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UFC® 104: Rogan breaks down Velasquez vs. Rothwell

Cain Velasquez in the Octagon

YouTube has a lot of great martial arts videos these days. And it’s interesting to see all of the “I’d like to see that guy in the octagon” comments. Or, “you have to wonder how’d they do in a UFC bout”.

I think we are losing track of the many different reasons people decide to study martial arts.  We may also be losing track of who our possible opponents might be.

If you want to be successful in the octagon then you better be strong, fast, fit and trained in a well balanced assortment of martial arts before you even step foot inside.  That’s the current pinnacle of martial gladiators.  If gladiatorship is your goal, then follow that path.

If kicking and punching is your thing, just about any martial art can help.

If increasing your power, peace of mind and a healthy body interest you, along with punching and kicking and self defense, then one would do well to consider studying Tai Chi or Ba Gua from a qualified instructor.  Internal martial arts like Tai Chi can certainly help a mixed martial artist or any kind of athlete with concepts like “rooting”, “fa jin”, and “tai chi body”.

If surviving in a tough part of town against armed opponents is your goal, well, martial arts can help, but I haven’t seen Iron Shirt chi kung stop a bullet, so that’s an entirely different requirement that martial arts can’t entirely remedy.

Most likely, any person you’d have to defend yourself against with your martial arts, is going to be under the influence of alcohol with not a lot of training.  Octagon level fitness, strength, speed and skill aren’t required to stop drunken Joe at the local pub.  Fortunately, many of the people with a lot of training have learned self-control and discipline along with their martial arts, so you’re not likely going to face a highly skilled martial artist in the street.

If a person you have to defend yourself from has studied some martial arts, then you start to measure fitness, speed, strength, depth of study, type of martial art, etc to differentiate who is the better fighter and who is going to win the confrontation.  By the way, if your fight lasts longer than 30 seconds that person knows at least as much as you do.

However, if you even have to throw a punch, in a sense you’ve already lost — lost control of the situation and anything could happen.  My goal is always to control the situation like one of my old teachers did in this blog post:  Last Fight. For me, free beer from an adversary without throwing a punch is the ultimate victory!

So, for all of you who look at martial arts and artists on YouTube, and think, it looks good, but how would they do in the octagon, the answer to that is probably they wouldn’t do well.  And that’s okay.  That’s likely not their goal.  Their goal is likely to improve their health, to be able to keep themselves and their families safer for having martial arts and to share what they’ve learned.

Practice hard,

David

September 25, 2009 by David | 4 comments

Danny had the last of his Cross River Wilderness Centre Tai Chi Retreats last weekend.  What a beautiful place.  The Centre is entirely off-grid.  They use solar and hydro power.  Propane appliances.  They have beautiful cabins with attached bathrooms or you can stay in a teepee.  I, trying to get as close to nature as possible, stayed in a teepee.  Danny, who’s only known city life, stayed in a cabin.  My teepee was warm and dry, even in a thunderstorm!  The food was amazing and we thoroughly enjoyed the wood-fired hot tub after each long day of exercise.  A First Nation Elder lives at the Centre and leads sweat lodges and vision quests.  Here are some photos from the weekend.

Below is a video we recorded on Saturday, before lunch. Danny demonstrates one type of hard chi kung called Iron Shirt Chi Kung. There are no tricks, he’s not wearing any padding under his shirt, it’s the real deal. Click here for an older blog post with more on hard chi kung from Danny.

The training really started for me the Thursday I flew from Austin to Calgary.  Danny started showing me some of a Shaolin stick form and then I attended one of his regular Thursday classes.  Danny and I met about 11 years ago, so it’s interesting to see how he runs his classes these days.  I figure he’s taught about 6,000 classes since the last time I was a regular attendee!  Danny teaches 2-3 classes a day, 6 days a week.

On Friday we drove out to the mountains and to the Centre.  We got ourselves settled in time for a tub and then a jam by the bonfire.  It was a nice night.

We started Saturday and Sunday mornings at 7:30 with breathing exercises.  These exercises involve abdomen movements that massage your internal organs and increase circulation to them.

At 8 we’d wander from the yurt down to the main building for a yummy breakfast.  After a nice long leisurely break, allowing time to digest, we headed back to the yurt for stretching, standing meditation and chi kung.  It was nice to try one of Danny’s newest chi kungs, Tai Chi Chi Kung, and to have a full 30 minutes to do the standing meditation. In class, we usually only practice it for 15 minutes.

