Illinois COVID-19 Reopening and What I Think It Means for Combat Sports

 Disclaimer: What follows is not medical advice. The best way to avoid COVID-19 is NOT to train until herd immunity has been established or a vaccine discovered. This is a theoretical discussion and nothing more. Proceed at your own risk.

Let's start by being absolutely clear: we do not and will not have a treatment for COVID-19 in the foreseeable future. If you or your loved one gets a bad case of this the best modern medicine can do is support your body while we hope you recover. Second, a vaccine remains over a year away. Finally, we are weeks to months away from herd immunity, if we can even develop that with a virus that has rapidly mutated into several strains. If you want to minimize risk to yourself, your loved ones, your friends, and coworkers the only things that will do that are:

1. Clean: Hand washing or sanitizing for at least 20 seconds before and after touching yourself, another human, or an object. If your academy were to open this would basically mean at the beginning of practice, before each round, after each round, and before leaving class. It also means showering thoroughly before and after practice. It means thoroughly wiping down each piece of nonlaunderable equipment with bleach wipes. So that’s a lot of sanitizer and bleach solution.
2. Cover: Wearing a mask that decreases the spread of droplets. Not all masks are created equal so it needs to be a mask that blocks viral droplet particles. All masks are not created equal and masks are designed to protect others from you not you from them. We do not know if masks remain effective as we sweat and get them wet.  Note that exercise training masks and running masks contain filters that viral droplets go right through. They allegedly are rated for pollution and bacteria much larger than the diameter of a droplet. They look cool but they won’t do much other than provide an illusion of safety.
3. Clear: Social distancing or being at least 6 feet away from other people. Thus the ultimate way to stay safe is to train by yourself. This is a great way to get stronger, more flexible, and better cardio. But it is not going to improve your technique or your timing. If your academy does open up strongly consider a single dedicated training partner and only training in classes of less than 10 people. If you are or live with some at high risk, don't train.

You are likely safer in an area with a greater volume of distribution, e.g. outside, than in a small volume of distribution, e.g. in the academy or gym.

The Illinois Reopening Plan is a regionalized 5 phase plan that can move us as a community closer to normal if public health indicators are favorable or reassert more restrictions if they are not. The plan uses cases, testing availability, and hospital resources (e.g. beds and ventilators) in predefined geographic areas. In the central part of the state we appear to be in Phase 2 with a good chance of moving to Phase 3 in June 2020. We don't need to rely on laypeople determining risk, the phases will shift based on public health data.

There is, of course, no specific instructions for combat sports in my state’s plan, the nearest things that we might be compared to are health clubs. This is a specious comparison, in health clubs, you can continue to social distance more than 6 feet, wear masks, and sanitize your hands between exercises while still getting a fulfilling workout. Combat sports like boxing, wrestling, muay thai, kickboxing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and mixed-martial arts however all involve core doctrines that include significant physical interaction and contact. USA Wrestling has released its Return to the Mat Guidelines, a phased approach that like the Illinois Reopening Plan avoids or minimizes organized, group, physical contact for the duration of time before herd immunity or wide-spread vaccine deployment. The Illinois Reopening Plan recommends masks and social distancing until the last phase. In phase 3 groups of up to 10 people can gather and in phase 4 up to 50 people with appropriate behavioral alterations. One-on-one personal training and small group classes may begin in phase 3.      

Reopening gyms and academies like they were before the pandemic is unrealistic before we have a vaccine or herd immunity. That said, these are small businesses that will not get sufficient support from the state or federal government. It is up to the martial arts as a community to save our gyms and schools. This may mean paying for classes at the same or reduced rate as instruction goes more virtual and classes are limited in both contact and population density. If we lose the societal checks on this novel coronavirus too early, academies and clubs will be the hot spots of their communities, the source of deaths for the old and the medically compromised. If we maximize social distancing with dedicated training partners, frequent hand sanitization, and mask adherence, we mitigate this risk. This means that practice will be a lot more hands-off and more often without interactions that we felt were the norm for our training. For example, as detailed in other plans starting with solo training and then adding partner drills at range (e.g. long-range stick or pad work) and forgoing body to body contact, e.g. knee play, wrestling or grappling until much later than anyone wants. It also means getting frequent testing, likely every two weeks as they become increasingly available and free. It means symptom checklists before each practice, likely completed on-line at a distance, and temperature checks at the door. It means a thorough cleaning of the gym and equipment before and after each session.

