I remember one Sunday evening while I was a new bouncer at the bar. Eight guys powered past me before I could card them and ordered some beers. The obviously had already consumed a fair amount of beers. I was a bit nervous as there was the old bartender, a few dancers and everyone was depending on me to keep the peace.  

I calmly walked up to them and asked them to meet me outside. The six big guys followed me outside and I told them they were out for the night since they had not followed the rules. They were having none of that and they attacked me! More on this later but what could I do against six big guys?  I mean I was 155 pounds to their 200 and over?!!!

In this post I will address somewhat of a lost art – the much maligned sidekick! What? Yes once a staple of karate is not considered somewhat of a risk to use in a fight for some reason. Back in my day the sidekick was a great equalizer. I mean most people were inept at kicking and did not really understand how a little guy me could quickly gain the upper hand without a punch!

Here is a quick video showing some of the mechanics of the sidekick.

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This short video shows a good example of a basic front leg sidekick. Back in the 70′s this was staple of point and full contact sparring because of the speed and power of this kick. One could safely stay out of punching range and deliver a kick somewhat like a jab into your opponent’s side! What’s more the shuffle side kick could be more powerful than your best punch!

I have seen the sidekick break the defender’s arm in tournments even though it did not hit a ”vital’ area (no point was awarded). Ideally if targeting the ribs - you can break the ribs or arms if the kick lands squarley. I have also seen plenty of guys kncked down with the front leg shuffel sidekick!

There are a bunch of ways to throw sidekicks. Offensively and defensively (moving forward, in place or moving back, jumping and/or spinning), with the front or back leg, with our without initial movement and using the side edge of the foot or just the heel.

Just doing a quick count I come up with   24 combinations and their are probably more if one includes snapping or thrusting. The point is there are a lot of ways to skin this cat (throw this kick).

What I tend to do is used initial movement along with critical distance and timing to set up this kick. I was sparring recently and found many of the newer guys that do not use this kick much anymore – do not know how to defend against it well. I was able to keep them honest (out of striking range) because they did not want their arm or ribs bruised anymore! I was taking it easy on them.

How do I use the sidekick? I generally throw my front leg defensively with a hop back (if they are coming in fast) or with initial movement offensively. I don’t do much with spinning kick or back leg. I like to move around a bit and take advantage of any positional mistakes (switching footing within my range) or if I am fighting a blocker, mistakes cuased my a shoulder, hip or body fake. Whatever mistakes I can provoke on my opponent I like to take advantage of them with a good slip-sidekick.

The target depends on if it is for keeps or not. I mean if I am just sparring with someone – I’ll push the kicks up to the ribs (or arms) and keep the power down a bit (so I can spar for a while). But if the guy has good initial movement (can blow by my distance) – I increase the power to the ribs and if I have to – aim down to the hips to knock him back. I understand the hips are not really a legal move but I can generally get away with it and it changes they way my opponent attacks once he understands the price.

Sparring in the school I generally tend to use the side-edge of the foot too because this is the softer of the kicks. If you kick a guy with the side edge of your foot – the force is spread over four or five square inches. On the street or a tournament or for keeps – no such niceness from me. I use the heel! One square inch of directed force increases whatever power I am able to generate with my slip-sidekick. It is often enough to stop an attack from all but a seasoned fighter. The opponent will often start shying away after feeling a couple of these kicks if he has not already retreated.

So there you have it – a basic kick that generates more than enough speed, power and damage to end many fights. Why then is this kick not used much today?

I think it is because fighting has changed a bit since UFC 1 and Jiu-Jitsu. Since UFC 1 and the Gracies showed the world the grappling was a force to be reckoned with fighters have had to consider how to counter the ground game. At first not many fighters knew how to do this and Muay Thai kick boxing started to be dominant in MMA – quick karate style kicks lost of favor. MMA fighters tended to not throw snap, side and rear kicks that Jiu-Jitsu practitioners could easily use against them.

