Fight Ready!

Combination Man!

2006-09-29T15:00:00.000-07:00

What’s one of the quickest ways to take a man out of a fight? Body shots.

Boxers and Mixed Martial Arts fighters spend hours an hours building up their abdominal muscles so that they can shrug off heavy body blows.

Repeated heavy punches and leg strikes, to the body, causes a fighter to shift protection to the body and opening up the head to strikes such as the hook and upper cut.

So how do you target the body? Combinations are the bread and butter of the fight game. Three and four punch combination are extremely hard to defense.

For example, you could throw a jab to your opponent’s face, and then follow up with a hook to the body and an upper cut to the chin. Alternatively you could throw a jab, hook and knee combination.

There are many ways to initiate and terminate an attack phase. Practice them on a heavy bag and in your sparring matches. Work on them until you can attack from any position.

Always attack with combinations, single punch attacks often leave you open to counters. If you keep your opponent busy defending against your attacks he has to work much harder to launch his own.

Stay inside of your opponent’s decision loop.

Mix things up. Combinations can and should include punches, kicks and knee strikes. Don’t get into the habit of throwing the same combinations all the time or your opponent will know exactly when to launch his attack. Keep him guessing and responding to you and he won’t have time to make you respond to him.

The Sharpshooter

2006-09-28T12:44:00.000-07:00

The jab is generally used defensively to keep an opponent off balance; so they can’t strike you. Sometimes it is used offensively to setup a follow on punch such as a hook, cross or even a leg strike.

Properly delivered the jab screens your opponent’s vision and temporally breaks his balance.

Delivered improperly it is nothing more than a convenient handle which your opponent can use to control your body.

Delivery:

So how do you deliver a jab? It’s really a simple and straight forward punch. From the guard position you extend your lead hand to the fully extended position. Generally the target is your opponents head, but it can be delivered against other targets. After contact you retract it as quickly as possible to the ready position. Ensure that the path traveled is straight back, not downward.

Make sure that you are putting more of you weight on your lead foot than your rear foot. Don’t lean too far forward or you will put yourself off balance. It’s much more difficult to throw a follow up technique if you have too much weight on your rear foot.

Most people target their opponents head, but the jab can be effectively used against the body.

Common Mistakes:

Many people will leave their jab hanging out in space for a short period of time; others drop the punch towards their waist after impact. Both techniques leave you open to counter strikes and submissions.

Leave it out too long and your opponent will grab onto it and control you. Dropping it down to your waist leaves you open to an opponents hook or cross.

Power or Speed:

The jab is considered a speed punch as it lacks the power of a properly delivered hook, cross or overhand punch. You almost never see a boxer or marital artist knocked out by a jab.

A trick I was taught early in my martial arts training was to put my power hand forward. I can punch much harder with my left hand so my jab was greatly improved. The theory is that if you show a harder jab, your opponent will wonder just how hard the rest of your punches are.

Personally, I haven’t seen anyone in a martial arts bout noticing anything. I have noticed that it can intimidate some of the more inexperienced fighters you might meet in a street fight.

Properly delivered the jab is a great way to set up your opponent for various follow-up techniques. Use it often and you’ll cause your opponent plenty of headaches.

Blended Martial Arts for Self Defense

2006-08-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

I’ve never been one to enjoy performing hours and hours of kata. That doesn’t mean I don’t like to practice my martial arts moves, just that I prefer them to be more active and realistic.

Over the years, I have searched for an effective martial arts style that fits my stature and my mental outlook. I’m a small man 68 inches and 185 pounds. So I need a method of self defense that allows me to be effective in any combat situation at any range.

As a small man or woman you can count on your bigger assailant attempting to control you with his size and strength. Often bigger attackers feel they can take liberties because of their size.

In my youth I was involved in a fight almost daily, I just don’t deal well with bullies. I decided early on that the butt kicking I got for defending myself, wasn’t any worse than the butt kicking I got for not defending myself.

The main difference is that by standing up for myself, I only had to deal with the bully once. By not standing up for myself, I would have had to endure the bully over and over and over…

Of course none of us really knew how to fight so no one got hurt, just embarrassed. As I got older, I began learning how to defend myself by studying different fighting styles.

It wasn’t until I went to Fort Benning for Infantry Training that I began to understand what it really means to fight.

The hardest part of learning a style is sorting out the advertising hype from the substance. Every style of martial arts can be an effective form of self defense, but not all schools or instructors live up to their hype.

The very first thing you need to do is put together a list of your goals. Just make a short bullet list of what you want out of the martial arts.

