Assignment: What have you learned about yourself/your training from TT so far, and what has it changed about your approach to martial arts?
I have learned from my TT training that I am a procrastinator, unless I have some very strong motivation otherwise. I have learned that I need a group to work with, to learn with, to strive with. One of the most wonderful discoveries of martial arts, for me, was the feeling I got from training with people who shared the same desire to get the essence of the art – to internalize it. Since internalizing anything is such a personal and individual process, it's extra important to have the freedom to figure it out at my own pace, in my own way, but with guidance and support all along.
Ten Tigers has been, and remains, a program that continually helps me keep my goals in line with my daily activities. Martial arts that exists only on the kwoon floor cannot give me the results I want, nor the physical and emotional fitness levels that change my life. When I completed the TT light (1/3 program) last year, I found that it created positive habits in my daily living – but then when the program ended (a month break), I ended too. I stopped everything, felt stubborn, felt like I deserved a break … and found it very hard to start again. The “break,” I now understand, was only a return to habits and patterns that did not serve me well. The positive habits were not yet fully internalized. This second year, which I have bumped up after the first quarter to full participation, has made a huge difference that I can feel in everything I do. I've had to adapt some things – like the increased strength training has made me less flexible so I added more stretching to my routine. And I've discovered new things – like adding kettlebells to my workouts, a growth out of one of last year's special sessions that Steven embraced.
I've also discovered that the higher level of training is a challenge to schedule and maintain, but that when I am on track, everything else in my personal life is going better as well. When I veer off course and fall behind, it's a signal that I need to take a look around me to see what else is askew, and get back on the path of physical, mental and emotional health.
Ten Tigers has been a path I can follow, on an incremental daily basis, that has changed my approach to martial arts by making it part of who I am, wherever I go. I have learned to trust my instincts, listen to my body, train hard, and ease up as needed. I know now that “breaks” are not the reward I once thought them to be. More and more, I am learning to let go of my resistance to change and embrace challenges and fears as positive forces rather than things to be avoided.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
The Red sash test
In this match he did do quite well for his first time sparing 2\3 of the people that he did spar. And three two minute rounds are really hard even if you did have perfect cardio, but as it stands no one has perfect cardio. His technique was good, if slightly limited, but I think every body could understand why that is.
More importantly, not having experience with most of the people that you have to spar can be rather daunting for instance on my red and black and red test I had to spar some people, that I had never even seen spar let alone spar my self it can be a little scary. Some times getting air can be hard to do when you’re sparing three black belts! But doing that is something that you have to do, that is one of the tests in the black and red belt TESTS. And like I said no one has perfect cardio, and never runs out of wind, ect.
But back to center of the matter his technique, having a torn hamstring kinda limits your verity strikes. The only thing is that his guard was ever so slightly high, two instances of this that I saw were black belt 2 and black belt 3, the body side kick is the main technique that got him. Well body side kicks and body punches too, just lowering the guard a little bit would help stop those trouble some body hits.
More importantly, not having experience with most of the people that you have to spar can be rather daunting for instance on my red and black and red test I had to spar some people, that I had never even seen spar let alone spar my self it can be a little scary. Some times getting air can be hard to do when you’re sparing three black belts! But doing that is something that you have to do, that is one of the tests in the black and red belt TESTS. And like I said no one has perfect cardio, and never runs out of wind, ect.
But back to center of the matter his technique, having a torn hamstring kinda limits your verity strikes. The only thing is that his guard was ever so slightly high, two instances of this that I saw were black belt 2 and black belt 3, the body side kick is the main technique that got him. Well body side kicks and body punches too, just lowering the guard a little bit would help stop those trouble some body hits.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Sparring Analysis (self-centered)
Analyzing My Own Sparring Matches:
I looked at some of of my own sparring matches, not to be self-centered, but because I believe that analyzing my own videos is one of the few ways to improve my skills, and I am interested in how I have changed over time.
