My musings on Islam, Mental Health, and MMA
There are a couple of gems inside his course. Good fundamentals, and a couple of tricks that you usually don’t see.
And it isn’t expensive, it’s cheap. Not expensive.
https://hard2hurt.teachable.com/
Training to read the body for Sen Sen no sen or Sen no sen generally uses the same drill, the same concept.
But attacking after they finish their attack (Go no Sen) is considered the least effective way to counter. Yet it is in some ways the more complex, and because it happens more often against skilled opponents, one to get very good at.
Usually Go no Sen happens after you either fail to read a strike on time, or could not hit before their attack is completed, usually because they have good foot work and movement.
However, there are a couple of ways to use Go no Sen in a way that really compromises your opponent.
Many baiting them to over extended past their balance to create a window to strike.
The thing is, to use Go no Sen in the best way possible, it requires an excellent sense of distance and good footwork, especially on the outside.
Jesse Enkamp the Karate nerd made a video on Go No Sen (To watch it, search his name with Go no Sen, sen no sen etc)
Jesse divides the use of the three initiatives on range, which isn’t a bad thing. But he over simplifies it, since it’s possible to do all three initiatives in all three ranges.
I will concede however that GO no Sen is the best option in long range, since it takes much more refined footwork and timing to do Sen Sen no Sen or Sen No Sen from far away. Instead it’s better to present leads and bait, to get them to over extend their strike against you as you shift, then counter. Basically watch any good counter striker, this is what they do.
WHERE I DISAGREE WITH JESSE ENKAMP: CLOSE RANGE IS GOOD FOR GO NO SEN TOO
He 30% disagree with him that Sen/Sen Sen no sen works best in close range. It does if you can do it. But so much of close quarters involves a form of grappling, where limbs are trapped or stifled. Sometimes a flow or reposition helps. Pummelling, grip fighting or even sticky hands. But your using your opponents finished strike rather than cutting it off like other forms of countering.
Think about it like Jiu jitsu. It’s how you recognize openings to escape, much like how submission attempts from the guy on bottom opens up guard passing in Jiu jitsu.
I want to reiterate, Jesse isn’t wrong that being close is a good time to attack first, to read and then strike. But frankly if you have an attack mindset, you’re constantly trying to hit first anyway, read their attack before it happens and hit the fucker. If your grappling your constantly looking to take balance or isolate limbs. And if you got good posiiton, you fucking hit them.
Go No Sen however is what you rely on when your not in a neutral or dominant position, and as a result it should be studied in all forms of fighting. And frankly it is, that’s why it’s so common.
If attacking the attack, or hitting someone before they throw a strike was easy, everyone would do it. I pull it off with my slow fat ass because I spent years just learning to read and flow, but sometimes I can’t, and I have to wait at times.
Yet just because it’s common, doesn’t mean it’s well mastered. Remember Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida? They got experienced strikers to over extended, they were very good at this. They built their career on this concept. Of course the quality of striking and feinting in the UFC got better, and it stopped being so useful, though they still had long careers even after being figured out. They certainly could ruin fighters on lower levels.
Seanchai in Muay Thai and Floyd Mayweather fought the best strikers in the world using this, and frankly were much better at it than Anderson and Machida both. Their opponents knew what they would do, present a false range and then bait them to overly commit. But their defense in general was good enough they could get inside and still score points and punishment, and they could probe very well. Seanchai in particular is a master at feinting and disguising his strikes.
Before I digress too much, I want to emphasize that mastering Go No Sen can set you apart from everyone else, it’s a game to be mastered.
But remember, it’s always better to hit them just as they are about to strike or if they are in the middle of their strike. It just is. It’s just harder.
THE DRILL
On the most general sense, one person feeds, the other counters. It naturally will shift between all three timing.
But we have to get more specific.
To specifically utilize Go no sen best in striking is to basically move backwards or laterally and have someone feed or charge at you.
Of course most skilled people quickly clue into this.
THe next step is to put your head outside the range of your footwork, a false target. You can do this with your leg or even hands. Then you pepper them with your own strikes. At some point they want to take your head off, and when they attack simply move it back or to the side, and they over extend.
