06.28.06 - Practice Out of Class

Session with Bill during lunch at work

Sifu and I were able get a brief Kenpo workout in at lunch today. In reality, it was more of a discussion than a work out. He opened the session with “I want to talk about the way you move…”.

Using the ‘alphabet’ analogy that Ed Parker popularized, Sifu stated that I “…know the words, now need to properly form a sentence”. As I’m sure I gave him a nice big blank stare, he went on to explain that he sees a lot of tension in my movements, particularly from the waist up. Although I can root very effectively, I need to be able to move quickly and lightly as well. This is nearly impossible to do with a rigid frame.

He had me drop my arms and let them hang at my sides while I went into a neutral bow stance and moved around the floor with some basic maneuvers. Almost immediately I was bringing my hands up and creating tension. He further described that the ‘flow’ that we are looking for in our forms and movements comes from being relaxed while keeping the ability to explode with power at will – and then immediately relax again.

Sifu asked me to do a few techniques, and to try to relax between the strikes. At first I asked him to define what he deemed as a strike; in my mind, the blocks are strikes as well and I wanted to clarify the point. He sort of loosely determined that a strike was defined as an “intended point of contact”, but stopped short of defining what points of contact in the Thunder and Lightning technique were strikes. My feeling on this is that the blocks are strikes if you choose for them to be so and to ultimately define any movement will itself hinder your choices. I didn’t pursue the point and executed several techniques. He stopped me after a few and told me to continue to practice but to focus on the parts of the techniques that reside between the points of contact. Uh huh. I’m thinking about this. I’m trying to figure out how I’m supposed to concentrate on something that isn’t a move or a strike or a parry? How are you going to fade into a cat stance while parrying and executing a block – and don’t think about the cat stance, the parry or the block?

Well, just before all of this mental hyperbole dribbled out of my mouth, I had a flashback to the Kenpo in the Carolinas seminar in April. I remember watching Vic LeRoux move and remember thinking how “light” he was in motion. I related to Bill that there was one point in which Vic came up to my partner and me in the class and demonstrated one of the pak sau/lap sau drills we were doing. I remember watching him move so freely and without effort – and then being amazed when he pinned my arm securely just as effortlessly! It was just cool to watch his foot maneuvers. He did the same things we were doing but he was not forced or jerky in motion at all. This is the smoothness, the relaxation, the ‘spaces between the points of contact’ that Sifu wants me to focus on. What I witnessed in watching Vic is an example of what I should ultimately be striving for.

With that, our time was pretty much over. He did ask me to do the Master Form a couple of times and noted something that I was doing incorrectly. When I transition from Deflecting Thunder and go into Thunder and Lightning, I was executing the parry on the outside of the block. I was asked to explain why we don’t do it that way and I knew that it was possible for the attacker to pin the parry arm into the blocking arm and defeat the movement. I’ll correct this and practice it properly.

06.24.06 - Saturday Practice

New Items Today:

• Kicks: Rising Heel Kick
• Kicks: Rear Scoop Kick
• Kicking Combinations
• Extensions

Reviewed Other Items:

• Kicks: Thrust Kicks
• Kicks: Side Kicks
• Techniques: Orange & Purple belt
• Master FormBelt Tying

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Kicking Combinations
When we warmed up today we did a lot of leg stretching, which flowed right into the first area of coverage for the morning. Sifu covered some kicks that I have seen but have not been trained in at all up until today. These “new” kicks were presented as part of a combination set of kicks that tend to lend themselves well as extensions to a leading technique or kick.

We paired off with one person holding a target (pad). In my case, I was working with Marty and started off with a right ball kick immediately transitioning into a right neutral bow, where I then pivoted into a lunge stance. From this stance, you simply raise the rear (right) heal straight up to the target (groin) and then quickly retract it back to the ground. The maneuver is finished up by taking an adjustment step forward as necessary to execute a right rear heel kick, presumably to one of the vertical targets presented (bladder, solar plexus, etc.). We spent a fair amount of time getting this combination kick down to where it was comfortable to execute and was reasonably fluid. I was really surprised at how well these kicks came together, even though it was the first time I had put this combination to practice.

