Diary / Training Notes

After nearly a year and a half working with a senior client on boxing, today marked an important milestone: the penultimate class in his current course. Over the past 18 months, we have focused primarily on boxing techniques, steadily building his skills, confidence, and fitness. Despite some breaks due to outside commitments, his progress has been consistent and encouraging. Today’s session was designed to layer his training, testing his ability to combine different punches

Martial artists often seek ways to improve their skills beyond their primary discipline. For a competitive taekwondo athlete, refining balance, agility, and injury prevention is crucial. Recently, a unique training opportunity arose when a mother approached me to help her daughter, an advanced taekwondo competitor, with conditioning and cross-training. The daughter boards at a school far from her main taekwondo dojang and found the local options insufficient for her level. Al

Muay Thai training demands a balance between technical skill, physical conditioning, and strategic sparring. A recent personal training session with a long-term client highlighted how structuring sparring rounds and combining them with targeted strength work can elevate performance. This post breaks down the session’s approach, explaining how alternating sparring styles and integrating posterior chain exercises can build a fighter’s resilience and effectiveness in the ring.

Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) demands a strong grasp of fundamental positions and transitions. One key position that builds a solid base for many attacks and defences is the seatbelt hold. Recently a client completed his 10-hour Mixed Martial Arts Personal Training focusing on ground positions and moved into attacking the turtle position. This brought us back to one of MMA's foundational systems: Submission Grappling. The next step involves martial arts cross training, allowing ex

When my client and I first started his wrestling personal training journey, we trained through the lens of Greco-Roman wrestling. That style limits attacks to the upper body, which means no leg grabs or trips. Lesson five finished this area of training with the par terre position. Five lessons later, we revisited the par terre position, but this time from the freestyle wrestling perspective. This shift opened up a whole new world of grips, tactics, and leg attacks.

When training mixed martial arts personal training, mastering control from dominant positions is essential. One of the most powerful positions is the back mount, where you have the opponent’s back and can threaten with submissions like the rear choke. Recently, I worked with a couple of clients who had already developed solid skills from the turtle position. Our next step was to explore attacks from the back mount, focusing on transitioning from a rear choke threat to an arm-

Kickboxing blends techniques from various martial arts, and one of the most powerful and versatile strikes is the round kick. For practitioners transitioning from karate to kickboxing, understanding the differences in how this kick is executed can unlock new levels of power and effectiveness. Recently, a group of karate students from Hinnerup, Denmark, continued their remote online kickboxing personal training with a focus on mastering the round kick, specifically the Muay Th

Muay Thai personal training offers a powerful way to build skill, strength, and endurance. A well-rounded session combines focused sparring, targeted strength exercises, and proper recovery methods. Tonight’s 1.5-hour Muay Thai personal training session provides a clear example of how to structure training for maximum benefit. This post breaks down the key components: sparring rounds, posterior chain supersets, and PNF stretching, explaining why each matters and how they work

Wrestling Personal Training Takedowns are the foundation of freestyle wrestling, and mastering them requires more than just strength or speed. It demands precision, timing, and control, especially in the grip fighting phase where battles are often won or lost. In my recent wrestling personal training session, I focused on combining all three takedowns covered earlier in the course, emphasizing grip fighting, sweeps, and leg tags. This approach helped my client develop a fluid

When couples come to me for mixed martial arts personal training, they often want to learn practical skills that build confidence and teamwork. One of the most challenging yet rewarding positions we focus on is the turtle position. This lesson dives into how to effectively use ground and pound techniques from this position, helping both partners sharpen their offense and defense in a controlled, safe environment.

Recently, my senior client and I focused on developing both hooks, building on the foundation we set with the left hook in previous lessons. This post shares the techniques, drills, and training methods we used to sharpen the check-hook, along with tips on improving bobbing and weaving to make this punch even more powerful.

Man demonstrating martial arts moves on a red mat. Text: Empowering Personal Safety Strategies for Individuals with Special Needs.

Remote martial arts training presents unique challenges, especially when focusing on complex skills like footwork and combination techniques. One of my clients from Drum Martial Arts and Fitness in Ireland has been progressing steadily through online sessions, and our recent work has centered on refining footwork while layering in combination strikes. This approach not only improves movement but also enhances the ability to set up and execute effective techniques like the che

Saturday morning’s two-hour remote martial arts teacher training saw Hinnerup Karate in Denmark return. Having covered boxing over their past two two-hour lessons online, they decided to switch to kickboxing. This is all part of me helping train their instructors and senior students to better teach a kickboxing program that will be integrated into their practical karate syllabus. We discussed that the best way to teach this was to train the basics of boxing and then integrate

Integrating elbow strikes into sparring can transform a martial artist’s approach, especially when blending styles like Muay Thai and karate. Today, I worked with my teacher client from Cotswold Karate School on advancing his elbow strike techniques within sparring, focusing on counters to kicks. Over the past 10 lessons, we have built a foundation using Muay Thai and MMA sparring methods to introduce, isolate, and integrate elbow strikes into live practice.

Tonight’s Muay Thai personal training session brought back a familiar and exciting challenge: the dice game. If you haven’t encountered this before, it’s a simple yet effective way to sharpen focus, strategy, and technique during sparring. Instead of rolling a single die to determine a random number, we assign each number to a specific technique. The twist? You keep your roll secret while trying to score points only with the technique you rolled. Meanwhile, your opponent trie

Two individuals practise a triangle choke on red mats in a martial arts gym. Text promotes mastering the technique through games.

Boxing offers a unique blend of fitness, coordination, and mental focus, making it an excellent choice for seniors looking to stay active and sharp. One of the most powerful punches in boxing is the left hook, a move that can change the course of a fight when executed correctly. Tonight, during my client’s eighth hour of his senior boxing personal training, we concentrated on refining this technique through targeted sparring games and drills. I want to share the approach we u

Footwork shapes the foundation of effective martial arts practice. Without smooth, controlled movement, even the best strikes and defenses lose power and precision. This morning, while working remotely with my client from Drum Martial Arts and Fitness in Ireland, we focused on refining footwork through specific drills and shadow boxing routines. Our goal was to build fluidity, especially for escaping corners and moving naturally around the ring.

When I began working with my client from Cotswold Karate School, a martial arts teacher deeply committed to improving his teaching methods, we focused on using Muay Thai personal training to enhance the existing elbow strike techniques in karate. This cross-training approach has opened new doors for both of us, especially in how his students can better incorporate elbow strikes into their sparring. Recently, we wrapped up a session that introduced the K-block and various comb