Thursday, February 3, 2011

Kuntaw Staff Drill

Guru Buzz teaching a staff drill. With just a few encounters I have had with Buzz he has helped me "find" stuff in my staff work. Many of the moves from my old staff form made no sense until spending about 5 minutes with the Guru. One drill that he showed us revolves around controlling the weapon. Here is the video (thanks to may friend Jeff) that he asked me to share. Obviously Rob was still getting the hang of it. He is a quick study though.

Video of Kuntaw Guru Brian "Buzz" Smith teaching at the Gathering

We had a great time hanging out with Buzz while we were there. He is one of the most generous, open and knowledgeable teachers that I have met. Guru Buzz will be teaching at a big Filipino Martial Arts event this May in Illinois. That has to be the first Staff Choke I have ever seen.

Monday, December 20, 2010

David Belle - Parkour

People that do exceptional things or develop their talents are always inspiring.
Here is a vid of David Belle; the man who started the Parkour revolution.

Half Marathon Update/fore foot strike

Well,
Jon and I participated in the Mississippi Track Club half marathon a few weekends ago.
It was a blast. You would be surprised at the different types of people that show up for one of those events. My favorite was a man with a pot belly running with what looked like a fat dog. Never caught 'em. Most people just seemed like ordinary folks with only a few looking like "runners".
We took it real easy the first 10 miles or so. The goal for this event was simply to finish. I did stretch my legs a bit at the 10 mile mark to complete my first event in 2:21 for 152nd place. Not bad. It was a solid middle of the pack performance. To be "competitive" I need to shave almost an hour off of that time...maybe sometime in the future.
Since last weekend I have been stuffing myself and not running at all. I gave my self a week off to just relax. To be honest I was a little worn out and it took the whole week to recover. Christmas is this weekend.
My running goals for the next month are just to put some more miles on my new stride and slowly start making the conversion to the puma's that the Pose Techniques prefer. It seems like a good compromise for huarachis. My initial running shoe was a New Balance trainer. Well, It was not a running shoe per se. I picked it because the heel was not much thicker than the pad on the front of the shoe. It was a compromise between the flat Puma and traditional Nike style running shoe.
I'll buy a pair of the Puma's after Xmas and start doing my shorter runs in them. Want to be fully transitioned by next summer. The tendons, bones, muscles of the foot take a good bit of time to strengthen esp. after a lifetime of modern shoes.
After running my first half with the forefoot strike I was left will some simple calf tightness and of course some muscle stiffness that was gone after 2 or 3 days.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Super Athletes of the Sierra Madre

Craig Gray made a trip down here to Memphis last weekend to give a few seminars at the Krav Maga Center. They went well (will write about that later).
I was talking about training for the half marathon and he suggested a book called Born To Run. It has been a very good read so far. Caballo Blanco is an American that goes to Copper Canyon in Mexico to live and run. The amazing power of Google lead me to this video about a race that Caballo Blanco has put together. This short film talks about the Tarahumara indians and the very traditional lives that they lead.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Half Marathon Update

Okay,
So I ran 9 miles yesterday. It has been the longest so far. Not going to lie that was tough. The changes in my stride though have been very beneficial. No back or knee pain to report at this time. There have been a few days where the muscles and tendons caused some discomfort but nothing like I experienced in the past. Also, I highly recommend Hal Higdon's website for a training progression. I have made all the runs/mileage so far but have missed some of the cross training days due to family life commitments, etc.
Other challenges that I have had while training were recovery and staying hydrated. There is a product called Accelerade that a patient told me about. It has been very beneficial. I highly recommend it.

The event is just a few weeks away.

Weapons Class and Assault prevention for Women

As some of you may know Memphis Internal Arts has been seeking out teachers to round out our training. One of the areas of instruction that we have sought out has been in the area of modern weapons esp. that of stick/cane and knife. Chuck and Don over out of Innovative Martial Arts in Grand Rapids, Michigan have been helping us with that. Make sure you check the review of their last seminar. The way they put the curriculum together melded nicely with the way we express Sun style Hsing Yi Chuan. I have been working on using the 5 elements and animal movements on the 12 strike template of Serrada Escrima. Chuck and Don even simplified that even more using the Combat Clock of just 6 "angles".

Another aspect of the upgrades to our curriculum included ground work. Craig Gray will be helping us out this weekend by teaching a Hand 2 Weapon Ground Survival Tactics class. If you are in the area and would like to check out this seminar please let me know. My friend Xris Omotesa at Kravmagax.com will be hosting the event at his new training facility in Midtown.