Waiting for the bus; getting on

waiting for the bus

Using the feet properly, or at least getting to the stage I’m at has been a long and winding road. I’ve already described the amazing potential the feet have and how getting a feel for whats happening in the foot can assist in stablity, or being rooted/grounded. Obviously, the drawback of being too stable is a lack of mobility, a wall built with foundations is very stable but has minimal mobility, obviously fine for a wall except in extreme situations, earthquake/hurricane perhaps.

For humans wanting to be able to avoid incoming attacks stability has it’s role but good mobility is essential to avoid attacks and to set up your own. The answer is to be ‘on your toes’ rather than ‘on your heels’, the first supports movement while the second hampers movement. That’s not to say that you cannot move if you have your weight on your heels, of course you can, but it takes a preparatory movement to do so. I tell the kids in my class that its the difference between waiting for the bus and actually getting on the bus.

getting on the bus

It’s fine standing on your heels waiting for the bus but when you get on you need to move forward and your posture must support that movement. If you need to hurry to get on the bus, if it’s about to leave you really need to move from the front of your foot, i.e. be ‘on your toes’.

Nothing to spectacular in any of this but it’s amazing how many people in martial arts are rather flat-footed. It’s not universal, of course, but if you practice the hateful sanbon kumite and the like you’re training yourself to ‘move in stance’ and to not use your feet effectively. It’s like trying to move with an anchor pulling you back!

Elsewhere movement is optimised. At Primal, Steve Morris got us to repeat kick like they do in Muay Thai which trains the feet to move rapidly. The little ‘skip’ is key which serves to not only ‘charge’ the kick but also to adjust position in relation to the target. For me this had the wonderful spin-off of helping my foot movement in general, this became evident in the movement drills Morris introduced. These involved chasing each other around, meaning you have to move quickly to avoid the other bloke while staying close. It’s not a case of running away, rather adjusting position.

This training coupled with watching and getting an impression of Manny Pacquiao really helped me get to grips with moving my feet so they could make tiny adjustments for whatever reason, i.e. throwing kicks/punches, pushing off to move away. That is not all you can glean from watching such an excellent fighter as Pacquiao, it’s merely one aspect, albeit a vital one.

By concentrating training on optimising the potential of the feet anyone can learn to greatly improve their movement. But even you you become more ‘getting on the bus’ than ‘waiting for the bus’ you will notice an improvement.

Short Range Power – the Phantom Punch

On May 25th, 1965, in Lewiston, Maine,  Muhammad Ali  beat Sonny Liston for the second time. Again there was controversy, this time it was related to the ‘phantom punch’. Ali finished the fight, in the first round, with a short chopping straight right, which knocked Liston down for somewhere between 12 and 17 seconds, while the referee flapped around losing control as Ali stood over Liston shaking his fist. The ref was informed of time Liston had spent on the mat and stopped the fight, declaring Ali winner by knockout.

The straight right that tagged Liston was known as the ‘phantom punch’ as many missed it completely, others said it didn’t land at all. Many believed the fight was fixed, for a variety of reasons, one of which was that many believed the punch was not hard enough to knock Liston out. In slow-motion, it’s clear the short right hit Liston plum on the jaw as he is regaining balance from a lunging jab, he had trouble landing punches in both fights. The clip clearly shows a jarring, shaking of Liston’s head which appears to be sufficient to knock him out.

Steve Morris explains that a knockout occurs when the reticular activating system, responsible for controlling consciousness is disrupted.

The disruption of the reticular activating system occurs through the violent rotation of the brain on the brainstem. In most cases, this rotation is very obvious, whether it occurs through twisting, moving side to side or through the head being violently snapped back

The slow-motion clip indicates a rotation of Liston’s head, the ambiguity concerning the efficacy of the phantom punch is to do with the assumption that a bigger punch is required to cause a knockout. Big punchers tend to throw the kitchen sink at their opponents, Tyson, Marciano and others of that ilk certainly did. But if the opponent is off balance when hit, less force is required to rotate the head, and so cause a knockout.