After we were relatively comfortable with this, Sifu went through a few places that we might use this in conjunction with a technique. Thunder and Lightning was a good example as you are ending in a neutral bow right between the attacker’s legs. Just pivot, execute the heel rising heel kick and the rear heel kick. Another example that was discussed was Deflecting Thunder. Again, because of the position you generally end the base technique in, the kicks are just a natural extension. Good stuff! When shown like this, the extensions seem obvious – I am just hoping through practice and analysis that these concepts start to root in my own mind and flow easily should the time come to use them.

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Kicking the “Bobs”
Although we have practiced both the thrust kick and the side kick on numerous occasions, today we practiced these kicks on the “Bobs”. Bobs are kinda cool. They are basically an anatomically correct weighted rubber head and torso that can be adjusted to various heights. I don’t know if they are really called “Bobs” or not, but that is what I have always referred to them as. Anyway, they provide some reasonable feedback when struck but most importantly (for me anyway) is that you can clearly see the target you are striking, For instance, when we were doing the front thrust kicks, Sifu pointed out that the solar plexus is approximately two finger widths below the point of the sternum. I’ve known this for some time, yet when I kick to the solar plexus, I have been kicking too high! I have been kicking to the base of the sternum. When kicking the Bobs, it is real easy to get your targeting in line with a life size dummy that can take a pretty good beating.

Alex did point something out to me today that I didn’t even realize I was doing. When acquiring the target and striking, the focus should be – depending on actual target – up to several inches beyond the surface of the target. This increases the power and effectiveness of the strike. I knew this, and yet wasn’t applying the principle. When Alex picked up on it and told me, I changed up and saw an immediate improvement. Thanks, Alex! Aside from that, the other thing I realized was how much weaker my left side kicks are compared to my right. I’ll need to work on that.

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Techniques
We all paired up with “like ranked” partners to practice techniques. This sort of leaves me as the odd man out because I’m the only Orange belt at the moment. I paired up with Sifu and we worked on some of the techniques that I’m finding the most challenging, starting with Raking Hammer.

As we went through Raking Hammer, I realized that my initial positioning has been wrong as I practice it. I have been stepping back into a neutral bow and sort of transitioning into a horse stance to get the hammer-fist to the groin. Sifu showed me that I should just drop straight into that horse stance. In doing so, it corrected my range problem and brought everything together nicely. He also pointed out that I need to get lower in that horse stance so I can really get under the groin for effectiveness.

The next technique we worked was Circling Serpent. The area I was having trouble with on this one was the back knuckle strike. Sifu says it is more of a whipping back fist and in practicing it this way I was better able to get my arm into position for the shoulder grab that immediately follows. Since I started my training, I have always been taught that the return after a strike should be as fast or faster than the strike itself. I was practicing it with more of a rigid back knuckle and fully retracting the strike, which meant I had to move my hand back forward again for the grab. With this subtle change, the retraction is still there, but it is more in the wrist than in the entire arm, keeping the location of the hand in better proximity for the shoulder grab.

My issues with Stopping the Storm lie in the initial block-parry-grab. My tendency is to try to just grab the arm. I am still developing my sensitivity related to relative body positioning and the more I practice this with a live person, the better it gets. Another area that Sifu commented on was the anchoring of the left elbow immediately following the grab. This really cancels the height and depth zones of the attacker and brings them right into the stop punch that awaits using the torque of the body as opposed to trying to muscle them into place.