See the image above? Look at what Mayweather does with his head, it’s slightly outside his stance, and he brings it right back like pulling a carpet from under someone when attacked. That’s an example of a lead, a good bait.
Long distance examples
One program that offers drills that work on this is Phil Norman’s “Ghost” program, which greatly utilizes distance and forcing your opponent to over commit. They will have video of what I describe.
A midrange example would be shoulder rolling a punch instead of slipping it to cause an over extension. The same applies for palming a strike rather than parrying it. The roll and the palm cause an over extension. I can find a moving image for a roll, but not palming a punch unfortunately.
In the clinch the best equivalent of an over extention is shucking a neck tie when someone drives you forward, often leading to a better position. And despite the fact many people think it doesn’t work, sticky hands actually helps do this for strikes, especially when hand fighting happens.
Honest to god, I will revisit this blog page to expand on it, and to clarify it. Right now this is a rough draft of what could possibly be a book or even a video instructional.
Yes, attacking when they attack you.
How do you train it? The same way you train Sen Sen no Sen/Sen.
The difference is you attack at the same time as they attack you instead of right when your opponent initiates. When done right, Sen no Sen can be very disconcerting, it can greatly upset your opponents sense of flow and rhythm.
If your sparring soft, some people start to ramp up sparring and go hard, they will spazz if you do this, because it’s not comfortable, even if you’re not hitting them hard.
The outline of the drill is largely here in this link.
https://adeelsdeal.wordpress.com/2021/05/17/sen-sen-sen-no-sen-strike-first-learn-to-read/
Don’t worry, my post about Go no Sen(strike after they strike) is not going to be a link to this same drill. It’s going to be more cerebral.
Now technically, Sen/Sen sen no sen isn’t that complicated. It means to attack or attack first. Nothing more. Nothing less.
But we all know that sometimes you take the first punch, and somehow you don’t hit first, instead you miss and they counter, they parry and they counter, they block and they counter.
If I am not making myself clear, attacking first at the wrong time gets you countered or over extended.
Thus I like to look at Sen/Sen Sen no sen as something more complicated for myself. I personally see the best use of Sen as essentially acting right at the moment your opponent decides to strike or attack.
Why?
Well no one wants to attack a ready opponent. But how then do you know your opponent is not ready? Especially if the baddy is cussing at you(Self defense) or has their hands up circling you (Sport) or your in the middle of a fight with his/her eyes gleaming. Clearly they are ready right? No way to surprise them?
Well yes you can. You see, in fights people get fixated on what they are going to do. When they strike, even if it’s well practiced, there is a split second their brains get bogged down into the action, focussed on it. My karate Sensei Rick Wilson called it an entaglement. It occurs when there is connection physically between two people(clinch/grappling) or when an action is decided.
The moment an opponent punches, their brain locks onto the action for a very brief moment in time, allowing you the opportunity to hit them before they hit you.
Yes, in essence a pre-emptive strike done well is actually a counter. You have to recognize when your opponent takes initiative. Only when he has initiative can you land that clean strike before he even releases his own.
So how do you learn this?
Short answer: SLOW MOTION TRAINING.
Have someone feed strikes to you in slow motion.
That is all there is to it. You do so not with the focus to block or cover, but to hit them before they hit you.
But because it’s slow motion you most respond with the same speed as your attacker. To go faster means your not learning the timing properly. The only way to beat someone faster than you to the punch is to read them better, you won’t outspeed them.
Step one: Metronome rhythm. Make it predictable so they can get comfortable without speeding up, it also gives a flow of how uninterrupted strikes work. Remember to vary the distance however.
Step two: Broken rhythm. Makes it harder and frankly simulates how many skilled people will strike. Again remember to move only as fast as your attacker.
Step three: Add feints. Even if you are training for self defense, feinting is a false flag, you want to be able to recognize a real attack with real energy. It teaches you not to bite on irrelevant movement and forces you to be much better at reading the attack.
Step four: Speed up. Yeah. Self explanatory. Learn to read it when it’s faster. But only do this drill fast if you’ve done it slow first.
This isn’t rocket science people.
Though I am positive he isn’t the first person to do it, my Karate teacher was the first one to introduce this concept to me, and he makes good use of it.
