SW Portland Martial Arts Blog

Throwing Things

May 31st, 2015
Throwing knives, throwing each other

This year at camp I taught knife throwing and people throwing. Specifically, I taught a basic knife spin throw and the basics of head control in relationship to throwing.

In terms of the knife, one of the most important parts about getting it to stick is being the proper distance away. The game, at first, simply involves stepping inches closer or further away from the target until you get the blade to stick. Once you get a knife to stick, you mark that spot and keep throwing from there.

For learning to throw people, head control is a great introductory tool. Head control means using your forehead to compromise your partner’s structure. Basically, you drive your forehead into their head at an angle that makes them lean backwards. Once you’ve got them leaning backwards, it is way easier to set up a takedown.

Posted in Adult Camps, grappling, Kung Fu, Weapons | Comments Off on Throwing Things

Overthrow

May 28th, 2015
Down with overthrow

You know those bruises you get on your collar bones from the barbell crashing down on you when you do cleans? You shouldn’t have those. The barbell should land smoothly – not crash.
There may be a different name for it but when people throw the bar too high and it crashes down on them, I call it an overthrow error. In the video above, you can see Alex overthrow pretty badly in the first clip. As the clips progress, the problem gets smaller and smaller. He fixed it.
How did he fix it? Great question. What do you see? What did he change?

Posted in CrossFit | Comments Off on Overthrow

Got Rhythm?

May 26th, 2015

One of our fighting principles is called “broken rhythm”. The idea is that if you can set up a rhythm and lull your partner into it, you can then break that pattern and catch them unawares.

It is a valid and powerful idea. However, you must first have a sense of rhythm in order to break it. If you can not feel or see patterns in the way that you and other people move then you can not break those patterns. You may have the advantage of not being susceptible to a rhythm based fake but you will also be unaware of any rhythms that you are unintentionally caught in yourself.

So tonight’s sparring class was all about setting up and countering simple patterns. As simple as: take three steps then jab. Repeat that over and over until your partner finds a counter for it. When they find a counter switch.

Hopefully this simple introduction to rhythm leads people to the much more complex patterns that occur during live sparring.

Posted in Kung Fu, sparring | Comments Off on Got Rhythm?

Offensive Choices

May 20th, 2015
in class we focused on leg kicks. Kicks to the shin, knees and ankles, mostly. It’s a perennial favorite for us. The idea behind this strategy is if you can take away your opponents mobility, then you don’t need to fight them anymore because they can’t catch you.

In simple terms: if you kick them hard enough in the leg and get a significant reaction, you might have time to run away.

Now, of course, things don’t always unfold the way we want them to but that doesn’t invalidate the strategy. When we are talking self defense and not sport fighting in a ring, there is sometimes no need to continue to engage your opponent if you don’t have to.

Thanks to Sifu Jeremy for the reminder on the importance and effectiveness of low kicks in self defense.

On the flip side, good leg kicks are incredibly effective inside the ring as well. Take out the other fighter’s base and they can’t get close enough to punch you or grapple with you.

Posted in Kung Fu | Comments Off on Offensive Choices

Raffle

May 18th, 2015

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Wanna win some stuff? Cool stuff? Perfect. Buy a ticket for 5 bucks and win something cool.
Up for our raffle we have… A one hour massage, and a travel-size “Stick” massager! A month of cross training at Alive MMA! A weekend yurt rental! A gold glitter CrossFit Hillsdale shirt and two “Modern Crown” headbands!
So many awesome things. Buy as many tickets as you want. All the money goes towards buying equipment for our new upstairs space for 0-5 year olds.

Posted in All school programs | Comments Off on Raffle

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