Becoming Adaptable in Life

Becoming Adaptable in Life

by | May 4, 2016 | Self Defense

Adaptability is one of the most crucial skill that i learn in life. I got this idea from Bruce Lee quote when he said that we should be like water, because it can adapt to any container.  In the present stage of my life, i have been spending much of my time training in Brazilian Jiujitsu and Boxing. Because these two arts is a combative art where you have to spar against resisting opponent, i found that being adaptable is important for me to go through obstacles in sparring to achieve my outcome.

BJJ training is very dynamic. My progress in the art in relation to my training partners is a move point. As I get better and think that I might be better than my training partners, my training partner can also be better than me because they are also training and want to be better themselves. Therefore; I need to work hard on myself beyond just sparring sessions. I need to look at my whole game, analyze them, drill every aspect of the game, isolate spar and put hours in better preparation for my next battle. Only by doing this, that I will be more flexible and adapt to whatever obstacles that I am going to face.

I see life is the same thing. Its a move point. Challenges that I and my family face are not static points. Its a move point. as I prepare and empower myself to face the odds, the odds themselves are evolving.  I will need to catch up with them. That is why I really like Jim Rohn who said, “Work harder on yourself than you do on your job”.  Just like BJJ, for me to able to adapt and overcome obstacles, I have to work hard on myself.

In addition to that, life is multifaceted. If you draw a wheel of life, your life is the combination of many aspects such as family, relationship, career, business, finance, spirituality, etc. Each of them has its own problem for you to face and overcome. Only by working hard on yourself in each of this area that you will be able to adapt easily like water and overcome those challenges.  If you are interested to learn more, Call me at +628170116098.

What is Jeet Kune Do?

What is Jeet Kune Do?

by | May 4, 2016 | Martial Arts, Self Defense

Most people know Jeet Kune Do is a martial art that was created by Bruce Lee. From my research, I consider Jeet Kune Do or JKD for short is more of a concept than that of a martial art.  When I looked back at history, there was a time that Bruce named his art is Jun Fan Kickboxing.

Only later he changed the name to JKD.  JKD means ” The Way of Intercepting Fist”. Bruce believes that in order to win fights, the best timing is to intercept your opponent preparation of attack. On the other hand, later in a book called “Bruce Lee Fighting Method”, he wished that he did not named the art JKD because it was too limiting.

Through his writing, I saw there was Bruce Lee quote that said, “If people said that JKD is different from ‘this’ or from ‘that’, let the name JKD be wiped out, for that is what it is, its just a name, please don’t fuss over it”. Taking that into the account, i then see JKD is as a concept of fighting where the goal is totality of fighting where one needs to adapt himself in fighting any types of opponents. Therefore; in order to do that, JKD guy should master the 4 ranges of fighting that is related to particular arts.

To understand JKD, you need to understand the 4 ranges of fighting: kicking range, punching range, trapping or clinch range, grappling range.  One needs to be proficient to fight in any of these 4 ranges so that when he or she faces an opponent, it will not matter on what styles of fighting that the opponents bring, JKD man will simply adapt.

These are arts that will help those ranges: kicking range (Savate and Thai Boxing), punching range (Boxing), trapping range/ clinch (Wing Chun, Kali, Thai Boxing and Wrestling), grappling range (BJJ, Wrestling and Judo).

Those are the arts that I think any JKD person need to invest minimum of 2000 hours on each range before he or she will become functional. If you want to learn more, Call me at +628170116098.

Steps For Boxing Sparring

Steps For Boxing Sparring

by | Feb 18, 2016 | Martial Arts, Self Defense

If you read one of my article about ranges on striking arts, I said that Boxing range is one of the most important range that any martial artist needs to master. From mastering this, it will be easier for he or she to master kicking range and clinch range fighting.
Having that fact, the next thing to do is to be proficient in sparring, but if you are new to this, what are the baby steps to do so that you can spar safely ,efficient and perform well under pressure?
Here are the steps that you need to do:
  1. First range of Boxing that you need to practice is the long range. This is the range where when you punch or get punch, you can only touch their gloves, not their face or their bodies. The purpose of this range is for you to build confidence in sparring. You instincttively will know whether you are in the safe range or dangerous range. This is the range that if you want to hit the target, you need  to move one step ahead. In this range, you need to be very good at parrying straight punches and blocking long hooks and uppercuts.
  2. The next range is the counter punching range. This is still a long range, but the difference with the prior range is that here your intent is to disrupt your opponent straight line punches by hitting right away after you block, or by intercepting his straight line punches with yours. Everytime you counter attack, make sure you throw 2-3 jabs after it as you move our to your safety range.  The reason for this is for safety. It is not a guarantee that when you counter a punch that you will hit your target.  If you happen to miss or he or she blocks and hit you, you will be safe  by throwing those jabs because he will think twice to move in for a hit.
  3. Slipping range. This is the range where you move into the dangerous range. Basically when he jabs or cross, you will move to the outside of that punch for your own counter punches. To develop this skill, you need few tools and training partner to help you. You can use a rope where it is extended in your gym. Then what you do is to duck your head underneath that rope and weave your head from one side of the rope to the other.  You can also let your partner slowly throw jab and cross to your head using focus mitts and you slip those punches.
  4. Slip range and hit. This is exactly the same as previous one, the difference is that you want to hit back with your punching combinations such as uppercuts, hooks and straight punches right after you slip. For safety, you also need to jab like 2-3 times after throwing your combo because if you miss, you will be safe from your opponent who tries to hit you back as you move away to the long range.
  5. Unattached hitting range. This is the clinch range in boxing. The range happens when you move in and try to hit, your opponent stays there and clinch with you. Once this happens, what you need to do is to angle your body so that you can shove his weight toward his shoulder to disrupt his balance before you hit him with uppercut or overhand.  If hes too heavy for you to push, you want to move away in an angle so you can hit him easily.
I hope these steps are easy for you to understand and follow. Please look at the video below for better explanation.  If you want to learn more, Call me at +628170116098.

