Monkey Mayhem 2010 brought with it many life lessons. I had expected it to be a great way to learn new techniques, refine existing ones, spar with new people and meet world class trainers from around the region but it turned out to be so much more.
First of all, it was a misconception for me to think of these seminars as an accumulation of techniques. Only a handful of new material was covered but it was the greater understanding of the fundamentals and more importantly the mental dimension that it provided that made the seminar a true gem.
I'll delve into the physical and technical aspects of Monkey Mayhem at a later time, but I wish to put down what I felt were the most important lessons gleaned from this short weekend which is already affecting the way I perceive the world and how I do things.
Look to the outside, not inside when sparring.
Rodney gave us a talk that wouldn't have been out of place in a Kung-fu movie: "When sparring, we should look to the outside not to the inside." Luckily, unlike the Tao/Zen/Kung-Fu masters who would leave us with that cryptic phrase, he further elaborated in that when we are sparring, our minds tend to engage with internal dialogue that cloud our judgment.
For instance, it is very hard to control emotions. Emotions of fear, being overwhelmed, the drive to win, excitement all are common emotional responses to the demanding nature of a fight. The traditional martial arts view of this has been to learn to calm your emotions, to control it and prevent it from clouding reason. Coming from a background of Aikido, this had been drilled into me and yet I still found it really hard to contain such feelings when placed in a stressed, chaotic situation. When trying to apply the techniques I had learnt from Aikido, it was a constant battle to contain my emotions and at best it would only hold for a few brief moments until I got hit again and would have to start the process anew. Perhaps I haven't had enough training. Perhaps I haven't been training properly. I've been doing this for close to 17 years, surely I would have some semblance of control? Or perhaps I've been doing it wrong.
Rodney's point of view is that rather than trying to fight the emotions, you just had to accept it and ride it out but without attaching any value on it. If you feel fear, accept that you are fearful. Observe it but don't start attaching value to it by trying to examine the reasons you are fearful. Internal dialogue is the worst enemy of a fighter. Talk such as, "This guy is a black belt, he's going to kill me that's why I'm scared" only serves to worsen the situation. He also mentioned that lawyers have particular problems in doing this and I totally agree.
While sparring people, here's a sampling of some thoughts that went through my mind:
"I hope I'm doing OK and showing a good game"
"Now I should do some CM2"
"Oh no, his CM1 is tight, my combinations aren't getting through, what now?"
"Holy crap, he's fast, what to do what to do!"
"I'm a TnT yet I suck worse than some of the students here, this looks really bad on me, I'm supposed to know this material better."
"I think I should counterattack now, I don't want to appear too passive."
Instead of having my focus outside, I was too busy thinking of irrelevant things. Thoughts that made me fearful, scared and embarrassed. It was preventing me from having a good time and enjoying it as a learning experience. It was also visibly affecting my game resulting in a very tense posture and being oblivious to what my opponent was actually doing which compounded the problem. I didn't even realize what I was having such a chatty internal dialogue within me until Rodney had talked about it. For me was a huge light bulb moment. Once I learnt to let go, the sparring became a whole lot better. It didn't stop me from being getting owned, but my game was definitely tons better and more importantly, I HAD A LOT MORE FUN.
Be a more internal driven person rather than an externally driven person
Interestingly the other important lesson I had seemed to be the opposite of my first lesson but it actually gels together pretty well.
I met a really awesome guy from Jakarta by the name of Yuri, a CM Trainer and we had a long chat in the changing room. One thing he said really drove home and it went something along the lines of this:
"I used to be a very external guy, now I'm learning to be more internal and I am a lot happier. Rodney is an internal sort of guy.""What do you mean?""I used to be the sort of guy who would constantly do things because I was worried about what other people would think rather than focusing on what I really wanted."
This does not mean you become a selfish prick but it's more about being true to yourself and not doing things just to please other people. Life is such in that if you let people take advantage of you, most of the time they will.
