02/07/2011 – Ambush Training #1; Arm’s Length and Beyond – Distance Attacks

 The theme for last saturday's training was preparation for engagement at combat speed, or as near it as we could feasibly go.  Slow work is all very well - it refines motor patterns, deprogrammes fear-reactivity and encourages creativity - but remember always SAID - Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands.  Train for a situation in a certain way and you will always respond to that situation in certain way.  The effects of physical training on muscle fibres are specific, among other things, to the velocity at which they are trained, and the same goes for nervous system, both central and peripheral.  Once a foundation is laid, it must be optimised for the conditions under which it is expected to perform.

Tennis ball catch drills were incorporated today as a way of building the hand-eye coordination necessary for the central nervous system to orient on a fast-moving target at a moment's notice and guide the hand to it in an accurate and controlled fashion - basically, to build target acquisition and tracking software (visual reflexes) and calibrate the hardware (motor nervous system) to mesh performance with it.  These reflexes were then further weaponised with pad drills.

A note on pad drills - some purists of the Russian methodology are not fond of pads and believe solely in training strikes by doing pushups and hitting bodies.  While both are beneficial drills, I find this methodology limited for the simple reason of safety - you cannot safely practice accurate head strikes and you are forced to limit your maximum speed and power for the same reason.  Pads and the like are excellent for pushing the limits of the nervous system for both speed and precision, and ultimately, it is the nervous system that makes the fighter, or indeed any athlete.


Objectives

- Preparation for receiving, defusing and countering/initiating sudden attacks

- Training to rapidly orient on randomly-moving, transient targets with only visual and auditory cues

- Training to absorb and deliver strikes with unusually loaded structure at unexpected times and angles


Warmup

IntuFlow joint mobility routine



Preparatory Drills

- Strike absorption – stationary for first minute; second minute on - L-step moving absorption drill: tori randomly moves about the floor using L-step footwork (no two steps in the same direction), uke chases with strikes, tori must absorb strikes without changing intended trajectory

- Tennis ball drills – basic catch: catcher stands facing thrower, who throws balls to be caught by the hand verbally designated by the thrower; basic wall bounce catch: catcher stands facing away from the thrower towards a wall, off which thrower bounces the balls


Reaction Drills

- L-step placement drill – same as L-step absorption, but upon trainer-given signal, uke and tori immediately freeze and tori must reach out to place a hand on uke’s body from whatever position he is in – 1st min; for 2nd minute, this becomes a push from whatever structure tori was in at the instant of the signal

- Padwork – 1st 3 minutes warmup with basic single strikes and combinations on pads; escalate to stationary reaction drills – padman starts with pads down and intermittently presents targets in random positions for striker to strike; next escalation is same drill with footwork – padman roves about randomly and striker must chase and be in position to strike when targets are called; final escalation is with multiple padmen – 2 or more – roving around striker and presenting targets in set order and random position upon signal

- L-step absorption & counterstrike drill – same as before, but upon signal, tori and uke freeze and tori delivers one or two strikes to uke’s pads

18/06/2011: Asymmetrical Engagement – Striking vs Grappling Revisited

I have been very remiss in posting log updates over the past few weeks and I do apologise - things have been very busy.  Over the past three weeks, we have been working on increasing the number of combat multipliers or outliers we inject into our training drills - basically, introducing escalating amounts of chaos in small, controlled doses.  As Murphy's Laws of warfare say, no plan survives first contact with the enemy, so it is our goal for the season to build a living, self-evolving plan that will survive not only first, but all the way to last contact.

Training on this day involved liberal amounts of dirty boxing with a very Systema twist - strike absorption!  As everyone learned today, absorption is one thing when you are standing free and able to articulate every joint in your body unimpeded to dissipate impact, and quite another thing entirely when someone is cranking your spine into a pretzel and throwing nasty stinging strikes into your sensitive and tense parts.  This works both ways - when you are working to manipulate someone's structure, expect to lose the luxury of complete and unimpeded fluidity across your entire body as both your systems of forces merge into one and you share in a portion of your opponent's tension. 

Learning to breathe through unavoidable impact while maintaining purposeful movement towards a clear goal (breaking and controlling an opponent's structure) and using structural manipulations of an opponent to degrade the power of his strikes all featured prominently today.

Objectives

- Learning the importance of controlling consent to engage in symmetrical struggle (ie. the same ‘type’ of fighting) with opponent; learning to give and remove consent

- Blunting grappling attacks with striking and defensive grappling

- Smothering and defeating strikers with offensive grappling


Warmup

Intuflow Beginner/Intermediate routine


Prep Drills

- Neck and body pummelling

- Strike absorption – free-standing reciprocal and restricted motion (use a wall or other obstruction if third parties are insufficient); absorption via movement/structure/breathing – experiment with integration and isolation of each of the triad (ball/wave/airbag)

- Marionette/Sweater-snag drill

- Hair-brush defence


Weaponised Drills

- Slipping punches to clinch – tori aims to slip past uke’s punches to secure a head clinch; drill begins at half speed and creeps up in speed according to comfort; uke may aim to actively fend off clinch attempts from time to time.

- strike absorption from clinch – tori aims to maintain clinch on uke while absorbing strikes from uke; drill begins with simple absorption and may creep up to uke attempting to break or seize control of the clinch and tori aiming to manhandle or takedown uke in the clinch to diffuse the strikes.


Symmetrical Sparring

Partners begin the fight in head-and-elbow tie. Both partners will attempt to take each other down by any means necessary, up to and including the use of strikes to achieve dominance in the clinch.