I think there is still a lot of that mentality today even though the ground game is easily countered if the fighters understand grappling. The telegraphed Muay Thai power kicks are easily subverted if one understands distance, timing and initial movement too but again I think many fighters today favor power and grappling and sidekicks has become somewhat of a lost art.

Here is what I think. Side, front snap and rear kicks are all more powerful than hand strikes but take some skill and knowledge of fighting strategy to pull them off. If a fighter is willing to take his or her fight game to the next level – he or she can learn some old fashion fighting skills to use in their bag of tricks. I know for me in late middle age – the power moves are out. I depend on relaxed speed, torque, distance, timing and initial movement to have the same effect as brawlers who favor the power moves. I like to say I can stand toe to toe with anyone to 3 minutes. This is ok for me as most fights on the street with one opponent should not last more than 15 seconds.

The recent rash of UFC snap kicks and Cung Le using spinning rear and side kicks should demonstraite that yes – even the sidekick can still be relevent in today’s martial arts.

To finish my mass attack experience, I have to half flip and twist out of the attack and lost my shirt (literally). I then challenged them to fight like a man, one at a time. I knocked three of them out in a row with a defensive reverse punch and then it was a running battle. I attacked whenever I had one of them in my sights. I used lunge punches, side kicks, wheel kicks an at the end I let the last three of them surround me – I was side kicking them whenever then encroached on my distance. You see they were scared of me by that point but where half heatedly making an attempt to find my weakness.

The cops rolled up and it was kind of funny to see 6 guys saying I attacked them. They wanted to know what I knew. I did not say a thing but later when the cops asked. I told them I was a brown belt in kenpo karate. Those cops signed up at the studio.

So remember the lowly sidekick is a force to be reckoned with  – even if it falls out of style with some that do not know how to use it effectively!

I was in Junior High-School when the Navy guy at my friends out imparted some fighting tactics to me. You see he was a black belt in Tang So Do Karate and was trying to impress us kids for some reason (and after ingesting a couple of beers). I was playing the what if game with him.

I asked him what would he do If I tried to punch him. He said, “I would chop your arm – breaking it and then chop your neck!” Wow I thought… Then I asked what about if I tried to kick you? He said, “I would chop your leg – breaking it and then I would punch your ribs – also breaking them.”

I asked him how he could break my arms, legs, or ribs and he simply said he would punch through the target. I had heard of punching through the target from my Okinawan karate instructor as he was teaching the moves. The idea was instead of aiming at the proximal (or close – on top target) one would aim 6 inches deep into whatever you were aiming at.

In this post I am going to discuss what punching through a target really is and why it is not used much today. Lets take a quick look at a video that shows some of the mechanics of how to surface punch a target.

Looking at this video the part they got right was to rotate as one is throwing a reverse or counter punch. Actually they got more wrong than right. First off if you are not worried about getting hit back we can suspend disbelief and not cover as one is throwing the punch. The video guy kind of torqued half way but stopped short and just twisted the upper body some.

What I would have liked to see is a 180 degree torque and let the rear shoulder loosen up and get some extension and then instead of aiming at the surface of the gut – aiming six to eight inches through the target!

Why adjust the aim of the target? Well as one example when I was young and dumb – I used to break boards and about anything else that was challenging when I was a teen. I quickly learned that if I aimed at the surface of the board – it did not break. One had to aim through the target if one was going to have any chance at breaking it. Let the inertia of the hand or foot overwhelm the target and do maximum damage!

Remember we are still suspending disbelief and the guy is able to do this full torque while relaxing and punching through the target. What happens if you miss? Well let me say that you are hanging out to dry. You might as well paste a sign to your forehead that says – Free Shot!

What I mean to say is you will be exposed, off balance and unable to recover for a second… more than enough time for your opponent to launch an effective counter.

So here is the deal. Lets say you have to cover up. Why would you take a chance at throwing such a bone crushing punch if it might go south? Because it is a fight ender! If you hit a guy in the ribs – you are breaking a few ribs. If you hit him in the bread basket – he is rolling around in the dust for a while.

