Newton & Superman, Scenarios & Evasion (diary entry)

English: Butterfly-punch Français : Coup de poing sauté (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

07.04.14

General Lesson – Mixed Martial Arts/Stand-up

Training began with a dynamic warm-up, which brought our attention back to a simple relevant tactic: blitzing. As always, I feel it is very important that all students are pushed to think about what they are doing and to understand the objectives of their training. If anyone runs in my self-protection or martial arts classes there is a very specific purpose. Sprinting is for strength, explosive power and for high intensity/anaerobic conditioning directly related to the feelings of stress an individual will experience in a conflict situation. Otherwise lower paced dynamic movements bring in agility exercises, footwork and various forms of shadow work. We don’t just run for the sake of it and although extended roadwork does have its place that place is often quite low on the hierarchy of training.

Blitz running is not just running whilst flailing your fists out, it is promoting forward motion and driving straight hand strikes over an opponent. We took this apart on the mats and focused on rear hand blitzing. Then we moved onto the shin block motion using the lead leg. This brought in the pendulum foot movement, which resembles Newton’s Cradle. Whilst we were exploring this movement we also executed a leading leg front kick. Finally we exaggerated all these movement with the “Superman Punch”. This aerial technique landed in MMA much like its natural predecessor, the overhand right, did in boxing. Instead of dropping below eye level and punching from a 45 degree blind spot, however, the Superman Punch dramatically goes over the guard by jumping.

The overhand right was famously ridiculed when Marciano first started using it. Up until recent times it has been thought of as the brawler’s punch and the untrained eye sees someone wildly charging in and throwing a looping version of a haymaker. Likewise the Superman Punch is a technique only really seen on the semi-contact martial arts circuit and never in boxing. Thai boxers have used their flying downward elbow (“monkey climbs the tree”) for a long time 

Private Lesson – Self-Protection & Kick Boxing

I was asked to do some scenario work. As a rule, I am not a fan of situation-specific work unless it is directly related to a profession. As far basic self-protection is concerned, scenario training should be generic and based on solid principles that can transcend environments with little adaption. Of course, every situation is different, but you are never going to cover every possible incident in appropriate depth for any tactics to be beneficial to a student. We looked at the fence from a child-on-child and adult-on-child perspective. I worked on developing an assertive fence and pre-emption that will eliminate hesitation at the pre-fight stage.

We then looked at defensive movement in kickboxing, focusing on evasion. Beginning with some flash-pad work I noticed a lack of mobility on the feet, so we began some appropriate drills. This included mirror footwork with a coach and various agility drills using cones and ladders. I also introduced a competitive element to increase the sense of urgency. The movement drills built up to including shadow boxing and then pad-work.

We then took the training back to the flash pads, focusing on slipping and rolling. Finally the lesson finished with freestyle pad-work. After a confirmation of better awareness of counter-offensive stand-up movement, I had my client do some groundwork agility movement around the mats. We trained combat base knee walking, butterfly guard seated movement, sidewinder snakes and forward snaking movements.