Counter assault: How does it actually work? Badly organized musings.

I’ve been talking with Dillon Byer about models. And one thing without a doubt is the fact that learning a pre-conditioned response is far better than what is taught in many traditional and even western schools that teach self-defense and counter assault. The thing is, that too is a model. And the actual neuro-science behind

WAIT! Catch wrestling used to be in the Olympics? WHAT!!!

I watched this video, and it makes many wonderful points. But if there is anything I learned from watching it, it’s that martial artists should never ever ever ever want their style to get into the Olympics if they still want it to have a combative focus. Most notable was the fact that when the

Feints and Fakes: What constitutes a good feint?

When talking about feints, the sport combat crew views it mostly as half completed strikes or movements at best, little twitches and movements at most. The RBSD crew often doesn’t see much use for feints. Both of them though, don’t seem to put much thought into what a feint is. Both of them just see

An example of how trends can cause a loss of skills.

Let’s start with an example. Unless it’s kyokushin, most karate styles are point sparring. They don’t throw kicks below the belt. Now if someone is scoring a point, what’s the harm in scoring with a low kick? Jesse Enkamp suspects that it’s because Savate was practiced in a ruleset similar to old school point sparring,

How kicking forces many styles to be more linear.

This isn’t going to be as long as my usual posts. Simply put, you see lots of martial artists discover that hitting angles and flanking makes for good fighitng. They watch boxing and see boxers constantly hitting angles or changing positions with their hands, lots of movement. Then they watch Muay Thai or Kyokushin or

SLOPPY LIST: How Okinawan karate informs my kickboxing.

Punching to penetrate rather than to ‘pop’ People often talk about a ‘proper’ way to punch. Usually they say it must bounce or pop. The reason is such strikes are difficult to parry, they move fast, go into openings more easily and they deliver power that disperses quickly. This is especially seen in boxing, particularly

The difference between combat sports and street fighting isn’t big.

When it comes to awareness, legality and general strategy, sport fighting and street fighting are very different. But when it comes to fighting styles and even training methodology, they actually are not that different. So….let’s get started. Hopefully I don’t burn any bridges. YOU PROBABLY WON’T USE YOUR SPECIAL DEATH EYE POKE OR THROAT PUNCH

A rough rant about problems in Catch wrestling cultures.

Catch wrestlers seem more obsessed with being ‘pure’ and having a ‘real’ lineage than actually winning against other styles in all out grappling tournaments.And the few catch wrestlers that smash high level BJJ players are attacked for not being pure. Well forgive them for actually winning. Meanwhile BJJ for all it’s faults, is constantly evolving.

Strength and good body mechanics are the same thing.

No the title isn’t click bait. Depending on how you define what technique is, it’s not different from strength. If you define technique as collecting a bunch of moves and tricks to pull off, then technique and strength are different things. But that definition of technique only helps you in a limited fashion in combat.

If you’re a good teacher, your students should start beating you.

Before I talk about students, lets talk about size, strength, age and Talent. When we think of martial arts, particularly those in Asia or Asian influenced, we think of a little old man with a bent back, a line full of students throwing punches and kicks. When he squares off with one of his students,