In order to be a good martial artist you must aim at excelling in a number of different skills and having at the same time:

• Strength
• Agility
• Coordination
• Reflexes
• Balance
• Endurance
• Speed

The last but definitely not least one in the list, Speed, is to be considered of extreme importance because it affects most of your performance when practicing any martial art and the techniques you are performing in a combat situation. Certain applications of internal martial arts that are practiced for healing, meditation and relaxation purposes are usually performed really slowly and obviously have not connection with the content of this post.

Speed affects the kinetic energy you produce by a quadratic factor: if you double your speed the kinetic energy grows by 4.  Therefore if you are interested in increasing the damage produced by your punches or kicks you should train for increased speed.  Higher speed can come from higher physical fitness by also by learning how to best coordinating all muscles involved in a technique so they all push with precise timing in a well coordinated direction.

By increasing your speed you are not only ensuring that you can hit your target faster and producing more damage; the technique arrives to its destination in a shorter time therefore it’s ready to go back to its original position much faster, making it ready for the next strike.

Being able to perform a technique or combination at a high speed will allow you to surprise even a very well prepared and skilled opponent.  If you could move one arm or leg 10 or 20 times faster that the average martial artist you would not need very complicated combinations and attacking from many different angles; you could just attack your opponent with that single strike and score, every time.

Training for speed should be a mental as well as physical exercise; muscles are trained to become stronger and therefore release more power but, at the same time, speed should be thought as the main goal when training for it.  For instance keeping your muscles relaxed while training and program yourself to tense just the right ones that are involved in a specific movement will offer maximum efficiency for the muscles involved and minimum dissipation of energy in unnecessary movements.

A training scheme I suggest when coaching somebody with the intent of improving their speed is usually represented by the following list of activities:

• Relax physically and mentally
• Think and see the movement you are about to perform
• Concentrate just on the muscles strictly involved in the movement
• Consciously relax the remain part of the body
• Try to tense the muscles in the most explosive movement you can possibly imagine
• Repeat a few times until it becomes second nature

I am a big fan of speed and, while it can be a function of your fitness, speed can be trained and deliver amazing results.  When can you start?

Posted under educational, theory

I wrote about Bill Wallace in the past and I explained about his amazing style built on very fast techniques and combinations always developed from the left side stance.  Given his strong knowledge about the human anatomy, built on a master in Kinesiology, he developed over the many years of his amazing career the so called “Superfoot” system that first helps to develop flexibility on the main groups of muscles involved in kicks and then teaches how to use, in a very effective way, the three kicks and the couple of punches on which he bases his system.

Earlier today I had the opportunity of finally meet one of my heroes in martial arts: Bill “Superfoot” Wallace was running a morning seminar organised by Colin Payne from TKO in Chatham (Kent, UK); although I found out about it just a few days before, I dropped all of my engagements and simply went there J  Bill Wallace was famous when I started Kickboxing in 1981 and I never had the opportunity of meeting him so this was a chance not to be missed.

At first impression Superfoot appears as very friendly and unassuming person: he arrived with a big smile and looking to “have some fun”.   Within minutes from his arrival we started with some warm up techniques, very similar to some I have seen on his DVDs and we worked out flexibility for both the hamstrings and internal adductors in order to help relaxing the muscles needed for the 3 main kicks that make up the Superfoot method:

• Round kick
• Side kick
• Hook kick

Then we started some simple exercises to improve speed and coordination about delivering individual kicks from the above list; finally we worked at combinations that use either a punch (typically a jab or back fist) or one of these kicks as a preparation for another kick.

His philosophy was and is conceptually simple: keep hitting with one technique that works and hurts a bit and keep changing angle.  Although the repertoire is quite limited it just works.  It is about working on speed, surprising the opponent with techniques that will probably not knock him down straight away but will upset him many times, make him nervous and help building up for the eventual final strike while scoring many and many points in the process.