I do not believe that we are prevented from rolling, sparring, and other close-quarters work for the duration of the pandemic. However this will likely mean forming “pods” or small groups not including immediate family. In other words, it’s about finding one “monogamous" training partner that you will train with for the duration, either privately or in group settings. There is a two to three week “cooling off” period before switching partners to limit spread. Your risk is likely decreased if you only train with that person in a private setting, but with symptom checklists, strict hygiene protocols, temperature checks, frequent testing, and mask use. Masks are likely a custom made cloth mask that can withstand the rigors of training. Based on the Illinois plan I would not consider this sort of training until Phase 3 and it is likely more prudent to wait until Phase 4. Best case for Central Illinois that would be July. Any negative change in phase would place an immediate moratorium on training.

However, if this pod model means you quit your academy then we are destroying the art by eliminating the small businesses that are martial arts studios. We must balance our personal training needs by considering using pods while simultaneously supporting our academies and clubs. One way of doing this would be to run social distancing academy practices in parallel with pod classes virtually. Thus people who had access to private training spaces could work with their designated partner more closely without significantly increasing risk to others. Simultaneously those without a private training space could workout in a different fashion with alternate but still likely minimal risk. If things improve we could work gradually closer to how things used to be while realizing that they will never return to that baseline.

Stay safe.

Fusion Cooking

Today I covered some mixed-martial arts style grappling from the closed guard. The first was a series I picked up from BJJ Mastermind II:

From closed guard clinch your opponents head like a muay thai plum and use the other hand to block punches. Catch their arm off the punches and place shin shield in their biceps, cupping their triceps with your hand. This should roll their arm, rotating their hand posteriorly, setting up the kimura.

If they defend the kimura by cupping their thigh, use the hand nearest their head to reach posteriorly and wrap their head grabbing their chin. Drop your arm on top of their head like you are gripping a football. Scoot your hips backwards to create space on the contralateral side from your grip, feed your hand in to secure the guillotine. Lift your hips and arc toward the ipsilateral side as their head.

If they defend the kimura by extending their arm, retain your grip on their wrist and cup their elbow with your other hand. Pull it over your head, trapping their triceps against your head. I pull with my legs to get the proximal insertion of their triceps against my head/neck. Wrap their neck in a deep figure four putting your free hand against your head.

You can also use this position to block punches, then swim underneath their punching arm with your contralateral arm to obtain a rear neck choke position.

We also discussed using the this set-up and setting up a shoulder clinch: block the strike and then roll your arm underneath it, Gable grip at their shoulder, pulling their torso down. Now slide out to this side on the contralateral hip, place your top foot in the near hip and place your knee on the shoulder. Essentially a vice grip with your legs on their torso. Pinch their wrist between your shoulder and head. Now slide down their arm with your Gable grip until you are just proximal to the elbow. Complete the arm bar.

If they bend their arm with their hand pointing inferiorly, hug their arm at the elbow with your top arm grabbing the biceps of the opposite arm. This hand grabs their wrist for the reverse kimura. If they bend the arm with their hand pointing superiorly, shuck it past you and take their back.

If they attempt to stack, keep pressure on their shoulder to force the contralateral leg to extend, raising their hips more on this side. Open your guard and inset the hook on this side. Use the forearm on this side to lift under their chin as you elevate your hook and sweep them.

Next Matt covered the Russian tie, starting with using a shrug to lift their tie off your neck. Reach across with your opposite side hand to grab their wrist. Use the same side hand to under hand and grip the anterior deltoid, placing  pressure on their arm at the shoulder joint. If they are carrying your weight, release the wrist grip, undertook and grip the posterior deltoid. Free your other hand and grab their contralateral hip. Now step forward and guide them to the floor, pull slightly with your hip grip to pull their back toward you (placing them in a less defendable ground position).

If you can not break them down, fold their forearm toward them and figure four, lifting with your hips. Their reaction should be to push their arm downwards, again allowing you to guide them to the floor.

From the wrist grip and posterior axillary undertook, you can place your near foot behind their foot and as you push with the near forearm lift their foot to your opposite hand. Set up the single leg of your choice. If they step back to avoid the sweep, step forward and pull them to the mat. Alternatively sweep their opposite foot.

Lastly Adam ran through a trapping sequence off the jab cross. For the jab he did a split entry, that is catch and move the head to the outside while jabbing/eye poke/neck shot. Then cover the cross on the inside with a similar shot using your other hand. Roll the cover hand over their forearm and pass it across your body to your opposite hand, freeing your near hand for the uppercut to the jaw. Now fold their hand down with their elbow up to pull them close to allow your near hand tie their neck in a half Nelson. Knee, elbow, or throw as desired. 

