Physical conditioning issues?

Physical conditioning letting you down? Not enough endurance and stamina to stay in the game?

It seems pretty obvious, the correlation between what you eat and how you prepare yourself for the CM classes.

In a nutshell, you need to:

1. Eat and drink healthily
2. Lead a healthy lifestyle
3. Exercise regularly

Some are not doing that. There's no reason why you shouldn't. If you currently don't workout it will quickly become a bigger problem, not only for your waistline but for your health and the impact that has on people around you.

The classes offered at KDT is one option. Most people need to belong to a community, a tribe and they excel in a community powered environment. They need the support and encouragement of the group energy to spur them on. Others prefer the solitary swimming or jogging route. Nothing wrong with that either.

Whatever drives you, please do something about your health and fitness.

Be an example to yourself as to what you can personally achieve. Aim for your personal best.

The most common problem I see in my CM clients is that they don't breathe.

Here's the solution; breathe!

Specifically, breathe OUT. Concentrate on the EXHALE phase of your breathing. Breathe out when you punch, when you move your feet as you push, as you move your hips when doing Monkey Jits. The inhaling will take care of itself.

Make short, sharp exhales. Try it next time you're on the mats!

A matter of perspective?

A series of questions:

• What do people "see" when they learn that you practice a martial art?
• Do more people get attracted to you because of your hobby or do they keep away from you?
  
• Do they perceive you as a mild-mannered, butt-kicking 9-5'er or a mentally unstable sociopath who is on the brink of going postal?
• Do you behave like a meathead on roid-rage, all hyper, aggressive, exhibiting neanderthal tendencies?
• How do others in your social behave and act?
• Do you talk about fights, fight culture and the hundreds of scenarios on how to beat up someone?
• Do you get excited when you watch a fight in general public?
• Do you egg on the participants and then later on fantasize about how you would have ended the fight?
• Do you mentally size up random individuals in the street?
• Do you size up their weight and reach then match it up to your own?
• Do you feel there is nothing wrong by walking about in your daily life dressed in your fight clothes or uniforms with your belt?
• Do your immediate friends display any of the above signs?
• Do you start verbal arguments hoping that it will end up in a physical altercation so you can test out your "sweet" new move?
• Do you feel that your martial arts empowers you to be more for the above reasons?
  

Monkey Jits @ KDT Academy

Part of the CMD Program includes Monkey Jits, a range of fighting where close contact, grappling and wrestling comes into play.
Before I first started BJJ I used to wonder how to deal with people grabbing me, at my clothes or at my neck (like in the movies) and back then it was a case of "punch them to make them let go".


Then along came BJJ and now that has taught me to use the offending arm as the focus of my attack (at the elbow or shoulder) and as things progressed smoothly in BJJ with my arm-attack theory, the Monkey Jits program kind of turned things back to the beginning where I now have more options. I could attack the offending arm and I still can and probably should punch them until they let go or do both at the same time. Of course it didn't take me that long to figure that out but with each layer of information that I learned in BJJ I had to reframe it in a context that was applicable to what I needed to address questions about personal safety.

On the most part people learn BJJ for fun, sport, workout benefits or competition. For Monkey Jits, although they are very similar the competitiveness aspect is downplayed in the sense that when you "roll" (spar) you won't be rewarded with a medal or even if you "win" while practicing in the studio, it's still practice.

The winner is usually viewed as the person who successfully applies a submission or who gets the tap, however; I also consider the person who successfully defends and escapes a bad position to be a winner too.

As much as I can I try to find ways to get the class members to be in a win-win situation and not focusing on the tap.

As such the win may be achieved by both in the training format that I learned from Rigan Machado in the class drill and revision at the end in front of everyone. That's a really powerful way to instill and repeat the skills learned during class. The nervousness and having to remember and repeat the correct technique under pressure and in the limelight serves to replicate (for some) the pressures of competition without a competition.

In Monkey Jits, everyone's a winner.

Interested to join the CMD program?

Make a date with CMD

I'm excited to meet you if you are interested to join our CMD class in the future. I apologize that we are currently unable to accept you as a new client at this moment in time but I will accept your membership application for our next intake in 2010.

Our next intakes will be in February and in September.

Why are there only 2 intakes in a year?
I have made a commitment to my existing clients, some of whom have been training with me for over 6 years, about a high standard, transparency and quality of instruction. I am keeping my promise to them.

While I would like to have more students, realistically I know from prior experience that the optimal number of clients per CM session is no more than 6 clients to every instructor or mentor.

In order to maintain this high standard we need to maintain this student: trainer ratio.

What happens in the next intake?
Please send me an email regarding your interest or add your name and email contact to this blog. I will reply with details on how you can join the CMD. Thank you for your patience.

In the meantime please visit the CMD YouTube videos or join the CMD International forum to keep up with the latest CM developments.

You can also join us online at KDT Academy on Facebook. Click on link to the right of this window.