Tournament, August 2008 – match with Tammy: I remember NOT wanting to spar Tammy. Watching the video brought the feeling back. She probably knew that, because as the match began she plowed into me straight down the pipe, and forced me to move back to the edge of the mat. Because she was a very aggressive opponent, I saw in the video that I started keeping out of her way, not staying in her line of fire because, if I did, I could not stay on the mat! I was looking for opportunities to strike as she moved in, while getting off to the side. That's usually not my style, but it was working. I have reach, height and weight on Tammy, so I was able to strike before she was, but she is much faster. It looked like I was using the side-step method to keep out of the way of taller opponents, though it was her aggression and speed that made me react that way. My kicks were not chambered. That made them slow as molasses and ineffective when they did hit. When we slowed down a bit, after the first rush of activity, my kicks were still not chambered, even when there was plenty of time to do so. Only size advantage let me seem to overmatch Tammy. Speed and style were hers. She threw combinations, moved in quickly, kept her guard up and was FAST. She kept her head to her left, though, and sometimes left it unguarded. While she led with her right, keeping her head to the left protected it most of the time, but being a left-handed, taller opponent, sometimes I could get over that right hand for head strikes. Tammy was good at disrupting an attack with hook punches that came out of nowhere and high/low combinations that were difficult to block.
Red sash test, June 2010 – match with Steven: (1st one, not the second one where I actually thought I'd rather just stay on the ground and get stomped than get up again. ha.) I see myself not reading what is going to happen next, after I move in. I look for a chance to dive in, and I don't have a combination ready in my head. I act, then react. For instance, Steven often chambers his lead leg, and I wait for it to drop and then throw one punch, or one kick, mostly halfheartedly. My body language tells me that I don't think my kick or punch is going to do anything – and so it doesn't. My kicks are not chambered at all, again because of that halfhearted delivery. Without a proper chamber, there is little, if any, snap and therefore little, if any, speed or surprise.
I also see that I am making many energy-draining moves – starts of kicks that aren't thrown nor are they effective feints, head movements, bobbing, circling, without purpose. Nervous energy that could be redirected.
Steven waits. He knows I'm going to come in. Then, when I think he's going to wait some more, he comes in quickly before I'm set. At one point, I moved in with a punch or two, actually DUCKED a hook punch from Steven, and then when I failed to follow through (probably happily thinking, hey, I saw that punch coming and dodged it!), then came the side kick. The side kick knocked me back, and in my brief period of mental disgust at falling for the side kick again, Steven followed immediately with a flurry of punches before I recovered. After that series, I threw a pointless punch or two, then had a fairly logical combination where Steven easily kept out of reach. The combination made sense, but the targets were not selected. After that, though, there followed a brief period before time was called where I was wasting more energy with little punches, and low, short kicks that wouldn't do anything even if they hit full power. It looked like I was trying to poke a dragon in the eye without wanting to.
Red sash test, June 2010 – match with Eli: My style with an aggressive opponent is different. Eli always moves in and I work on defense rather than aggression. I know if I get in close, he'll be able to use the short right hand power punch that is one of his favorites. With Eli, I was able to wait for him to kick, then follow the kick in with punches. That's a combination that has worked for me repeated – except against Steven's side kick because (a) I'm not able to move in after being knocked backward and (b) he's waiting anyway. (there's a clue there somewhere) If a kick is not effective enough to move your opponent back, they can follow it in and eat your lunch. Ergo, do not throw ineffective kicks.
During one clash, I was able to move in and strike the mid-section (harder than I intended). Though I took a hit to the head, the strength of my strike reduced the head hit significantly. However, I think that if no pads were involved, anyone could take that mid-section strike better than a crack over the head. And what if he'd had something heavy in his hand?!
I show little to no side movement. Circular, yes, but not any movement getting me to the outside of my opponent. I stay straight down the middle, which is not logical for real-life situations against a taller, stronger opponent, which Eli now is.
