This is something I read yesterday and made quite an impression. It's taken from the book Flow in Sports, by Susan A. Jackson and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Human Kinetics 1999). The subject of the book is how to achieve flow for optimal sports experience. Flow is all about focus but it is also a harmonious experience where mind and body are working together efortlessly. Here's the text:
"Part of being totally absorbed is not having any mental space for worrying about one's self. Letting go of concern for what others are thinking of you is freedom from self-consciousness".
Have you ever managed to achieve flow while practicing your sport? Do you think winning is an important enough reason to practice any sport or is the flow experience more important? I tend to incline towards flow. I suggest you take a look at this book. Your practice AND your performance will never be the same afterwards.
Many fellow martial artists who know that I practice Systema Russian Martial Art under Mikhail Ryabko, ask me every now and then if his punches are as heavy as they seem in various videos around the net. Well, I can only describe Mikhail's strikes as "life altering", and so are the strikes of his son Daniil, from whom I have taken more...
A large number of people who attend one of Mikhail's seminars and get hit by him, stay fixated on the punches (man, how does he do it?). This is not necessarily bad since, as Daniil Ryabko once told me, "all Systema styles are good, but when it comes to punching the Ryabko style is way better". On the other side the equation Systema=Punching is missing the subtle essence of the art, which is the natural integration of breathing, body structure and movement in a harmonic whole. And, keep in mind that this indegration is good for you not only when you want to punch someone, but also when you want to play basketball, dance the salsa, get your groceries out of the trunk of your car... well, you name it!
Now that I've said all of the above, if you still insist to know what Systema punching is all about, there are two DVD sets out there that are going to help you a lot, Val Riazanov's Ballistic Striking and Rob Poyton's Systema Punching Power Workshop, that teaches you how to punch like a hammer, training with a... sledgehammer. But the basis of correct Systema punching is using mainly the weight of your fist (an attribute described as "heavy hands" by many practitioners of the art) and not the bodyweight transfer from one leg to the other as is practiced in boxing for example. So, although it might sound crazy, in Systema you don't put your bodyweight behind your punches. You can,but you don't have to, it is a choice but not a necessity. This is tactically useful, because without body movement, your strikes are much less telegraphic. For the MMA fanatics, who tend to trash Systema as "impossible to apply in the cage", please notice the punching mechanics of Fedor and Alexander Emelianenko. I'm not saying that these guys are practicing Systema - what I'm saying is that they don't use much hip torque and still they hit harder than most fighters. This I guess is the Russian way of punching, derived from Cossack Boxing, distilled by Systema practitioners, but also present in other Russian styles of fist fighting.
Anyway, if you're interested in how to acquire "heavy hands", here's a little video filmed last summer, when Mikhail Ryabko paid a short visit to Athens and the Systema Athens school, which was still under construction back then. When he found a hack hammer lying around, he took the opportunity to demonstrate an interesting analogy between using a hammer and punching. I think the point he's trying to make is obvious and a translation from Russian or Greek is not necessary. Just try it and let me know the results!
Always make sure you enjoy your training, Spyro Katsigiannis Systema Russian Martial Art & Filipino Kali instructor, San Shou coach.
This was a question posed by a user in Yahoo Answers. The answer I gave him was voted as the best one. Includes a number of points to consider if you always want to be on the aggressive when sparring, plus an excellent drill to help you back into the game if you find yourself becoming a punching bag for your opponent. Read on:
Question: "I'm way too passive during my freefighting/sparring matches. I find that I naturally wait and then react which always makes me end up in a bad situation. Anyone here know of some good training tips for turning on the aggression and going on the offense?"
Answer: First of all, not being naturally aggressive and reacting to an opponent's attack is not necessarily a bad thing. Lots of fighters have built their careers on good counter-fighting skills, right? So, to begin with, a good idea is to polish your counterattacks. There are many good resources out there (books, DVDs etc) that you can choose from and study, depending on the style you practice. On the other side, if you want to be proactive instead of reactive in your fighting, here's a few things you should consider:
1. An aggressive fighter must be able to depend on his conditioning. Are your body's energy systems able to cope with the needs of constantly moving forward and generating power? "Fatigue makes cowards of us all". If you want to be a hero, tons of sweat is part of the price you have to pay.
2. Having a plan always helps. It makes no sense if your aggression is only translated to charging your opponent like a bull. You must be aggressive in trying to force your game, so find out what your game is. For example, a fighter with Filipino Martial Arts experience might first try to angle and attack the moment his opponent tries to re-orient. The downside to having a plan is depending on it too much. Make sure you have a plan B in case plan A fails, otherwise you will keep on trying and failing which always results in frustration and a downward psychological spiral.
3. An aggressive fighter must be tough, i.e. able to take a strike and keep going until he overwhelms his opponent. Are you willing to take strikes and keep going? If not, once again, counter-fighting is your best option.