Eddie Bravo Jiu-Jitsu for Mixed-Martial Arts Seminar

“I’m not that flexible. I just use my flexibility all the time” — Eddie Bravo

I have had limited exposure to Eddie Bravo’s variant of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, basically from reading his book Jiu-Jitsu Unleashed, intermittent clips by his students covering miscellaneous techniques, from Joe Rogan’s commentating of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and mostly the unflattering attempted application by training partners who have limited knowledge obtained in an even less systematic way. That’s a long way of saying that I had an ambivalent to negative view of 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu. But if it didn’t work, why have I continued to hear about it for the past 10+ years? Things that don’t work in applied martial arts do not flourish, they wither and die. So when a friend of mine messaged me about an Eddie Bravo seminar at 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu Indianapolis, I decided to be scientific about my opinion and check it out.

Eddie is an excellent instructor, he’s passionate about jiu-jitsu, explains and demonstrates well, and breaks some fairly complex stuff into digestible chunks. Occasionally he calls out what each side does, drill sergeant style, other times he has you work on your own. And yes each position and submission has a name. I’m not sure I caught them all. His jiu-jitsu is different, an addition for doing jiu-jitsu when neither you nor your opponent is wearing a gi, but it is not so radically different that someone like me, who has trained for a quite some time couldn’t pick-up the “pathway” he was elucidating.

I’ve been focusing on grips and grip fighting for the past few months, from my observations today the 10th Planet System allows you to have grips where normally there isn’t anything to grip. Eddie’s pathways are a method to prune your opponent’s decision tree.

Today’s seminar worked on grappling for MMA. We started from the butterfly guard with the over-under control of your partner’s arms (Cocoon). You could simply butterfly sweep but instead. break your opponent’s posture and pull them with you to the mat, free the foot hook on the overhook side and bring this calf up across your opponents shoulders. Your underhook hand grabs your ankle on the lateral side of your leg, palm facing you (Jersey because it’s close to New York the same position from the closed guard). Attempt to bring your knee and heel together. Free your overhook and grab his contralateral axilla, bringing your forearm superiorly to your shin. Release your grip on your shin and place a C-collar with this free hand in their cubital fossa (Meathook).

From the Meathook you could replace your C-collar with wrist control and free the leg underneath your opponent to set up the triangle, by sliding this leg inferiorly to your leg across their shoulders, and then cinching it behind this knee as it transitions back to parallel with your opponent’s body.

If they attempt to control your leg with their free hand, i.e. preventing the C-collar control, instead place your free hand on their pectoral, free your Meathook and grab your foot. Lift it over their head allowing it to land on the shelf formed by your forearm. Release your foot and S-grip behind their head, your former Meathook hand superior to your shin and your shelf hand inferiorly. Figure four your legs a lá an “air triangle” to finish the Gogoclinch.

• If you can get “deeper” either due to the size of your opponent or latent flexibility, consider a Gable grip, including your knee inside the circumference of your arms, or even applying a D’arce choke including your own leg

• If your opponent disrupts or prevents your leg figure four, simply go for gogoplata by grabbing your foot with the same side hand, scissoring their neck between your forearm/wrist and shin.

• If they defend the gogoplata by grabbing your foot, peel it off with your free hand and reapply or use this to set-up your Gogoclinch but now with your foot hooked into their axilla on this side (Hazelett). Now take the hand that would have been applying the gogoplata and grab the wrist of their free hand, abduct your knee of your bent leg to flatten them, preventing them from rolling. You can do a one handed kimura by attempting to push this hand to back of their head.

• If they post up on their leg, you can hook the free foot of your Gogoclinch in their popliteal fossa and then rather than grabbing their wrist grab their ankle on this side (Hazelip). You can again apply the one handed kimura as above.

• If you end up in the Gogoclinch and your free leg is superior to their shoulders drop your calf across their posterior neck, grab this ankle and pull down to submit (Double Bag).

If your opponent defends the Gogoclinch position and gogoplata by dropping their head to the mat, prop yourself on your elbow and place your gogoplata foot flat on the floor next to their head. Grab their chin with your free hand. Now transition up to your other knee, pushing into your opponent and rolling them laterally. If they post, switch the angle and push over their shoulder and head. They will roll to their back and you will be seated perpendicularly to them. You can control their far wrist and reapply the gogoplata with your other hand.

• You can apply a shoulder separator by creating a loose triangle, putting your free foot in his axilla and extend as you grab his free wrist and pull.

• If this is unsuccessful, free your foot from the axilla and lift it over his head and arm. Now lift his straight arm against the popliteal fossa to arm bar. 

• Lastly you can return to the loose seated triangle and attack his trapped arm by hooking the elbow with your forearm and locking it out (Monoplata).

