Different martial arts teach and instill different postures that have been designed to offer the ideal position(s) to best use attack and defend actions for that specific style.  Although what works for Aikido is so substantially different from Kickboxing or Wing Chun they all make sense when you apply the techniques from their particular repertoire.

This post addresses basic concepts about what a strong posture is and how it can be better understood and improved.

Some basic attributes of a strong posture

1. well balanced: attacks can come from different directions and your posture should be able to cope with it;
2. well rooted: you should feel in control of your balance and how to shift it back, forth and sideways;
3. relaxed: the posture should not involve any unnecessary muscle;
4. with a proper guard: a strong posture for martial arts will always have to reflect the most adequate guard for that style;
5. ready to action: you should be always ready to react to an attack so your posture should reflect that; do spend some time analysing “what if” situation and try to be realistic with your own level of fitness and proficiency in your style.

Developing a strong posture

A strong element of self awareness is essential to well perform martial arts techniques and moves: good news is that the actual training helps developing the self  awareness that helps its own improvement.  Following the teaching of an expert teacher you can surely have a feeling of what is suggested and required by the style you are practicing.

The next step, once you are fully comfortable with the basics is experimenting and see what works for you, your body shape and level of fitness: what is ideal for an Olympic champion of tae kwon do will not equally work for a software engineer practicing Ju Jitsu.

Understand and improve your strong posture

In my opinion the best training for your posture is to increase your level of awareness about it.  Be aware of your position feel it with your eyes closed.  Then try moving forward and back, then side to side and then in circle: stop in between, literally freeze in position and check.

A mirror is also a great tool: if you see your image and can balance all elements associated to it you are likely to store them into your unconscious memory when automatic reactions are originated.

The final and next step is asking a friend or training partner to test your posture by pushing, pulling or simply testing where weak points can be found.

Posted under educational

Although I must have seen this movie tens of times every time I find it on TV I tend to watch at least a few scenes: last week was no different.

I have a great respect for Bruce Lee and what he managed to do during the few years of his intense career as martial artist first and then as an actor.  At the same time I have to say that I started noticing too many flaws in the plot, coreography and, actually, even in the fighting scenes of most of his movies.

As usual there are a few things that are generally contraddicting the whole story: the character played by Bruce Lee is sent to Rome where his cousins have a Chinese restaurant and they are having trouble with a local gang that, by the way, with all place in the Italian capital really need that restaurant to be the centre for an international drug traffic

Bruce is depicted as a Kung Fu champion, Chinese boxing as they define it many times: so the first question is why in one of the first fighting scenes against the gangsters he pulls out 2 nunchakus, a Japanese (Okinawan to be precise) weapon?

The whole movie has a very broken rithm (like Bruce Lee suggest to use when fighting) and it culminates in the final scene, the very famous one where Bruce Lee defeats Chuck Norris (the American Champion) in the Coliseum (see the clip below.

According to the movie “The Warrior Journey” Lee explains that this scene starts with him fighting Norris using traditional Kung Fu (I would be curious to know which style considering that Bruce Lee had a Wing Chun background with no high kicks while here most kicks are toward the face…) and is loosing.  So he changes strategy in the second part of the scene and using the basic principles of Jeet Kune Do he becomes adaptable (and kicking the legs) and manages to kill his opponent.  I mention this scene often as an example for a particular style of spinning back hook kick that Chuck Norris uses several times when I explain one of the common mistakes people can make when performing a hook kick.

I am going to conclude this by stating that for a Chinese production of 1972 this movie is great and there is no doubt that next time I will  find it on TV I’ll watch it again.  At the same time I fail to get as excited and inspired as I used to: perhaps I have seen live so many performances of good martial artist that Bruce Lee is no longer so special and unique?

I’ll let you judge what I am saying after you see the clip below:

Posted under celebrities, movies, video_review

Last night I was browsing various TV channels and I bumped into Kickboxer a movie produced in 1989 with the main character played by a young and f it Jean Claude Van Damme.  I remember seeing this movie at the cinema when it was released (yes, I am that old) and I often refer to it when I explain certain techniques, not necessarily for the quality of the scenes but mostly to describe how things should not be done.

The story is pretty simple: Van Damme’s older brother (in the movie) is an undefeated national champion of full contact kickboxing and somebody suggests he should go and change the Thai champion.  He goes and accepts to fight Thai Boxing rules (that obviously allow elbow and knee strikes that he cannot handle) and he gets not only defeated but his back gets broken and has to be on a wheel chair.  Van Damme’s character decides to avenge his brother by learning kickboxing under a famous local master and at end, as it happens in any respectable American production the good wins, the bad gets beaten and humiliated and so on…

My reason to write this post is to point out a few features that suggest watching the movie while a few comments about how the director could have done a better job.

Van Damme has a typical Karate posture and style, with a low (shall I say inexistent?) guard and a very pumped up attitude for single killer punches  rather than good, classical combinations of boxing techniques: he doesn’t (at least in this movie) looks very much of a kickboxer.  At the same time his fitness and technique, at least in performing certain kicks (like at the end of the fight when, out of the ring kicks Tong Po in the face with a perfect side kick and then, with the same leg he kicks round kick in the face of the organiser) is just great.  What is very annoying is the continuous cut and re sampling of scenes that try to amplify the prowess of the various techniques.

In movies people can be kicked and punched for hours without much damage or even running out of breath and this is no different but, ok, perhaps I am a bit too strict on these things.

As a conclusion I can say that this is a decent martial arts movie, if you ignore the awful non combat scenes and plot it shows some good techniques and, as it happened last night, when I bump into it I tend to watch at least some parts of it.

Posted under celebrities, movies

When I saw this clip the title popped up at once.  The strong contrast is suggested by the idea that we train martial art and study many different ways of striking our opponents from many different angles using a varieties of kicks and punches.  Sad reality is that, physiologically, our head can just about bear a single, powerful full on kick or punch before giving in.  So to win a fight it would be enough to wait the right moment and strike… but obviously when both opponent are prepared for it this strike some times does not come as it should.

The first part of the video shows the completely different style of the two opponents that are later fighting in a K1 contest:

• Mighty Mo shows in the various fights he wins how the power of a single strike that connects cleanly on the head can put any fighter KO;
• Kaoklai Kaennorsing shows how mobile he is and how his opponents can hardly touch him.

Then the surprise comes in the way the fight finishes: enjoy the view and let me know what you think.

Posted under video_review

Dan Inosanto is a very famous martial artist and master: he joined one of Bruce Lee’s school back in 1964 and developed his skills in becoming a master in at least 6 differents arts.

Silat is family of martial arts originated in South East Asia, particularly Malaysia and Indonesia: what I find fascinating about Silat is the very flowing movements develop into strikes, joint locks and throws, switching in very fast motions between one position and the other.

This short clip I found on YouTube shows Dan Inosanto explaining a couple of combinations of attack and defence that develop from a kick and a punch from the attacker into his total annihilation.  The guy on the right hand side of the screen is Ron Balicky, director of the Inosanto Academy and expert himself of Jeet Kune Do, Silat and several other styles.

Enjoy the view and please leave a comment:

Posted under styles, video_review