I have the gross movements of Hooking Thunder down but had a question on targets for the final punch. As we went through it the first time, I had unwittingly pulled Sifu right into me after I hooked his leg. I basically asked him why he did that and he informed me that he was simply following the directed path that I put him on. This got me thinking and we did it again, this time I didn’t just drop the foot when I moved in for the thrust punch, but rather gave it a sideways shove to my right, trying to determine what control I had over his movement. Based on his response, I realized that I had actually given him more choices to escape or evade and had reduced my ability to follow up with the punch. By pushing him in a given direction like that, I essentially produced an orbit that he could follow that took him off my line of attack. By bringing the attacker’s foot directly past me I am controlling where he is going and capitalizing on the forced “dead leg” by placing my fist to his head.

I got to thinking about being on the receiving end of this…It would kinda suck because you are more or less falling into a punch to the face and your arm is pinned so you can’t even protect yourself – you likely will see the fist as it comes directly into your face and can’t do a thing about it. Hehee… sucks to be the bad guy!

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Master Form
Sifu worked with the others for a few minutes while I went through the Orange belt portion of the Master Form. I have been working on this through the week and I’m starting to finally smooth out a little bit. I’m still a bit choppy as I make the transitions but it’s coming together. I have been purposely practicing from several different starting positions so that I don’t get use to any ‘landmarks’ that I can use as reference. I still need more practice but it’s getting better.

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Belt Tying
Just as we were set to finish up class, Sifu had us take off our belts. I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on but very quickly Sifu ran us all through the process of tying our belts, stating it was for the purpose of continuity in the class. We all managed to get our belts re-tied and Sifu mentioned that I had worked on some instructions for belt tying on my blog site, and that he was going to go through and check the verbal descriptions to see if they were accurate to the way we should be tying our belts.

The directions I created are a combination of both pictorial drawings and text based descriptions. Hopefully they will be to Sifu’s liking. If not, I’ll need his help in rewording them to his satisfaction. ;-)

06.17.06 - Saturday Practice

New Items Today:

• Kicking Shields
• Ground Fighting

Reviewed Other Items:

• Target Striking
• Mat Work: Break Falls & Forward Rolls
• Forms

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Warm Ups & Stretching
Our warm ups were pretty routine today for the most part. Sifu started us off and then Marty took over and got us stretched out and warmed up. Most of the stretching we did today was dynamic stretching. The warm-ups were mostly ball kicks and lead leg roundhouse kicks. Eventually, Sifu had us pair up and we traded lead leg roundhouse kicks. At first this was the normal drill but then he threw in a twist. He had us throw the kick and as soon as it landed, the other person was to throw their kick before the original kicker could reset. This caused the exercise to escalate to a rapid pace.

For some reason, my knees keep getting in the way. As I bring the leg back after the kick, my partner (Phyl in this case) was catching my knee with his own as he brought his up. Aside from the obvious pain clashing knees at high speed, I was confused at why this was happening to me and nobody else seemed to be having the problem. Phyl stated that he thought it was because he wasn’t getting his knee high enough before launching the kick. Logical. It wasn’t really a problem after that.

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Targets
Sifu had us get the hand targets out and we did some combination punching. First we did a 3-count consisting of a straight right to the left target, right back knuckle to the right target and then a straight left to the right target. After doing several of these doing our best to make each strike count, we went on to a 4-count combination. The 4-count was basically the same as the first drill but adding a straight right at the end to the left pad. Phyl noted that I was punching low on the last strike and I corrected for it. Other than that, it just felt good to hit something.

The next drill we did involved kicking shields. Sifu had us launch a lead leg round house from a neutral bow, reset, and kick again. The pace was fast and the air shields were pumped up hard so if you didn’t kick them correctly, you would probably just about break your toes! We did both right and left sides before putting the shields away.

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Mat Work
We pulled the heavier mats out and set them up so that we could line up in two lines. The first thing we did was practice break falls from a squat position rolling backwards. Then we started doing forward rolls landing in a fall position. After landing on both our right and left sides, we did forward rolls coming up into a neutral bow facing the direction we came from.