As is most wisdom, this seems blatantly obvious but it really made me examine what I was doing. I was constantly stressing over how something will offend someone or how it would make this person upset. This often really stressed me up. As a lawyer, most of the time, someone's needs will conflict with another person and there isn't always a way to make both sides happy and I have to accept that. I just need to do what is right even if it may make someone unhappy. Or even between myself and my client, my client will sometimes set unreasonable deadlines or demands and I will do my utmost to make them happy to the detriment of my health and sanity. There is a point you need to sit down and think, "What do I need?" rather than be a slave to other people's wants. I am my own person too.
The important thing is to make sure you have a strong set of principles to abide by to back this lest you become some sort of monster who constantly only thinks about himself. The key is to do what you believe is right and not to be swayed by other people's opinions or so called 'needs'. Life is too short to not live for yourself as well.
A quick reminder on things I need to work in coming out of the Monkey Mayhem 2010.
Learning to relax during sparring.
Focus on the external not listen to your internal dialogue when sparring.
Takedowns we learnt during the MMA core. Had issues with doing the knee takedown.
Had particular problems in trying to breakthrough in CM1. No strategy feels like I am sparring without any direction or aim.
Need to relearn hunchback stance to keep eyes looking forward. Too common that I end up looking at the floor.
Moving backwards to my lead side.
Did not know how to enter into the one up one down position from a punching perspective.
Learn not to be overly worried about what other people think or feel. As long as I conduct myself with respect for all my partners I should not feel bad that I am holding them back or that I'm getting a technique slower than others.
More fluid use of CM2
- Getting one underhook and one overhook.
- Secure your hands together and bring the person in tight.
- Depending on whichever hand is on top, the direction the hand is pointing to is the direction you'll take down the person.
- Turn your hips into him with a step and throw him over your hips. You want to do this in one smooth motion.
- You can also consider stepping your leg out and placing your ankle near his ankle to further trip him up as he goes over.
Reuben's solution:
As he turns his hip, stepping to the outside of the leg that he just moved to turn his hips to off balance and throw him.
Owen's solution:
As he turns his hip, jam it with your hand so that he cannot turn while you are free to punch him with the free-hand.
Albert also suggested something a lot simpler.
Albert's solution:
Drop your hips lower which lowers your center of gravity.
We also worked on several attack options from the sprawl where we have one hand wrapped around the head. This included several chokes such as the guillotine and another one where one of your partner's hands are wrapped around his neck and is used to choke him.
Chilling out during Albert's debrief (those gloves are comfortable!):
And here's a disturbingly happy shop of Jeremiah grappling with Owen. As Patrick says, "It's not gay as long you don't make eye contact!"
The main focus of yesterday's lesson was working in body shots and level changing for the newer students, while we also worked on improving the sprawl.
Previously, I normally sprawled and wrapped both arms under the armpit but found myself with limited attacking options and it was just a matter of waiting for him to tire and using my body weight to bring him down. Albert also mentioned that if the guy was strong, he could still pop his head out and carry you despite you executing a good sprawl. We tried a modified sprawl with one hand under the armpit and the other wrapped around the head. This not only limited his movements to push out but also gave choke options to the person sprawling.
On an unrelated note, after class we tried out a suggested self defense tactic for women/children: going to the ground, making noise and kicking like crazy. I had my doubts so decided to try it out.
First let's take a look at the proposed defense:
I can imagine this working if help is nearby but I didn't quite like it as
- Rules out possibility of escape
- Seems to help the attacker if he's trying to get on top
- Gives a very clear 'I am weak' sign that may encourage the attacker
- Extremely tiring and hard to keep up for a prolonged period
- It is not easy to pivot on all surfaces.
In fact, I think for kids, especially with the size and strength difference...dropping to the ground isn't going to make it that much more difficult for someone to drag them away.
Let's give this a shot:
Considering that I'm actually stronger than my attacker and have longer reach, the fact that he could still get on top of me suggests that this tactic seems to only delay the attack for a few seconds.