The Cocoon is the “golden clinch” it is an optimal place to set-up this game, most people will not give it to you. One method to do this is to allow your opponent to get to the half-guard. Overhook their arm on the same side as you have their leg with your straight arm controlling their free knee (Pimp Hand). To keep them from advancing, bring your lateral leg superiorly to their trapped leg and triangle it with the medial leg, which then hooks your foot inferior to their ankle (Lockdown). Now insert your hook laterally to their thigh and bend the medial leg superiorly to their leg, clamping it between your legs (Stomp). Your opponent will pinch their knees together to prevent you from going back to butterfly, so start kicking/wiggling the medial leg to free it (Mermaid). You can now return to hooks inside but in the Cocoon position, if your opponent doesn’t limp arm out.

Next we worked from the Z-Guard with our opponent throwing blows (opened handed slaps). Free the top leg, removing the support of your knee from their chest, by shooting it wide while diving your head to their stomach. Grip around their waist with an S-grip, the arm anteriorly tight to your body, they will wi. Pull them forward, professionally overhook their near leg with the leg you initially freed and transition your other leg laterally, using your shoulder and head to post. Now drive into them to put them on their back.

 

Clinchology 101

Until today I consider myself as someone who knew how to handle the clinch.  That was until Ian dropped some knowledge on me.  True muay thai fights with elbow strikes, which changes the dynamics of the clinch significantly.  Your desire to drive forward and wrassle in the clinch is diminished by the prospect of cuts and knock outs due to crisply thrown elbows.

Loose clinch (heads are far apart)

• Pivot step 90°, keep pushing away, deliver a knee to the body or head as appropriate to the rules you are fighting under.

• Swim inside (bring first one hand, then the other inferiorly and medially to their clinch) and establish your own clinch.

• Swim one hand inside, use the other to drop inferiorly pulling on their arm while pulling them into the upward elbow.

Hip space clinch
Overhook and grab their head on one side, place the ipsilateral shin across their waist like a roller coaster seatbelt.  Drive your shin down and away from you by extending the hip while simultaneously turning your chest away from your opponent

Tight clinch (heads are tight)

Overhook one side and on the contralateral side place your palm in their axilla or hip. Step the foot opposite the overhook in close to your opponent, dip the knee.  Immediately thrust with this hip as your pull with your overhook and push with your contralateral hand.  Rotate as if to throw your opponent behind you while simultaneously sweeping with the leg opposite the side you bumped their hip.

If their arms are parallel, their elbows will close off the space to allow you to swim inside and re-clinch. Overhook one side and turn 90° away from this arm, lifting your chest higher.  This should extend and break their clinch, but you may need to do the same going back the other way to free yourself. If they stop your turn with flared elbows, swim inside.

One hand push variations
Each of these uses the push to your opponents face to set-up clinch counters.  The hand goes superior and lateral to their arm on the same side. Straighten your arm to create space.

Long range sweep
Hook their opposite cubital fossa with your glove, pull down as you push, spinning them, sweep with the same leg if needed.

Pivot step
Using the push pivot 90° away on the same side as you are pushing, control the far hand with your free had, throw the knee to the gut
With near elbow: If you feel them pushing against your hand, collapse it medially to throw a horizontal elbow to the head
With far elbow: Collapse your outstretched arm on your opponents arm to tug them close, throw the horizontal elbow with your opposite arm.

The Amazing Spider-Man

The Spider-Man Drill should be familiar to all serious grapplers as an attribute and strengthening drill.  To recap take a position on all fours (without knees touching).  Your hands are roughly under your shoulders and your knees under your hips.  Imagine if you will your friendly neighborhood web-slinger clinging to a building but with less action-oriented posing:

To do the drill, lift one hand and replace it with the contralateral foot.  This should rotate your abdomen from facing the floor to facing the ceiling.  Each time you move you will switch the position of one hand with the contralateral foot or vice versa.  Your head should shift 90° in the hortizontal plane and your belly button should rotate 180° in the vertical with each limb switch.

I have recently begun to experiment with variations of the Spider-Man Drill to make it more challenging.  One simple principle is to use an odd number of switches in the same direction, e.g. 1, 3, or 5 clockwise or counter clockwise, and then adding exercises in between.  For example, walk (using all fours) from whatever position you end up in.  Or extend one leg inferiorly dropping first one hip to the floor and recovering, then the other.  Another drill that you can attempt is to add a series of exercises after each series of switches.  Today I placed my fitness ball to my right when I was in the downward Spider-Man as well as making sure that my Wavemaster Bag was in front of me.  Using a three Spider-Man switch I rotated through:

1. Belly up, feet toward fitness ball: Dips with feet on fitness ball x10
2. Belly down, feet toward Wavemaster: Feet elevated push-ups x10
3. Belly up, head toward fitness ball: Place back on ball, alternating marching step x10 e/
4. Belly down, feet away from Wavemaster: Hindu push-ups x10

