Archive for Martial Arts
Tai Chi Chuan Tricks
Posted by: | CommentsI just saws this clip here and for a second, I didn’t really know what to say…
I’ve been practicing tai chi chuan for over 13 years now. It’s one of the main arts I study and teach. I read extensively on the topic and look everywhere to learn more about it. I like to think I’m at least a little bit informed on this martial art… But what this trick with the cup has to do with tai chi chuan, I really, really don’t know. It’s a parlor trick and not even a good one at that.
Time and time again, I’ve seen people attach tai chi chuan to whatever other thing they’re into: Tai chi and NLP, tai chi and jogging and even nude tai chi. You name it, somebody made a DVD or book about it for 19.99$…
The sad part is how this makes the art even more of a joke than it already is in the eyes of most martial artists. In truth, that doesn’t affect me all that much; I know what I can and can’t do in the art. But it gets tiresome to try and explain to new students that tai chi chuan won’t teach you to levitate or jump tall buildings in a single bound.
Oh well…
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Martial Arts Reality Check, Part Two
Posted by: | CommentsI just ran across this piece of news.
Long story short, a guy gets shot 21 times and still survives… Just stop and imagine that for a second: 21 bullets enter your body and you don’t die. Talk about being lucky!
Granted, no vital organs were hit but the guy got shot in the arms, legs, abdomen and jaw. Even though these aren’t vital organs, there are still plenty of arteries there. So despite having no organ damage, he could have bled out and died anyway. But he didn’t.
So what?
Well, this just goes to show that you can’t always predict what’s going to happen when you use force, deadly or otherwise. Because let’s be honest: if somebody says a couple cops are going to fire 46 shots at you, hitting you with 21, would you really think you’d survive? Nope. And in most cases you’d be right. But as this story here proves, there are exceptions.
To be clear: I’m not saying you should go out and make a LEO draw on you because you might just get lucky and survive. What I’m saying is: you never know what’s going to happen when the feces hits the rotating blades.
Now you might be thinking “Duh!” and that’s your prerogative but my point is this: even if you accept that the most unlikely things can and will happen in a fight, that won’t stop you from making assumptions about fighting and combat. Making assumptions is just human nature and we all fall prey to this bad habit. To make matter worse, we usually don’t realize we make these assumptions. But we sure do train according to them. And there’s the problem…
I train in both combat sports and traditional martial arts because I believe they both have value. In fact, they compliment each other very well, providing you distinguish between the different environments they operate in. To do that, you make up an intellectual image of what each of these two categories of disciplines looks like. You make this image by drawing from your own experience, reading, watching videos of actual fights, talking to others who share their experience, etc. All these things combine into some big-ass assumptions about what a fight looks like in a MMA or similar competition and how things are on the street and in self defense scenarios.
Chances are good you’re right on the money for some and totally wrong for others (Unless, of course, you’re so totally awesome you’re never, ever, EVER, wrong about anything.)
But you won’t know that until you start fighting for real, regardless in which environment.
Dude, shoot me 45 times more! I can take it!
Get to the point already! Shees…
Here’s the rub: Read More→
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Martial Arts Reality Check
Posted by: | CommentsThis post needs some background before I come to the martial arts stuff, so bear with me…
This weekend, I attended my brother-in-law’s wedding. He married a beautiful bride and they had a great day. The wedding party went on until early morning and everybody had a great time. Especially me because I:
- Got to do my imitation of the Will & Carlton dance with everybody watching. The roar of laughter that followed must mean my performance was good enough. (I choose not to consider any other possibilities, thank you very much…)
- Didn’t have to drive so I could drink a bit more than usual.
- As a result of the previous bullet, I danced even sillier than usual. Which resulted in people laughing very, very hard. Which only egged me on to bust some more dance moves. And so on.
- Inhaled helium and spoke in a funny voice, along with a few other people. They were a lot funnier than me but we still laughed so hard somebody actually fell from a chair.
