Muay Thai Academy open house on March 31st

Update - 3/28 - There will be a ton of Mexican food catered (for free).... please come hungry. Donnie-

If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area this weekend, feel free to stop by the Muay Thai Academy International in Santa Clara. We're having an open house Saturday March 31st from 1pm till, i don't know, around 4pm. We're celebrating the move into our new, much larger training facility, our 22nd year in operation ***BRAG STAT ALERT*** Muay Thai Academy International is the oldest, longest running muay thai school in North America. For those who have trained at MTAI can feel proud to be a part of that legacy. Alright, enough blah blah blah... here's the skinny:
RSVP on Facebook

Where:  
Muay Thai Academy International
320 Martin Avenue Suite D, Santa Clara, California 95050 
We're right behind the San Jose Airport. Very inconspicuous, no signage - on purpose - so trust your GPS

*Here's a little teaser of the new training facility*

When:
Saturday March 31, 2012 1pm-4pm
What & Why?
For MTAI students: This is your chance to show your friends & family what you mean when you try to explain what muay thai for the street means!

For the who are curious about what Daniel & I have been blogging about for years: Come meet us! This isn't a recruiting event, its more like an opportunity for knowledge sharing. 

We'll have the floor open for training, instructor demonstrations on open hand, weapon & multiple opponent tacticts with MTAI's owner, alonf with Daniel, and Donnie, as well as knowledge sharing with Mr. Gober, Sifu Le and Guro John Ward. So, we will have subject matter experts from other fighting systems present.

Oh yes. There will be food. But the real reason is to get together. As anyone who as ever trained with us knows, once a member of the MTAI, always a member.  Past, present, future, and never-plan-to-become students are welcome to attend. We would love to catch up with you!

And I know how much you miss throwing an up elbow/down elbow/switch knee combo... RSVP on Facebook

Speed kills... the other guy in the world of muay thai

"The stronger swordsman does not necessarily win. It is speed! Speed of hand, speed of mind."

That's one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite stories, The Count of Monte Cristo. It is a common belief that power and size go hand in hand. Well that's bad news for a guy like me. See, I'm  5 foot six, a hundred and forty-something pounds - a self professed little guy.  I'm certainly not big, and I don't want to be big. I never had big muscles. In fact, growing up I had the metabolism of a squirrel. I tried bulking up, but my body just burned off every type of protein muscle-max weight gain product I could blow my allowance on. When I started training muay thai, I was hoping that this high impact martial art would get me yolked.

Nope.

But us little guys have a strength that a lot of the bigger guys disregard - speed. I think speed is a defense mechanism that you develop when you're being chased by bullies as a little kid. When that speed is used for fight instead of flight, bullies become a non-issue

I've noticed that during the course of their training a lot of western muay thai and MMA practitioners tend to develop the mind set that the more weight one can push the harder one can strike. Not necessarily so. Strength gives you the ability to move mass, but does it enable you to cause more damage to that mass than a person 2/3 your size?

When it comes to striking, speed is king. Developing the ability to throw with explosive speed can give a person a small as myself the ability to generate devastating power. Its simple bio-mechanics, nothing mystical. When you understand that the faster you can throw a strike in a smaller period of time, and get your body into it, your opponent is in a world of hurt.

Here's a couple quick tips to help you develop explosive power with your strikes:

1. Basic physics - your mass x acceleration = force. Don't throw punches with your arm, throw it with your body. Drive forward with your strikes, punch through your target.

2. Pivot in, pivot out - The pivot is one of the most important aspects of the muay thai round kick. If you throw a kick at 20mph, bring your leg back at 25mph, and bring it back with that pivot.

3. The faster you can pivot, the harder you can strike - this applies to elbows, round kicks, hooks.

4. Commit 100% to the strike at that moment, don't worry about counter strikes because if you're training right, you wouldn't depend on a one-shot knock out. You throw at least 3-5 in a single combo.

5. If you're like me you don't train muay thai for sport, but for protection. You can't get disqualified from a street fight, so when you strike you aim for soft targets, and you attack with everything behind it.

6. Most important tip ever! When you're learning a technique, throw it slow until you are comfortable with moving your body that way. Build the speed at your own pace, the power will increase as your speed increases. You aren't going to impress anyone firing off a half ass technique with no power.