27.09.2023 As per the above title, tonight’s training was 10 x 3 minute rounds of Muay Thai focus mitt work. Round 1 – Basic Freestyle Round 2 – Teeps & Jabs with feints Round 3 – Dutch/Muay Mat Combinations (right leg low kick) Round 4 – Ditto (low switch-kick) Round 5 – Clinch (sweeps only) Round 6 – Clinch with knees Round 7 – Elbow combinations Round 8 – Kick-catch combinations Round 9 – Freestyle Round 10 – Freestyle Services
26.09.2023 Tuesday’s final lesson: hour five of my online teacher training course with Hostlebro Taekwondo Klub, Denmark. Tonight we continued with our hard skills training. Areas covered: Tactical Escape – Revision from the previous class Escaping Corners – 1-on-1 exercise with an especial emphasis on hip rotation in order feint and escape Arm Evasions – Simple exercise involving moving around a stationary partner who moves the arms consistently. The objective is to duck, evade and move to their back Corner/Arm […]
19.09.2023 Hour six of my client’s self-protection course moved us from social violence into asocial violence with a focus on predatory violence. We made the differentiation between the two types and also discussed potential hybrids. Harassment, muggings, stalking, kidnapping, targeted assaults, acts of terrorism, arson, rape, molestation, murder and serial or spree killing come done without much argument in the predatory column of violent crime. The protagonist looks at their victim as a target and not a rival. Bullying by […]
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 […]
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
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 […]
01.08.2023 My limited lesson course on Submission Grappling shifted its focus to the clinch. My client wanted to work in this particular field to link it with my her ground-fighting. Therefore, our warm-up largely consisted of box-footwork and collar and elbow “bulling”. We looked at the three basic wrestling stances and how to unbalance an opponent. I then introduced under-hook and over-hook pummelling. From here we covered the Greco-Roman arm-drag takedown. This technique, taught to me by Lee Hasdell, is […]
25.07.2023 Athena School of Karate booked me for the final in this course of classes on Muay Thai. Next week we will return to the “Learn from the Fight” format. Tuesday morning’s second class saw my client being run through themed 2 minute rounds to test and revise previous material. Round 1 – Teeps and jabs Round 2 – Round kicks and hooks Round 3 – Combinations with punching and low kicks (muay mat) Round 4 – Combinations with elbow strikes […]
01.07.02023 I was invited to take a talk and run a training session at the inaugural Festival of Martial Arts run by Matt Stait and Lucci Del-Guadio. This is the third time I have been involved in a martial arts festival (prior to this I was part of the European Martial Arts Festival in Disneyland, Paris in 2008 and Kwoklyn Wan’s Martial Arts Festival in 2009) but the first time I have taught at type of martial arts expo since […]
03.04.2023 My client’s third hour of her third course Muay Thai addressed training mindset and overcoming “bad” days. We did some technical work on the switch-kick shuffle using the agility ladder but mainly trained through rounds. Some days motivation can be low. There might be a variety of reasons from training burnout to general tiredness to current nutrition to other contributory factors. Some days, you feel physically fine but your focus feels off. My view is that in most cases […]
27.02.2023 Hour three of my couple client’s Mixed Martial Arts course looked at using an inside calf kick to set up a double-leg takedown. We began with a warm-up of level changing exercises against resistance. Although today’s techniques are both low line attacks, the calf kick comes from the stand-up range and is executed from a higher stance than the double-leg. Moving onto the combinations, we used the rear arm post, which is often used when throwing a round kick, […]
17.01.2023 Hour six of my client’s Muay Thai course introduced the back-kick. After our usual warm-up, we moved onto a couple of southpaw combinations working the strategy for moving to the outside. Often this maneuver has to be covered in the same way as moving to an opponent’s power side position. We used a lead teep to set up a rear straight left. The rear straight left is coordinated with the step that puts the fighter onto the outside, angling […]
11.01.2023 Today’s lesson saw my client move from boxing to Muay Thai and the application of the cross arm guard in this sport. I was extremely grateful for the work of Sylvie Von Duuglas-Ittu for her observations of this guard in Muay Thai. Sylvie’s story in Muay Thai is remarkable and I highly recommend that all those who enjoy my work check out her blog and her YouTube channel. This video was of particular interest. Nak Muays have a preference for […]
21.12.2022 As the title to this blog describes, we took the cross-arm guard concept trained over the past two weeks and executed through 12 x 3 minute rounds of focus mitt work and then finished with a four minute tabata of punching. After an initial warm-up, we focused on layering in slipping, dipping and weaving on top the cross-arm guard. Next we looked at the unique way certain punches are thrown from this peculiar guard. The jab, for example, is […]
14.12.2022 Hour nine of my teacher consultancy course on anti-bullying for Drum Kempo Ju Jutsu and Fitness. We went over the final slide of my presentation, discussing different tactics to use against bullies. A good deal of these overlap with general self-protection against social violence and asocial violence, of which bullying often straddles. All of these tactics will have their detractors. This is usually because most people have experienced some form of bullying in their life or, at least, know […]
Hour five of my client’s second Muay Thai course kept us on the southpaw tactics path. We focused on three combinations specific for southpaw fighters. Mirror side attacks offer a fighter unique openings not normally presented by opposite side attacks. When looking at the southpaw, the liver is one of these unique targets. Combination 1 – teep/feint teep/move to the outside/jab/rear leg round kick to the liver Combination 2 – jabbing to hands/spring straight left/rear round kick to the liver […]