On Saturday, the hour of sitting meditation followed lunch.  As we all ate too much and were sleepy after lunch, on Sunday, Danny kindly moved the meditation to be before lunch. The meals by the way were awesome! Steak, homemade blueberry apple bread, tortilla pie, salads, steamed veggies, salmon, ginger curry soup….

After the sitting meditation, we then worked on the Dharma-Zen 24 form.  I also practiced the Shaolin Long Stick Form.  On Sunday, we were all feeling pretty comfortable with the forms, so Danny led us all in the Dharma-Zen 48 form, which is the 24 form repeated, but the second time through you go the opposite way.

The most amazing part of the weekend for me was the hour of sitting meditation on Sunday.  I was comfortable and really had a nice experience.  I became very conscious of two knots in my back that I’m often entirely unaware of.  They started to ache and ache and ache.  Stress knots from sitting at a computer all day.

While I was sitting, I started breathing into these knots.  I felt them loosen and relax and it even felt like energy was raining down out of them.  It was the most amazing thing.  I’m going to build more sitting meditation into my practice.  A really wonderful experience.

I left the retreat energized, with three new forms to practice, a better understanding of the rest of Danny’s curriculum, and having learned and laughed with Danny and the other students.  I’m very much looking forward to March, 2010, when Danny’s coming to Austin to teach a similar workshop.

Practice hard,

David

September 12, 2009 by David | No comments

Jet Li and Jackie Chan

March 15, 2009 by David | No comments

As you know, unless you’ve been living in the Australia outback under a really big rock, Jet Li and Jackie Chan made an amazing movie called ‘The Forbidden Kingdom’:

Forbidden Kingdom Trailer

Here’s a link to their entire fight scene:  Jet Li vs Jackie Chan

That scene made the movie worthwhile.  How long have we been waiting to see that??

There are now rumors that they’ll do another film.  From  http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2008/03/18/jackie_chan_and_jet_li_to_collaborate_on:

Chan and Li said they want to shoot another movie together based on a script they started working on 15 years ago, but both stars refused to give details.

I hope it is so!  :)

David

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So I’ve just returned for a business trip to Singapore.  It’s tough finding time to practice at home, and even tougher when you’re away from home.  Maybe you have a small hotel room.  Maybe you’re in a large city.  Here are a few tips you may find helpful:

1.  As at home, the toughest part is making the time.  Schedule your workout time.  Put it in your calendar and keep it real.  The best time is at the start of your day, before you get wrapped into work and socializing after work which can often be the most fruitful part of a business trip.  A focussed 15 minutes is much better than nothing, and 30 minutes is twice as good!

2.  Choose the best space.  If you can get to a park and have relative privacy, then consider practicing outside.  I’ve had nice workouts on beaches and in parks near my hotel.  Be cautious about practicing more obviously martial forms in public, as you may draw unwanted interest.  But if you’re out at or near dawn, likely you’ll only meet other fitness-minded people.  I often ask the hotel for nearby parks when I check in.  I look for aerobics rooms (great with mats and mirrors!) in fitness centers and often move the furniture around the room to make space.  If nothing else, 30 minutes of meditation, or 15 and 15 of chi kung and meditation with a bit of a warm up type stretch on the front end will really sharpen you for your day’s activities and can be done even in the smallest hotel rooms.

3.  Choose the best exercise that fits the space.  Ba Gua can be done in a four step circle.  Wing Chun’s first form is practiced standing still.  Hsing Yi was adapted to be done in a cell.  Was adapted to be done in a cell.  Key thought.  Danny has shown me how to adapt tai chi to be done basically in place.  Perhaps you can adapt your form or take pieces of it and practice in a very small place.  Perhaps the change in routing and focus will teach you something new about your art.  The important thing is to get good feeling from your practice.  As I mentioned above, chi kung and meditation can be done in the smallest hotel rooms.  Fingertip push-ups, fist push ups, crunches, stretches all can be done in your room.  Stand in place and practice each kick you know 20 times with each leg and see how you feel.  Try a hundred punches.  Ask the hotel for a yoga mat if they don’t have a health club.  It’ll keep you off that well-trodden carpet in your room.  And hey, if there’s a great pool, hiking path or jogging route, break up your routine a bit and take advantage of what’s available.  In Singapore, I had a very nice swim in the hotel pool just after sun up even though swimming isn’t usually part of my routine.

