Month: November 2009

Place a fist to the face and relax, tense your neck and face to push the fist away and in this manner you learn which muscles you use to resist the movement. Exhale and relax those muscles and let the fist move without following it. Proceed to repeating this drill with your eyes closed and tensing up at the moment of contact and simply paying attention to the tension in the body. Proceed to focusing on breathing continuously as you are now hit from every angle and direction.

Proceed to letting the arms from the shoulders touch the hitting fists and arms or stick if you have one without moving or impacting on them.

Proceed to letting the head shoulders and arms move out of the way and into ending the attack on the same movement without creating any tension inside you from moving someone aside.

This is not always possible but a good drill to release fear of contact and learn to move.

Stand on one leg and start to move in a circle in one spot keeping yourself upright or finding what happens when you do not.

Next move on one leg without leaving the ground in a straight line back and forth learning to relax the focus in the eyes and to avoid tension in your movement.

Next squat down a bit on one leg to a quarter squat and repeat the drills written above

Squat half way and repeat the drills

Close your eyes and repeat the drills

Stand on one leg and have a partner move you gently (using either a blade, a stick length or a fist and touching everywhere) and you move without moving your leg off the ground as much as possible and focusing on your breath

Next repeat the drill with you moving as little as possible.

One of the best reasons to smile is that it relaxes the whole body and the mind. Remember that you have emotions but you are not the emotions.

Smile

Water in the waves

Today I gave a night water lesson. We worked on grappling mostly with the legs being the primary movers and here are a few drills for starters:

Have your partner lift your legs high or support them on a floating object and do push ups facing the waves and thus learn to keep a positive pressure in your lungs (avoid water coming in) and learning to adapt the the air availability and inhaling when you can and exhaling when you need to.

keep the static push up again facing the waves and with the head completely in the water and lift your body and head together to breath only as much as it is needed and have the body move so you avoid cranking your neck up and out and moving with less tension.

Lie down in the waves so you are completely in the water and do sit ups with your back straight. You can only inhale on the top of the up and you must learn to relax the body from jack knifing so you can actually reach the surface in order to inhale.

Lie down facing away from the waves and when you feel the wave coming and the buoyancy starting to lift your upper body roll backwards and learn to move as a whole because otherwise you simply twist and go with the wave. Sometimes you need to transfer the movement to another body part and that includes the lift.

Stand chest deep in the water and start to squat measuring the speed and tension in your body so you can squat and avoid floating and jerking in the water. Learn to direct the mass of the movement so you have control through awareness of the direction and hold of your body.

After this we rolled in the water learning to keep the eyes open and to find with the arms where the surface is safe and where to guide the body in the water away from the sharp rocks and junk.

The rest of the lesson was about movement while in contact and taking down the partner using the water to your advantage. We shot a few movies but there was no light so nothing is discernible.

A big thank you to Vladimir Vasiliev and Mikhail Ryabko for the water lesson on DVD and in person.

This is a three people drill. One is the observer and the switcher and two are working with contact. The job of the observer is to choose the interesting time to switch roles between the partners working and to learn by watching. The two work in this fashion: One takes the hand or fist of the other and twists walks turns goes up and down and side to side in order to create discomfort in his partner without placing himself in an uncomfortable position. The one being worked has to avoid becoming uncomfortable (remember! uncomfortable and swift movement means pain and injury) For this he or she will use these guidelines. Constant movement as to not react but act (count your steps and movement continuously in the form of 1.2.3) relax your eyes from focusing on the discomfort in your body and you will be able to see and feel more options to move and stay free, keep breathing and exhale the tension being built out, avoid unnecessary movement and be minimal in your twisting of your main body (example: if your wrist is in a lever, let it even out on its own and avoid jumping if there is no need) unless it is working for you keep your hands to yourself and avoid stretching yourself out. A tout lines breaks much harder than a coiled spring. when your arms and legs are closer to you you will be less tense and will have less ground to cover in order to let the tension out.
The last one is the most important: avoid plans and special movement. Move as it fits the moment and don’t be afraid to look silly or make a mistake. This way you will learn and clean yourself. Otherwise you will simply learn how to perform and not how to live.

Take a group of friends and tart to hit each other at random walking in each others path and hitting whoever is in range of comfort and not straining to hit who you see. Continue by placing a fist on your partner and pushing. Let the fist move by stepping rather than being shoved around and allow the body to move and the arms which are connected to the body move as well and you hit your partner where it is comfortable rather than desirable. Avoid becoming a drum by response and continue to walk and change direction so you see more than one direction and your body remains free. Return to the hitting everyone while walking drill and add hitting to the head allowing the entire body to move as one and the head to rotate on the neck to allow the fist to move but without controlling the direction of the eyes. It is important to keep your attacker in sight if possible and you can accomplish this by combining neck eyes and body movement. Remember to start slow.
Return to the one on one work and now have at least two people come towards you and away from you with strikes and you work to hit them both using the same body movement (step) relax breath and move and keep your fists loose. You cannot foresee all angles in a situation feel and choose how to move without preconceptions.