johnsblog

Multiplied Force Fighting System

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:29:04 +0100

I purchased this DVD series from Russell Stutely a few months ago and since then have also purchased his Body Alarm Reaction DVD and several downloads.

I highly recommend his site and his products. What ever your martial art be it a striking or grappling system he can improve your understanding of your art and your skill levels will increase dramatically please take the time to visit his site also as a free member you get some goodies to download.

Dealing With The Effects of the Adrenaline Dump

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:24:31 +0100

In this blog I would like to answer the question “How do I overcome the effects of the Adrenaline Dump”. This I shall answer in three sections namely

why do we get the adrenal (adrenaline) dump
the effects of this “dump”
how to overcome these effects

Why do we get the adrenal dump?

Adrenaline is a neurotransmitter and hormone. It prepares us for fight or flight. Thousands of years ago man needed the benefits of the adrenal dump when he needed to fight for his life or make a run for it. Therefore the adrenal dump has evolved with us and is a perfectly natural reaction; it is in our genes and serves a useful purpose. This is why no one can completely overcome the effects of stress related adrenaline.

The effects of this “dump”

When we are mentally stressed maybe from someone being aggressive or even being physically attacked the adrenal glands secrete adrenaline into our bloodstream. Immediately our heartbeat starts to increase and our strength increases as blood is diverted from our extremities and brain to the larger muscle groups. You may find one or some of the following happen, feeling of weakness, body shaking, dry throat, voice become strained, you may even feel sick.

You will probably lose most of your fine motor control. (Have you noticed how your hands shake after an argument).

Your peripheral vision narrows and soon develops into tunnel vision until all you see is like looking through a tube. As your heart rate climbs you may well lose functional cognitive thinking, your ability to remember things may well become hampered. If your heart rate goes too high you may freeze like a rabbit in headlights.

When the adrenal dump occurs the untrained and the traditionalist will not understand what is happening to them as they have no experience of the threat at hand also the effects of adrenaline will be unfamiliar to them and they will most likely not be able to deal with them effectively.

How to overcome these effects

If you practice a system that is primarily a traditional martial arts you will probably only need a fraction of the techniques you are taught. If you want to stay in your preferred system then try to select those techniques that are simple, effective and easy to practice for self defence, all the others are just the fun part of what you are doing, once selected try to practice these under conditions of stress. Once you have mastered these then it may indeed be possible to add some or all of those techniques/concepts that you considered too complicated to be effective, but always ensure they are tested under conditions of stress.

Stress testing your concepts/techniques includes but are not limited to practicing on pad, kick shield, punch bags and training partners, adrenal stress response training using a padded aggressor who elicits an adrenal dump in you under controlled conditions. This is achieved by name calling, insulting you, pushing you around, making you get dizzy on the spot (by spinning around) then having to defend yourself. Being blind folded or eyes shut and attacked, pushed to exhaustion then having to defend yourself, being in the centre of a circle surrounded by potential attackers and having a time limit to defend yourself against them coming at you 1 or 2 at a time maybe with some of them armed so you have to disarm them as well. All these and others will get your adrenaline flowing. If these sort of drills are not done at your class then then why not invite some of your co students to train on a weekend and practice some stress related scenarios. There should be some sort of progression in your training at a rate where you can memorise combinations/concepts so that you will not need to think them through under the threat of adrenal dump.

To start with practice at what I call learning speed, at a slow pace with exaggerated motions. This will help your neurons fire accurately through your muscles, deepening the pathways between thought and action and will in fact speed up your learning process as you have time during the progression of a technique to correct yourself if you detect any errors. This will help wire in the correct form for full speed application under adrenal stress. Once this is grasped then add speed to your training.

I hope my blogs get your attention and raise questions please send them to my email at shurashikata1@btinternet.com and I shall attempt to answer them either as an email or I shall post a demo by way of explanation on you tube.