You've just gone round the world with the Spider-Man drill.  Now let's do a more challenging variation.  Place a Bosu ball, sunny side down.  Again using a three Spider-Man switch and being careful to avoid the Bosu ball, I rotated through:

1. Belly up: V-sits on inverted Bosu ball x10 (hint: slow and don't jerk)
2. Belly down, feet toward Wavemaster: Placing myself in a push-up position with my hands on the Bosu and feet on the bag stand, try marching in place x10 e/
3. Belly up: Place your hands on the Bosu ball and move your rear away from it so that you can perform dips x10
4. Belly down, feet away from Wavemaster: Push-ups on the Bosu ball x10

I would like to explore the possibilities of using either ankle/wrist weights or dumbells to intensify the Spider-Man drill, but that will have to be another work-out.  I have held pad rounds while people did the Spider-Man drill as a conditioning exercise but also to expedite ground-n-pound striking, however my goal here was solo drilling, perhaps I can hit the bag...

Unbeatable

I have been doing martial arts for a long time.  Through years of intensive study, I have found certain tricks...er...techniques to make you unbeatable.  Granted you sacrifice things like improving or winning but at least you can proudly state that you never lost

1. Apply a sparring filter.  Whenever the opportunity to apply and test your skills presents itself, find an excuse not to wrestle, roll, spar, whatever with anyone who is bigger, younger, more athletic, or experienced.  Choose small, injured, white belts/novices for your partners, until they improve too much.  Be careful not to call attention to yourself by beating them so badly that they complain or get injured.
2. When the pupil searches, the teacher will appear.  If your filter fails, fall back on this strategy: if they have more experience than you, just as you are about to eat a punch too much or get submitted call a pause to the action and seek their guidance.  Ask them what they did, ask them to demonstrate it, ask to try it yourself, i.e. anything to eat up the clock.  If you have more experience than them and they are suddenly doing a little too well, stop them and correct their form.  Explain what they were doing wouldn't work and had they done it another way they would have finished you for sure.  Eat up the clock if you can and be sure to reset in a neutral position.
3. Knowing is half the battle. Prior to your round mention your age (older or younger), conditioning level, preexisting illness or injury to your opponent.  Do it firmly but softly.  If your partner has any human feeling they will lower their expectations and you can blitz them early to obtain an advantageous position.  If they manage to get ahead, cry out and blame the excuse from earlier, i.e. a lack of conditioning, a recent upper respiratory tract infection, or aggravation of a preexisting injury to stop early.
4. Resting is training, too.  This works particularly well if there is an odd number of people training.  Be sure to vanish when ever drilling, rolling, or sparring is to start, this will allow you to skip the first round.  After this round has begun, position yourself strategically in the instructor's blind spot, you will be able to let your team mates tire themselves out.  When the coach finally spots you, you will have an advantage over everyone else.  Be sure to sit out as often as possible, or better yet, find a partner to alternate rounds with one guy who stays out every round.
5. Psy-ops. These are advanced level techniques which take years to develop. They are not for use by the inexperienced:

• Humor: If you are funny guy, crack a joke so hilarious that you partner loses it.  If you are not, start laughing hysterically at something somebody says, pausing the action.
• Chemical warfare: Carefully prepare training gear by using it and never cleaning it, until it starts having a heady aroma of devastating body odor and cat urine.  If you are stinky, nobody wants to get close to you.  If they can't get close to you they can't win.
• Be helpful: True story, one of my training partners actually told his opponent while they were grappling that it was against the rules to knee bar.  His opponent thanked him, let go of the knee bar, and subsequently lost the match on points.
• Bathroom emergency: Without explanation make a sudden bee line for the bathroom.  Hide in the bathroom for several minutes and return with some toilet paper hanging out of your gear.   Attempt to restart with your partner, in a neutral position, of course.

Rolling and sparring isn't drilling

I love rolling and sparring.  Here  I can test myself, trial new techniques, and validate that all my practicing really works.  This is also when I lie to myself.  I adjust my game to my training partner and my level of fatigue.  If I know he's tough I may try to go to a position of advantage rather than working on the goals I set myself earlier.  I will, consciously or not, adjust my training to win rather than improve.  Thus sparring, the fight within the gym, does not benefit us as much as specific drilling for improvement or competition.  

• Even Start Drills - Anytime you start in a position that both partners are both offensive and defensive, but not in a normal start position.  The goal is to control this position and improve upon it.  Examples include, passing the guard (BJJ), pummeling to takedown (wrestling), grip fighting (judo), and knee play (muay thai).  The drill can be cycled so that it resets once someone gains the upper hand or simply continuing play once out of the position.  This should of course be prearranged.