You can find him at http://wpd-rc.com/
Locks too, but the title is crowded enough.
See that doofus dressed like your grand mothers couch? That’s me. I helped pose and play around with progressions for this book.
Now I can go into details about everything taught in the book, which is not only a system on how to defend against a knife, but a general system of controlling the body through the limbs.
However I am going to focus specifically on one principle: When a Practitioner has a piece of their opponent attached to them, it’s best to step, and rotate constantly in one direction or do constant shifts in rotation. You feel resistance? Step again and continue the rotation anyway, change direction and continue to rotate as much as possible.
You get the idea I hope.
To explore this principle from the book, let’s examine the single leg take down.
To do single leg, whether head inside or head outside, will often be taught to ‘c-step’ then drop the shoulder and turn. That’s great, it involves a step and rotation. So far so good.
However Often when that fails, people stop the rotation. Don’t. Keep going, rotate ahead of them as they hop and frame.
“But what if he keeps jumping around as I rotate? I try to turn to stay ahead, but he’s timing it.”
That’s when you suddenly change direction and rotate the other way. THe single leg takedown vanishes, but to compensate they give you a whole bunch of other stuff. All competent wrestlers will chain wrestle, many just stop or get flustered when they hit a dead end. The step, rotation, direction change, rotate pattern simply keeps you from being ‘stuck’ and your always keeping them off balance. As long as they are off balance, the chain is there. Sometimes they even give up the back. This works as long as you have an attachment or they are attached to you.
Many people who shoot, assuming their penetration step is deep enough, often negate sprawls by changing position through a turn or a step and turn.
“But Adeel, what if they frame with their hands or get a neck tie as a shoot or dive?”
Believe it or not, shucking a frame and neck tie requires a….that’s right! Rotation! Yes there is the shuck motion that’s a little upward in force, but much of it is he rotation around the centre. If your driving in with force, they can’t frame or neck tie in a way to prevent shucking without allowing the take down to happen. It’s there if you have enough pressure.
The frame and neck tie is an attachment. If a rotation doesn’t get rid of it, chances are they are not really attached.
Some general food for thought. This isn’t perfect, martial arts is complicated. THe stuff I’m talking about above can fail if your timing is off, if someone turns with you, if they keep you from getting a piece of them.
But to actually pull off many things, you need a step and rotation, and so many techniques and defenses prevent a step and rotation. It’s not something your opponents wants you to be able to do, so they don’t allow it.
“Oh yeah? It’s not perfect? Well fuck you then! Why do I need to know this?”
But if you understand this concept, you can problem solve tecniques or tactices you employ when doing any kind of grappling, whether you sieze a hand striking at you with an over hook. Intercept a knife thrust, or you lock on a neck tie, manpulating them becomes easy when you simplify it in terms of rotations and steps.
Of course we can do a deep study just on the single leg, where we can look a liftings. High crotches, lifts on the hips for techniques such as O-Goshi or a hip toss. Rotation is not the only tool to study in improving take downs.
It’s just the one I picked to write about.
On a similar but different topic, the book and teacher where I got this concept from can be found here:
https://www.amazon.ca/Watch-Out-Pointy-End-Enforcement/product-reviews/0995975728/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_viewopt_sr?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews&filterByStar=five_star&pageNumber=1
There are many reasons you would want to read it, lots of principles and concepts. But the most important is being able to sieze a knife hand, because knives move fast, hard to catch, hard to block. But I’ve played with the system in the book, if you train it right you can greatly increase your chances of controlling a stabbing arm.
So for those who don’t know, rejection sensitive dysphoria is a symptom of ADHD and other forms of mental illness that makes neuro divergent people sensitive to rejection and judgement from other people. Often it’s because people who don’t conform socially often are rejected greatly, and instead of getting used to it, they get more sensitive. Sometimes the rejection isn’t even really there, it’s only perceived as a rejection which causes anguish to many neuro-divergent people.
The question I have is this: Is the emotional sensitivity toward what other people think of us something that was developed by our surroundings, or are we wired to be generally more emotionally sensitive, and thus we were always sensitive to rejection and judgement?
If that is the case, it doesn’t help that the rejection often is real, and very frequent.
