Tag Archives | Oxfordshire

New Self-Protection Course (diary entry)

April 22, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
Angry Fence to make space

21.04.18     This morning I began a new course with a new client. Training was conducted at my home address, where a make-shift gym is beginning to see an increasing number of new students. We covered the first two hours of my bespoke 10 hour self-protection course. Having already been provided with advice on some reference material for personal security, we began the session with an overview of soft skills in general. I cover these areas quite extensively in […]

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The V-Step and Dirty Boxing (diary entry)

April 20, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
Knee strike to head from clinch

19.04.18   My second lesson of the day was a regular private class, where we have been focusing primarily on the three transitions and four postures. Today we covered this again in our warm-up, but ended up focusing on the v-step footwork and some dirty boxing.   I was first taught the v-step in Tony Hayes’s Muay Thai. Its particular relevance cropped up in the Thai clinch. I later correlated with angling off in wrestling during my time training with […]

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Kicking Flexibility for Muay Thai (diary entry)

April 16, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
Jamie-stretch-small

14.04.18   This lesson brought my client up to the four and a half hour point of his second Muay Thai for Martial Arts Cross-Training. The main focus of the lesson was to improve flexibility for kicking and improve kick-based combinations.   We warmed up with mirror footwork and then did some kick placement before moving onto dynamic stretching. This included Cossack stretches and split-squats, which serve as good callisthenic as well as mobility exercises. We also performed a series […]

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Four Postures, Three Transitions, One Fight (diary entry)

April 5, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
Against the Cage1

06.04.18 Tonight’s special double lesson took an in depth look at the four postures and three transitions of fighting. This was all mainly taken with an MMA context. We spent time looking more at travelling movement through the postures as well as the usual single transitions. After a period of dynamic stretching and training specific calisthenics we began going through the postures.   Four Postures: Standing – Stand-up Fighting and Clinch range Kneeling/Half-Kneeling – Combat Base for Ground Fighting Range […]

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Mobility in Transitional Fighting (diary entry)

March 29, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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28.03.2018   Tonight we looked at incorporating more movement into our transitional drills for MMA. We began with a series of warm-up exercises in each of the postures, which promoted fluid transitioning. Then we built on boxing punching combinations to each posture in isolation and then through full transition – from lying on the back to a standing fighting stance. We then brought in travelling movement – footwork for standing and associated travelling movements for fighting from the back (snaking/shrimping), […]

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Kicking it up (Diary entry)

March 22, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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21.03.18   Transitioning through postures rounded off the revisions with work on kicking through postures and then we pressure-tested the different postures in specific sparring.   The lesson began with our current regular warm-up of various movement exercises in the four postures. We then transitioned from each posture in isolation before combining them into one fluid movement of getting from the back to the feet without put our hands down.   The kicking transition began with using the rear leg […]

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More Fighting on the Inside (diary entry)

March 21, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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20.03.2018 In-fighting is a part of Western Boxing that is only truly appreciated by people who genuinely love boxing. Many all-time greats – Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Roberto Duran, Floyd Mayweather Jnr and even the fleet-footed Muhammad Ali – were experts at fighting on the inside. Tonight’s lesson, which brought my client up to the eight hour mark of his 10 hour course in Western Boxing for Martial Arts Cross-Training, began to look at this range with more depth once […]

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Shadowing and Isolating Movement (diary entry)

March 16, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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14.03.18   Please forgive the vagueness of this diary entry, but my work here has become quite in depth and is mainly concerned with the refinement of a training drill. Therefore, it is written in a note form. Tonight’s lesson continued the transitioning through postures theme for martial arts cross-training. We are using the same drills that have been formulated over the past few weeks and continuously going back to the base postures.   We warmed with individual postures as […]

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Fight to the Feet Continues to Develop (diary entry)

March 9, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
Defence from guard to standing7

07.03.18   Tonight we made more progress with our transitional series of lessons. This area of training is planned to be at the core of the upcoming Vagabond Warriors seminar. We warmed up with dynamic stretching and mobility exercises before getting straight into postures. Here we moved through the postures with strict form. Then we isolated each one to perform specific exercises:   • Posture one (closed guard position and fighting from the back): Bridging (upa), snaking/shrimping on the spot, […]

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Punches, Kicks, Submissions and Takedowns through Postures (diary entry)

March 2, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
armbar from guard5 (close up)

28.02.2018   The second lesson of the day continued my long-time client’s transitional combative applications. We continued to go over and develop drills. Training began with the deck squat base exercise and then we broke up the various connection points used for fighting through postures. Next the humble jab was used as the single technique to transition through the postures. We began with a double jab, overlapping the second jab across the postures. Then, in order to promote faster and […]

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Taster Lesson at Kingham Hill School (diary entry)

March 1, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
fence

28.02.2018   Today’s first lesson was a taster session for Kingham Hill School. The event was well-attended by students aged 16-17 years. My mandate is to deliver a course of self-protection/Mixed Martial Arts. I usually like to teach a strict 10 hour course of self-defence first before moving onto martial arts disciplines, but I appreciate the structure and audience is quite different in this respect and these lessons are more akin to a club format. Therefore, I have decided to […]

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Testing the Transition MMA-style (diary entry)

February 23, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
fight back

21.02.18   As per the previous diary entry, we continued with this project on combative transitioning. This time we started to look at the possibility of having different base drills to teach different tactics, and also included some progressive specific pressure-testing.   We began our transitioning from the warm-up onwards. This started with performing bridges/upa and then sit-ups into a three-punch combination. From here we built on alternate leg-triangles into butterfly guard (mid-range guard) and the three-punch combination again. Then […]

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“Fighting is making the other fella miss” (diary)

February 14, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
Bob and weave

13.02.18   “Fighting is not hitting, any fool can hit. Fighting is making the other fella miss. He miss, he think, he worry. It’s a mind game.” (Gladiator, 1992)   Tonight’s second course in Boxing for Martial Arts Cross-Training brought my client up to the four hour point. We combined the previous two lessons’ work on slipping, bobbing and weaving, and also introduced ducking for a comprehensive review of upper body mobility. As my client pointed out, we had mainly […]

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Grapple ‘n Strike Transitioning Begins (diary entry)

February 12, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
Guard for street

07.02.18   Tonight my client returned to the all-range transitioning course after a brief interval of stand-up training. After a warm-up of rudimentary dynamic stretching and specific calisthenics, we went back to the deck squat. This exercise is at the core of my transitioning work, developing the right force-vectors and muscle groups to enable individuals to fight off the ground to a stand position. The deck squat presents the fighter with a good indication on over all conditioning in relation […]

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A Jab in Transition (diary entry)

February 8, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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03.02.18   My client began his second course in Modern Western Boxing for Martial Arts Cross-Training this morning. This was an hour and a half lesson. At my client’s request, we began work on evasions and focused this first lesson on slipping. I like to think of all evasions and opportunistic positioning, as it puts a more proactive thinking process behind the tactics being used. Every time a jab is thrown it presents an opening in an opponent’s guard and […]

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Stand-up Fighting & Conditioning (diary entry)

February 1, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
Boxing Jab

31.01.18 Tonight my client had an interval from our transitioning programme and we decided to focus on the stand-up range with appropriate conditioning. The lesson provided more of a review of previous material found in Western Boxing and Muay Thai as well as combining them. We warmed up with some mobility and callisthenic exercises before moving onto mirror footwork. Because today’s lesson was focused on mainly the stand-up range we spent more time changing stances and being mindful about angling. […]

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