- Got to slow-dance with my beautiful lady on a huge dance floor. Lots more fun than dancing in the kitchen or living room like we usually do.
- Was surrounded by people who are close to me for the entire day and we all had a great time together.
Anyway, I had a blast. In fact, it’s been a long time since I was able to kick back and relax like that. After so many years of working on awareness and prevention, I don’t feel at ease anymore in a crowd. Particularly when there’s a lot of alcohol involved, which was the case here. Simply because there’s such a high potential for violence in these circumstances. It usually goes something like:
- One drunk spills his beer over another and the fight is on.
- Somebody eyes another guy’s woman (or the guy thinks she’s being eyeballed) and fists start flying.
- You’re having way too much fun for some people so they decide to fuck up your day by picking a fight.
And I’m not even mentioning pickpockets, gangs or other criminals. Go to any big public gathering and they’re bound to be there too.
But at this wedding, it was invitation only and there were no assholes among the guests. Even the wildest drunk didn’t come close to needing to be calmed down. And party-crashers couldn’t sneak up on us; I’d have spotted them long before they even came close to me. So I got to relax, let down my guard and just have a blazing good time. A rare occasion for me.
For the record, when we left and went to the parking lot, I cranked up the awareness and prepared for trouble. I know when it’s time to have fun bit also when that time has passed… 
What’s the point, dude?
The point is: every now and then, you need to do a reality check.
In my opinion, and also my experience, people in the martial arts and self defense community are very bad at this. In fact, I’ll raise my hand right now and confess to be a big sinner in this regard. I’m so involved and fascinated by everything concerning martial arts, self defense and training for these two that I sometimes lose perspective.
The correct perspective is that, as far as I know, nobody is actively trying to kill me. This means I’m not in danger of a violent death while I’m typing this blog post. Following this logic, the only danger for violence is random violence. Random violence means: Read More→
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Progressive Relaxation Training for Martial Arts
Posted by: | CommentsOne of the aspects that always intrigued me most in the martial arts is the mental and psychological side. I read as much as I could on this subject but often find the information too woo-woo or pretty much useless because it lacks practical guidelines. Some 20 years ago, I discovered Progressive Muscle Relaxation and have used it ever since for both my own training and for helping clients. It’s one of the fastest and most efficient techniques I know to teach people how to relax.
But relaxation in and of itself isn’t enough to become a better martial artist or a more skilled fighter. You have to know how to apply it to your training. Through the years, I developed my own way of training and teaching this and wrote about it a bit in Loren’s book Solo Training 2. But when a friend of mine, Professor Drew Anderson, brought out an e-mail course on this subject specifically for martial artists, I was obviously very excited to learn more about it.
Drew was kind enough to send me the course and it turned out to be a really good one. Some of the material was similar to what I was already doing but I also picked up a lot of really good, new information. So I asked Drew if he would be up for a special deal here on my blog and he agreed. Before I explain the details, here’s a short interview with Drew and some more information on his course:
Could you introduce yourself?
My name is Drew Anderson. I’m a psychology professor and licensed clinical psychologist.
I’ve been athletic all my life, but I didn’t start martial arts until my 20s. I dabbled for a bit before getting deeply involved in judo. I trained in judo up to the rank of ikkyu but had a career-ending back injury that forced me to quit. I have since been training in a form of silat.
What led you to develop this course?
When I was doing judo I found that my own body tension was really interfering with my performance, both in randori and in competition, and I began to adapt some of the relaxation training I used in my psychology work to my martial arts. I’ve continued to use it in my silat training and find it helps a great deal.
This course is based on progressive relaxation training (PRT), probably the most well-studied form of relaxation that has been developed. It has been shown to increase relaxation and muscular awareness in literally dozens of research studies.
What is PRT and how does it work?