My list might look like this.

Physical Fitness

Weight Loss
Stamina/Endurance

Self Defense

Maximum effectiveness regardless of the damage to my opponent
Be able to protect my family

Self Confidence

I don’t want to be a victim

Easy to learn, easy to use, effective

Doesn’t take years to learn
Can quickly takedown an opponent

The great thing about the martial arts is that there is a style for every person. I am a great believer in matching your style to your weapons.

For me, this turned out to be a combination of American Kickboxing and Brazilian Jui-Jitsu. The two styles combine to allow me to defend myself across all zones of engagement. It also allows me to defend against all opponents of all sizes.

While the vast majority of people who have attacked me have been larger than I am, it is the ones who are my same size who have given me the most trouble. So my style has to enable me to defend against the largest range of opponents.

No single style seemed to fit my need. Blending the styles of Brazilian Jui-Jitsu and Kickboxing has proven an effective mix. In fact, it‘s really just a real world version of what you see in most Mixed Martial Arts competitions.

The differences are that you aren’t going for a tap out. Letting an opponent out of an arm bar or choke to start fighting you again is insanity. In a self defense situation you need to do enough damage to stop your attacker from continuing his attack.

Be careful though, in today’s society going beyond this can get you into legal trouble. Even though you were attacked and simply defended yourself you could be sued by your attacker for hurting him or you could be jailed for use of excessive force.

Thank you liberals!

In Search of the Perfect Combat Martial Art

2006-08-02T09:24:00.000-07:00

People love debate! Some will argue over anything and everything; just to be difficult. I’m one of them! One debate I hear continuously is what is the most effective combat martial art?

No simple answer to this question exists, but depending on your goals almost any art will suffice. The most effective art is the one you enjoy and will stick with.

There are some things to consider when you are thinking about beginning training in the martial arts, or switching from one art to another.

THE ART OR THE ARTIST

It is my belief that the heart of the person who studies a martial art is more important than the martial art itself. This is especially true if you are studying martial arts to use in a real world combat scenario. A dangerous man is a dangerous man, no matter what style he has chosen to study.

I have seen black belts who were practically unable to defend themselves when confronted with a violent attacker. They were mentally unable to apply the moves they had studied. They were awesome in the dojo, but were helpless in the real world.

Conversely, I have seen people with little formal training defend themselves effectively. What did these people have that the black belts didn’t? They had the mental toughness needed to respond aggressively to their attackers.

REALITY-BASED TRAINING

The best way to overcome this inability to apply a technique in an actual situation is to use reality-base training.

Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall, the U. S. Army’s official historian, discovered only 15 percent of soldiers actually fired their weapons with the intent to kill the enemy.

As a result, the U. S. Army altered its training methods. They changed from traditional bull’s-eye targets to popup targets. In this new training the soldier is trained to engage the target as it appears. Since the target is available for a short time, soldiers must quickly identity and engage the target. This conditions them to engage targets that mimic human shape.

Using this type of training the U. S. Army increased combat effectiveness from 15 percent, to over 55 percent in Korea and an astounding 95 percent in Vietnam!

REALITY-BASED MARTIAL ARTS

Many martial arts are so grounded in the past that they are unable to adapt to modern combat situations. This doesn’t mean they aren’t worth studying, but you need to know what you are getting.

For instance, Tae Kwon Do is a wonderful art form. But it just doesn’t translate well into street situations.

There are several forms of unarmed combat that utilize reality-based training to enhance the ability of their students to apply the techniques. To qualify as a reality-based martial art, the style must spend a significant amount of time allowing its students to actually fight.

A REALITY-BASED STYLE

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is one of the styles that utilize this kind of training. Practitioners of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu spend a significant amount of time practicing their techniques on each other. This practice is often at full speed, with the students stopping just prior to actually harming one another. Trust is important here.

When I studied Tae Kwon Do and Karate we sparred infrequently, and under very restricted conditions. Since these are striking art forms, I understand and approve of the tight control of the sparring bouts.

Unlike Tae Kwon Do and Karate, students of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu can workout against each other every class. This enables them to learn to apply their techniques against live resisting targets.

This training allows them to develop a sense of what works in a confrontation. When they are forced into a situation where they need to defend themselves, there is a smaller gap between what they do in the gym and what they need to do on the street.

WHICH ART IS BETTER

We can debate over and over about which art is better. Simply put, the best art is the one you enjoy and can stay with long enough to gain mastery and achieve your goals.

Never forget that when it comes to self defense the heart of the practitioner is more important than the martial art itself.