Milestone for Isshin Ryu Karate Bugei

Congratulations and well done to Charles James at Isshin Ryu Karate Bugei on reaching a milestone (though I think he's losing his memory!). Thanks for your contributions, Charles!

Where have I been?

View from our back yard...

Where to begin...

As you may know, I moved in August, closing on the sale of our Virginia home on August 9, then drove to my father-in-law's home to spend the night, planning to close on the sale of the new home on Friday, August 10. Well, life doesn't always work out the way we expect. There's always Murphy waiting in the wings, and we should expect it, but don't.

On August 10, we prepared to head over to the closing agent/title company and sign our lives away, but got a call in the morning asking us to wait a little while, as they still hadn't received the payoff amount from the seller's mortgage company. No problem. We waited for the call. Got it, and they still didn't have the payoff! We didn't know what the problem was, but rescheduled for the following Tuesday, just to be safe.

It turned out that we couldn't close then either because the seller's lenders were apparently in the process of foreclosing on the property, as the current owners hadn't paid the mortgage for almost six months! Not cool. Turns out that the sellers didn't have enough to come to the table and close. Not good.

At this point, to mercifully end this sad tale, we're waiting for Countrywide (our seller's lender) to approve a "short-sale" so that we can go forward with the closing. It's moving at a snail's pace, but it seems to be going along...

At this point, I'd been so swamped with work and helping my wife, among other things, that I've had no time to post here at TDA, plus my hard drive died, and I've been without a laptop or Internet for a while.

Well I'm back! Look out! Thanks for sticking it out and checking back. I'm getting back into the swing, I promise, and will attempt to serve you better. Stay tuned!

Formations in Ancient Warfare

Scott at Weakness with a Twist has posted on something in which I have a great deal of interest in his excellent "Rooting, the Spear, and the Phalanx." Actually, several things that he somehow ties into a single post: rooting techniques, the use of the phalanx, cavalry, and ancient Roman battle gear, then ties it to American Football, billiards, and push-hands!

Photo: Warfare in the Ancient Greek World

"American style football and the game of pool are both leftovers from the days of the Phalanx. Few armies have ever been as well organized as Julius Caesar’s were, so the Phalanx continued to have play in the fields of battle until the gun.

Rooting techniques have some application in stand-up styles of wrestling, but their main application is being able to hold a long spear, shoulder to shoulder with other men, while you are facing a solid wall of on coming spears."

Great fun. Read!

Today's Quote: Ben Franklin

“Work as if you were to live 100 Years, Pray as if you were to die To-morrow.” —Benjamin Franklin 

Good advice, to be sure!

Friday blitz

As I told Bob in the comments on the last one, I'm still catching up. Here are some more things I have noticed, and, I think, deserve your notice:

Matched Fighting vs. Real Fighting - "Matched fighting and real fighting are completely different animals."

Wild West UFC - Dojo Rat posts a video of a fight on Deadwood, and blogs about it.

A great post at How to Box, What Everybody Ought to Know About Boxing Gloves:

You're about to learn more about boxing gloves than you really need to know.

Boxing gloves protect you and your opponent.  The earliest form of boxing glove originated in Greece (cestus) and consisted of something meant to inflict pain and suffering rather than reduce it.  It was basically leather straps that may or may not have things such as studs embedded in them.  In short, they made boxing fights good and bloody.

Lucky for those of us practicing boxing today, boxing decided to become more civilized.  Boxing gloves, while they haven't changed a whole lot, have benefitted from better materials and an understanding of science in the boxing glove development process. Read on...

Simple Self Defense - Adam with good advice on home alarms.

On removing a toe in Kenjutsu training (at Yachigusa Ryu blog):

This incident, along with what I’ve learned in kenjutsu thus far, has shown me very clearly how fragile life can be. We deal with weapons that can pierce flesh so well, the victim is sometimes not aware he is being cut until it’s too late. We’re learning to go for the femoral artery when attacking the leg, or how to slash at the throat when attacking high. How easy it is for life to be lost! Life is all we have. If it is lost, nothing else matters. To see how something so important can be so fragile speaks volumes on how precious it really is.