At 65 Mr Wallace is no longer a young man: from his face you could compare him to other men of similar age.  Looking just at his body most people will think he is at least 20 years younger and that is until he starts moving.  That’s when you think he could be 25 or 30 years younger.  He can stretch his legs more than the majority of kick boxers and other martial artists I know of.  When he was a professional fighter his kicks were of truly lightening speed but even now he can kick amazingly fast.  There were several under 30 at this seminar that could not do what he was demonstrating at the speed he was doing it.

Is he a super human (apart from the Superfoot)? Absolutely not! He simply (!) managed to improve his techniques to perfection and then he adds to his techniques an amazing knowledge of what works, what scores, what helps you winning.  Full contact kickboxing is today dominated by a number of good boxers that work out how to put a few round and front kicks within a rich combination of punches.  His technique and style is unique and I don’t know of any professional full contact fighter that could fight today in this style but still he can be described with similar words I heard by a TV commentator during one of his fights: “you know he will come from a left side stance and you know he will either kick side, round or hook kick; nonetheless he scores and he does it every time”.

Meeting Bill Wallace was an amazing experience and although the workshop was less than three hours long I took home a list of amazing tricks that I will surely add to my repertoire and I will start teaching straight away.  Thanks Superfoot, looking forward to seeing you again.

Posted under celebrities, events, styles

This is a martial arts blog and some of you may find strange to find this article: at the same time I believe that self defence, whether properly trained in a gym or the simple result of someone’s self preservation instinct, should be seriously considered as a topic from which everyone can learn about, even in a blog about martial arts.  Ultimately why do we practice martial arts?  Many people will not list self defence as the primary objective of their training but nobody can deny it can be very nice side effect.

Casey Heynes is a 15 years old boy who defended himself after years of abuse: it happened just a few weeks ago and the 40 seconds video that somebody put on line went viral and hit every corner of the world in just a few days.  For many people around the globe Casey became instantly a hero who stood up to his assailants and put an end to a life of misery.

See here below the news video with inverviews:

Bulling is unfortunately a pretty standard practice and I know very few people that were not bullied when kids.  Whether you (used to) wear thick glasses (my case) or you are overweight or any other visible difference you can offer a good reason to be bullied.  In some cases it can be just verbal abuse but very often it becomes physical and even painful. Whatever the nature of the bullying it can cause the stress and anxiety and can cause permanent damages to someone psychological and emotional well being, reducing self esteem and jeopardising chances of success in later life.

Casey ended a life long situation of being mistreated by simply fighting back.  In his definition he snapped, acted irrationally for a few seconds; he did it in a way that could have caused some serious injuries to the boy who initially started the altercation but I truly hope that this event taught him something about bullying.  Casey’s action, as explained in this video was more that just an act of defence; it was the desperate need for justice from a boy that about a year before was contemplating suicide to put an end to a life of abuses.  His father and the rest of his family were far from understanding what the boy had to bear on a daily basis.

How many movies portray the weak or abused boy/girl/woman or whatever other character and the usual hero turning up and beating up or killing the baddies?  We like and sympathise with the weak ones because in many case we can identify with them at some point of our life; we like and feel satisfaction when the hero sorts matters out in many cases we would like to be one of them.  Casey is receiving so many messages of support for his act for exactly the same reason.  Support messages are sent from boys and girls as well as from fully grown up adults that used to be (or sometime still are) the weak ones, the bullied ones, the abused ones.

I remember when I was at primary school before I started martial arts; there were a few bullies who truly enjoyed imposing their will to the smallest and weakest ones (yes I was one of them).  If I start thinking about those times and mentally go back to those scenes I can still feel the anxiety and the frustration of being unable to defend myself from the nasty and cynical behaviour of those guys.

