Don’t Ask the Learned Ask the Experienced

I remember when I was going to high school we had a teacher who coached the swim team. Now the strange thing about it was he didn’t know how to swim! How crazy was that?

But as crazy as that was there are martial arts students who are learning how to defend themselves from people who haven’t a clue about whether what they are teaching works or not. Not only is this crazy but it’s also downright dangerous. Learning from the experienced instead of the learned tends to help cut through a lot of the B.S. As masters of mayhem and violence they tend to flesh out and put a face on violence. They help fill in the gaps between the what ifs and the what is.

It helps you to view violence from a correct point of view; you get a lifetime of learning if you pay attention to what they have to say. And if you’re lucky enough you’ll learn the differences between being experienced and having wisdom. It’s been said “Experience is what man calls his mistakes” and “wisdom is learning from others experience”. In reality there are things a book or a DVD can’t explain, teach, or show you. Such as seeing the fear in your enemies’ eyes or the moment you take his spirit and gain the advantage. Or the sound a head makes as it hits the pavement or slams against the wall in a dark alley. Or what it feels like to be stabbed or shot, these things can be best explained by those who have been through it first hand.

I have had students ask me for advice based on my experiences on various situations. Things like dealing with bullies, multiple opponents, guns, knives, fights at parties or bars etc. I tell them the ugly truth about each situation, not the politically correct version. It's important that know what they’re getting themselves into and the options that they have to get themselves out of it, if need be. Much of the advice comes from what I would call the “Grey side of the law”. I have learned from experience that this was the quickest way to get out of a dangerous situation. After all are you going to wait around for the police to show up to save the day, especially when you have two or three dudes kicking and stomping you into the ground? It's faster and easier to pick up a brick or a bottle to even the odds and get to safety. The learned can only guess as to what to do in a dangerous situation, while the experienced can tell you exactly what to do to survive and prevail.

While I don’t have any letters before or after my name such as PHD. or DR., I do have those that do, come to me to teach them how to defend themselves. And why is that? Because you don’t ask the learned you ask the experienced!

Daniel Sambrano
www.SuperHeroSystems.com

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.

Fighting with Flower Power

You know, most martial arts train its practitioners to be reactive. Drills usually consist of one student throwing a technique on another student, whether it be a punch, kick, grab, et al. The receiving student is taught to react with a block, perry, counterstrike, what have you.

What isn't taught is the fact that there may be a time when you'll need to be the one who starts and finishes an altercation. The streets aren't bound to the rules, boundaries, or respect that you'll find in a dojo.

The flower technique is a great fight starter. Based in muay baron and muay chao churd, the technique is a great way to break through an opponent's guard and gain access to his center line.

Watch the video for the nitty gritty.