4. If you are not naturally aggressive, in order to have your chance on the offensive, you must first curb down your opponents aggression. This means that he must respect your power, attacking must always entail some fear factor for him. If every time he attacks, your counter-attack is a pat on his cheek, he'll keep on coming till he breaks you down. I repeat, I don't know which style of martial arts you practice, but keep in mind that beautiful, flowery techniques are useless if you can't back them up with power.
5. Finally, and this is the most important part, you must stop being judgmental about your game. This is not some sort of self-help BS, it's sports psychology. If every time you spar you're thinking "I'm not aggressive enough, I must attack more, oh, he's overwhelming me, I don't know what do do" and so on, your train of thoughts is on a downward slope. When fighting, your thoughts must NOT have either a qualitative or a quantitative dimension. Instead, focus on a set of simple, neutral set of instructions. For example, when an inexperienced fighter finds himself cornered, the first thing that happens is that his breathing is disrupted. Then, he just covers up, stops moving and practically turns himself into a punching bag. In this case he might focus on the set of instructions "breathe - keep moving - hit back" and repeat it over and over, in his mind, of course. Get your self a sparring partner and try the following drill (it is a DRILL, not all out fighting): have your partner throw continuous attacks at you (in combinations, not blitzkrieg). Your job is to block, evade and move away until you start to feel that you are loosing control, that you're overwhelmed and helpless. At exactly that moment, start repeating "breathe - keep moving - hit back" in your mind (or any other set of instructions you want to come up with) and unleash your counterattack till your opponent retreats. Now start throwing continuous attacks at him and have him block, evade, move out of the way until he feels overwhelmed. Continue this way back and forth, increasing the intensity if you wish. Try not to begin your counter-attack until you feel overwhelmed. This is a psychological exercise, the point of it being to taste frustration and still be able to spring into action, so you must get a little frustrated first! Give it a try and let me know the results.
Are you a boxing enthusiast, a fighter or a coach? Here's a Squidoo page I made on stuff you can read or watch to broaden your knowledge on the sport of boxing. The page is not complete of course, I am updatting it every day, so you better bookmark it! If you know of a good resource on boxing which is not included in my list please leave a comment to let me know!
The Fence, by Geoff Thompson You probably know this already, but Geoff Thompson knows violence. He has worked as a doorman for nine years in the clubs and bars of Coventry during the eighties and those were really violent years. And of course, when you've been shovelling s**t for a long time, you sure learn how to use the shovel in the most efficient ways. Thompson has been also studying martial arts for a very long time - he's done karate, judo, boxing, Sambo, Greco-Roman and Freestyle wrestling, you name it. He's produced more than thirty instructional DVDs on these martial arts, but still, when you ask him which one he considers as the most important, he always answers "the Fence".
What is, then, this "Fence"? It's a self-protection principle, so simple that it becomes sophisticated enough to need explanation. There are three kinds of street attacks, according to Thompson. The first one is the match fight, all but obsolete in our days, since practically nobody is going to honourably ask you to step outside and settle your differences. The second kind of attack is the ambush. The third and most common attack is the one leading to the "three second fight", where your opponent uses stealth, talks his way close to you, so that he can knock you out with a surprise attack. Why would he want to come close to you? Because from a talking distance, you don't have enough time to block his attack - whatever he throws at you, you eat.
So from talking distance, you need a structure that allows you to control your opponent and preempt with an attack of your own, if needed. As Thompson explains in detail in this DVD, this structure is the Fence, a non-agressive hand posture that can be used to: - occupy the space between you and your opponent so that he can't move even closer to grappling distance, - monitor his attacking weapons (hands, feet and head, that is) through light tactile contact, - psychologicaly control him in a subconcsious way, - launch an attack with your "heavy artillery" (probably the right cross or left hook), in case you don't manage to verbally defuse the situation. Thompson also describes the signs you should look for to know that your opponent is ready to launch attack (e.g. when he's talking in single syllable words, like "so?", "what?" and so on) so that you can literally beat him to the punch. One of the most eye-opening and amusing parts of the DVD comes when Geoff describes the different variations in which a number of fellow doormen from Coventry used the fence.
The DVD is a digitised version of the VHS tape that has been on the market for quite some time, so the quality of the image is not outstanding, but there's nothing here you will loose because of the analogue picture.
Get your hands on a copy of this if you want to reinforce your empty hand self-protection skills. And regarding the "empty hand-part", keep in mind that Guro Marc Denny of the Dog Brothers, was clearly influenced by Thompson's fence when he came upon the concept of the "Kali Fence", which is to be used against knife attacks, as explained in the DVD series Die Less Often.