In 1965 there were still those that believed Ali was unable to punch hard, he was retreating when he threw it and given the short range of the phantom punch it’s easy to understand how people didn’t believe their own eyes. Ali himself claimed the punch, which he called the anchor punch, was too quick for the eye to see.

A short punch on the retreat does not have the obvious power of a Tyson blockbuster, but the phantom punch was not the only time Ali was able to knockdown or knockout an opponent while going backwards. The highlight clip shows a few examples, while Anderson Silva did something very similar to Forest Griffin recently. I suppose people find it difficult to believe that it’s possible to generate power while going backwards, let alone short range power.

Greatest ever fight

From tonysports

Potentially the greatest, anyway. Yesterday it was announced that the Mayweather vs Pacquiao scheduled for March 13th is off due to a row over the drug testing procedure. It seems that the Mayweather camp has been casting doubts over Pacquiao’s status in regard of performance enhancing drugs, despite there being no evidence at all to suggest he is anything other than completely clean.

Pacquiao has agreed to the standard drug-testing protocol of the Nevada State Athletic Commission but Mayweather wants to implement the more stringent protocol of that used by the United States Anti-Doping Agency. This version is used to test Olympians in the US, with Mayweather claiming that if this protocol is good enough for the Olympians then it should be required for a fight ‘of this magnitude’. As Pacquiao has not agreed to the USADA testing protocol Mayweather said

I have already agreed to the testing and it is a shame that he is not willing to do the same. It leaves me with great doubt as to the level of fairness I would be facing in the ring that night

That’s a bit rich in my opinion, there is no suggestion whatsoever of Pacquiao having failed a drug test in that past. It seems like an example of the usual pre-fight  games Mayweather plays. To me he’s taking it too far as he’s accusing Pacquiao of being a cheat and by doing so questioning the legitimacy of his achievements.

This implication is hypocritical in that Mayweather has had to agree to an unprecedented financial penalty if either fighter weighs in over. This is set at a staggering $10 million per pound as against Marquez in September Mayweather paid the penalty of $600,000 when weighing in two pounds over. Cheeky sod!

It’s all a bit silly and no doubt will be sorted eventually. Personally I detest all this nonsense and trash talking. It’s all far too WWE which is becoming an increasingly common, unwelcome addition to the UFC as ex-pro wrestlers join up. In regard to the fight in question the last word should stay with Pacquiao

Now I say to Floyd Mayweather Jr, ‘Don’t be a coward and face me in the ring, mano-a-mano and shut your big, pretty mouth, so we can show the world who is the true king of the ring’

Of course, all this nonsense could be nothing more than a promoter promoting…….

More on your marks

Lyoto Machida has taken the MMA world by storm. He has brought something a bit different to the table, his fighting style incorporates his Shotokan and specifically sport karate background, which along with his other martial arts training has helped him fight his way to the UFC Light Heavyweight Title.

He has had the karate forums buzzing due to the success of one of their own. For non-karate background MMA fighters he has proved a tricky customer, his illusive counter attack style is unusual in the UFC and has helped him to some great victories. While successful does Machida’s style support the use of ‘traditional’ stance training, such as sanbon kumite or the like? I’d argue against this assumption. If you refer to earlier posts (e.g. Marks, get set, GO!) I contend that this training begins from a position that fails to support positional movement, something akin to the sprinter preparing for a blocks start in response to the ‘get set’ order, when he/she should be set!

However this view is not held by everyone, Dan Djurdjevic, from ‘The Way of the Least Resistance‘ argues that

stances are points of transition; they are snapshots in a continuum of movement. Yes, they are often held statically in training for the sake of conditioning. But this is an exercise only…….. The traditional martial artist will flow through these postures in a dynamic way, never pausing. A camera taking stills will however be able to pick out individual points where the stance “was held” – however fleetingly.

This all sounds very good, and is clearly a huge improvement on the sanbon type training. Dynamically flowing through the postures never stopping, sounds much more like it. He includes some examples of Machida delivering punches to Evans from their fight at UFC98 and concludes that similar movements are apparent in many martial arts because “the human body can only be put into a limited number of functional postures”. Absolutely, I concur completely. All of this seems to negate the stiff sanbon type of training, as there is no flowing evident with these drills hardly being dynamic.