Defend University answers, "Can I shoot a home invader?"

Physical Strategies posts links to great video on Couture taking Sylvia to school, in case you missed it. Complete domination. One for the old guys!

How to improve your ukemi - excellent advice from an excellent blogger, Pat Parker at Mokuren Dojo. Check this one out if you want to fall better.

TTFN!

Thursday Blitz

Just some snippets of interest:

Ross Training has a good video of a young Tyson training, and the work ethic that made him the youngest heavyweight champ ever. Equally as impressive is how quick he fell when the work ethic changed. Training lesson there?

Scott Phillips had a great post I want to make sure you don't miss: Rough and Tumble. Great information on consensual fighting in colonial-era America. Read it, and realize how lucky you are to have MMA/NHB now, as opposed to "wrasslin" then! Good stuff!

Bob Patterson has a very good Striking Thoughts post on the Wing Chun similarities to push hands.

Semper Fi! Charles James posts about the debt that Isshinryu practitioners owe to the U.S. Marines who contributed to the incubation this great art:

"If not for the Marine Corps and if not for the dedicated students, all Marines, there would never have been Isshinryu. Even if it were created it would have possibly died on the vine with out that participation from the Marines who joined his class. Those Marines who helped to start it all fostered a relationship between Soke and the Marine Corps. They got him the contract to teach Marines, they helped to build the dojo where they practiced, and they brought it to other Marines through out the world and especially in the United States."

Via Military Motivator

Justice served! Read.

Last, Boot to the Head's old feed died, and if you, like I, were wondering why you saw no updates, that's the reason. For those of you who are patiently awaiting that boot to your head, re-subscribe here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/boot

Buh bye, for now...

Front kick: the Secret Weapon!

Whaaat? The lowly front kick a secret weapon???" Now you've lost it, TDA! Your time away from the blog has made your mind rusty! I don't think so. Read on, my friends!

In the past few years, my personal training has become eclectic. I no longer teach the "pure" arts of my youth, but what works for me. My teaching is now to share what I believe is most effective in the arts in which I have trained. I current training has a "reality" focus, and is composed of drills, exercises, and sparring to cultivate effective responses to common attacks and weapons - from knives, handguns, and clubs, to various empty-hand strikes and grappling attacks. If you've been reading TDA Training since '04, as all of you should have (!), then you'll know where I'm coming from. On to our story:

Since Sam, Mike, Dan, and others have trained with me, I've emphasized mostly three kicks: the Thai roundhouse, the  low checking kick, and the front kick. In my personal sparring and drills, however, I emphasize the brutal Thai kick, and apply liberal use of knees (sorry fellas!). I have to say, however, that Sam rarely ever missed when he'd sneak in a front kick! Why? Am I as bad as all that? Is Sam that good? There is a good bit of truth to both, but more than that, the front kick is a very effective weapon.
Let us count the ways:

1. When your opponent is square to you (as most will probably be), you can easily blast a front kick into the body, hips, groin, or face. The square stance provides ample targets, and thus if one area is closed because of the opponent's guard, something else has to be open. For Sam, I am easy pickings because of my reliance on the Thai kick and knees. When you Thai kick, you don't take a sideways stance - you are squared up. Same with using the knees - I like to use them to the thighs of my opponent without clinching, and to the groin, thighs, body and head when I do clinch. In order to clinch, I have to square up. I am open!
2. The front kick is an excellent stop-hit because to do it properly, you shift your weight forward, then drive off the supporting leg and straight into your opponent. That makes it a good counter to the back-leg roundhouse or a rear hand punch (because the opponent squares up to perform them).
3. It's quick and easy to use without telegraphing as part of a combination. If you throw the kick as part of a hand combination, the hands will set up the kick without a telegraph. If you lead off with it, you're liable to get hit because it's easy to see. As a defensive weapon (stop-hit), the front leg front kick can be done as you shift your weight back to feign retreat. I like to use it that way to draw someone in.
4. It can be a very powerful weapon. Because of the alignment of the body, the rear leg front kick can be used to knock down doors in a raid, demolish small buildings, or blast through the guard of a standing opponent. I train with shoes, and usually outdoors, but with standard street shoes or boots, a front kick can easily damage any soft tissue or bone in which it comes into contacts. The reason is that if you have hard soles on, the heel (my preferred point of contact) will go right through someone's guard or take out a leg. For more surface area on the kick, turn the toes out a la Wing Chun or Savate. Bob at Striking Thoughts has a nice post on the former.
5. It doesn't require much training or flexibility to perform a front kick because the chamber is the same motion used to climb stairs, and the kick shouldn't be thrown high. In fact, you'll achieve maximum power kicking no higher than hip level, and most people and raise their foot that high without flexibility training.