Also if the attacker side-stepped into my kicks, he could take it and easily cramp up my legs for a position to drop on me.
Someone suggested to try and sit up when your legs are caught and go feral on their face: bite, scratch, claw, poke the eyes which may deter the less determined attacker but I feel that if it doesn't incapacitate him, it's just going to make him angrier and double his efforts.
Going to the ground right from the get go for self defense, just isn't my sort of thing.
Also if the attacker side-stepped into my kicks, he could take it and easily cramp up my legs for a position to drop on me.
Someone suggested to try and sit up when your legs are caught and go feral on their face: bite, scratch, claw, poke the eyes which may deter the less determined attacker but I feel that if it doesn't incapacitate him, it's just going to make him angrier and double his efforts.
Going to the ground right from the get go for self defense, just isn't my sort of thing.
EFC Africa has finally released a highlights video of the Costa Ioannou vs Brendon Katz fight which I had posted photos previously. Costa (who is also a CMD Trainer) was coached by Rodney King, founder of the CMD program and Nuno De Gouveia, Master Coach CMD Trainer.
A solid fight...with a controversial referee decision in Round 2 where Costa had Brendon in a full high mount and initiating his ground and pound when the referee reset the position after Brendon had called for a time-out.
Nevertheless, despite it being his first professional fight, Costa kept his calm, delivering a solid performance to win by unanimous decision. Congratulations to Costa and his team!
It was Lawrence, Foong and Alex's first class on clinch so we went back to basics. This revisit was a moment of 'eureka' for me.
I had been having problems understanding on how to bring the head down easily. Although I knew that you had to drive in the elbow to the neck and cup the hand on the crown of the neck, I still found it required quite a bit of effort to break the posture. I had previously dismissed this as a problem in timing of lack of practice.
What I was apparently missing was the visualization of the elbow as the fulcrum of the lever. Although I was driving in the elbow, I wasn't using it as a pivot point for the clinch. I had been pushing with my elbow and trying to pull down with my hands. Imagining it as a single lever immediately made the clinch very easy.
This actually reminds me of a movement in Aikido where the hands are held from behind. Should you try to bring it forward directly this is difficult but if you focus on bending your elbows first to draw the uke in, you can easily bring your hands in front of you.
It is amazing how strong biceps can be with a properly grounded fulcrum!
Albert also went through the defenses against the clinch.
The first is a preventive measure where you want to turtle up your neck to make it more difficult for your head to bring down which also protects the sides of your neck. It was much harder to establish a solid clinch when the neck is turtled since you don't have a solid location to ground your elbows/upper forearm.
Two other defenses were shown in the case where the clinch is already partially in. The 'shrug' is a popping motion that you use before your opponent gets a solid grip in and also the 'corkscrew punch' where you place the your vertical fist on your opponent's face and corkscrew in in a twisting motion to shove his face away and break his posture and clinch. The corkscrew punch is used when the elbow is already firmly lodged on your neck making shrugging difficult.
Alex raised a good point where because of my height and long limbs, he was having problems breaking my clinch even when he had fully extended his corkscrew punch. Albert told him that it wasn't something to be overly concerned about as first, my face would have already been punched and secondly my front body would be completely exposed to body-shots so it would be pretty hard for me to complete a full clinch.
Class ended with some light sparring with a focus on entering into clinch and fighting for the dominant position (both hands inside). Foong did an awesome job fighting for the dominant position with me and we frequently ended up in a neutral position.
And Lawrence helping me to take off my gloves. :D Special thanks to Georgette who stuck around through the whole class to take photos for us!
I requested Georgette to help me take some photos but had forgotten to switch the camera mode away from Gourmet mode...The results are...interesting:
Session today was on matching height by lowering stance and footwork revision. Felt jabs to be snappier today but have to remember to maintain squared up posture even when working the jab.
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