So to describe how to set this up – here is what I used to do. I would spar a bit with a guy and try to get a sense of his timing – when he would come in at me or how he transitioned stances and such. I would start to get a feel when I could take a chance.

One of my favorite moves was to either do a lung punch with initial movement (meaning if he was in range – he was getting hit before he could react) or take a half step back and launch an overextended counter punch as he was coming in. Either case he was eating my fist. The only question if I timed it right was how hard was I going to hit him.

Well here is where I have a confession. I use to train with a couple of beers in me. You see I have it on good authority that a couple of beers will not change the shape you are in and they do loosen you up. I mean if you want to punch past your target – you will have no tense muscles to contend with and your punches will be very hard indeed!

Unfortunately I have had the experience of breaking someones bones in a fight that I will not go into the specifics of because is serves no purpose. To this day, I wish I had not had to be in that fight but I will say that absolutely punching through the target while totally relaxed and torquing 180 degrees leads to a very fast and  powerful punch!!!!

So lets talk specifics of targeting. If you are aiming at the groin with a snap kick and you are fighting for your life. Throw your relaxed snap kick aiming through the groin and into the abdomen. That will break – separate the bones and cartilage around the pubis area and render your opponent unable to walk.

If you are kicking  a leg – don’t aim for the leg but rather the other side of the leg… that will have the effect of breaking or severely bruising the leg  and make the opponent unable to stand. You will have to relax and throw the kick properly… just aim through.

If you are trying to throw a powerful punch or kick it might not work. This is because most people equate tension with power. I think it is because in order to life a heavy object – one has to tense. But in kicking or punching the opposite is true. If you tense up your punch or kick is slower and therefore weaker. Even if you punch through the target tense – you are not going to do much damage and become an easy counter target.

Relaxing while fighting has other benefits such as increasing ones stamina. I used to fight all of my students and many peers by totally relaxing and only increasing the effort at the moment of impact.

So power punching is not really a myth but many people do not understand it does not have anything to do with power per se but rather technique. Just having a good power punch or power kick in your arsenal with not help your fighting unless you land it but you have to have other stills of course too.

I will end with an example of how I was able to win a match with a power punch in the 1980′s. I was lined up against this big guy in National City and was trying to impress some kids but after looking at this guy taking 10 minutes to wrap his hand and the guns he had – I was beginning to think I was going to have some egg on my face.

Well anyway I was a fighter and one thing you can say about most successful fighters – they don’t care so much about the other guy – the only thing that matters is what they can do in the ring. This guy came at me and I worked some angles at first to feel him out. After a minute he was transitioning stances (a queue for me to attack while he was vulnerable) and I threw a very relaxed inverted lunge punch from just inside the critical distance.

The result was I connected threw his bread basket and my fist must have penetrated a couple of inches into his stomach briefly and I felt him buckle before I saw it. He fell to the floor and could not get up for several minutes. I won the match as this was the old days – one could not get disqualified for a body shot.

One question you may have is why don’t we see more power kicks and punches in kick boxing and MMA today? Well I would guess that answer is the fighters that make it into that arena are very highly conditioned athletes and do not want to go off balance for an instance when they know the other guy will take full advantage if they miss. The end up fighting more of a defensive fight and don’t cut loose until they have the upper hand. One does see some follow through power punches karate style that seem to come out of left field… they are fun to watch when they happen.

So throwing very hard punches is not about how strong and powerful one is but rather if one had the relaxation, torque and extension to pull it off (and punching through the target). Power punching is how an old guy like me could stand up to a bunch of thugs in a fight. I’m older now (53) and I know I have maybe two minutes I could go toe to toe with anyone before I peter out. The thing I would depend on is I know how to relax and take guys out easily with some fighting strategy and the street thugs probably don’t. Anyway I don’t intend on giving them a chance if I can help it and I will even use the ever mythical Power Punch!