The Cons of the venerable Front Kick:

1. In order to throw it you get all squared up yourself! With the front leg, that's not the case, but the rear-leg front kick requires you to chamber the kick from a square stance, then throw it. There's a window of vulnerability from the opening created. Beware of it, and so don't use it constantly or your opponent will pick up the timing and see the telegraph.
2. It's not a good lead-off technique for the reasons above. Use it as part of a combination where you lead off with another technique, or intentionally telegraph by leading off with it to draw their guard down so that you can attack the high sector of their defenses. This can work because you don't leave it out there as an opening. Speed's important, plus good acting.
3. You are on one leg! I know, that's a characteristic of all kicks. However the plant position of the support foot means that you're vulnerable to being knocked straight back if you aren't careful. So be careful!
4. Your leg can be grabbed. OK - again, all kicks have this drawback, but so does this one, so that's why I'm listing it! Stop being so critical for goodness' sake! Seriously, to reduce the likelihood of being dumped on your butt from a grab, kick fast and low. Simple.
5. Finally, beware of your footing. Some kicks have a tendency to cause slips. The front kick is one of them. As someone who's trained almost exclusively on pavement and grass (as a training surface, not the other kind), including drills and sparring, I can tell you that the forward motion, then quick plant of using the front kick makes it risky if you aren't sure of your footing. For that reason, I don't use it unless it's low and measured (in terms of power). Whenever you go all out with any technique, you risk maximum embarrassment because you can go down with a miss. Never more true that with the Deadly Front Kick!

I hope you've enjoyed our little foray into the world of front kicking. Thanks for reading. 

MoH Tribute from One Who Was There

I just noticed this fine tribute to Bruce "Ancient Serpent 6" Crandall, of “We Were Soldiers” fame by legendary war correspondent Joe Galloway (who wrote the book on which the movie is based) at Michael Yon's online journal. I posted about his award of the Congressional Medal of Honor for his selfless actions in Vietnam here, but wanted to make sure that you had the chance to read about Crandall from someone who was there - Galloway:

He’s always been a hero to the men of the 1st Battalion 7th U.S. Cavalry who counted on Crandall and his wingman, Ed  (Too Tall to Fly) Freeman, when the chips were down in a fire-swept clearing called Landing Zone X-Ray in the remote Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam’s Central Highlands.

American wounded were piling up and the only thing keeping 2,000 determined North Vietnamese soldiers from overrunning and slaughtering the trapped and badly outnumbered cavalrymen was firepower and an air bridge maintained by Crandall and his 16 Huey helicopters of A Company 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion.

More:

When the fighting was at its worst, on the afternoon of Nov. 14, 1965, Moore had to close the football field-size clearing to the helicopters because two of them had been shot up so badly they couldn’t be flown out. Crandall’s own chopper had been riddled, his crew chief shot in the throat and an infantry radio operator killed before he could unbuckle his seat belt.

Old Snake knew his buddies on the ground were in dire danger and asked for a volunteer to join him in hauling more ammunition and water to them. His best friend, then-Capt. Ed Freeman, didn’t hesitate.

Together Crandall and Freeman flew right into the jaws of hell over and over, sitting up behind the thin Plexiglas and looking out on the chaos of close-quarter combat while the troopers flung off crates of M-16 rifle and M-60 machine gun ammo, mortar rounds and hand grenades and just as swiftly loaded the wounded whose only hope of life was that ride to the field hospital at Camp Holloway in Pleiku.