National tournament, August 2010 – match with intermediate female opponent: This was the first opponent I can remember who did not wear a mask. In this tournament, face strikes were disallowed. It is hard, in the speed of a match, to remember not to strike what has been a regular target. (If I am ever in a street fight, I will certainly go for the face.) I lost a point because of illegal face strikes.
My opponent had a strong side kick (where have I seen that before?) and good timing. She was tall and outweighed me. I could not depend on my strength and size in this match. I had some trouble with her good, high kick since it was well aimed. She had that kick, and a punch that followed, or vice versa depending on the situation. Once I blocked her lead hand strike, and her kick immediately followed. That combination created a difficult-to-block high/low combination. I don't know how I would have done against her in point-only sparring, but in continuous matches opponents have a chance to get past the initial strike(s) and change the game. After eating her kick and punch a time or two, I found the timing of her kick to get past it, and blocked her punch. I caught her kick, and climbed over it punching. She did not have a well-developed close fighting style. Once I discovered that, I felt I had her. The emotion of the fight changed at that point, too, because I knew what to do, and she seemed to be made uncomfortable by the close-in contact. Her body language at the end of the first round told me she thought I had her too. Her shoulders slumped, she would not meet my eyes, and she looked like she wished she hadn't signed up. As we “set up” for another round, she walked slowly. My body language was bouncy, literally on my toes ( a waste of energy, probably) and confident. That helped me psychologically in the fight as well because the judges see that body language, as well as the opponent.
I looked at some of of my own sparring matches, not to be self-centered, but because I believe that analyzing my own videos is one of the few ways to improve my skills, and I am interested in how I have changed over time.
Tournament, August 2008 – match with Tammy: I remember NOT wanting to spar Tammy. Watching the video brought the feeling back. She probably knew that, because as the match began she plowed into me straight down the pipe, and forced me to move back to the edge of the mat. Because she was a very aggressive opponent, I saw in the video that I started keeping out of her way, not staying in her line of fire because, if I did, I could not stay on the mat! I was looking for opportunities to strike as she moved in, while getting off to the side. That's usually not my style, but it was working. I have reach, height and weight on Tammy, so I was able to strike before she was, but she is much faster. It looked like I was using the side-step method to keep out of the way of taller opponents, though it was her aggression and speed that made me react that way. My kicks were not chambered. That made them slow as molasses and ineffective when they did hit. When we slowed down a bit, after the first rush of activity, my kicks were still not chambered, even when there was plenty of time to do so. Only size advantage let me seem to overmatch Tammy. Speed and style were hers. She threw combinations, moved in quickly, kept her guard up and was FAST. She kept her head to her left, though, and sometimes left it unguarded. While she led with her right, keeping her head to the left protected it most of the time, but being a left-handed, taller opponent, sometimes I could get over that right hand for head strikes. Tammy was good at disrupting an attack with hook punches that came out of nowhere and high/low combinations that were difficult to block.
Red sash test, June 2010 – match with Steven: (1st one, not the second one where I actually thought I'd rather just stay on the ground and get stomped than get up again. ha.) I see myself not reading what is going to happen next, after I move in. I look for a chance to dive in, and I don't have a combination ready in my head. I act, then react. For instance, Steven often chambers his lead leg, and I wait for it to drop and then throw one punch, or one kick, mostly halfheartedly. My body language tells me that I don't think my kick or punch is going to do anything – and so it doesn't. My kicks are not chambered at all, again because of that halfhearted delivery. Without a proper chamber, there is little, if any, snap and therefore little, if any, speed or surprise.
I also see that I am making many energy-draining moves – starts of kicks that aren't thrown nor are they effective feints, head movements, bobbing, circling, without purpose. Nervous energy that could be redirected.