What is "Traditional Karate"

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:13:25 +0100

In this blog I would like to briefly discuss, the evolution of so called traditional karate from a viable system of self defence (Tode also known as Te or Uchinadi) to a watered down version of itself, otherwise known as “Traditional Karate”. I would also like to take this opportunity to point out that modern sport karate is a great way to get fit and have fun and especially at black belt levels is a very skilful sport. I have nothing against it (I spent approximately 15 years doing it), but I have moved on and for the past 10 years+ have been more involved in bringing the self defence of the original karate back to the forefront of my students and my training. For a slightly more comprehensive coverage see my downloadable article “What is traditional karate”

I would like to offer for your consideration a different take on what is traditional karate. Firstly, must there be Japanese/Okinawan terminology in a traditional karate class. I say, NO. The Japanese use Japanese because it is their native language (and the reasons I state in the article mentioned above) the Okinawans use Okinawan and Chinese. This can and does lead to some confusion with the same name meaning different blocks for instance. Learning the terminology in your native language promotes far better communication between practitioners.

Is the Gi a symbol of traditional karate? Back in the 1800s they did not have the tracksuit but the next best thing was essentially the underwear of Okinawan traditional dress, there was no specialist training clothes. The idea was the same as today, to wear something comfortable and it did not matter if it got dirty.

High kicks were introduced by Yoshitaka Funakoshi, son of Gichin Funakoshi, without any attention to whether they made sense in combat these kicks included mawashi geri, yoko geri kekomi, yoko geri keage, fumikomi and ushiro geri also stances were lowered. Line work (kihon) grew to predominance (accounting for up to a third of each session). This parrot fashion repetition of techniques was engineered so that the huge classes that developed in the universities could safely train together and was developed to bring it into line with other Japanese martial arts such as Kendo. Because karate rapidly grew mainly due to the universities adoption of it, the original intent (that of self defence) was discarded in favour of a more sport oriented kumite and with this change of intent the original meanings of the kata was lost or ignored. In returning to an earlier tradition that of karate for self defence then no high kicks should be taught.

In traditional karate cross training is frowned upon, why is this considering that the founding fathers of modern karate Gichin Funakoshi, Sokon Matsumura and Anko Itosu all cross trained and made alterations to kata. In my experience the complete self defence fighter needs to be effective at striking and grappling.

Top Ten Attacks in the UK

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 06:26:53 +0100

Thought I would add this for your consideration. I shall be uploading some solutions to these attacks in the near future. If you are reading this from outside the UK I would be interested in a list of the top 10 from your country, if you can get it please pass it on to me with where you got it from and I shall add my solutions to the list

Top 10 most common assaults listed in order of frequency are

Defender pushes attacker, hands to chest, which is usually followed by the attacker using a swinging punch to the head
A swinging punch to the head. (usually trying to sucker punch you)
A front clothing grab, one handed, followed by punch to head
A front clothing grab, two handed, followed by a head butt
A front clothing grab, two handed followed by a knee to the groin
A bottle, glass or ashtray to the head
A lashing kick to groin/lower legs
A broken bottle/glass jabbed to face
A slash with knife, most commonly a 3” to 4” lock blade or kitchen utility knife. (Apart from muggings, sexual assaults and gang violence, the hunting/ combat type knife is seldom used)
A grappling style head lock

If your training does not include defences against these types of attacks then include them in your sessions, NOW. Practice them under conditions of stress, role play scenarios so that you become familiar with some one “having a go at you”. Use your “Fence and Guard” barriers, make it difficult for the aggressor to grab you or get close enough to hit you. (Do not train continuously so that you ALLOW your training partner to grab you, the same goes for letting them get close enough to grab you).

