Friday, October 31, 2014

Sacrifice For Your Success

What are you will to do to be a champion? What are you willing to do to be a successful at anything? You have to sacrifice. To make an A on the test, you have to study. To be a champion you have have give up fun time. You have to dedicate yourself to training. When asked to hang out late, you have to say no so you can rest. When asked if you want a drink, you have to say no because you need to keep your system clean. You have to me discipline and avoid things that take away from your focus. What are you will to do be a champion?

Monday, October 27, 2014

Tell The Coach What You Want To Do

As coach, it's funn how a fighter will tell you what they want to do. They want to hit the pads and skip out on the shadow boxing, bag work and conditioning exercises. They tell you that they will do them later, on their own. Some people are self motivated and you can trust that they will do all those things on their own. But that isn't the case most of the time. Not trying to sound like an old guy (as I can at times), but looking at fight gyms and martial arts in general, a lot of theme don't operate like they should. When I started out training in a boxing gym, the training showed you how to stand, showed you how to move (I think all I did was step slide my first 2 weeks), show you the basic punches, and tell you to some rounds of this and some of that. You did what he said and tell he showed you something else. I respected his experience and knowledge (as I saw a stable of quality fighters). After my workouts, I would watch the pros and noticed that nobody had to tell them what to do. They would warm up and get to it. During sparring, a coach would advise fighters on things to work on and they would have them do some drills to reinforce those things. But for the most part, everybody busted their butt without anybody having to yell at them do work hard. Now a days, guys what to learn the shoulder roll (Floyd Mayweather) and hit the pads (I didn't do pads a lot because I spent my time in the ring with bodies), and they have to be told to do exercises. Commecialism of combat sports and martial arts is good and bad. It's good that men and women can be exposed to the arts. Kickboxing and boxing became classes where you can say you kickbox and box (without ever sparring). So, if you have never trained in a fight gym, make sure to do so.

Monday, October 20, 2014

Where's The Calvary?

Whenever competitions come up I try to get my students to compete. Competition allows you to test yourself and elevate your skills. The funny thing is that a week or 2 before these events, the number of competitors going dwindles. They have to go out of town, or they have to work (whereas they didn't work weekends before), and a host of other reasons. Now, I am talking about the guys who come and beat each other up in the gym and say that they want the fighter life but they really don't (and that's OK, just don't say you do if you really don't). On several occassions (actually about 15) I have hosted events over the years (fight shows, tournaments, etc.) and I've had great difficulty getting my own fighters to fight on them. I once had a guy commit to and event and leave a note on the door with a written excuse that he couldn't make it (one day before). Most who get in combat sports have the desire to get out there and compete, so, if you can, do it. You only live once.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Strength Or Cardio

What is most important for fighting? Strength or Cardio? Both are important, but cardio is most important. If you run out of gas, it won't matter what how strong or even how good your technique is. You defense will suffer and you will get with things that you would normally block or get out of the way of. So, when training you have design your workouts to address all areas (flexibility, endurance, strength, etc.). But, remember you have to have a baseline cardio level to make everything else useful. Remember the old saying, "Fatigue makes cowards of us all."

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Developing Your Cardio

What's the best way to develop your cardio for a specific activity? The answer is doing that activity. I'm not say that running, biking, swimming, eliptical, etc. is not good. You have to do those things to supplement your primary activity. If a fighter is getting ready for a fight, the main form of training is sparring. Of course, he or she has to shadow box, hit the bag, pads, etc. But, the primary training method is specific to the actual activity.

Monday, October 13, 2014

Saenchai Muay Thai

One of the most exciting fighters to watch in Muay Thai is Saenchai. He puts on a show when he competes and does things no one else does. I done posts of him in the past. It was time for another. Check out his highlight and training clips. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ-JSVxsPaU Pads https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY6ZVJjkTNM Clinch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDOque-1zA

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Flare Over Substance

In todays martial arts world, students are drawn to fancy techniques over the basics. In many sports, young athletes emulate theirs sports idols. The try to box like Ali, they try to play basketball like Jordan, etc. But they don't have their basics down. In martial arts, we want to do the flying armbars, the 360 degree round kick, etc. All those are cool moves, but you have to be able to apply the basics because you can always count on them over the flashy stuff. At seminars, I have seen instructors give novelty techniques to attendees. If they would go and see those instructors fight clips, they will see that many of them never do what they teach. The use the basics and when they're done the become like theorists and entertain their audience because they know people get bored. So, master your basics first before you show off.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

How Boxing Improved My Martial Arts Overall

In looking at my years of training in martial arts, I would say that boxing has had the biggest impact. Spending 17 years actively training in boxing gyms, I have seen some of the best train and have learned skills that have carried over into all of my other martial arts experiences. The training of a boxer is intense and the reaction, timing, mental and physical toughness, are some of the things that carry over. In combat sports, I have always said that the fighter with better hands will win (all else being somewhat equal). In fighting the hands are used more than any other weapon. So, if you want to get better at punching, train in the sweet science. a couple of rounds from one my boxing fights https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WevTwdPMWFE