I found this two title fight  (IKKC and WFKBA) lightweight title fight between Germain de Randamie and Angela Rivera-Parr on youtube. I’ve seen Randamie before and remember she was a tough competitor. This is a women’s Muay Thai match where the winner waked away with both lightweight belts. Watch this video.

Wow that was intense… did you notice the front kicks being used like jabs? I think I like watching Muay Thai better than MMA because is is striking (me being a striker). I like to see strong women fighters so girls can understand that women can fight!

Many women grew up thinking that girls could not fight because they were not as strong a boys. Women have legs that are stronger then mens arms. If a woman learns how to kick and throw concentrated palms, eye gouges, elbows, half-fists and other strikes – women CAN fight!

Many women do not think they could fight (psychologically) if someone attacked them. What? What does how you feel have to do with defending yourself? Well I should not judge as I am a man. Men traditionally have been the protectors of women and many girls and women grew up thinking that they would always be protected.

I think most women would fight to protect their children so there is hope. I also hope that this sexist society we seemingly live in where girls grow up thinking they don’t have to protect themselves, changes soon. Fathers should be taking their daughters to karate class (as well as ballet). I think karate, judo, boxing and such is every bit as important for girls as soccer practice is (or at least it should be).

This remindes me of a funny story my wife told me last year while she was out with the her sister. Some guy started coming on to my wife and she verballyrebuffed him. The guy got fresh and started to paw her. My wife was shocked and angry in a split second the guy was trying to run the bases on her and struck him with an elbow that knocked him off of the chair (he was sitting beside her).

That is not the funny part but very entertaining… the funny part is my wife called the guy outside to kick his butt! The guy had no chance… if he went outside with a woman to fight – he would have lost either way. If he beat my wife up I am sure ANY other guy would have came to her rescue (as well as her sister and friends). If the guy got beat up by my wife – he would have never lived it down.

Any way the whole thing got diffused without a fight but I wanted to bring this up, not that I am endoursing women calling men out to fights but the thought that a woman would consider fighting for her honor (still probably not smart as my wife had just learned a few moves). Women should understand that they will probably not have to fight except for the few times they have to use self-defence! But if a woman needs to fight – there will be no time to consider what to do… just fall back on training (hopefully) and defend yourself!

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I must be behind the times to be examining this topic. Today one can turn on any TV and see UFC, WEC, IFL and even Exite XC MMA fights! Modern MMA is way beyond the no-holds-barred matches of the 90′s where Jui-Jitsu came into its own. Today’s MMA can incorporate whatever mix of the fighting arts (yes I avoided calling it martial arts) that a fighter likes. This can include, boxing, jui-jitsu, karate, wrestling, judo, street-fighting and anything else that one can think of but generally a fighter has striking and ground work at a minimum.

The reason I am thinking about this now is the association I belong to has adopted grappling as part of its overall goals for future students. As I announced last week, the American Kenpo Karate Association that was derived from Tracy’s Karate, as taught by Richard “Dick” Willett, is having a seminar for beginning Jui-jitsu moves here. In this post I will explore karate vs ground fighting, area’s of compatibility, as well the future direction of fighting arts. Here is a beginning video I found of some MMA grappling moves.

Wow, Joanne and Lauren – the “MMA Girls” seem to have these moves down. The thing I am noticing so far is Jui-jitsu takes advantage of chokes and arm-bars and such easily where as the wrestling of my youth, I had to ad-lib to choke someone out later in life (yes I got to put someone in a then sleeper hold (now a rear-naked-choke) in a real fight). The MMA Girls can be found on their MySpace page here for anyone interested in seeing some of their other instructional videos. They also have a site at MMAGirls.net.

Who am I to validate ground fighting in MMA? No one that counts as I am coming into this late in life. I am a lifetime sport karate and self-defense instructor/practitioner that has been around the block a time or two. For a time when I was younger I got in allot of fights because I was a bouncer at a bar. I estimate that I have been in about 100 real fights over the two year period I was bouncing (21 to 23 years old).