OK, I know I've written about this one before, but that was just a review, now I want to include this in my Top 10, because there are a lot DVDs on boxing out there (and, I hate to blow my own whistle here, but I've seen almost all of them), but this one is better and I want everybody (well, at least the few dozens that read my blog) to know. Why is it better? Because almost all the other DVDs treat boxing as if it is as sum of seemingly unconnected info, separate responses to separate stimuli. This one treats boxing as a system of movement that is born from this dogma: "Boxing is the art of hitting an opponent from the furthest distance, exposing the least amount of your body while getting into position to punch with maximum leverage and not getting hit". This means that every movement, every technique, every training method shown here, however basic or advanced is based and built upon a set of fundamentals. So, what Weldon does here is first teach you the correct body structure from which to throw your punches, then the correct way to move maintanining this structure. All the stuff that follows - the correct way to use the equipment (top and bottom bag, speed bag, heavy bag, focus mitts), the ring strategies and so on - are dependent on the degree of your understanding of the basic skills. It may sound simplistic, but, believe me, there are a lot of secrets revealed and a lot of questions answered in these three DVDs. One other thing: when I say Weldon treats boxing like a system of movement, don't expect to see a geeky doctor of kinesiology presenting the videos. Kenny is an old-timer, tough as nails, that reffers to his fighters as "little pups" or "sissies" - no scientific jargon or political correctness here. He's a trainer of champions (including Raul Marquez, Mike McCallum, Vinny Pazienza and Evander Holyfield), he's one of boxing's living treasures, when it comes to boxing coaches, he's da man. And a final notice: if you're interested in a "boxing for MMA" instructional steer clear of this... But if you're a wannabe fighter, a trainer who wants to know better or a sweet science afficionado, you really can't spend your money any better than this.
Systema UK Fear Inoculation Training Workshop (single DVD available from www.systemauk.com)
Not many resoursces out there dealing with the effects of fear in combat performance. I can think of Geoff Thompson's Fear: The Friend of Exceptional People (this one's a book) but the famous Brittish doorman-martial artist-award winning writer approaches the subject from a philosofical, self-help kind of way. There's also Scott Sonnon's Fisticuffs – Peak Performance Pugilism series of tapes, probably the most scientific sport psychology approach to combat sports I've ever came across, but this one is currently unavailable – I have it in my collection, you probably don't. Then, there's the Systema UK Fear Inoculation Training Workshop, by Systema Russian Martial Art instructors Rob Poyton and Paul Genge.
One of the most important difference between the Russian Martial Art and other, more typical combat systems is that the Russians view combat from a psycho-physiological perspective, as opposed to a purely technical analysis (when attacked by A you react doing B, and so on). The Russian promise is the following: if you can control your breathing when under the stress of combat, then you can control your body structure and movement, which means that you have access to your combat skills, the techniques. Not only is it simple, but it kind of makes sense: the old boxing coaches (perhaps the new ones also) always tell their fighters that they should not hold their breath when cornered... Of course what you must do is one thing – what you can do is a whole different story. Try this experiment the next time you're at the sea or the pool: Swim to the point where water is up to your chest, take a deep breath, dive underwater and lie on the bottom. Have a training partner (or a friend, or your wife, whatever) stand on your chest to keep you underwater and stay there for as long as possible. You probably can handle this for a minute or so - then you first panic and then you start jerking around (like a fish outside the water) in an attempt to free your self and reach the surface. That specific moment you're panicking, you are not hurting yourself. It's the automated way your body is trying to protect itself, telling you that you're not supposed to do this. It kind of works the same way in combat: if, when fighting, you lose control of your breathing, your body tells you that you can't do this, that you should give it up. What happens next is easy to guess.
Rob Poyton and Paul Genge are top notch Systema instructors: not only are they highly skilled, they also have this ability to take what is sometimes taught by the Russian masters in an intuitive way and organise it in easy to understand and practice training drill progressions. This Fear Inoculation Training Workshop filmed live during a 2006 Systema UK seminar is a good expample. The first part of the workshop is an analysis of the way the human brain functions under stress – a bit of scinentific jargon to help you understand what is the specific purpose of this kind of training. There's also a comparison between the Systema way and the ways other martial arts deal with the effects of fear. The second part tackles breath control as a means of controlling your mindset when under combat stress. There are tons of drills here to help you maintain an unimpeded breathing pattern when you're being sweared at, kicked, smashed on the floor by the weight of three persons and contorted by three partners aplying joint locks to multiple joints. Most of the drills are unorthodox, some are slightly sadistic, but if you practice them (I have) you'll find out that they work. Finally there's a third part with numerous drills that cultivate instnctive movement when one is under attack: this is a way to short-circuit the "freezing" effect the adrenaline rush sometimes has on your body. The perticipants start by simply moving out of the way of a surprise charge of a partner towards them and graduate to countering full speed and power punching attacks.
If you don't have a kamikaze or a predator mindset but still want to be able to handle things when in a violent situation, or if you think you have to become some sort of Gothic monster to be able to fight, there is a lot for you to learn by watching this DVD. Really excellent work!
