SW Portland Martial Arts Blog

The Freeze, Day 3

November 22nd, 2020

Martial Arts for kids: 4-6 year olds 
You’ll need some stuffies to kick and a broom or a rope to jump over.

Martial Arts for kids: 7 year olds and up 
You’ll need something to kick for today’s class… a bag, a stuffy, a partner who holds a pad for you… or you’ll just have to imagine a target, which is an awesome skill in itself.

CrossFit Class: Skills and Conditioning
Skills: Frogstand, Front Balance, Back Rolls
Conditioning: 12 min AMRAP (11 v-ups, 7 lateral burpees, 11 supermans, 7/7 split jumps)
Skip forward to the 30 minute mark to go straight to the conditioning.

The Freeze, Day 2

November 19th, 2020

Martial Arts class: 4-6 year olds 

Martial Arts class: 7 years old and up

Mo Duk Pai class
Today we covered four basic kicks: knee kick, heel kick, toe out kick, and the front kick.

CrossFit: Skills and Conditioning

The Freeze, Day 1

November 18th, 2020

Oregon is in lockdown again… but this time it’s called “The Freeze”. Sounds more interesting that way, like some kind of superhero battle. Anyway, here’s our content for the day:

4-6 year olds

7 and up

Martial arts

CrossFit

Second Closure!

November 18th, 2020

Due to the rising rates of Corona virus infection in Multnomah County, we will be closed for at least 4 weeks: 11/18-12/16.

We’re still sussing out all the possibilities: outdoor classes, private lessons, and possible in person kids classes. The guidelines are somewhat vague, but hopefully we’ll get it all figured out by this weekend.

Until then, stay strong, stay safe, and check out our online schedule.

Fending off a Wrestler

November 13th, 2020
Striking to keep the Wrestlers at Bay

Suppose you’re sparring a wrestler. You know they are more skilled at the takedown and ground game than you are. They know it. No questions there. Suppose further that you know you’ve got the striking advantage and they know it as well.

The logical conclusion for you is that it would be best to keep things standing up, with their wrestler paws off of you. For them, the opposite is true. They’d prefer to take things to the clinch, find a better position from which to hang off of you where you are forced to carry their weight, and then drag you to the ground.

So now that we know the scenario, what is the plan? Well, there are an infinite number of plans possible, but let’s choose one: kick the legs and get ready to retreat and strike if your partner comes in to wrap you up.

I’m going to skim over the kicking the legs bit, because mostly what we focused on in class this week was retreating and striking but I will mention a couple of strategies to keep in mind. One: kick low. The lower you kick, the less likely you are to have your kicks caught and thus more likely to be able to keep moving and not get grabbed. Two: if possible, hammer the same spot over and over. The point of kicking the legs is to make the wrestler slower, so it’s harder for them to grab you. If you spread the damage around, it won’t slow them down as much.

I’m also going to gloss over the fact that you’ll need a sprawl and the ability to disengage from the clinch because no matter how much you want to avoid being grabbed, it’s probably going to happen eventually. So, yeah, learn those things… we’ll focus on those some other week.

As I mentioned before, we focused on two strikes: the retreating hook and the retreating uppercut. The goal is to step back  as your partner steps in and clip them. Then, even if you do hit them successfully, strike again and move.

Check out the video. Try the strikes. Let me know what other strategies or variations you come up with.