The hardest fight I have ever been in was against a wrestler that kept trying to get me to the ground. I was able to avoid the ground game because I wrestled in junior-high and knew how to keep my legs away!. I am so glad the fight did not go to the ground as I could tell I would have lost my first real fight! Now that I am 51 years old – I have a lifetime of experence to draw on and I will apply this to my evaluation.

Karate, boxing, mui-tai, and full-contact is commonly called striking in MMA. As I observe, a practitioner of MMA (can be any combination of styles) need to have some striking. If a jui-jitsu fighter tries to win at MMA nowadays, he or she will usually not get the title unless he or she has some striking ability. This is because of the ground and pound (from my observations). Jui-jitsu, judo or wrestling does not really have an answer for ground strikes.

A MMA fighter should also have a ground game becuase it is legal in MMA. Some leagues like WEC allow for more liberal elbow strikes and it is really exciting to watch! Now you can fight in MMA without a ground game but if you get taken down – what will you do? So it is smart for a MMA fighter to have ground skills too (or at the very least learn out to escape the ground game).

When does it make sense to be the striker? Just like any other fight – observe your opponent and see where he or she is weak! If your opponent cannot strike as well as you - be the striker! If your opponent is an excellent striker (better than you), become the grappler. 

When would you avoid the striking game? whenever you have a better advantage doing something else. Fighting is fighting, meaning just because you might not have a skill – if you are a great fighter, you can think your way to a victory providing you have the requisite fighting ability!

When would you avoid the ground game like the plague? When there is more than one attacker! When I was a kid, I challenged a couple of twins to a wrestling match. I was a good enough wrestler to take both of these guys who admittedly did not have much wrestling experience but did have height and weight advantage on me. That is not the normal situation; what will happen normally is one guy will tie you up and the other one will strike! You get the drift.

Now how are karate and jui-jitsu compatible? As I already stated, if you size up your opponent, you can use whatever the other guy/gal is open for and pound away at it! One example here (not really karate and jui-jitsu, but applicable) is when I was learning boxing, I fought a good inside fighter. By the end of first round I was almost asleep at the wheel! The second and third rounds I came back with a fury and used my reach to strike from the outside! My opponent did not have an answer for that (luckily) and I was able to recover. The point is you have to use your advantage in a fight so you should train with hands, feet, sweeps, arm-bars, (extrapolating jui-jitsu here), chokes and such to overcome your opponent.

So as you can see that even though until this seminar I will have no jui-jitsu experience, I think fighting is fighting and if I learn some new skills; I should be able to incorporate  them into any future fights. I think (yes I am way behind the times and any MMA practitioner will tell you) MMA type of fighting is where fighting is going. Will fighting stop here? No I don’t think so – future practitioners will continue to refine fighting skills and strategies such as Joe Lewis has done for full contact karate.

Now if you are in San Diego on Saturday, November 1st, and want to attend a beginner class in grappling, please stop by and take the class. I will be taking my first grappling class so don’t worry about looking dumb. It seems funny to start learning new skills but you never know when they might come in handy!

I heard about this fight for the bronze in Olympic Tae Kwon Do and found lots of articles about this. Apparently this guy hurt his foot and called a timeout.  Angel was ahead 3 to 2 prior to the time out. Check out the video link below but I saw the guy took over the allotted one minute break. The referee disqualified the Cuban (Angel) and awarded the bronze to Arman Chilmanov (from Kazahkstan).

Talking about a bad sport, this guy got mad and kicked the referee in the face! Many of you that have competed in tournaments have had the experience of being robbed. But in this case, it does not even meet that standard! The guy just took too long before he got up. The referee gave a 10 second warning and when Matos did not get up – the referee awarded the match to Chilmanov. Even if Matos thought he was cheated (which he clearly was not) there is no excuse for going off on the referee.