Steven waits. He knows I'm going to come in. Then, when I think he's going to wait some more, he comes in quickly before I'm set. At one point, I moved in with a punch or two, actually DUCKED a hook punch from Steven, and then when I failed to follow through (probably happily thinking, hey, I saw that punch coming and dodged it!), then came the side kick. The side kick knocked me back, and in my brief period of mental disgust at falling for the side kick again, Steven followed immediately with a flurry of punches before I recovered. After that series, I threw a pointless punch or two, then had a fairly logical combination where Steven easily kept out of reach. The combination made sense, but the targets were not selected. After that, though, there followed a brief period before time was called where I was wasting more energy with little punches, and low, short kicks that wouldn't do anything even if they hit full power. It looked like I was trying to poke a dragon in the eye without wanting to.
Red sash test, June 2010 – match with Eli: My style with an aggressive opponent is different. Eli always moves in and I work on defense rather than aggression. I know if I get in close, he'll be able to use the short right hand power punch that is one of his favorites. With Eli, I was able to wait for him to kick, then follow the kick in with punches. That's a combination that has worked for me repeated – except against Steven's side kick because (a) I'm not able to move in after being knocked backward and (b) he's waiting anyway. (there's a clue there somewhere) If a kick is not effective enough to move your opponent back, they can follow it in and eat your lunch. Ergo, do not throw ineffective kicks.
During one clash, I was able to move in and strike the mid-section (harder than I intended). Though I took a hit to the head, the strength of my strike reduced the head hit significantly. However, I think that if no pads were involved, anyone could take that mid-section strike better than a crack over the head. And what if he'd had something heavy in his hand?!
I show little to no side movement. Circular, yes, but not any movement getting me to the outside of my opponent. I stay straight down the middle, which is not logical for real-life situations against a taller, stronger opponent, which Eli now is.
National tournament, August 2010 – match with intermediate female opponent: This was the first opponent I can remember who did not wear a mask. In this tournament, face strikes were disallowed. It is hard, in the speed of a match, to remember not to strike what has been a regular target. (If I am ever in a street fight, I will certainly go for the face.) I lost a point because of illegal face strikes.
My opponent had a strong side kick (where have I seen that before?) and good timing. She was tall and outweighed me. I could not depend on my strength and size in this match. I had some trouble with her good, high kick since it was well aimed. She had that kick, and a punch that followed, or vice versa depending on the situation. Once I blocked her lead hand strike, and her kick immediately followed. That combination created a difficult-to-block high/low combination. I don't know how I would have done against her in point-only sparring, but in continuous matches opponents have a chance to get past the initial strike(s) and change the game. After eating her kick and punch a time or two, I found the timing of her kick to get past it, and blocked her punch. I caught her kick, and climbed over it punching. She did not have a well-developed close fighting style. Once I discovered that, I felt I had her. The emotion of the fight changed at that point, too, because I knew what to do, and she seemed to be made uncomfortable by the close-in contact. Her body language at the end of the first round told me she thought I had her too. Her shoulders slumped, she would not meet my eyes, and she looked like she wished she hadn't signed up. As we “set up” for another round, she walked slowly. My body language was bouncy, literally on my toes ( a waste of energy, probably) and confident. That helped me psychologically in the fight as well because the judges see that body language, as well as the opponent.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
What I've Learned
The main thing I have learned about me from this program is that I do better when I have goals.
Before I had specific goals to meet, I found it very easy to believe that I didn't have time or energy to train at that moment. The moments would add up and soon I'd realized I had not trained outside of class for a week. Then, I would train really hard for a few days. Next, I'd start making excuses again. Too tired, too busy, too stressed. . .
Now, when I am tired, busy, or stressed, I have this goal hanging over me, and I have to be much more careful in deciding if I really am to busy, tired, or stressed.