• Uneven Start Drills - Anytime either you or your partner starts in the advantage position (i.e. offense) and the other starts in the disadvantage position (i.e. defense).  The goal here is to teach the offender to finish and the defender to escape.  Given equally skilled partners, the partner in the advantage position should "win" more often than not.  Examples include escaping the side mount / mount / rear mount (BJJ), defending the submission (BJJ), defending the takedown (wrestling) and two-on-one knee play (muay thai).

• Reaction Drills - Any drill that involves developing speed and coordination by having a one-point "win" rule.  The "win" resets the round.  Examples include first takedown (wrestling), first point (BJJ), steal the tail (BJJ), shoulder /  knee tag (muay thai), or the Shiv game (MMA).

• Simulation Drills - Any drill where we try and take a specific situation, generalize it, and model it.  With repetition we hope to understand and dissect a situation that causes us problems.  For example, examine the beginning of the fight by sparring for 15-30 seconds to see how long that time period is and what can happen in it.  Other examples include, front hand sparring or grappling only with the figure four submission.

• Shark Tanks - Uses any of the drill classes above and keeps one partner in with several other (fresh) partners.  This will tire the more skilled / stronger players and force them to work as efficiently as possible while increasing the chance that those with inferior attributes can press the action on them.  You can further complicate the drill by switching between drills for each partner, increasing the "fear of the unknown" for the fellow in the tank.

Chess Puzzles

My father was an accomplished chess player who tried to instill this in his son.  Chess puzzles are the 2-, 3-, and 4- move combinations that should cleanly end in checkmate.  The comparison between combat sports, particularly sport jiu-jitsu, is often made.  The cerebral aspects of strategy certainly exist in both games, however in combat sports size, strength, speed, and athleticism can, and does, beat technique, skill, and tactics.  While the proper game will win chess, the proper game in fighting does not always end in victory.  The pieces and board of chess are equal the difference is only in the intellectual skills of the players.  Being mat smart is certainly an asset but does not guarantee victory.

However as a I play these puzzles I notice certain parallels between the mat and the board, between pieces and positions, in essence strategy can transcend the game:

• Winning is based on a foundation of position - All chess puzzles are based on an end-game with pieces distributed in specific positions.  The a priori placement of the pieces predicate certain moves for victory.  In order to solve the puzzle some of these pieces may not change position but without their current placement, movement of other pieces would not insure victory.  In combat sports the relation of your body to your opponent makes certain attacks and counterattacks possible.  You cannot execute an attack without position, submission and placement are equal, the felling blow and footwork need each other.  Even if your legs and hips don't perform the motion of a kimura that your hands and arms do, the placement of your lower half is paramount for the submission.

• Attack with intent, intending to defend is initiating defeat - The old adage that the best defense is a good offense holds true.  If you attack with the intent to finish, i.e. checkmate, you will placing your opponent in check for two reasons.  First, by forcing them to defend "check" they will change the configuration of the board to prevent losing now but increase the chance of defeat later. Second, they cannot finish you, if they are one the defensive.

• Play one move ahead, allow one escape - We are told to think several moves in advance, which is extremely difficult given the number of permutations in what our opponent can do.  We can limit the number of moves we need to think in advance, by being one move ahead.  By being one move ahead you have already limited the number of options your opponent has available, making your calculations simpler.  When closing the noose of the endgame, we allow only one escape, this is the epitome of a chess puzzle, if the moves are done appropriately your opponent is not initiating moves nor even reacting, they are behaving in a predetermined way due to the rules of the game and what you did.  Your fighting should be the same, be that move ahead and recognize the hole for them to go through should your attack not finish the fight.

• Victory can be solved by brute force or elegance - Sometimes the endgame is a series of captured pieces as we zero in on our opponent's king, this is brute force, literally battering our way through our opponent's defenses.  Alternatively the endgame can be elegant, placing pieces in jeopardy even as other pieces close in on your opponent's king.  The epitome of good gamesmanship the elegant solution is not better than the forceful one, both are needed, in different games to win.

• You cannot win without risking losing - When completing the endgame pieces will be exposed to capture or you might be one move away from being checkmated, however as long as they are in checkmate none of this matters.  Woulda, coulda, shoulda, does not stack up well against done.  Often times when we fight, we worry more about losing than we do about winning, and this can be a detriment to performance.  To inflict harm, to attack, means exposing yourself to the same.  Your game needs to be strong enough to be aware of this and transcend it.

