Mon 21 Jun 2010

a date with kyokushin karate

Posted by Pete under Random, training
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On Saturday night, one of my best mates from Perth in Western Australia came back over to Japan. It’s been about a year since he left so it was good to catch up with him. It also gave me the opportunity to try out a class of Kyokushin Karate as that’s what he was studying before he left. The dojo was in a tiny basement outside of Mitaka station in the West of Tokyo. I was able to meet my friend’s sensei, Kawashima-san as well as his wife and a fighter of theirs, Mochitzuki-san.

Kawashima-sensei is only 2 years older than myself but has been training Kyokushin since he was 13 years old and is an All-Japan champion, a remarkable achievement considering the stories I’ve heard about the amount of effort that is required to reach that level. He was a very quiet and humble guy which is something I’ve come to find on my own martial arts journey; most people are really the nicest people you’ll ever meet despite knowing they could probably kick your skull in if they wanted to.

Since it was mine and another friend of ours first time with Kyokushin, Kawashima-sensei ran us through the basic stance and punching technique. He also explained the theory of why Karate punch are like they are, one hand rotating back while the other rotates forward. It’s due to simulating grabbing someone (be it by their arm) and as you grab and pull them toward you, you throw a punch to the gut or head or wherever you’re aiming. Nice.

After that we paired up and worked on punching towards our opponents mid section while they tried to block it away. Along the way, Kawashima-sensei was explaining where we were making mistakes and how to refine it. He showed us that trying to throw a punch with strength over technique makes it easy for your opponent to read your movements and block. The key was to stay relaxed and get the technique right. His movements were so fast when he showed us the proper technique that he nailed my friend in the gut about five times without his blocks being anywhere near close. Impressive!

After practice, he had us go all out in the big body bag for 1 minute rounds. Very tiring but a lot of fun. When training was finished we got some food and dranks and sat on the floor of the dojo and had a good chat about Australia, Karate and martial arts in general. It was a lot fun. Kawashima-sensei also brought out videos of his own sensei who is world renowned for his displays of breaking things (name eludes me now, will add a video if I can find one later).

All in all, it was a great experience with the martial art I want to one day undertake. If I get another chance to live in Tokyo, I will definitely be signing up with Kawashima-sensei’s group!

Osu!

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Fri 18 Jun 2010

this just in – summer is hot

Posted by Pete under Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, training
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BJJ training last night lasted a whopping 45 minutes.

Went through the usual warm up which drew out every last ounce of stamina left in all our bodies. After we worked two grappling drills, we all looked at each other and we all saw the same look in each others’ eyes. We called it a night then and there.

Not sure if it was to do with the doors of the dojo were closed but opening them made little difference. The famous Gunma winds were not blowing at all. Sadly this means we will most likely be going a bit slower at BJJ the coming weeks before my departure.

I can see now winter was where I was able to push really hard, mainly due to the wanting to get warm from the cold outside. In the muggy heat of Japan’s summer though, it’s a different story altogether.

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Fri 4 Jun 2010

weight application in BJJ

Posted by Pete under Brazilian Jiu-jitsu
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Updated: All parts added.

I love reading John Will’s blog. If you don’t know John Will, he’s one of the dirty dozen; one of the 12 first non-Brazilians to earn a black belt in BJJ. His wikipedia entry provides a pretty good summary of his martial arts background.

Anyways, his blog has some really insightful and motivating posts. Lately he has begun writing a 3 5 part series on weight application in BJJ. I haven’t had a chance to try out his advice yet (damn little, niggling injuries) but it sounds really important. So important I feel I have to post about it to let more people know! Here they all are for your perusal.

Weight Application: Part 1

Weight Application: Part 2

Weight Application: Part 3

Weight Application: Part 4

Weight Application: Part 5

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Thu 3 Jun 2010

kata list to date – June 3

Posted by Pete under Matsubayashi-ryu Karate, training
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The list of kata from Matsubayashi-ryu Karate I’ve learned continues to grow! Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

Fukyugata I, II

Pinan I, II, III, IV, V

Naihanchi I

Thanks to Youtube, I can show you exactly what they look like! (Note: is NOT me in the vids) Check them after the break.