So if the stances are merely snapshots within movements why bother with the exercises to hold them or bother to practice them out of context of the entire movement? Dan expands saying

Virtually every traditional stance is just a lower, harder to hold, more “formal” manifestation of a move you will make in sparring

One example being the forward stance which “is just a boxer’s stance elongated with the back knee straightened” but which can be lunged into, similar to the first few steps of a sprinter out of the blocks (from another post). I would pretty much have to agree with all of this, other than the need to take the movements out of context and practise them ‘formally’. DD suggests the reason involves “kinaesthetic awareness” and “muscle-specific exercise”

The kinaethetics of any movement are gleaned sub-consciously as you practice that movement, while a contextually accurate movement is muscle-specific; as you learn you get a feeling for the movement rather than accurate knowledge of “a framework of known points in time and space”.

There is simply no need to practice separate parts of a movement out of context. By isolating parts of the movement the whole is compromised, and in terms of the sprinters starting position the movement is initiated from a sub-optimal position, i.e. sanbon kumite involves moving from lunge position to lunge position in a rather stilted way. If isolation of parts is necessary perhaps it would be better to practice the starting steps of a sprint!

Rather than practicing the sub-optimal stepping in stance, it would be better to practice lunging forward to punch on a heavy bag. For example, this KO with (lunge) step could be practiced on the heavy bag or the similar, very famous Marciano KO of Walcott. This practice could include the entire movement, thereby allowing the body to glean the kinaesthetics not only of the lunge step/stance but also of the shoulder and hip rotation, opposite side retraction and the diagonal action of the body using the serape muscles. There needs to be some bending of the bow……

The Knockout

In any kind of unarmed martial arts setting, sporting or self-defence the knockout is the most spectacular and effective way to end a contest/confrontation, against an armed assailant it becomes an even greater asset.

There are endless examples on you tube of boxers, MMA fighters and regular citizens knocking out the bad bloke. On the Fighting Arts Alliance Forum Steve Morris has gone into great detail on how a knockout can be effected from both close and longer range in terms of power generation and effect on the target, i.e. the head.

Using biomechanics with reference to great knockout fighters and the use of tools by skilled exponents, knowledge gleaned from these sources provides an insight to

being better able to deliver enough force to knock a guy out or stun him with a shot to the head, or drop him with a body shot, or even break bones with a blow

The article is in several parts over the course of a thread and contains numerous links for supporting evidence and illustrative purposes. The outcome is a wealth of information and tips and how to use this effectively to improve your chances of executing a KO on the bad guy. There really is a ton of information that can be applied to your training to bring BIG improvements. It’s a very well produced piece of work.

Some of what he covers includes

1. different ‘shots’ to effect a knockout
2. how the knockout occurs
3. rotational knockout
4. increasing mass, increasing velocity
5. levers & supportive structures
6. hammers & nail guns
7. the role of the body
8. training tips

Personally, I find the combination of science with real life examples invaluable, it really gives you something to chew on! Why not join up and have a look?

Absorbing the impression

In last weeks post about creating an impression of the early years Tyson I tried to get over how I attempted to achieve this rather abstract concept. It’s not easy to describe, almost by definition, because describing the process requires you to be left brained about a right brain activity. While, of course, the left and right hemisphere’s of the brain interact through the course of our everyday lives, the left hemisphere is dominant.

This is essential to enable us to complete our regular tasks, although at certain times the dominant side can interfere where it’s not wanted. An obvious example is when we’re under pressure, the left hemisphere can bully its way to the fore when really the right side is better placed to take control.

I’m really thinking of sporting examples, Tim Henman was a  great tennis player but toward the end of big matches you could see him tightening up and not going for the ‘big shots’. It was almost as if he was trying to consciously control what he was doing, when really he needed to let go and just play. The irony is, that letting go and just playing his game is probably what got him into the good position in a match.

In times of stress when snap judgements are required the subconscious is really set up to draw on our experience and to make a rapid decisions. This is part of the survival mechanism if only we were to work with these cognitions, see the Blink post. Of course, if the stress response is too severe we can become too aroused for anything other than fight, flight or freeze.