Suggestions for self protection (the art of fighting without fighting)

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:40:11 +0100

   In spite of what you may hear on TV and in the papers the vast majority of people never have a fight in their loves, never get mugged or attacked and never need fighting skills. The vast majority of people have enough on their plates trying to juggle work, having fun etc so fighting skills are pretty low down in the order of things they think they need, though they are in fact pretty important, as the saying goes "Its better to have the skill and never use it than to not have the skill and need it"
   In this blog I shall be writing about Self Protection as opposed to Self Defence. With Self Protection you apply concepts so that you minimise the occurrence of situations where you may need to go to the last resort which will be your Self Defence skills namely applying strikes, kicks etc.
   I would like to describe three basic areas of Self Protection these are

Avoidance/Awareness
Aspects you need to control. SPACE, DISTANCE and TIME
Barriers-The Fence and The Guard

Avoidance
Applying avoidance skill is easy

If a bar you are going to has a bad reputation for violence or thuggish behavior...AVOID IT
If you know an area is a no go for whatever reason...AVOID IT
If you know a person/group is a psycho/bad news then you guessed it...AVOID THEM

   Use your common sense and trust your gut reaction it is usually right. Be aware, look around where you are, get a feel for the atmosphere, if it feels wrong then leave.

Aspects you need to control. SPACE, DISTANCE and TIME
   You must attempt to control all three of these if you lose two or more of them then the probability of you being hurt go through the roof. You attacker will have already sussed you out then decided to attack you and will have already taken control of these.
   Here is a scenario that you may find familiar. You are sitting, relaxing in a bar. Unknown to you your attacker has decided to have a go at you because you had been seen talking to his girlfriend. he being the jealous type has been sitting staring at you whilst working himself up to come over. he is now controlling time, he has decided when to confront, threaten and when to attack. Next he will come over and try to crowd you or hem you in, he is now controlling space. Now is when he attempts ot control distance and get into the position that he wants.
   Now is when you should take control of all three. First of all is space, as soon as you are aware of any hint of an encounter you should stand up and get into as much space as possible. Move away from obstacles etc. You are now making him have to think on his feet, already his plan is having to change. He has lost the advantage of space
   As he advances to intimidate or shout at you, move. This way he looses the distance that he wants. If you can not touch him he will struggle to touch you, so by keeping mobile you now control distance.
   Finally is time, he has some game plan for when he attacks, there will almost certainly be some verbals. This is when he may decide to hit you, if you walk away of even pre-emptively strike him you have changed the timing of his plan. You may have forced him to attack you sooner than he wants or thrown his plan into disarray.

Barriers. The Fence and The Guard
   When you have taken all possible precautions to avoid a confrontation but the aggressor will not back away and it appears that it will still "kick off". There is a non physical barrier called "The Fence and a physical barrier called "The Guard"
   Simply put the fence is a visual barrier you put up between yourself and the aggressor. Stand with open hand facing him at chest level with fingers pointing towards his eyes. At this time if you think that you can not talk them out of attacking you then you must tell them to "STAY BACK" or "TALK TO ME FROM THERE" etc. Make sure you say it firmly and with confidence. Use it to gain control and maintain distance, space and time. If they continue to come forward then you must use "The Guard".
   The Guard is physical, if your assailant is too close or continues to move in after you have told them to stay back use your open hands to push him hard and say again, "STAY THERE" or "GET BACK". You are now taking control and there can be no hesitation in you now. yhour assailant now knows that you mean business, he can either attack or back down/apologies.

Just my luck

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:44:40 +0100

Welcome to my first blog

I have been putting together everything for my site and there is still a fair bit to do but due to the credit crunch I just lost my job and to cap it all have injured my shoulder in a fall which has interferred with my training and weight lose program.

I have decided to upload this site even though it is unfinished the reason being I want to get my messege out to the martial arts online community and see what interest there is (if any) in what I do.

If you have any questions please ask and I shall try to answer them I may even post a practicle demo on you tube should the answer to your question need it.

Please subscribe and I look forward to your questions my email address for question and/or constructive criticism is

shurashikata1@btinternet.com