a couple of times a week I want to sit down for an hour after all the chores are done and absorb something. As I said-nothing doing on tv so I rooted around and found a DVD about martial arts I'd forgotten I had! Smashing-beer and martial arts documentary...

The blurb on Deadly Arts (it was first shown on National Geographic) says:

"A martial artist with over 25 years of experience, black belt Josette D. Normandeau sets out to uncover the history and culture of six martial arts. At the same time she will train under each art’s top masters… to the very limits of her endurance and ability. Her goal: to win what the masters possess: a touch of invincibility"

Hmmm. I won't be too disparaging. If you can't say something nice...!

Despite some small annoyances the capoeira episode I watched was very well produced and gave a great insight into this martial art (I thought it was more dance-like than this show illustrates) and made me think about the different aspects of free fighting (sparring or randori ). Quite timely as Mokuren Dojo has a thread about kata and Dan Praeder makes an interesting insight in the comments. Plus I had a frustrating randori session the other day...

So what did I see in capoeira? an immense amount of focus and control. What seems to me as a dance interspersed with kicks is much more aimed at a flow back and forth of energy between the players. There is definitely an aim to trick the opponent and 'win' but there also seems an implicit rule of respect and 'conversation' within the fight. Each player gives and takes taking care not to crush the other's techniques but allowing free movement and expression. It doesn't seem to me that the players want to oppose their will or their crushing force onto each other but there is a level of playful deceit too: all done with a smile.

Following is a clip of the show with some controlled 'sparring':

This brings me to my frustration with my recent randori session: there are many (unofficial) levels of randori ranging from non-contact learning skills, to competitive point scoring or even full contact. At the more sedate end of skill learning in free sparring there needs to be this sort of precision and mutual respect. At that level it certainly is more of a conversation! Give and take is essential. Unfortunately it doesn't gel sometimes. Your opponent and you end up striking mid technique, neither gets into the swing of the conversation and you tend to stifle each others techniques. It becomes difficult and staid. When this happens I try and slow it all the way down and highlight each technique or string of techniques that I'm making-this way there's more a chance of a flow to develop. Sometimes junior grades go at it full pelt, thrashing away at you. Everyone wants a piece of the black belts. But I just don't think this is so constructive at an early stage of randori development. Slow and steady then building up the speed makes for solidand more accurate fighting. When this is achieved you can then vary the pace according to the situation.

Much like the player in the clip above sparring can be intensely accurate and controlled in slow motion, stretching and reaching for the opponent in an unrushed and mutual way.

Pyrrhic victory

A Pyrrhic victory is a hollow one. One which is gained at such a great cost that the original victory's value is debased. King Pyrrhus of Epirus (an area of Greece) won a major battle against the Romans during the Pyrrhic War of 280-275 BC but his losses were so great it prompted the king to bemoan that another such victory, "and we are undone".

Another way to say this might be that we should choose our battles in life. I've been thinking of this recently as I've always had to battle with my rising anger. I don't think I'm an angry person but every now and then, and I suppose it's inevitable, ire swells within me and I feel miffed off by something. Occasionally I can rationalise that I'm in a bad mood for some other reason and that the immediate source of my anger is not the reason why I'm angry, so I can swallow it. It's no big deal- the kids wind me up but I'm tired and grumpy anyway and as long as I understand this I can rationalise and move away. But occasionally some guy cuts me up in traffic and I feel real hurt! Flushed with rage I think about what I'd do to him but this helps nobody- I just end up simmering for ages. I need to get rid of that feeling rather than hold on to it. It happens. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose the battle with the black dog (Churchill called his depression 'black dog').

I sometimes excuse myself based on the curse of being a man (!)....you've guessed it: testosterone! Testosterone levels in men change throughout the day and I like to blame the 'ready-to-rut' levels:

"T levels fluctuate wildly. If you were to measure your Testosterone levels throughout the day, you'd likely be amazed. One minute you have the hormonal profile of a hyper-muscular bull ready to "fertilize" an entire herd of cattle… and the next minute your blood profile is that of a fully menstruating Martha Stewart intent on color coordinating your powder room."

But I'm a man, not a bull. I need to know myself and know that I'm not going to fly off the handle at short notice EVEN when I'm pumped full of testosterone :-)

This article was highlighted by Dan Praeder in his blog Martial Arts and Modern Life and is a great example of choosing the 'third way'. Nice story about how a Tai Chi master overcomes his base urges and dissipates a potentially aggressive situation.

Pay It Backwards: An Act Of Coffee Kindness by Arthur Rosenfeld.

Taido (躰道)

Nathan Teodoro brought my attention to Taido on the convocation of combat arts (a cool martial arts networking and discussion site) and I thought I'd post a video or two of this quite spectacular style of karate which uses lots of spinning and jumping techniques making for interesting jissen (or randori).

Interestingly the founder, Shukumine, wanted to update karate with more flexible and less 'linear' movement.

Check out the result here...

Taido blog here.