When not under stress we can relax the conscious left brain and allow the right brain to have more of a say. This is a very natural process and we all do this on a daily basis, when we are drifting off to sleep, or start to daydream. Any creative process involves fanciful right brain activity, but often though default left brain will butt in to rubbish that creativity with its logical criticism.

In terms of absorbing the impression you may want to build of Tyson you really do have to let the right side get fanciful, become child-like. This always reminds me of a TV program I watched as a kid. It was of a schoolboy who dreamed of playing cricket for England. It really struck a chord with me because I used to behave so much like the hero of the program. He’d be walking down the street with radio/tv commentary going on in his head as he struck the winning runs.

I’m not suggesting you actively embed a commentary of you destroying fighters in a Tyson-esque manner, although that might work, rather it’s that kind of daydream mind you need to activate in order to absorb the essence of Tyson. Open up and soak up the impression of him you get from watching clips like those in the previous post, then take that feeling and use it in training. It’s amazing how you can feel like you ARE Tyson.

I image my brain as a sponge, mopping up the essence of Tyson, this may or may not be appropriate for you, it’s a pretty personal experience.

It may sound ridiculous, but suspend belief, don’t listen to Mr Logic Left-brain, and give it a go. It’s not an immediate thing, and it does take some effort to try to extrapolate from watching to doing, but it’s a great tool and can help you improve if you give it a good go.

Watching and creating an impression

An essential part of the Morris Method involves watching the fight. Rather than being a passive observer, enjoying the entertainment or supporting a favourite fighter, the idea is to take key components from superior fighters and to use these in your training. Steve Morris encourages you to watch, empathise and take the impression of relevant aspects.

Watch the fight, empathise and take the impression. What on earth does that mean? The first fighter I watched in this in mind was Tyson, early years Tyson. I watched both his fights and clips of him training. The training clips are easier, perhaps, because you can get an idea of the physical aspects he was addressing, without being distracted by the raw power, speed and aggression on display in his fights. A very obvious feature of Tysons fights is the force he delivers, which generally knocked the other fighter senseless. A second noticeable feature is that the other bloke tended to be bigger, requiring Tyson to get in close to finish the opponent off.

The Force generated by Tyson, and anyone for that matter, is simple physics, F=ma, force equals mass multiplied by acceleration while his general tactic was to use evasion skills to get to his opponent to deliver the force. In an earlier post I included a great Tyson training clip, which I’ll embed below as it’s a great example of the kind of training Tyson used to accomplish these two key requirements of success, for him.

Throughout the clip you can see training designed to enhance force delivered via the two variables, mass and acceleration. Lots of speed work and use of the head to shift the mass into the target, thereby producing massive force. But the head movement was for more than just moving mass,  his head movement enabled evasive tactics. So from watching clips of Tyson training and fighting we can analyze and start to use these features in our training. We can begin to empathise with what he needed to do and how he achieved it and what it did to his opponents.

Now through this process it’s possible to build a useable impression of Tyson, of his speed, force, evasion and the obvious aggression. With a bit of imagionation you can use this impression to ‘become’ Tyson on the bag for the duration of that bag work, or similar. Using the personal impression you have built from watching the clips, using his training examples. In effect you take the essence of Tyson on display in the clips and using it in your training.

It’s difficult to describe, and I probably haven’t done a very good job, but while this process requires some lateral logic and a certain amount of trusting the subconscious mind it can help in a number of ways. An obvious example would be to call on the Tyson aggression to ramp up a lame bagwork session. Alternatively, you could apply the manner in which he uses his head in evasion drills, which does not mean simply repeat a particular drill but to perform it as Tyson would have.

If I think of Tyson now I imagine him doing the drill with the swinging weight which he evades with a lateral head movement and a punch. It’s fast aggressive and powerful and can get me going! There’s far more to watching a fight than entertainment.

Speed 2 – Timing, part one

At the beginning of the Speed 1 post, I alluded to the illusion of speed, brought to mind by a post on Marks Training. One  attribute that great fighters have, or used to have, is excellent timing, which makes a fighter extremely fast, or at least appear so. Certainly, if your opponent has superior timing he/she is on you in a flash and you end up on the receiving end.