Ranges in Striking Arts

Ranges in Striking Arts

by | Feb 9, 2016 | Martial Arts, Self Defense

In my experience training and learning about striking arts such as Boxing, Thai Boxing, Jun Fan Kickboxing and Tae Kwon Do for more than 10 years, I realize that it is very important to understand and managing ranges effectively in a fight.

The easiest way for me to explain is to use Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do’s methodology. Bruce breaks down ranges into four: kicking, punching, trapping or clinching range and lastly grappling.

Within striking range, I usually experience three ranges: kicking, punching and clinch. In teaching others and myself, the best way i know is to get good at punching range because it is the most realistic range for fighting. From boxing, one can flow to kicking and clinching range easily and steal opportunity to strike successfully among the ranges.

Punching range can be a good parameter to apply the kicking range. When you punch and the guy step away from your punch, thats a kicking range, so you kick. If for example from punching range you or he moves closer to clinch range, you can knee kick, elbow strikes, head butt and short punches such as uppercuts and hooks.

Therefore; its good to get good at long range boxing first. This way you will earn evasive and attacking skills and gain confidence that way.  Once you can do this, it will be easier for you to start developing your kicking and striking from clinch skills. This way you get to know the trigger on when to capitalize on timing to hit successfully.

If you saw Ronda Rousey fight vs Holly Holm or Mayweather vs Pacquiao, you would see how both Holm and Mayweather manage their distance successfully to win.  For Holm she kicked Ronda face just when the distance moved from clinch to kicking range.  As for Mayweather, he frustrated Manny for guessing the right ranges while he dominated he fight.

Please give me feedback on your experience after training this.

PS: I have a course on this, if you want, please email me at yuriamadin@gmail.com or contact me at +628170116098 (Whatsapp available).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E63aZKtMcE

The 80/20 of Clinch Skills

The 80/20 of Clinch Skills

by | Jan 18, 2016 | Grappling/BJJ, Martial Arts, Self Defense

In realizing that learning to fight empty hand against resisting opponent I need to be proficient in 3 areas, namely stand up fighting, clinch fighting and ground fighting, acquiring skills in a functional art is a must.

In doing this, i found that Greco Roman wrestling is the answer I have been looking for after seeing my favorite fighter at that time, Vitor Belfort, was destroyed by Randy Couture using clinch fighting skills.

In this video, i will show you what I use when i have to clinch my way out of stand up fighting. Its almost all come from Greco and I just left out Thai Boxing neck clinch in it.

The 80/20 principle says that the 80% of outcome comes from the 20% essential info and efforts or materials that you focus on. You can say in this video, 80% of my attention in clinch fighting techniques and training methods are in this video. Have fun watching and put some time to train them.

BTW, I have a course for this, if interested, please email me at yuriamadin@gmail.com or go to contact page and contact me.

 

The Importance of Performance Game

The Importance of Performance Game

by | Dec 14, 2015 | Self Defense

I think the recipe for excellence in martial art is to practice correcly, consistently for a long period of time. Because the term is martial art, a lot of people forget that its an art. That means although thinking from self defense concept is important because it is martial, but if we just focus too much on self preservation aspect of the art, we are too shallow on our view of it.

I started training martial art because of self defense, but i fell in love with it. I then decided I want to be in it for a long haul. Its about longevity with me. Therefore; there are 2 aspects of martial arts: self preservation and self perfection.  Self perfection will help you to be more efficient when you perform your technique and also you get to express yourself better using martial art.

According to Sifu Burton Richardson from JKD Unlimited, performance game is a game that is useful to train both self preservation and self perfection. The outcome of the game is playfulness in martial art. By being playful, you get to achieve self preservation, because the game is functional, and self  perfection because you take away the risk of being injured.

For instance, let say you want to practice boxing sparring with a partner and you don’t want to hurt each other. What you can do is play with open hands where if you tap your friend forehead when you throw your jab, that means you score. He, on the other hand, needs to block your jab and throw his own jab to tap you.  From here you can tweak it to let say jab vs cross only or jab vs jab cross.  Then play a different game such as jab vs jab, but tapping the head and the thigh (real target is the groin) or stomach.

You can also play where the other guy try to clinch and you try not to clinch and just use Boxing. Or let say both of you use lead tools only such as lead hand and lead leg only for light kicking.

As for grappling, you can also use performance game.  Remember the word is “performance”, so you want to improve your performance in any area that you want. So, if let say i want to improve my ability to flow from one technique to another in grappling, I can roll without submissions so that takes away the pressure from both of you and just focus on exploring other areas of grapplin when you roll.  The result, you get better at flowing from one position to another, escapes, recovery and sweeps.

Later you can work let say on one submission, straight arm lock.  Don’t tell your friend, but as you flow roll, you are hunting for that trigger to pull of the straight arm lock. Then you change role. This way, you are using progressive resistance to help each other out so that both of you can benefit.

By taking the risk of being injured away, using performance game you will have more fun and also improving both your self preservation and your self perfection because you are willing to explore and take more risk.