07.01.06 - Saturday Practice

New Items Today:

• Ground Fighting: Americana
• Ground Fighting: Straight Armbar

Reviewed Other Items:

• Stretching & Warm-ups
• Punches: Lunge Punches
• Kicks: Purple Belt Kicking Drill
• Kicks: Cardinal Direction Kicking Drill
• Techniques: Purple Belt

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Stretchng and Warm-Ups
We did a pretty basic warm-up set today with some additional focus on stretching the legs. My lower back was fairly relaxed today and I got a good stretch in before we got started so I felt pretty good getting started. The class moved quickly into doing drills.

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Punches: Lunge Punch
Sifu grabbed some target mitts and we paired up to do lunge punches. I paired up with Sifu and we took turns. I have been working my weak (left) side in the evenings and I think it is starting to show some positive effect. I don’t have the power to match my strong side but the technique and snap are solid so hopefully the power will come with more practice. Sifu pointed out something to me again today that I don’t realize I’m doing. As I make contact with my target, I blink. “Don’t do that.” Got it.

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Kicks: Purple Belt Kicking Drill
We worked on kicks today and started off with the Purple belt Kicking Drill. This drill focuses on a linear kicking pattern that can be utilized as a pursuit maneuver. There are several kicks involved, including ball kick, lead leg roundhouse, 2 types of rear kicks, and a low side kick (knife edge kick). At the end of the pattern, you cover to face the other direction and can do the same pattern back again utilizing the opposite side you started with. It’s a great drill and I practice it occasionally at home. What we focused on today is accuracy and intent of the kicks; no dead fish and no dead legging. Balance is achieved and maintained by keeping the knees bent and your weight centered over your supporting leg.

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Kicks: Cardinal Directions
I suppose this drill could be used in a real situation but the circumstances would have to be ideal. The drill itself is awesome for practicing several kicks in a relatively small area and gives you practice not only with the kicks involved, but also front crossovers and general balance skills. The kicks included are a front ball kick, left side kick, right side kick, rear heel kick and then you reset into the opposite neutral bow that you started from, enabling you to do the same drill with the opposite side. As with the other drill, the focus on this was the accuracy and intent. It is real easy to just throw out those side kicks with ‘dead fish’ on the ends of your legs. It becomes apparent quickly if you are not centered over your supporting leg as loss of balance will have you stumbling or deploying your arms straight out in any direction.

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Ground Fighting
The class was handed over to Marty for another segment in ground fighting today. Our focus today was an arm lock he referred to as the “Americana” and a straight arm bar. The Americana (also known as the Ude Garami or key lock) was the first item covered and is a type of joint lock that affects the shoulder joint primarily but also puts some exertion on the elbow as well. Working with Sifu again, we started this maneuver with Sifu assuming a mount position on the mat. Working my left arm, he first basically pinned it down to the matt flat, and then held it there with his left arm position such that his elbow was near my head. He then moved his right hand under my arm, up between and grabbing his own arm. At this point, my arm was locked up and I couldn’t move it but I wasn’t in pain. The submission or break comes when Sifu lifts his right elbow off the floor levering the shoulder joint. This is hard to visualize from a text description – see the following illustration:

The other maneuver we did today was a straight arm bar. The tricky part was in getting to the bar itself from the mount position. We basically push down on the chest of the opponent to get our feet under us and from there we swung the left leg around and over the head, essentially laying across his upper chest with his arm between our legs. We then use the leverage point of our own pelvis by cranking the arm toward us while raising the hips.

Obviously, with these techniques and maneuvers the possibility of physical injury runs high if the person practicing just cranks the arm hard or ignores a tap. Sifu made it crystal clear that he wouldn’t hesitate to throw anyone out of class that ignores a tap.

I am still amazed at just how effective a joint manipulation can be. As Sifu and I worked our way through these moves, we experimented a little bit with position to see what exactly was the most effective in isolating the joint. Once we were in proper position, the slightest movement – as little as ¼ to ½ of an inch – was enough to have the other tapping franticly.

Another interesting caveat to what we learned today was small joint manipulations. Sifu noted that these type of manipulations are forbidden in certain competitive arenas such as the UFC. However, for what we do, everything is fair game. One item of example was rotating the arm of the opponent in the arm bar. Instead of the “thumb up” position which is what you would be looking for typically, you can add another level of effectiveness to this by continuing this rotation to the point of tension in the arm. I’m not exactly sure why but this increased the pain of the arm bar dramatically and reduced the amount of physical travel that was required to get to the stage of submittal or breakage. Good stuff! Thanks again to Marty for sharing his knowledge with us.

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Techniques
The last segment of the day was spent going over techniques. We paired up again to work with a partner and this time I was working with Marty. I basically picked the techniques I am currently having the most problem with and worked them, starting with Stopping the Storm. We worked this one quite a bit and I think I figured out my issues – with Sifu’s help. Following the parry-block-grab, I pull the elbow in and anchor it but I am pulling the attacker’s arm down to far. Sifu says to anchor the elbow back more, not down. In practicing this I could see the greater effectiveness, especially in pulling the attacker’s face into your fist for the stop punch.

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The next one was Circling Serpent. I didn’t really have any problems with this one, I just need to smooth it out and get it less choppy. I’m still working on the whipping back-fist too.

Raking Hammer is going to be the one I work the most, I can see it already. I still seem to be having some difficulty dropping into the initial horse stance and starting the technique. Sifu reprimanded my poor initial block today as well, which I quickly remedied. He noticed something that I hadn’t realized I was doing. I have a tendency to lean away from the action slightly, especially with the initial block. “Trust your training” is what Sifu said. Again. And finally, he also noticed… a lot of head movement as I executed the rake and hammer-fist. He jokingly said that he had better not hear any “whaaataaaaa” noises coming from my corner. Of course this is a Bruce Lee movie reference and I think he probably nailed it right on the head – too many movies! I’ll try to be more careful and precise in my movements.