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Wed 2 Jun 2010

Kickboxing and BJJ – June 1

Posted by Pete under Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, Kickboxing, training
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It’s been a while since I worked real hard at kickboxing so I thought I’d give it a good showing last night. We were working on a left body hook which was something I was after the proper technique for (yay). Working the pads with Sekiguchi it all felt good but then into light sparring it all came apart. I think it’s going to take a while before I am able to spar properly without worrying about punching someone in the face or getting punched in the face (which happened many times). I’m hoping it’s just an experience thing like it was with BJJ.

After light sparring we worked on a back kick. While keeping your head facing straight, front foot goes forward and you point your toes back towards you, twist your head around and back to facing the front and your body will follow, then kick into the midsection of your opponent using the power from your thigh muscles. Lots of fun until I realised I’d done far too many in a row and was really dizzy and tired. I had to sit down for a while.

All this kicking left me pretty drained for BJJ. We started pretty late so we didn’t warm up and went straight into technique. Again, we practice the shoulder lock choke we’ve been working on. From the mount, take your opponents sleeve in both hands (or just your right if you can) and push it across their body, switch to a pistol grip on their sleeve with your right hand and push it towards the mat next to their head. With your left hand, reach under their neck and take a grip of their wrist so their arm is now trapped around their neck. Keeping pressure on their upper arm area, push down on their elbow and roll them on to their side. You’ll need to sit up here and put your right leg up to balance while keeping it tight to their belly and your left leg flat on the ground behind their back. This locks them in place and makes it really difficult to move at all. Now with your right hand, reach in and take their right gi collar (doesn’t need to be high up, can be around their chest level, if their gi is tight just pull it out) and push that towards the mat space above their left shoulder that’s on the ground. Now you want to let go of their wrist with your left hand and take control of their gicollar your right is holding. This will pop up their right shoulder. Pull your right hand back and stick it behind their neck which should lock in their right shoulder in the process. From this position, roll back over your left leg, and then place it high up and over their left shoulder. Bring your right leg up and over your left to close. Then all you need to do (if they haven’t tapped to the incredible pressure already) is gently lean back while extending your hips/legs and arms forward in a scissors -like movement. This will completely lock in the choke.

I can’t find any videos of what it looks like (most likely because I don’t know it’s name in Japanese let alone English) so I’ll take my camera on Thursday and take photos/video if possible. Hope the explanation made sense.

Now back to work for me while I recover and hope to be able to move enough for karate tonight.

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Wed 2 Jun 2010

scramble stuff tees are here!

Posted by Pete under Random
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Lock & Roll T-shirt by Scramble Stuff

I’ve been a fan of Matt’s (of The Grappling Dummy fame) t-shirts from his Scramble Stuff company since I first saw his BJJ Basics T-shirt. I’d been holding off getting one as I figure since it’ll be coming all the way from the UK, I may as well get two together. Well once I saw his latest design, a collaboration with Manto, I knew I couldn’t hold out any longer.

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Tue 1 Jun 2010

dream 15 poster rivalries translated

Posted by Pete under Random
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Ever since I saw this post over on MiddleEasy.com, I’ve been obsessed with getting the entire thing translated. Well with my trusty (not as broken as I thought) electronic dictionary by my side, I set about the task. Now I present to you, in all it’s Photoshop glory, the translated version!

Original:

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Mon 31 May 2010

dream 14 and ufc 114 thoughts

Posted by Pete under Random
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I’m glad the one weekend I chose to spend indoors happened to coincide with both Dream 14 on Saturday night here in Japan and then waking up on Sunday morning to watch UFC 114. Pure coincidence I tells ya! ;) I’d like to share my thoughts on the two events.

Dream 14

I always find Dream entertaining and this one was no exception. Can anyone explain what was with that opening montage with crazy Bjork music though? Also – hooray for Crazy Pride Lady.

Minowaman is my new personal hero. I love that guy so much. It doesn’t matter that he fights not the highest competition (although he has proved he can stand with some good competition) but there’s just something about a little guy going in there with the biggest opponents they can find. Fight on Minowaman! Keep on aiming for Heaven!

Miyata stole that win from Otsuka in the last round. Pretty even fight for most of the match but I felt in the first 2 rounds, Otsuka’s striking was much crisper and more effective. He was sprawling pretty well as well to defend takedowns. Miyata did just enough in the last 2 minutes I think to take it.