On that Sunday in November, Crandall flew 22 missions during 14 hours, and carried 70 wounded soldiers to safety and a chance at life.

Don't wait to get over to Yon's site and read the rest.

Review: Fierce and Female (DVD)

I've been teaching women's self-defense (WSD) since the mid-eighties, usually as  a free seminar to women in the communities in which I had schools. Later, after retiring from full-time school ownership, I still taught - still free. I've had a soft spot for teaching women how to defend themselves. My belief is probably old-fashioned: I believe that men have a duty and obligation to protect women. I think that started when, as a teen assistant in my Isshin-Ryu instructor's seminar, I encountered a lady that confided that she'd been raped, brutally. I didn't know how to handle it, other than to try to teach her how to defend that which still terrified her.

I was asked to review Melissa Soalt's DVD set, "FIERCE AND FEMALE, Practical Rape Defense Tactics for Every Woman," a few months ago, and I eagerly agreed. I'd heard of Melissa Soalt (aka Dr. Ruthless) mostly via Black Belt magazine articles, or ads that may have been in some martial arts mags. To be honest, I'd never looked at her material. Like her "bullet man" attackers, though, her ads were ubiquitous. Now I know why.

"FIERCE AND FEMALE, Practical Rape Defense Tactics for Every Woman" is simply the best WSD material I've ever seen. It should be required material for anyone who instructs women as a specialty, sideline, or who wants to tout his or her traditional, modern, or eclectic martial arts curriculum as WSD (it's not).

I've mentioned in previous posts that teaching WSD shouldn't be taken lightly, nor should you assume that you're ready just because of the dark belt around your waist or the trophy on your mantle. Instructing women requires specific skill and attributes on the part of the instructor. You need to be able to understand how to empower women who feel vulnerable - even terrified - that they need to take action - vicious action! You need to understand that your favorite techniques may be too complicated, or not effective enough. That may be hard to grasp or accept, so you need to remove your emotional investment (uh, ego) in your techniques, and focus on your audience. Their lives are in your hands.

Building on gross motor movement and proper mechanics to develop effective muscle memory are only a part of the effectiveness of this set. Soalt covers both standing and ground counterattacks (not defenses), as well as prevention strategies. In both areas, Fierce and Female stands out at the most effective material I've seen or learned, but more importantly, she backs it up by arming the viewer with something more important, the psychological preparation to make the physical techniques effective.

Sample material:

YouTube - Dr. Ruthless®: Practical, Primal Self Defense For Women

Overall Rating:
EXCELLENT (9 out of 10)

Purchase from:
Paladin Press
Amazon

More:
Melissa Soalt's home page
Resisting Rape: Teaching Women's Self-Defense (TDA)

Nick Hughes with more good advice

From Mr. Hughes at the always excellent Charlotte Self Defense:

One of the things that is drummed into the officers, both basic and advanced is the necessity to adhere to the two second rule. What is it? Simple. When you're behind another vehicle allow a "two second" gap between you and them.

What that means is when you observe a car in front of you pass an object -- streetlamp, fence post, road sign, road marking etc -- you should be able to count to two before you pass the same object. This will buy you enough time should they suddenly jam on brakes for something or someone on the road.

Read the rest. All of his posts are worth your time.

It's not the combat that will kill you...

Via Strategy Page:

August 27, 2007: The military has made enormous progress in reducing the number of fatal accidents the troops are subject to. So much so that the death rate in the military, even with combat casualties, is lower now than it was in the 1990s. The Department of Defense Medical Mortality Registry shows that, even now, combat deaths make up a minority of deaths in the military. Unlike World War II, where combat deaths out numbered non-combat deaths three to one, better training, weapons and equipment have greatly reduced the combat death rate. The big danger now is accidents and disease.

Surprising?

TDA under construction

Pardon our dust (isn't that a tired expression?). As you may be able to tell, I'm working on the template today (9/2/07), so the appearance may change a few times. Also, you may notice a couple of test posts. They will disappear after I'm done.

Please bear with us. Thanks.