If you follow these three tips:  schedule, find the right space, choose the right workout, you’ll find you can still practice away from home and keep yourself sharp, healthy and relaxed.

Practice hard,

David

September 20, 2008 by David | No comments

Throughout martial arts circles, you’ll often see and hear debates about grappling and ground fighting. In one recent example, a Wing Chun proponent talked about some grappling moves in Wing Chun (WC).

A Brazilian Ju Jitsu (BJJ) person immediately went on and said that’s not grappling. Grappling has sweeps and counters and holds, etc. that clearly were not part of what was what the WC person was talking about. He went on and on about how there is no grappling in WC.

In my opinion, it’s all in the definition or semantics. To me, the BJJ person’s definition sounded more like “ground fighting” than “grappling”. It sounded like he was describing BJJ. It sounded like the BJJ person was saying, if it’s not BJJ, it’s not grappling.

Perhaps one needs to look at the word grapple, and it’s definition (from Dictionary.com): to seize another, or each other, in a firm grip, as in wrestling; clinch.

By this definition, grapple, or grappling, stands aside a bit from ground fighting. Does Wing Chun have movements where one “seizes another in a firm grip”? Sure. Is Wing Chun ground fighting? Heck no. Are there throws and grappling in Ba Gua, Tai Chi and most Chinese martial arts? Absolutely.

However, if one wanted to focus on grappling and ground fighting in Chinese martial arts, I think someone would need to study Chin Na (locks) and Shuai Chaio (wrestling) to get close to Judo, JJ or BJJ. Interestingly, Robert Smith in his book “Chinese Boxing: Masters and Methods” wasn’t very impressed with how Shuai Chaio people on Taiwan stood up against his Judo. He said the art had stopped evolving where Judo hadn’t.

I found an interesting post in a forum by a guy who has studied both of the Chinese arts above and has tried them against some BJJ guys with only limited success. Again, we have no way of knowing if this guy is any good or if the BJJ guys he’s going against are any good, but it’s an interesting perspective on the topic and he sounds like he knows what he’s talking about:

Yeah, I do shuai chiao. Its basically wrestling. I also do chin na, which is pretty much kung fu submissions…leg locks, wrist locks, kneebars, armbars, chokes, etc. Sorta like judo or sambo but without the wrestling (which is why you need the shuai chiao background as a supplement!). Most kung fu schools only do standing wrist locks for chin na, though.

I can usually beat bjj blue belts about 50% of the time on a good day, but I have a lot of trouble with bjj purple belts. Been grappling in kung fu for about a year, but have been doing chin na and kung fu without the shuai chiao wrestling for about 7 years.

The chin na and chinese wrestling combination works well in the street. Probably not more effective than judo or bjj or whatever in mma competition, but it does work in the street. Comparitively, its pretty unorthodox, almost Sakuraba-esque, so it is possible to catch intermediate level grapplers with some subs, but I definately get my ass handed to me almost every time I roll with bjj brown belts.

Also, not all kung fu schools grapple. In fact, most don’t. Kung fu grapplers are at a disadvantage right off the bat. A lot of schools already teach a metric ****ton of material anyway. Add on weapons, all the damn chinese names and translations and different pronunciations and spellings, internal sytems, chi gong, etc. to the classic stand up kung fu in addition to TWO styles to learn to grapple effectively, it can get a little hectic to keep up with, especially when you’re trying to concentrate on your san da/san shou skills too.

You gotta understand that the shaolin temples weren’t teaching just thier own stuff. In fact, a great deal of the material taught there was from elsewhere. Thier whole philosophy was if it works, we’ll use it. So you wind up with hundreds of styles being practiced there and picked apart and analyzed and refined, some kinda suck, others kick a lot of ass.
But yeah, there’s grappling in kung fu.

The thread goes on a bit if your interested in reading it: http://www.subfighter.com/forum/viewtopic.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=19326

There you have my two cents on the difference between grappling, ground fighting and the Chinese martial arts that focus on these elements.

Ciao amici,

David

September 30, 2007 by David | 3 comments

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