Dynamic Martial Arts' Weblog

Here's a link to an article by a British martial artist/strongman named Bryce Lane: http://www.ironsports.tv/thma.pdf
It deals with a similar subject to the post Ben and I had awhile back about the difference between combat sports and martial arts. This article goes into good detail about the importance of environmental awareness in self defense.

There’s been more talk in the media lately about “functional fitness” and, though I’ve talked about it in previous posts, I feel the need to address the subject again. Unfortunately, any time a new buzzword hits the national consciousness there’s a tendency to over think or over hype it. In the case of functional exercise, all you really need to remember is to train movements, not muscles. For the most part the more general a movement is-the more situations it can be used in- the more functionality it has; for instance, running is more functional than biking and a deadlift is more functional than a leg curl. I’ve noticed that a lot of the over thinking in fitness comes from people who spent most of their time in a classroom and not much time in the field. A good example pertains to an exercise we sometimes use in our Kettlebell Bootcamp and Suffer on Saturday called “virtual shoveling”: holding one end of an Olympic bar and moving the opposite end- with or without a weight plate- back and forth over a bench in a shoveling motion. The benefits are obvious: ask anyone who doesn’t do manual labor for a living how they feel the day after the first snow of the winter. The thing is, many trainers (especially ones with a physical therapy/rehab background) would say, “That exercise will hurt your back and shoulders! Instead, stand on this BOSU™ on one leg, hold this 5lb dumbbell straight out while curling this one, wiggle your toes and sing Purple Haze at the same time! That’s functional training!” This is only a slight exaggeration.

In the martial arts, we have what Bruce Lee called the “classical mess”: getting bogged down with glossy, meaningless techniques instead of sticking to basic skills. Once again, you can use the “most useful in the most situations” criteria: an eye gouge is more functional than a tornado spin side kick and a simple trap-and-roll escape from the mount is more functional than an elbow escape into an omaplata. Now, we do practice things like tornado spin sides and omaplatas because they're fun, good for coordination and conditioning and really are useful in some situations. But they're not your “bread and butter” and shouldn't take valuable training time away from those techniques that are. Practicing hundreds of jump spinning crescent kicks a day when you only have a 30% success rate with a right cross is like doing multiple biceps curls without being able to do 1 pull up- which exercise is most likely to help you escape a burning building?

Hi everyone,
I just want everyone to know that we still have space for new students(haha) so be sure to keep encouraging your friends to try a class or two. I know I'm biased but I don't think any school around can touch our curriculum: a blend of traditional training and values, up-to-date "no nonsense" self defense techniques and modern hard core conditioning methods. We truly have something for everybody. Just last Saturday we had a sparring session that included a 7 year old boy, a 40 year old father of -apparently- 9 or 10 kids and a 23 year old mma fighter. I'm not forgetting the rest of you, I just want to show the variety of trainees we accommodate.

What got me thinking about student recruitment was a conversation I had with an acquaintance about self promotion(i.e. bragging). I told this young man that, in an ideal world, having a good product and a humble but competent demeanor should attract anyone with at least an average discerning intelligence- you know, like you guys. In the real world, however, you almost have to prance around like a performing monkey to attract customers/clients. I see this in the fitness industry every day: people get beguiled by the bells and whistles( "Look! Shiny!") and realize too late that there's no underlying substance or quality. There's a good lesson: learn to perceive the true quality beneath the bright, shiny( or dim, gray for that matter) surface.

Take that lesson a step further and you get an attribute that separates a master from a novice: the novice gets distracted by his opponent's fancy footwork, extraneous movements or intimidating demeanor and ends up missing the real attack. The master, on the other hand, ignores all the "static" and opens his awareness to the true attack. Hence( I've always wanted to use that word) his response is immediate but unhurried, deliberate and effective. How did I get to this point from talking about getting new students? Age.

Hi everyone, I see it's been almost 3 months since my last post! I'll apologize, I thought summer would be a less busy season. Wrong.

Brian, Jake, Ty and Austin are taking their black belt test on November 8th and I encourage everyone to come watch and show your support-as well as helping to increase the stress level. The physical part of the test will start at 10am(a 1 hour interview portion starts at 9) and will last for at least 4-5 hours. The candidates will be performing in front of a panel of black belt judges plus any friends and family that want to come. We're planning on doing a press release to invite the general public also.

To help them get ready for the test we're doing a 100 burpee challenge- an idea I stole from a Crossfit affiliate in CA. We started Monday doing 1 burpee, then 2 yesterday and 3 today. We'll continue until we get to 100, which will be November 4th. The bupees don't have to be done all at once but are an addition to-not replacing- your regular workout. If you miss a day you have to make up for it the next day but remember, once the numbers start getting higher, that means you could be doing almost 200 in one day. On the other hand, if you do burpees in a regular workout you can take that number off your challenge.

I'll definitely post more often from now on; there are too many things we need to cover to let it slide like this again. I'll see you in class!

Hi everyone! This in a no-equipment-necessary workout that intersperses hill runs with calisthenics. Find a hill with a shallow enough grade that you can sprint-not slog- up it. You can also mark out a 40-50 yard straight course; basically, as far as you can run all out in one good breath, then do the exercise with an oxygen deficit. Jog or walk back to the starting point to recover but go immediately into the next round.

Sprint 1—10 Squats

Sprint 2—10 Push-Ups

Sprint 3—10 V-Ups

Sprint 4—10 Jump Squats

Sprint 5—10 Diamond Push-Ups (Form the diamond under your sternum).

Sprint 6—10 3-Punch Sit-Ups

Sprint 7—10 Lunge Steps (Right and left is one)

Sprint 8—10 Dive-Bomber Push-Ups

Sprint 9—10 Reverse Russian Twists (Right and Left is one)

This is a variation of a workout I received in an email newsletter from MMA trainer Mark Hatmaker. The interesting thing about Mr. Hatmaker is that most of the techniques he trains come from Western traditions (Old school boxing, catch wrestling etc.) instead of Asian martial arts. His website is extremeselfprotection.com.