Check out this video!

On a positive note – the fighting Lopez’s all came back with metals although no golds this time. 

I guess no matter how I frame this new karate league entitled the, “World Combat League” (WCL) my bias is going to be apparent. So off with the perverbal gloves and here goes. I found some of this type of fighting on VS TV the other day and I had a hard time figuring out what was going on. At first I thought I had found some type of wrestling or such because the two participants were just meeting in the middle of the stage and going at it. The strikes and kicks seemed real enough but there was not anything thrown below the belt. There did not seem to be much tactics other than just slugging!

I looked this up on google and found these were team competitions that were scored on how many kicks and punches landed in a round (rules). You could not clinch, hold, or do any take downs. I did not see any rules against leg kicks, groin shots but I assume those are not legal (groin shots are not normally legal in MMA). Here is a quick clip Chuck Norris’s World Combat League.

This is billed as full-throttle fighting. Looking at this clip I found it interesting but I also knew the fighters could not do half of what they are capable of, such as using fighting tactics! Most of these fighters looked like they could fight but just meeting in the middle and going for broke, I would argue, does not showcase their (the fighter's) talents. It is hard to figure out if a fighter that won a match - would do well in a more traditional Mui-Thai or Kick Boxing match.

I do not watch traditional boxing matches because the fighters are kept from using most of their tools. I have the same critique of this World Combat League, the fighters cannot fight anyway they see fit (plan their game) and then fight their game plan. Brawlers (in the karate sense) would do better even if they would not win in a normal full contact match. I think I will skip these fights on VS TV.

By the way, I do not want to (or mean to) slight boxers by my comparison. I have the highest respect for pugilism as a sport and fighting method. The only way (in my view) boxing compares to the World Combat League is from the reduced striking areas in the competition standpoint. When I was learning full contact karate in the 80's, boxing was a big part of that training.

We have plenty of exciting fighting leagues out there such as UFC, Pride, WEC, IFL and such that I will not be lacking MMA entertainment. I know there are Mui Thai and other full contact events that are sanctioned by other governing agencies that are also realistic and fun to watch. The next time I happen on the WFL matches on TV, I will vote with my channel changer!

As you probably know by know from reading this blog, I enjoy a good contest. I stumbled upon some kick boxing from Eurosport Fight Club on Youtube.com that featured a match from Eurosport’s Netherlands vs Thailand Kickboxing Series. I’m not sure exactly when this fight took place but it was uploaded to Youtube.com on January 31, 2008.

The series seems to be a national team competition featuring some really great fighters. For the Netherlands, Jimmy Eimmers is fighting and Hansuk is representing Thailand. Take a look at this video below.

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As I reviewed this video I noted Hansuk seemed confident but also noted he was dropping his hands. I've not watched too much Muay Thai kick boxing but there seemed to be a little bravado going on at the expense of common sense (from my karate point of view).

In the first round Hansuk seemed to be the dominate fighter, constantly encroaching on Jimmy's ring space. Jimmy was able to fight tit for tat with his own counter kicks, punches and leg strikes. Jimmy Eimmer's did a beautiful spinning back knuckle that momentarily dropped Hansuk. Hansuk recovered and took the fight back to Eimmers.

The second round Hansuk was more aggressive but Eimmers was responding well. Halfway through the second round Hansuk throws a power round kick into Eimmers gut and Jimmy counters with a match-ending left-right combo!

I don't have any Muay Thai Kickboxing experience but after reviewing this fight, I noted that Hansuk did not cover his head. That seemingly tipped the scales in favor of Jimmy Eimmer. In a fight, you do not always win based on superiour fighting skills... just as many times your opponent defeats him or herself! This is an important nuance that good fighters recognize. If someone is handing you a match on a silver platter - who am I to look a gift-horse in the mouth?

I would enjoy seeing more of this type of fighting on television as it is very exciting to watch. Right now (so far as I have found) there are only MMA flavors and boxing on American TV.