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Ground Fighting
We had a little surprise thrown in to the mix today in that Sifu asked Marty to share some of his Jujitsu experience with the class. We have talked about ground fighting in the past and I have even had the privilege of attending one of Shawn Monday’s classes during the 2005 West Coast Kenpo Confederation. Marty started out by defining some basic positions and then showing us a couple of maneuvers and reversals.

We started with the mount, which reminds me a lot of a bully on the playground. The “advantage” position is sitting on top of the other’s torso in front of their legs, effectively pinning them to the ground. From the disadvantaged position, we practiced attempting to get to the guard position, which is similar to the mount but you manage to get your legs wrapped around the attacker. If you have your feet lock, you are in a closed guard position; likewise if you do not have your feet locked, you are in an open guard position.

The closed guard position, while not optimal, does afford more control over your opponent than that of the mount position. By simply locking out you legs and straightening your torso, you can control the depth zone of your attacker, perhaps taking him out of striking range or at least controlling his power base. Sifu made sure we all understood that our Kenpo training still applies with ground fighting. He demonstrated how slight modifications allow you to use such techniques as Beheading the Dragon and Thunder and Lightning and stressed that Kenpo choices and zone control still apply if the fight goes to the ground.

We all paired up and worked these principles. At one point, I was working with Walt and we were simply going through the moves trying to understand them. There is a move in which, from the disadvantage position, you push against one of the opponent’s legs while at the same time bending at the waist in an effort to free the leg and get into a half guard position. As we practiced this, we discovered that this simple move sent the guy on top flying off! We called Marty over to observe as we couldn’t figure this out. Marty spotted what it was right away – each time we did this, the person in the advantage position was basically sitting up creating a higher center of gravity. When we push off and bent at the waist, the resultant reaction was similar to a leg buckle but it affected the whole body, thus throwing the opponent clear. Simply leaning over while in the strong position altered everything, and the movement accomplished the effect originally illustrated by Marty. It was an interesting lesson in relative body position as well as using gravity to your advantage.

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Forms
We wrapped up the day by going through forms. When it was my turn, I did the Orange belt portion of the Master Form. Based on the general feedback and criticism from the guys that observed, it seems pretty clear that I need to practice more. Many of the times noted were relatively basic in the context of the individual techniques. I am thinking too much about the next move or next attack. More practice will make the whole thing more automatic and I will be able to focus more on sharpening the rough spots. As before, I need some “perfect practice”.

06.10.06 - Saturday Practice

New Items Today:

• Full Speed Sparring

Reviewed Other Items:

• Stretching & Warm ups
• Techniques (Orange & Purple belt)
• Master Form (Through Orange belt)
• ¼ Speed Sparring

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Warm Ups & Stretching
Warm-ups were typical today – ball kicks, foot replacement roundhouse kicks, lunge punches - and then we did some stretching. In the old place we would ‘grab a chunk of wall’ and stretch with leg lifts. Because of the way the dojo is set up now, it appears that we are going to be a little more confined to the mat so our warm up stretching has adapted. The stretching we are doing now seems to tilt more toward static stretching as opposed to the dynamic leg lifts we were doing before. We still do front stretch kicks but the mat stretching was definitely more static.

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Techniques
We paired off and worked with partners on the techniques, starting with the Orange belt. I was working with Walt today and we definitely worked up a sweat. Doing the technique once slow, then fast, we alternated back and forth with any given technique until Sifu told us to go to the next one. I always seem to pick out some little refinement when we do techniques and Walt was willing to answer questions for me – though I tried to keep them to a minimum. After the Orange belt techniques, we went right on into Purple belt. I haven’t had much time going back and forth with anyone on the Purple belt techniques so I learned a lot today. It was solid practice and I felt better about the techniques by the time we finished. Thanks for the help, Walt!