Roy Jones Jnr was/is a great boxer, and his timing was/is great. Being a bit of a showman he’d mess around a lot but his timing, combined with his natural speed, not only got him out of trouble but tended to put the other bloke in a spot of bother. Here’s a highlight clip which illustrates this nicely.

When watching this sort of clip its easy to get caught up in the fighters speed or his larking around. But if you watch closely, you will notice that he always seems to know when to hit and has time to do so. He even uses the dancing/showmanship to put the other fighter off guard and lure him in. Moreover, he uses the silly movements as a plyometric action to load the shot that follows.

He times his actions off the other fighters movements, or jumps in between his opponents movements and then overwhelms them with his strikes, or strikes and moves out (Steve Morris refers to this as syncopation; inserting a beat between two beats). Jones doesn’t stop either, so that he is always somewhere his opponent can’t hit him, or at least can’t get to hit him enough to cause any real damage.

Jones was/is very good at inserting his movements into the interval of time of his opponents, whatever that movement maybe, he uses the whole repertoire. He syncopates on the other fighters actions with whatever movement or strike he desires.

The clip clearly illustrates exceptional timing on the part of RJJnr, or put another way, it illustrates the insertion his efforts into the interval of time between the strikes of his opponent. The second part of this post will attempt to describe a Morris Method drill designed to develop timing and exploitation of the interval of time.

From Khan’t to yes he can!

One year ago Khan lay battered, knocked out in under a minute by Colombian Breidis Prescot. Destroyed and despondent Khan sacked his trainer, picked himself up and searched out one of the best trainers in the world, Freddie Roach. Roach trains Pacquiao so at the very least Khan had good training company!

Pacquiao has improved hugely under Roach and Khan could expect to also. The recent clip I posted of Pacquiao training gives a little insight into at least some of the methods Roach uses. Intense training with fresh sparring partners coming in to test the fighter.

Amir Khan is now WBA World Champion after he beat Andreas Kotelnik with a landslide unanimous decision showing a lot of improvement in terms of workrate, defence and movement. Clearly, Roach’s strategy to avoid a repeat of the Prescot debacle was to make Khan harder to knock out. By keeping Khan working, throwing an enourmous number of lightening fast shots makes him difficult to be hit, this coupled with improved movement and defence frustrated Kotelnik. Although not completely illusive Khan managed to bob, weave and side step his opponent, even becoming Mayweather-esque at times!!

Kotelnik probably expected Khan to run out of gas and then be able to pick him off with bit KO punches. This never looked on the cards.

Training with Pacquiao has to improve your footwork, even if you just copy and try to match him. That in itself can only help. As Roach said after the fight, Khan is still very young, 22, there’s a lot of improvement possible. Training at the Wild Card will improve him more and more.

Earlier in his career he didn’t look too convincing. There was always heart in your mouth moments, this preformance was much more assured, he really looked the part. He has room for improvement but if he learns like Pacquiao has as a result of Roach’s influence, the future is very bright for Khan.

Talking after the fight Roach explained: “We’ve got to learn how to deal with guys who put pressure on because guys are going to watch this tape and see he had a little trouble with the pressure. It’s something we’ll work on, of course. It gives us some great stuff to work on in the gym. We’ll sit down and watch the tape and he will improve.”

Gregory McCalium beaten

Gregory McCalium

Sense prevails! With the justice system often favouring the perpetrator, or so it seems, it’s refreshing to see the opposite. McCalium was not the victim in this instance, he broke into the house of neighbours armed with a knife. Pensioner Frank Corti defended himself and his wife by giving McCalium a few licks.

Former soldier Frank Corti subdued his attacker before the police arrived, “The jury might well have concluded you got what you deserved,” prosecutor Angela Morris said to McCalium during sentencing. Indeed, I bet they did. Although 72, Frank Corti was able to use his former boxing skills to sort out the 24 year old burglar who ended up being sentenced to 4 and a half years. Cool, age is just a number then!