The best part is, when I go ahead and get my training in on those days it helps me realize I'm not as busy as I thought, it makes me feel less tired, and it alleviates the stress.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
growing
Ten Tigers has helped me realize how much potential I have as a martial artist. A few months into the program, I was a bit stressed because I felt like I was falling behind. I'm down on my push up reps, and how will I get caught up. I'll never get caught up. Oh no!!! Yet, I simply took time to slow down and analyze the situation. It occurred to me that many martial artists never find the time, or more accurately, make the time to train outside the studio. I've seen these practitioners in action, and I did not want to be that person. I wanted to be the student who always takes the attitude of the student in a positive manner, which I believe to be that there is always more to learn. More importantly, I want to learn to the best of my ability. In order to do that I must find the time to train outside the school. If I don't, I will never truly grow. Ten Tigers has help me change for the better in regards to time management. Since becoming a part of the program, I've practiced stance work, done push ups, and forms in the oddest places. I remember one of my early teachers tell me how people would laugh at him for practicing his forms in his office. People would drive by and see him through the office window kicking and punching. He did not care. He knew that was the only time he had to put in the hard work to get the positive results. When on the phone, I will often work on stance work. I work in sets of push ups and sit ups when my daughter plays on her mat.
Not only have I started to analyze my workouts more to reach my full potential, I've started to analyze my overall martial arts studies. I used to try to fit in as many forms as possible before my training time ran out. Now, I focus on quality and not quantity. Honestly, I've forgotten a lot of forms and that's a bit frustrating. Yet, most of them are weapons forms, and I don't plan on using a sword or spear in public anytime soon. So, I focus on what little I do know in regards to application. I do not practice as many forms, but really slow down the ones I do know in order to concentrate on what I can use and in what situation. I think of self defense, sparring, and film fight choreography when I practice. It keeps me interested and gives me purpose. That's probably my biggest change in my approach to things. What is the purpose of this, and will it work for me? Some things do and some things don't. Some techniques work on some days and some days they don't. For example, right now, I have a pulled hamstring, so a lot of kicking techniques are not working for me. My body is not allowing it. Therefore, I need to figure out an alternative or back up plan. For me, this is growth. I'm changing with my body, but still getting the same result in regards to application. I've always thought this to be a significant step in martial arts. I've seen "masters" simply count in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and watch over a class. Where's the teaching in that?! Great, you know how to count to ten in a foreign language. What's the purpose...educate your attacker? I admire the masters of their art who stay in the best shape they can, and they continue to participate. They do what they can still do well. They have a self awareness of what works for them, and they make sure they truly know that information. Someone who used to have a fantastic roundhouse kick may now be more of a puncher. If it is still effective, who cares? My approach has changed to basically what works best for me today. The important part is to be honest with myself, and never forget, that I will always have more to learn.
Not only have I started to analyze my workouts more to reach my full potential, I've started to analyze my overall martial arts studies. I used to try to fit in as many forms as possible before my training time ran out. Now, I focus on quality and not quantity. Honestly, I've forgotten a lot of forms and that's a bit frustrating. Yet, most of them are weapons forms, and I don't plan on using a sword or spear in public anytime soon. So, I focus on what little I do know in regards to application. I do not practice as many forms, but really slow down the ones I do know in order to concentrate on what I can use and in what situation. I think of self defense, sparring, and film fight choreography when I practice. It keeps me interested and gives me purpose. That's probably my biggest change in my approach to things. What is the purpose of this, and will it work for me? Some things do and some things don't. Some techniques work on some days and some days they don't. For example, right now, I have a pulled hamstring, so a lot of kicking techniques are not working for me. My body is not allowing it. Therefore, I need to figure out an alternative or back up plan. For me, this is growth. I'm changing with my body, but still getting the same result in regards to application. I've always thought this to be a significant step in martial arts. I've seen "masters" simply count in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and watch over a class. Where's the teaching in that?! Great, you know how to count to ten in a foreign language. What's the purpose...educate your attacker? I admire the masters of their art who stay in the best shape they can, and they continue to participate. They do what they can still do well. They have a self awareness of what works for them, and they make sure they truly know that information. Someone who used to have a fantastic roundhouse kick may now be more of a puncher. If it is still effective, who cares? My approach has changed to basically what works best for me today. The important part is to be honest with myself, and never forget, that I will always have more to learn.
Friday, September 3, 2010
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