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Master Form
In practicing the Master form today, I was with the Purple belts on the mat and simply went through my portion of the form and then bowed out while they continued on with theirs. I was getting stuck in the transition between Deflecting Thunder and Thunder and Lightning. I was going off to the wrong angle and it was screwing me up. Phyl saw my issues gave me some pointers between sets. I got it after that – thanks, Phyl!

Sifu called me out to the center of the mat after we had finished practicing as a group. He wanted to show me an adjustment that I need to make in the form when going into Deflecting Thunder. When moving back into the lunge stance, it is a quick transitional stance that “spring-boards” you into the ensuing ball kick. I wasn’t “spring-boarding” at all. We went through it a couple of times and I did better.

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¼ Speed Sparring
We paired up and did some 2 minute rounds of ¼ speed sparring. We just rotated out 4 times so we didn’t all get to spar each other this time. I purposely tried to stay away from the take-downs and be more technical in my movements. As Phyl and I bowed in and got ready, he said (with a smile) something about “owing” me for some take-downs. We kept it cool and we both tried to stay at true ¼ speed. It was a good workout and nobody went to the mat. I did find that myself quite reserved and withdrawn today and I’m not sure why. I guess I just didn’t feel very aggressive.

I went a round with Jeff next and we did the usual stuff. He had his long kicks and I moved inside to try to stop him. In my attempts to try something new, I started moving around him when he came straight in with a kick. This is easier to do when moving at ¼ speed and kept that in mind. As with times before, when I get inside on Jeff things moved to grappling, but I didn’t engage much and worked for a stalemate to reset.

Walt and I sparred next. Like Phyl, he mentioned take downs before we even got started and I told him that I had been trying to stay away from them today, but if he gave me something, I would take it. I was doing the same as I had been with the other guys and generally just holding back a bit. Then Walt came in with a straight kick and let me get inside and behind his leg. Since he gave it to me, I took it, and just brought a forearm up to his chest – at ¼ speed – and down he went. He landed kind of funny so I didn’t pursue him on the mat. Later he told me that he also had tried something different, and that was to try to roll out of the leg buckle but it didn’t work well and in fact, he thinks it actually added to the force of the take down because he hit and just kept rolling. Sorry Walt.

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Full Speed Sparring
Sifu told us to “gear up” after we finished our ¼ speed sparring. I didn’t have my mouth piece with me so I was a little apprehensive at first, everyone was made aware and we proceeded. Walt and I paired up first and got to work. This is the first time I have sparred with these guys at full speed and I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. Walt came right in swinging, more or less charging in. I went largely into defensive mode and simply blocked and ducked his strikes. He came in with a few to the body but he did me the favor of avoiding head shots. I returned a few shots of my own but they were highly selective single shots, no real combinations. The 2 minutes were over in a flash.

Next up was Sifu. He lined up with me and waited for me to make the first move. In sparring with Sifu in the past, he typically hangs back and capitalizes on me when I commit myself to a strike. This time I hung back. Sifu did a little “Bruce Lee” move as we lined up, lead arm to lead arm. He came over the top with a quick strike, like Bruce did in “Enter the Dragon”. He told me to be more aggressive so I lead with a low kick to the knee. Still holding back, he told me to use more combinations so I lead with that same low kick and then double kicked to the solar plexus, which surprised him simply because he wasn’t expecting an immediate reaction like that. Although I was relatively well covered up, I did expose my core to him once and he came straight in with a thrust kick and connected well. Two minutes went by quickly again.

I kept time for a couple more rounds for the other guys. When we were finished sparring and started packing up for the day, Sifu approached and told me straight up that he wanted me to be more aggressive in sparring. I reminded him that I didn’t have my mouth piece today and was holding back. He acknowledged the mouth piece issue but stated I have a tendency of sparring less aggressively than he wants to see. What could I say?

