The old Fold & Roll trick.

Showing Frank and James the old Fold & Roll trick. There are times when trapping skills do come into play. The key to it being functional is to "not admire your work" as Guro Inosanto puts it. Getting the job done quickly and efficiently is the name of the game when weapons are involved. It's also vital to not only know how to more a man with a lever but to be able to move him in more than one direction as you will rarely face a single opponent in the street and a "shield" is useful in such situations.

Playing with the Bowies.

Playing with some of Jim Keating's material here, double blade Generic Opening with some free flow thrown in. In many ways the Western Blade systems are much more effective than the Asian systems but they complement each other well and I believe one should train both. The Filipino systems at least have the advantage of having integrated techniques from the European and Muslim systems vs the far eastern methods. Ray Floro has a good system also but then again his background was as a strip fencing champion first then he made a move to learn FMA, it's interesting how much Floro's system has in common with Bruce Lee's JKD, hey Lee was a fencer too...anyone seeing a pattern here? OH and the background noise is Cicada's, this is the South you know.

Neo-Kata2

Still working on these and the refinement process will be on going and progressive.
Once again crossing Uechi-Ryu and Panatukan. I always liked some of Uechi-ryu's concepts, movements and techniques but always dislike the stance and rigidity of the movements, they were to unnatural to me. I also never much cared for the traditional applications.

Neo-Kata Revision 1

I made a minor adjustment.

Neo-Kata

I started creating some new Kata's today. Crossing Uechi-Ryu concepts with Panantukan techniques and adding what is functional and unique from my own experience. What I started today was inspirational for me, I may just begin a whole new system from scratch. These Kata can be done solo, with a partner and focus mitts, and eventually add the blade. I haven't edited this so you will hear my kids in the background.

Iron Palm

http://www.shenmartialarts.com/blog.asp?view=all

Got this link from Jim Keating's site. It reminded me of one of my old instructors Richard Ellis who is now deceased. Rich was a Praying Mantis practitioner, specifically he said Southern Mantis. He also had other training such as Judo, Chiba Kai, etc. The thing is he was a long time practitioner of Iron Palm training, both Internal and External methods. Now those of you who know me know that I am not a big believer in chi and such stuff, but to this day Rich was the hardest hitting person I have ever "crossed hands" with and he never looked like he was trying to hit hard. He was always relaxed when he struck and he didn't believe in blocking as such, every block was a strike and usually done with either his palms or his wrists which were as wide as his hands from years of Three Star drills if you know what those are. Sifu Rich was also extremely proficient at locking, trapping and throwing in fact most of his striking was just him "blocking" what you sent at him so he could get close enough to lock and throw or sweep you to the ground. He once told me that the biggest difference between Praying Mantis style throws and Judo or wrestling style throws was the intent, Mantis practitioners want to throw you onto your head not your back.

The way Sifu Rich taught me to use the Iron Palm bag was to have the bag at waste level, raise your arm to shoulder height with your palm facing down then drop your hand to the bag focusing your strike through or beyond the bag, grab/grip the bag and lift to shoulder height letting it drop back to the ground or table. Two other strikes either follow or precede the open palm strike a knife hand strike and a back of the hand strike. Initial training only used gravity for the speed and power, gradually building up the SPEED of your strikes and NOT TRYING TO HIT HARD. The power of the Iron Palm method comes from the speed and intent to strike either into or through your target.

Combat Ranges and Phases

Some say that there are four ranges of combat: Kicking range, punching range, trapping range and grappling range. And those people apply those ranges to empty hand fighting but ranges really apply more appropriately to armed combat. I am talking about largo, medio, and corto to those familiar with Filipino Martial Arts. In largo or long range one should be able attack the opponents weapon hand and arm; in medio or middle range one should be able to engage the opponents weapon hand with ones live hand and strike the opponents body with the weapon; and in corto or close range one should be able to strike the opponents body with both weapon and live hand. The three ranges can vary according to the length of the weapons involved. We will exclude projectile weapons for now. For empty hand combat I prefer the model of Combat Phases pointed out by Renzo Gracie, which include the Free Fight Phase where opponents can strike each other freely; the Clinch Phase where "trapping", punches, elbows and knees can be used and where throws and takedowns occur; and finally the Grappling Phase which is self explanatory but generally includes ground fighting, submissions and some striking.