14.09.2023 Hour three of my client’s Boxing conditioning course continued with our specific sparring. This time we went for three minute rounds to shake matters up a bit. His fight in November will be 3 x 2 minute rounds. Round 1 – Attack only Round 2 – Defence only Round 3 – Southpaw versus orthodox Round 4 – Ditto Round 5 – Southpaw versus southpaw Tabata 1 – Speed punching Tabata 2 – Power punching Services
13.09.2023 With my 1.5 hour client nursing a niggling knee injury we decided to take a break from takedown training and to look at how some of the grappling techniques transferred into Dirty Boxing. We began with a review of the foundational holds, grips and positioning we have been training. I also introduced a skull-snatch hold but not into a throw. Then we went back through some body-shot training. This was then combined with the upper body grappling. Finally we […]
12.09.2023 Tuesday’s third lesson was yet another online session and also the third hour of my 10-hour teacher development course for Hostlebro Taekwondo Klub, Denmark, ahead of their seminar weekend in November. We are going through my foundational self-protection course with deviations into extra material recently acquired and also explanations on how to adapt it to children’s self-protection. Tonight we largely kept with Jo Saunders’ material on social violence but also crossed onto my general self-protection presentation as we discussed […]
“Learn from the Fight” Lesson: Floyd Patterson versus Ingemar Johansson Undisputed World Heavyweight Championship 20.06.1960 It had been almost a year to the day that Ingemar Johansson had shocked the world with his upset victory over Floyd Patterson. Johansson became an instant celebrity and was the first Swede to win a world title. He had also handed Patterson both his second career defeat and his first knockout. During a match that Patterson said he had […]
12.09.2o23 Hour two of Drum Martial Arts and Fitness teacher consultancy programme on children’s self-protection. The lesson discussed why boundary setting is a very definitive aspect of self-protection training. I brought in the “circle of trust” metaphor to help explain basic boundaries important to children (and everyone). This is a concept that is an important component of the Rabbit programme but it can be touched upon with younger ages. There various ever more complicated and personalised versions of these trust […]
11.09.2023 Hour four of my client’s first Self-Protection course was another online soft skills lesson. We covered the following three areas: Case study – My client reported a recent incident where he and a male colleague were met with potentially violent antagonism. The two actors were on their way back from their place of work towards a local train station. On the other side of a fence-line they were called out to by an individual who was clearly trying to […]
10.09.2023 I was invited to teach a two-hour self-protection seminar for a group of 12-14 year-olds as part of a birthday party. We began with the definition of self-protection, establishing the legal definition of self-defence (hard skills) and personal security (soft skills). We then went through some simple escape […]
08.09.2023 Hour four of my UKSO Cotswolds’ teacher client’s clinch course brought us on to using headlocks. These were all performed as sag takedowns, meaning no big explosive movements or lifts. We warmed up bulling the collar/elbow ties and pummelling the overhooks and underhooks. Whilst drilling the former we looked at creeping a dominant inside elbow grip. This was a good tactical principle I wanted to address: getting an opponent to ignore a deposit on a strong position. We acknowledged […]
06.09.2023 I was delighted to teach a two-hour session to Jan Drachman of Hinnerup Karate and Brian Bates of Zanshin Karate. Jan is visiting from Denmark to tour various UK training establishments. He has booked me twice over the previous decade to teach seminars for his club. Today I was tasked with teaching aspects of the clinch and transitioning to finishes on the ground. This was all based around sport fighting concepts. We drew upon elements from Muay Thai, Boxing […]
05.09.2023 My last lesson on Tuesday night was a continuation of my teacher development course for Hostlebro Taekwondo Klub in Denmark. We are in hour two but, with the previous lesson being a general overview of self-protection, this was really the beginning of the actual soft skills learning. Our focus today was on social violence and how it needs to be taught to adults and children. The following points were observed […]
05.09.2023 After a short break my client resumed his Boxing conditioning in readiness for a charity fight in November. The break involved him climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, an experience that we discussed will be a great mental reference point for pushing through extreme fatigue. Our warm-up consisted of ladder runs where we performed a few footwork drills before getting onto some light sparring. In line with […]
05.09.2023 Drum Martial Arts and Fitness re-booked me for some more continued professional development/teaching consultancy. They are especially interested in my children’s self-protection programme, “Animal Instincts”, (developed in conjunction with Athena School of Karate). This programme is still in development, although we have a deadline for 24th November to launch the “Rabbit” (7-11 year-olds) teaching phase of the soft skills programme online. This morning I discussed our general overview of the programmes and its badge system. Services
“Learn from the Fight” brought us back to the career of Gene “Cyclone” Fullmer who was still holding the NBA version of the world middleweight title. Having won a controversial unanimous decision over Ellsworth Webb in Fullmer’s home state, he now gave Joey Giardello his first title shot. “Joey Giardello” was born Carmine Orlando Tilelli on 16th July 1930 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. Towards the end of World War 2 he decided to join the US Army but was underage […]
04.09.2023 I continued to build the two teenage brothers’ Muay Thai weapons with the addition of the Thai hook punch and a mid-section round kick. We warmed up with some shadow work, reviewing footwork and layering in all the defences (cover, shield blocks, body blocks, parries, slipping and shin-checks) as well as all the techniques they had so far learnt (jab, rear straight, teep and low round kick). I then had them both […]
30.08.2023 My 1.5 hour client’s deep dive into Greco-Roman Wrestling inspired techniques and tactics continued tonight as we covered some new tactics in throwing and some more wrestling-based ground-fighting. After a warm-up of grappling-based callisthenics and dynamic stretches – Indian press-ups, Indian squat, head bridges and crab press-ups – we went back to the 2-on-1. From this position I linked in an old primal move now often disregarded technique in Submission Grappling and MMA, the head-lock. This was the sag […]
29.08.2023 Tuesday’s final lesson was teaching my children’s self-protection methods as a means for instructor development to Hostlebro Taekwondo Klub in Denmark. This is preparation for my “When Parents Aren’t Around” seminars that will be taught over there later this year and also ahead of the new “Animal Instincts” children’s self-protection teaching programme. Tonight we went through an overview of self-protection. We covered definitions, separating self-protection from martial arts. I used Iain Abernethy’s Martial Map, Mo Teague/Peter Consterdine’s personal security/self-defence […]
