Archive for the 'kick boxing' Category

When I was a kid I remember wondering what was best, wrestling or boxing. At the time I thought boxing was the best but when karate became popular in the 60′s – the argument became boxing or karate! Well fast forward past the 90′s (was a very confused time) and now if you ask any kid… they will no longer say jiu-jitsu but mma! Why to a teenaged kid that would not even watch a boxing match – MMA is king!

So why am I not impressed with the flavor of the day? I am not out to challenge anyone or trying to get an accomplished martial artist in judo, muay thai, jiu-jitsu, wrestling, or boxing to come over the dark side. But what I do want to do in this post is to examine how effective various martial arts would be in a real fight for an average guy/gal that has a couple of years experience under his/her belt.

I also want to look at some other factors such as the point of each martial art… you know what is it good for anyway? Don’t get mad but if your martial art has lots of rules that don’t easily transition to a real fight – what good is it in a fight (unless you are a world class fighter – then it makes no difference what you learn… it will all work)?

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The news has been full of knife attacks and even the TSA has been considering letting people fly with small pocket knives. It is even scarier to some so removed from fighting or using hand tools that in my estimation I think most people think that a knife attack is not survivable!

I would like to make the point that as in any other kind of attack (read club, gun, baseball bat, hand to hand or whatever) – they are all serious. You can get hurt if you are not a trained fighter. Heck even if you are a trained fighter – you can get hurt.

In this post I’ll evaluate the obvious (to me) about knife attacks (or really any attack – they are all the same from a self defense point of view). But first review this video for a realistic overview.

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David Hays will be opening a new studio in the Ahwatukee foothills of Phoenix Arizona on January 12, 2013.

We will be teaching Tracy’s traditional Kenpo, the Joe Lewis fighting system of competitive tournament sparring and kick-boxing.

If you know anyone in the Phoenix area that is interested in lessons or an upper belt looking for a place to work out and/or help with coaching, please contact me at dhays@azakka.com

Thank you in advance for the support.

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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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.

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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.

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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.

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