If that is not the case, why do so few people with ADHD and other similar issues don’t simply stop giving a shit? I’m sure some stop caring, but most end up becoming more sensitive instead of less.
Either way, what are your theories my very few and even non-existent readers? Is it innate? Or is it conditioned?
Blog 1: Lack of Object Permanence and ADHD
Almost like infants, people with ADHD lack object permanence. Personally, I have a hard time remembering things I own if I don’t regularly have them in sight. If I pack them away, I easily forget I have them. Even stranger, I might remember that I have them, but it doesn’t ‘feel’ real, and I question it. We don’t want to put anything away, because we need to see it, so we know we have it.
A lack of object permanence influences how people suffering from ADHD manage digital information. They may buy a program and download it online, but never organize it, forgetting they ever purchased it or from where they downloaded it. These things combined may result in us purchasing it again. If someone suffering from ADHD does not know these are symptoms of their condition, it can cause a great deal of angst and guilt. This gives the perception of laziness, carelessness and waste regarding objects. With human beings it makes us come off as apathetic to friendships, even being fake. When the fact is it’s a perception and memory issue.
I never knew about object permanence being a problem in ADHD, and I never knew how much it could influence how you live day to day life, how it influenced behavior and how people judge you based on that behavior. Many times people thought I didn’t care about a topic because I didn’t remember something or a detail, because it wasn’t in front of me. Undiagnosed non-neurotypical people often either think the world processes things like them just not as bad, or they realize something about them is off, but they don’t know what. And then they learn what a lack of object permanence is, realizing you were never flaky or cold hearted. You go down the rabbit hole of how it affects so many things in your life. And you realize your diagnosis is more a part of you than you think.
So my advice is? Let’s talk about this more so people understand. Let’s stop with the self loathing. Let other people know who think they are selfish that maybe they aren’t, they literally perceive things differently.
These days I do kickboxing, MMA clinch and BJJ more than anything else.
But my foundation for all my fighting and theory comes from Okinawan Karate (Uechi-Ryu) and an informal education in Taiji.
To get a good set of drills and principles for counter assault and general martial arts concepts, you can visit my old karate and self defense teachers website.
The focus of the website it counter assault, particularly dealing with ambushes and violence not related to social settings. But the benefit will extend into any kind of martial arts that is practiced.
The base however is Uechi-Ryu and Taiji.
(These are not edited. I will go back eventually and edit the spelling and grammar of these posts in the future. First I want my thoughts out)
Anyone would tell you, it’s impossible to win a fight defending only. Even if your sucker punched, you want to end the conflict as soon as possible if your still conscious or alive.
You must have an attack mindset, constantly looking to finish to take the initiative.
What is interesting is that anyone who disagrees with me will point to examples of people who are very good that are hard to hit or someone in combat sports with almost magical defense.
The thing is, defense isn’t bad, nor is being good at defense. The problem is having a single minded focus on defending more than attacking, because you are delaying loss instead of finding a solution to the conflict. Most of the best defensive fighters in combat sports are good at countering. They don’t think or even focus on their defense, their defense is almost like a force field which draws out counters and openings for those they are fighting.
From a counter assault point of view (Assuming your awareness is good) a good defense turns an ambush into an opportunity, but you have to be looking for the opportunity to use it. A defensive mindset doesn’t help that, good defense and an attack mindset does.
Relationship to the three initiatives:
You cannot recognize the correct timing to attack if you are in a defensive mindset. Defensive mindset is the death of initiative, you are not looking for them. The best defense always puts you in position to come back, a defensive mindset renders a person blind to those opportunities presented.
Whether Sen/Sen sen no sen, Sen no sen, Go no sen, one needs two things:
The first is an unconscious defense, so that one does not have to focus on it.
The second is an attack mindset, to fixate on solutions rather than delaying loss.
As a martial arts teacher, I learned plenty watching his break down of how the best fighters in the world do what they do. I’ve come up with strategies and improved my own practice.
His ‘Filthy Casual’s guide’ series is particularly good. Sign up for his patreon for very good articles
Got to warn you though, his sense of humor is an acquired taste.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2i7H-EzzpQLeaj3Qplatjw
What's the deal with Adeel? 