SW Portland Martial Arts Blog

What Do Our Kids Camps Look Like?

December 26th, 2023
SWPMA Movement Arts Camps

We like to provide students with variety. In our martial arts classes, we teach grappling, throwing, and striking. So it is with our camps.

At their heart, the camps are martial arts camps. Full day students will receive at least 2 hours of martial arts instruction every day (and more if they opt for extra training.) We also make sure to provide a guest movement teacher every day. Our past guest teachers have included: fencing, gymnastics, break dancing, Capoeira, ballet, and many more.

Besides all the structured movement, students get at least an hour of free time to play outside. As the week goes on, we usually opt for a second recess outside because some of the best play happens when adults just get out of the way.

All that movement is usually only 3-4 hours of the day, so we fill the rest of the time with arts, crafts, and storytelling. Students are encouraged (just as they are with the movement arts) to try out a variety of crafts and if they aren’t interested, there are always tons of books to read or board games to play.

Hopefully that helps to paint a picture of what happens at our camps. If you’ve got questions, for sure send us an email:

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Yoga Special – 5 classes for $45

December 15th, 2023

Get 5 Yoga classes for $45. You only have the month of January to buy them but the punch card itself never expires!

If you want an actual physical card, we can print one for you, but we’ll have your name on file and we trust you to only use the card 5 times by which point you’ll no doubt have fallen in love with the gym and will want to sign up. 🙂

Punch cards
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Unpredictability

November 19th, 2023

Train long enough at a gym and you’ve inevitably sparred everyone dozens, if not hundreds of times. You know how they play, you know the techniques their good at, and they know your game too. This can be great because as you continually shut down each other’s games, things get pushed ahead. They figure out a way to stop your leg kicks, so you have to add in body kicks. You figure out how to defeat their armbar, so they have to move to chokes. It’s like race between predator and prey – except both partners are chasing and being chased.

In these continually evolving conversations with sparring partners, one thing that can really mess them up is to play in a completely different way. If you have one way you like to move and they’ve figured that out, do you have another way? Can you switch between your favorite way of moving and that alternate way? Do you have a third way? Can you weave them in and out, adapting them to what your partner is doing as they are doing it? If you can switch between these three games right before your partner figures out what you’re doing, your sparring and movement become incredibly difficult to predict.

Be unpredictable. Make your partner predictable. Use their “good” reactions to set up your counters. Learn new techniques and expand your repertoire. Watch videos of stylistically different fighters.

As a side note, unpredictability doesn’t mean random. There is a place for random (and even weird) moves, for sure, but don’t mistake twitching spasmodically like a malfunctioning octopus for being an unpredictable fighter.

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All the Joints, All at Once.

October 27th, 2023

The overhead squat, like all the movements we do in CrossFit, is a diagnostic tool. The purpose of the doing the motion is to see where we need work.

Is it difficult to keep the bar in the correct position? Your shoulders or mid back might need some mobility work. Is it difficult to keep your heels on the ground? Your ankles might required some attention. Do your wrists feel like they’re going to implode? Take some weight off the bar and then consider a regimen of wrist strengthening and mobility.

Doing more reps and weight is fun. Strive to increase load and volume. Prior to that, technique is essential. If the point is a lifetime of healthy movement (and I think that is the point) then don’t race to put on weight and ignore all the diagnostic information that the overhead squat provides.

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To Gi or not to Gi

October 20th, 2023

To Gi, or not to Gi: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler with the grips to suffer
The collars and lapels of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arm drags against a rash guard of troubles,
And by opposing choke them? To tap: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The rib-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That bottom side control is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d.

Needs work but hey, if you’re following the generalist path, you should probably play both Gi and no-Gi. If not, do whichever one you like more.

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