one of the more unusual ways to throw a hook
Juniors
It was back to MMA training today for the juniors after a fairly intensive lesson last week focusing on knife awareness and defence. After a few specific movement exercises the class did some partner drills. This included drilling the plumb position or neck wrestling, pummelling and mirror footwork and sprawling. They then drilled sprawling and taking the back into the back mount. After this they drilled taking the guard in response to pressure on the back. The next half of the class was all isolation sparring. They began with a few rounds of boxing, followed by a few rounds of kickboxing and then fighting in the guard.
Seniors
We had another high intensity warm-up session before moving onto the specific area of interest. This began with specific movements – footwork, rolls, seated movement, snaking, blitzing, striking and sprawls. Next the class engaged in some resistance based activity, namely grip fighting. This was followed with a couple of ground movement partner drills, using a partner’s bodyweight.Then the class went through the high percentage technique warm-up. This was followed by a few short rounds of MMA sparring. This was immediately followed by running, sprawling and multiple attack sparring. Only then was a water break permitted. This mentally conditions those training in many ways. It prepares them for the effects of adrenaline and the unpredictable nature of chaos. The training also develops mental will like a muscle. This, for me, is a big part of what I consider to be internal training. Forget your pseudoscience and mysticism, a measure of martial artist’s mental strength is in their will to never give in. This is the baseline for survival.
We worked off the hook today, looking a few different exercises to train and own this particular technique. A hook can be delivered as a punch, a palm, an elbow, an uppercut and many other variations depending on the angle. We look to principles rather than technique, so the overlying principle here is to train a curved hand strike by using the exact body mechanics each time – only the way the arm is used changes the technique. The hook was trained from the fence, isolating it against a wall to stop telegraphing and to promote short range delivery. Next the use of pulling the arm to delay delivery and promoting the use of the body first was covered. Structure and stability was then tested with the coach holding a pad and, at the same time, pulling the striker off-balance.
Finally we did some work with resistance bands. Resistance bands are perhaps one of the best developments in functional fitness training. I could be wrong, but I think early resistance band work in unarmed combat can be attributed to those pioneering judoka. Judo players frequently used bicycle innertubes to train their throwing actions against. They would tie the innertubes to a post, grip a tube in each hand and practice the various lapel grip entries to throws. Today resistance bands are used for all sorts of activities and can enhance many basic exercises such as push-ups and bicep curls. Adjustable cable crossovers can also mimick similar actions, but with the benefit adding more weighted resistance. Unlike free weights, resistance bands don’t have a rest point where you can lock out the action. Muscular resistance is maintained throughout the exercise.
If used intelligently resistance bands not only work all the correct muscles that are engaged in a particular technique, but can also correct bad body mechanics. Freestyle Karate champion Israel Robert “Macca” or “Wildstyle” McKenzie once told me a very similar thing when using a dodge ball. “The equipment never lies” were his roundabout words and he was very right. The ball would tell me exactly how hard and how fast I was hitting it. Al Peasland sees it as the next best thing to a sparring partner, but I digress. Likewise the resistance band if you listen to it also never lies. It shows you where the force or resistance is going and your job is to work against that force. It will throw you off-balance if your standing position is no good and it will throw your limb back if you do not retain control throughout the technique.
Therefore, a very important thing to do is to understand how to position your resistance band. According to the father of physics, Sir Issac Newton, “The universe is lazy” and therefore force seeks the easiest route. The quickest way between two points is a straight line. Your resistance band should be a straight line that you pull towards your target. This is the same for a straight right as it is for a knee strike as it is for a double leg takedown. So what happens when you are using a circular technique like tonight’s hook? The truth is the strike’s force still travels in a straight line. So it is a case of not following the whole body movement, but the line of the force, the powerline if you will.