So what lessons can we learn from this episode? Here is my list:

1. if you are a 12 years old  boy of 50Kg or less do not bother a 15 years old 80Kg+: when he retaliate he will hurt you
2. when we see bullying and abuse we should not ignored it and let it happen; we cannot all become heroes but referring the abuse to the relevant authority and ask to immediately address the issue.  The same when it happens to your friends, children or any other person you know of
3. if you are a child there is nothing wrong to report to your parents or other authoritative people the fact of being abused
4. if you are a parent keep an open dialog with your children: try to find out whether bullying is happening to them or their friends

One of my missions in life to advocate for martial arts, their broad diffusion across a much broader range of individuals starting from young boys and girls.  In my opinion a more generalised and systematic practice of martial arts among young people would have a number of benefits against bullying including:

1. better discipline and respect for authorities
2. better self confidence for the weak or shy ones: confidence is not about threatening like “leave me alone or I’ll hurt you” but simply have a higher self esteem and naturally project it to the people around us
3. better chance for the weak to fight, verbally or physically, his/her way out of a bullying situation
4. more respect from the potential bullies: martial arts (should) teach respect for the fellow practitioners, even for the opponent you are fighting
5. respect for the weak: while you learn how to hurt people you learn how you must be respecting or even helping the weakest ones.  Hurting weak people is easy… why should we enjoy it? Why should we enjoy hurting anyone at all?
6. defence by applying a controlled response: when a person without knowledge of martial arts enters a fight can either get hurt himself/herself or cause excessive damage to the opponent as he/she is unaware of the amount of damage that could be caused; a knowledge of martial arts can help understanding how much damage can be delivered by an attack and avoid unnecessary excessive damage

I would like to conclude by sending my regards to Casey who did a good job in ending his grief the way he did it: while violence should be avoided when possible there are situation where it is unavoidable and we all know this was one of those cases.

Posted under self defence

Recently I was running a lesson with the Cambridge University Kickboxing Society and I was pointing out to two beginners young ladies how one was not hitting has hard as she could while performing a simple exercise.

Her partner was surprised of my remark and she stopped asking how I could tell she was not hitting “as hard as she could”.  Surprisingly that was the first time somebody questioned my teaching in this way and I pondered for a few seconds before answering.

Many years of experience allow you to recognise and evaluate very quickly, within matter of seconds while a person is practicing martial arts, whether the he/she:

• Is Powerful
• Is Fast
• Is Well co-ordinated
• Has good reflexes
• Can bear strong attacks
• Has a good sense of fighting
• Her body mass and shape allows a certain level of power

As I listed to her the above, non exhaustive, list of features and mentioned my experience in years that exceeds by a decade her age she quickly accepted my comment and carried on training.

Many instructors like to feel powerful and imposing their dogmatic teaching to their students expecting them to simply trust and believe him/her.  As my teaching is fully based on scientific principles everything can be explained and showed how techniques can be improved and fined tuned to deliver maximum efficiency and power.

So I quickly helped her partner to adjust her posture and angle of attack and within a couple of exercises she was hitting 20-30% harder.  Physical fitness can be and will be improved by continuous training  while the right technique will improve your performance in a very short time.

That’s what experience gives you.

Posted under educational, teaching, theory

When considered from a scientific point of view, martial arts are an effective way of applying the laws of physics and bio dynamics to both your body and to the body of your opponent.

Most people, when asked to perform a movement that involve strength (e.g. lifting a heavy object, shifting a heavy piece of furniture around or push start a car) will erroneously use certain parts of the body that do not optimise the alignment of muscles, tendons, joints and more important will not join and align correctly the vectors of the various forces involved in the movement.   A properly trained martial artist will have both a conscious and unconscious co-ordination in most movements and she will look stronger than other people of equivalent build who are untrained.

Excluding movies and TV special effects – when you see anything that seems very difficult or impossible to perform from your point of view just think that there is no magic, no trick involved: just the correct use of limbs and weight alignment.

Concepts like power, gravity, friction, momentum, kinetic energy and impulse have direct use and application in usual training drills of all martial arts.  For this reason they could be easily called martial sciences: the scientific studies of how to fight.

So the question for you is: how aware are you of the correct way of aligning forces when delivering a punch or a kick?  How much is your instructor or coach explaining why and how power can be obtained and improved with proper execution of a techniques rather than shire force?

Posted under educational, theory