Wicky killed Tokoro. Not much more to say about that.

Kid Yamamoto’s fight was pretty impressive. I really liked his stand up game. They mentioned that he’d been working with a former world champion boxer in Okinawa and it looks to have paid off. That was a sweet counter punch KO.

I missed the first round and a half of Sakuraba vs Ralek Gracie. I understand that Ralek was doing a pretty good job. I really think that Sakuraba could’ve sealed the Kimura he got in the third had the referee not intervened to fix Ralek’s shorts. That was a pretty surreal moment. They didn’t even stop the clock as far as I’m aware. Ralek records history for the Gracies but really, Saku is an old man now, can they really be happy with that? He already defeated the best Gracies in their prime.

I wanted to see Nick Diaz get beat. That’s all :(

UFC 114

Pretty good show all around I think. Dong Hyun Kim did a really good job on Amir Sadollah, completely shutting him down. Impressive display. Speaking of impressive, John Hathaway was outstanding against Diego Sanchez. Sanchez (who’s last fight was for the title against BJ Penn) was completely outclassed by Hathaway in all areas of the game. This kid is gonna go far. Looking forward to it!

As much as I like Little Nog, he lost that fight and Brilz was robbed. Brilz, for my mind, easily had the first two rounds. He was controlling the pace of the fight until the 3rd where I think Little Nog sensed danger and needed to pull something off (that crucifix was beautiful btw). I’m glad Dana gave it fight of the night as some form of compensation to Brilz. He’ll be back I’m sure.

Todd Duffee vs Mike Russow – wow lol. If ever there was a real life application of the Homer Simpson boxing style, Mike Russow was it last night. I jokingly mentioned that to Marcus and next thing you know, Russow one punch KOs Duffee for the win. Hilarious. I can understand how upset he was at the end when he described it as a terrible fight. He’ll live to fight another day (just) and Duffee will be back hungrier to right his wrong.

Bisping was too good for Miller. Not really much more to say. I don’t think he could take Silva like he wants to though.

Full credit to Rashad Evans, he was on fire. As much as I wanted Rampage to win, Rashad looked completely in the game. I would much rather someone who wanted to be there taking on Shogun for the title, rather than someone who was unsure if they wanted to fight again. Rampage was outclassed in wrestling and speed.

Overall, two very eventful and entertaining cards. Can’t wait for the next!

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Mon 24 May 2010

complete annihilation achieved

Posted by Pete under Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, training
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So on Saturday I thought it would be a good idea to try out this “Sequential Fatigue Challenge” that I found on the Sherdog.com forums. This was not a good idea.

The first mistake was me, Marcus and another friend drinking a bottle of rum the night before. The 2nd was it being extremely humid and hot that day. We persisted nonetheless.

The instructions said to repeat 5 times. We managed 2 before giving up. Not sure if I want to try it again haha.

So that killed me for the rest of the day. I went to BJJ just to watch while Marcus showed his fighting spirit and fought on anyways. In the end it was only him and Nakazawa-san there. Momo-san showed up a bit later and showed Marcus the De La Riva guard. That was about it really.

So starts another week although I’m not sure I will train as hard as I did the last. I might give tonight a rest; we’ll have to see.

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Fri 21 May 2010

annihilation week, day 5

Posted by Pete under Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, Matsubayashi-ryu Karate, training
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Rest day today. I feel real strange though. As in, I’m not tired or sore at all. I’m in fact a little bummed I won’t be working out today. This is a good sign I think.

Wednesday night was Karate night and we worked through the kata from Fukyugata  1 & 2 through from Pinan 1 through 4. Enmei-sensei refrained from teaching us 5 until we got those down without mixing some parts up like we have been. I had them remembered by the end of that night and reinforced them last night after BJJ.

Last night’s BJJ was pretty relaxed. We got started late as usual. After warm up was over, there was only 15 minutes left so we went straight into sparring. Rolled with Ken, Takada and Marcus. Was pretty tired by the time we were done so just relaxed with Karate kata rather than do kickboxing. Punched the makiwara a bunch and that was about it.

Tomorrow is D-Day, Death Day. Gonna try this workout I found online. Then might be heading off to the sports entertainment facility called Round 1. Then BJJ training. Then drinking. Big day!

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