Review: Mike Dolce: Living Lean

"Don't count calories! Make calories count!" is the tag line/mantra of this book. In it Dolce outlines his history and how this helped him develop an eating and conditioning methodology currently popular in mixed-martial arts. His approach is holistic rather than formulaic concentrating on realistic shopping and mealtime habit changes. His argument that healthy calories trump unhealthy ones, has not been verified in the scientific literature, although anecdotally people do feel better and are therefore theoretically more like to expend calories if they "eat lean". He shares his general diet principles followed first by a series of healthy and tasty sounding recipes. Next he outlines a series of exercise programs for audiences of all fitness levels with pictorial explanations of the exercises afterwards. He also includes some cardiovascular treadmill workouts.
Overall I would have liked more "meat" as much of his weight loss strategy comes down to willpower. Although I think his diet plan is practical it is not novel and a guide to coupling together healthy dishes after exhausting the menu in the book would have been helpful. The exercise programs look graded and reasonable if you have prior experience but like most unsupervised programs poor form will cause more harm than good. This section contains exercises that can be seen in other dedicated books on the subject of strength and conditioning, and nothing new here to people familiar with the area.

Overall I rank it a purple belt.

Caring without caring, with no apologies to Bruce Lee

We generally pursue things because we enjoy them. We take classes that interest us, eventually seeking training in an area that interests us, creating some sort of satisfaction or joy. This hopefully leads to a career that we love, or at least enjoy. Whether we love or loath our classes or jobs, we will also seek enjoyment elsewhere. Seeking the company of others, of the same or opposite gender, is because they have features, mental or physical that we like, cherish, or stimulate us. The same occurs when we seek recreation, if so trivial a word can be used to describe the pursuit of martial arts. We did this because it looked interesting or appeared to be a fun way to spend time.

Then why is it that most of us who train have the haunted look of someone who just took a bite of something foul, the distraught face of the first inklings of a brewing gastrointestinal calamity, or the pained expression of a patient with a thick-fingered and ill-tempered proctologist. How can a fun activity create grimaces only replicated in a horror film? Novice students have no beatific expression let alone a smile, no phenotypic representation of fun. If you're not having fun, you cannot relax and achieve the state of using less muscle.

It is anecdotally obvious that increasing performance anxiety decreases the chance of success. If the tense jerky movements of the beginner were purely neurological in etiology then mechanical practice alone would increase performance. Yes correct practice does breed efficiency by maximizing the results from minimal muscular exertion. However the collected gym veteran, who is polished and fluid with their training companions, can easily underperform in competition or in demonstration before an unfamiliar audience. They haven't instantaneously lost any of the neurological framework of their technique and skills, but they have been burdened by the interference of psychological noise from anxiety, doubt, and fear. Fluid tactics are replaced with jerky flailing, both dangerous but only one deliberately so. The relaxed, dare we say happy, fighter has better endurance and more speed which equals more power.

Like all martial artists we seek guidance from the animal kingdom. Aside from genus felis, no animal suffers from embarrassment, they have no self-conscious psychological baggage when it comes to behavior. Animals don't care who sees them hunt, kill, scratch, or mate. Why do humans? As babes we have no compunctions about any behavior, we learn it through societal conditioning, through the ridicule of others, through praise for desired behavior. We do that which others say they enjoy, not what brings ourselves joy. While adopting all the impulses of the id is not the answer to surviving let alone succeeding in life, not caring what others think might make you happier. Yes we can learn from others, yes we can implement behaviors suggested, and yes we can grow through feedback from experts. But no we should not suffer the negativity of others, biased criticality, or discrimination based on who we are. The challenge is finding what someone says that will make you better despite your pride and what is simply hurtful prattling by negative people.

Care intensely about doing well, doing for others, and doing it to win. But don't care if you fail, they don't appreciate it, or if you lose.

Stability Ball Goes 0-4

Drilling with a stability ball has been done before, as demonstrated above. Today I took this style of training in a new direction with the following drills:

• We used the drill above to warm-up to get the feel of sprawling on the stability ball. You can make this drill hard by getting closer and closer together, to simulate the actual range from which someone might shoot. You can also vary the speed or bounce the ball to simulate faster or higher level shots.



• Sprawl to Ground-n-Pound: Holding the Thai pads with the stability ball pinched between your lower legs, call a combination. Then force your partner to sprawl by kicking or slapping the ball to your partner. If you want, have them scramble on the ball by walking around them before holding a ground-n-pound combination.



• Stability Ball Dirty Boxing to Sprawl: Holding the top of the ball, you and your partner trap the stability ball between you. Call combinations, such as "hook", "shovel", or "knee". Suddenly jerk the stability ball down, having you partner sprawl on it.



• Sprawl Sensitivity: Have your partner close their eyes. Using a Thai pad, hold the stability ball against your partner, then without warning slap it down. They should react by sprawling on the ball. Then feed ground-n-pound combinations. This should force them to react to the change in pressure in their hands, arms, and chest.