PRT works by helping you become more aware of levels of tension and relaxation in your body, and teaches you to adjust your levels for optimal performance. For most people, this involves learning to relax excess muscle tension.
How do martial artists benefit from it?
First, optimizing muscle tension can make your movements faster, smoother, and more efficient. Second, it can help you deal with stressful situations, ranging from pre-competition jitters to a confrontation at a bar.
Does PRT work for all martial arts or only specific ones?
It can work for any martial art. The “harder” style martial arts tend to not emphasize relaxation, so individuals studying those styles can typically benefit a great deal from PRT. And although the “softer” arts tend to have more relaxation-type skills built into them, there are still some subtleties that can they can pick up from PRT.
What kind of results can people expect from the course?
They can expect to become much more aware of their own muscular tension and relaxation and how it affects their movement. They will also develop ways of regulating their muscular tension to optimal levels. Finally, they will learn exercises specifically developed to help adapt these skills for martial arts performance.
How long does it take to get those results?
Most people are able to notice levels of muscular tension and relax almost immediately after beginning to practice, but generally it takes a week or two of practice to be able to begin to apply these skills in their day-to-day life. The course follows this notion; you first learn the basic skills and then later work on applications of those skills.
Professor Drew Anderson on the left training with another friend of mine, Mr. Frank Garza
You can get access to this course at a discount price and here’s how:
- The course takes 6 weeks to complete. Three weeks are foundation weeks- learning the basics, and 3 weeks are applied.
- The regular price is 200US$. However, as a member of my site you get a 25% discount when you sign up for Drew’s email course on Progressive Relaxation Training for Martial Arts.
- To get this discount, you need the promo code you’ll find after you log into your free membership account.
- Send Drew an email with the promo code, he’ll send you the details to pay via Paypal or credit card and you’re good to go.
- Drew offers a 100% refund if you’re not satisfied by the course so don’t hesitate to sign up!
So if you haven’t already made your free membership account, do so now and you can take advantage of this promotion. You’ll not only find the promo code but also a bunch of free videos and an E-book. Enjoy!
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Martial arts in every day life, Part Two
Posted by: | CommentsAfter my first post on martial arts in every day life, I received a fair bit of comments. Dennis, a tai chi brother of mine, left me a lot of ideas to think about and here’s my reply:
“Would the most impressive martial artists out there and/or full time marital artists turn their martial arts “training” on and off depending on whether they were suited up at in the gym: maybe not. Would some aspects, awareness for example, be “on” at almost all times? Maybe. If it’s body mechanics we’re talking about would they really bend, lift, move differently because they were not “in training”. That might depend on how you think about it (I’ll get to that in a minute).”
The aspects you mention would certainly be on most of the time, regardless of where that martial artist would be. At least, that would be the goal. If not, what’s the point in training?
As for the body mechanics, there certainly is a lot of overlap between training and daily life. However, when was the last time you did anything resembling our version of “snake creep down” in your every day life? I’m exaggerating but my point is that the overlap is not 100%.
“Maybe the point where you would disagree depends on some assumptions that are at least relative: first who says you have to “seek out” the opportunity to practice – again with regard to body mechanics, doesn’t training become unconscious and automatic in terms of how you move transfer force, use leverage, etc.? “
It sure does. A personal example: I use “seven stars” footwork all the time in daily life. It’s almost second nature now. But you’ll almost never catch me using it *exactly* like we practice it in class. I’d look like a fool, zig-zagging all over the place like that.
Some parts indeed become automatic but (for me at least) they are never as good as when I’m actually training. But I think that’s only to be expected.
“You argument against the time efficiency pre-supposes that it’s faster for example to turn on/off the light with a hand: maybe. Maybe it wouldn’t matter much. My point above is that walking to the kitchen to drink a glass of water wouldn’t necessarily involve additional time. (And I thought that I was only one turning light switches on/off with my feet:-)”
It wouldn’t necessarily take up more time but in all probability, it will: Read More→
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