06.03.06 - Saturday Practice

New Items Today:

• First Day at Red Sun Academy

Reviewed Other Items:

• Warm ups
• Orange Belt Techniques
• Orange Belt Form
• ¼ Speed Sparring

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First Day at Red Sun Academy
Today was the first day at the new location. We are now officially meeting at the Red Sun Academy in Raleigh for our Saturday morning sessions. It is a very nice facility with all that you would expect in a good martial arts school including mats, mirrors on the walls, “Bobs”, pads and more. It was great working out there – we had so much space to move around in!

Orange Belt Techniques & Orange Belt Form
Warm Ups were a crusher for me today. I haven’t worked out this week and I could really feel it. It was less difficult working on the mats though as they are similar to those used at White Tiger. I think they are 1” foam mats and they were fairly rigid. Good stuff. We did the usual ball & roundhouse kicks, as well as step throughs and step drags. After some good stretches and punches, we got to work.

I worked a lot with Jeff today. We started out working Beheading the Dragon and Returning Serpent. Jeff is in the process of refining his techniques and did a good job honing in on the items that needed work. He listens well and has a good ‘feel’ for the techniques. He’s doing great. I on the other hand was very sloppy today. Sifu corrected me several times on minor nuances today, but they were things that I should have down cold by now. I tightened them up and focused mainly on Jeff today.

After working our second Orange Belt technique, Sifu had us work on the Orange belt form. We went through it a couple of times and Sifu made comments and corrections for some items that he saw. He then left our mat and had me count off for Jeff and I while he worked with the Purple belts. We must have worked that form for a solid 15-20 minutes straight and I was wringing with sweat by the time we finished. It was great practice and I needed it.

Following the forms practice, Jeff and I went through the rest of the Orange Belt techniques. As before, Jeff quickly adopted some of the fine tuning that I was throwing his way and did great. At one point, Sifu grabbed a couple of big blocking pads off the shelf and came over to work with us on our blocks. It wasn’t long before he determined that those pads looked to have more protection than they really did and we abandoned that exercise to continue working on techniques.

¼ Speed Sparring
I started off partnering with Phyl. I felt out of shape and out of focus. Phil was landing somewhat freely on me and I started to take advantage when he was on the inside. I don’t recall, but afterward he says I put him to the mat 4 times. He may have gone down but I don’t remember them being very “clean”. I’m pretty sure that in each case he countered on me either as he was going down or just before. I really need to get back to work and get some practice in.

Next up was Alex. I was warmed up from sparring with Phyl but I could have done better. Alex had some excellent shots to the body on me on several occasions. I also noticed that he was kicking quite a bit to my legs, using what appeared to be a Thai kick. Granted he wasn’t throwing them at full speed but I really didn’t find the kicks to be much more than annoyance. I got to the point that I actually would raise my knee to intercept the kick and then shoot straight in with a side kick to his opposite leg. I know he can kick hard and if we were going full speed, I likely wouldn’t attempt such a maneuver without pads. I’ll work on things a bit for next time.

The last person I sparred today was Jeff. He loves to kick. Of course, in order to get through those long range weapons, I have to move in past those kicks and that is what I started doing. At this point, we pretty much started wrestling instead of sparring. I would come in close and he would grab my gi to tie me up. I tried switching things up and coming in with knees and elbows but he largely was doing the same thing. I got so tired muscling him around that I felt completely gassed by the time Sifu called time. I was truly shot today by the time we left.

Final Thoughts
To commemorate our new digs, Sifu had one of the two observers that were here today take a picture of all of us. We wrapped up and got out of there on time and without incident. On the way out I realized that Walt had driven his father’s truck and he had both my mat and his new mat with him. I helped to carry them out to the truck where we determined that we probably will just leave them at Walt’s place as the mats at Red Sun were adequate.

Another note of mention: Marty was there today! We hadn’t seen him since the seminar but he has been out of commission with some ailments. He is getting over a cold and didn’t want to push it today, but he’s looking forward to getting back in the groove with us next week. It was great to see him again.