We finished this series by using the throw dummies. The dummy is thrown at your partner's feet, they sprawl, assume an advantageous position and deliver strikes. Then as their partner reset the dummy, a second training partner attempts to take them down. Thus they get to work the offense ofter defense as well as the variable response to the take down.

A variation of stability ball exercises that I've seen in my Jeet Kune Do class is to use a stability ball between two partners. They knee and wrestle the ball trying to pull it away from their partner.

A training philosophy point: simulate as realistically but as safely as possible. Thus heavy striking should be done on pads and is of more benefit than simulated and shortened strikes during a drill with no contact, if it did have contact it would be called sparring. Training to fight involves hitting people, why train to miss? Also if you suddenly add striking chains or new technique to an established drill, you increase the chance of accident as what happens does not meet the prior expectations. If you throw short in training you will throw short in a fight, but your training partners will not appreciate you if keep bloodying them senselessly.

Infinite Vectors

"All right now, remember. A war is mostly run. We run whether we are defending or attacking. If you can’t run in a war then it’s already over."—Shichiroji, Seven Samurai

Movement, from an idyllic stroll in the park to a sparring match in a ring, can be described by a series of vectors. A vector is a variable quantity that can be resolved into components, it has both magnitude and direction, each movement described by a distance covered in a given time at a specific angle. A rapid advance may be described as a single long vector, while an evasive half turn is described by a series of short vectors of increasing or decreasing angle.

How does understanding a theoretical mathematical construct make you a better fighter? It doesn't. However conceptualizing movement in vectors may help you understand how to vary and texture movement, a valuable skill in setting up offense and optimizing defense. The more uniform your motion, i.e. the more identical your vectors, the more predictable your movement. The greater the variability in vectors, changing magnitude and direction, the more chaotic movement will be and the more difficult it will be to predict your next position.

Let's start with magnitude, the speed of movement, which already allows you two variables to vary. The distance covered and the speed it takes can be varied to set-up both offense and defense. The Starfish would be an example of changing magnitude toward and away from your opponent using essentially the same angle. Another example, would be drawing your opponent on defense, by shortening the distance you withdraw each time to pull them closer for countering.

The other component of the movement vector is direction, that is varying the angle your moving at. Traditionally, martial artist divide the compass of movement into 45° units, which is a convenient if artificial discretization. We have to remember that movement is three dimensional, we're moving both in the horizontal but also vertical planes, thus you are changing angles within the horizontal plane but also above and below that plane. The Corkscrew uses an increasing angle to set-up varied movement. Switching from a left retreat to a right one, is another example of varying angle without changing magnitude.

Thus when we use drills to enhance movement, work on timing, or spar we should incorporate an understanding of movement to enhance our ability to randomize our movement and maximize our offensive and defensive arsenal.

(P)reaction

In fighting we describe the activity provoked by an opponent's offense as "reaction". For example in muay thai after we defend an opponent's combination and return a cross-hook-cross we have performed a reaction. In jiu-jitsu when an opponent tries to break and pass the guard, the change in hand position and posture that sets up an arm bar or triangle, could also be considered reaction. Reaction is typically trained as the "turn" we take after an opponent presents an offense. This has a very specific advantage in being low risk: defend first and once your opponent is punched out with their hands out of position initiate an offense of your own. Unfortunately it also has disadvantages, particularly how long the reaction takes (i.e. the time the neurological impulse travels from where it lands to your brain), the training of "taking turns", and letting your opponent to get off first. A good reaction should teach your opponent that, if you survive their onslaught, that they will be punished.

Thus it might be better to avoid their onslaught, by controlling the range and by evading, and then counter. That is, punishing them without them punishing you. This has the advantage of not getting hit and letting your strikes land in prime targets with greater impact but it takes more speed and experience to read an opponent. Using this strategy still allows your opponent to throw leather, but forces them to expend more energy throwing misses and allowing you to hit openings created by your opponent's offense.

The "good offense is the best defense" strategy of reaction is presumably the level above the evade and counter. As soon as your opponent encroaches into your territory with the intent of offense, start yours. You need to retain the ability to cover and react while using the ability to read the path of evasion to set up a pre-action. You become a motion detector, that alarms violently.

These strategies each demand more and more skill as well as time in conflict (i.e. timing and sparring). They also develop increasing strategic complexity. In the classic, simplest style of reaction there is little more strategy than absorbing and administering kinetic energy. As one develops the timing of fighting one could consider the second, evasion strategy, as a "pulling" technique, luring an opponent in offense and typically giving ground to set up counters. The pre-reaction is a "pushing" style, aggressively attacking the attack before it is fully conceived. In all these strategies are not exclusive, the simplest cover return will form a back bone upon which "pulling" and "pushing" strategies can be implemented.