Join Our Team
Click on the "Comments" link below. Spaces are provided on a first-come, first-served basis. Please write your first name, name [at]server.com and cellphone contact (Malaysian phone numbers only). I will contact you via email and we will progress from there. Thank you!

The Monkey Dance

Extract of an article "The Rules" By Rory A. Miller

Remember the saying: "When two tigers fight, one is killed and one is maimed"? That's a lie. Like other mammals, when tigers, bears, dogs, etc. battle their own species, they have a built-in ritual combat to prevent injury. Deer go antler-to-antler, not antler-to-ribs. Humans are apes. Like most animals we have a ritual to establish social dominance or defend territory. It is nearly always non-lethal.

The Monkey Dance is a ritual, with specific steps
The dance, I believe, is innate. The steps may be cultural. In my culture:
1) Eye contact, hard stare.
2) Verbal challenge: "What you lookin' at?"
3) Close distance. Sometimes there is chest bumping.
4) Finger poke or two-handed push to the chest.
5) Dominant hand roundhouse punch.

A Canadian friend informs me that step 4 in his neck of the woods is knocking the other person's hat off. Like I said, steps may be cultural.

Need to get something off your chest?

A few points-
-The Monkey Dance is almost always a male thing. I honestly don't know the female equivalent either in humans or other animals.
-Most martial arts (and most adolescent combat fantasies) are based on this model. It is much easier to prevail in a scenario that is already genetically designed to be non-lethal.
-The Monkey Dance can almost always be circumvented by either lowering your eyes and apologizing or ignoring it entirely keeping extremely relaxed body language and treating the verbal challenge as a serious, thoughtful question.
-If you start the dance, you will probably not be able to stop. You have 50 million years of conditioning to overcome. I usually tell my students that you don't play the dance, the dance plays you.
-Most incidents are resolved by one of the parties backing down before violence starts. As Grossman pointed out in "On Killing" even major battles are far more often won by display than by combat.
-A professional can finish an encounter quickly by jumping steps. In other words, if the threat is on any step below four and you take physical, decisive action, he will be unprepared. His mind expects all of the steps to be done before things get physical.

That all goes out the window when attacked by a group. You're no longer a part of the contest to see who is the bigger monkey. The contest is between the members of the group and they will be competing on your body.

PREDATORY VIOLENCE

Though most martial arts train pretty well for the Monkey Dance, true predatory violence is another animal altogether. If a predator has targeted you, it is because he sees you as prey and he will stack everything in his favor. You will be smaller and weaker, injured or tired, distracted, unprepared. You will not see the first attack. You will not see the weapon. You will probably be injured before you are aware of being attacked. It will happen at a place and time of the predators choosing. Nothing will be in your favor. The initial assault will knock most people over the 175 BPM mark instantly, leaving only an uncontrolled, flailing berserk or a stumbling sprint as options.

This, in my opinion, is the basic presumption for true training in self-defense. Not one instructor in fifty understands that defending against the predatory attack is completely different than training for Monkey Dance violence.

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CMD in MMA

MMA Genesis - Lindenman from Larry Lindenman on Vimeo.

Who says CMD doesn't work in a cage? Doubt the effectiveness of a locked down structure? Think boxing is passé? Think again!

It's very interesting to see CM1 and CM2 in action. To see it being used intelligently against a game opponent who doesn't share the same knowledge or training. You can see that the CM trained competitor is so much safer, not a scratch on him, and he works his jab beautifully to set up the finish. I can provide the commentary but I think this video works best with the sound turned OFF.

About the competitor:
At the age of 46, he stepped into the cage for his first MMA fight in Chicago.
Larry Lindeman is a member of the Illinois State Police and he runs a narcotics task force. He is also a long time JKD/Kali practitioner under Dan Inosanto. As a matter of fact, through the 80's, if you went to an Inosanto seminar in the midwest, you would have met Larry since he was generally the assistant at all of them. He is also the first instructor of some noteable other JKD people, including some who do DVDs and appear in magazines. Larry, in part due to his job, has maintained a low public profile, but for those who know, are very aware of him. Considering his depth of background, and the fact he could easily coast on his own considerable knowledge, I thought it was really cool of him to embrace CM and BJJ so much.

After the competition Larry states,
"Used CM and never got touched. Actually hurt my finger and wrist hitting his face. CM works (period). His structure was sloppy and I kept a tight CM lockdown. I felt that I jabbed him 20 times. I remember seeing his face swell and bruise and thinking, "wow, I don't need to do anything but jab". He went down and turtled then grabbed my right wrist, over his right shoulder. I hit him with left hooks to the liver and ribs (felt like 20 times). I pried my right arm out and he tried to stand. Slapped on the rear naked choke, ripped him back, sank the hooks, and he tapped.

Wasn't really even breathing hard. What a friggn rush! Lot's of lessons.

1) Be conditioned. Work your ass off on the road and in the gym.
2) Manage stress the day before and the day of the fight. This is HUGE.
3) Manage nutrition prior to and day of the fight.
4) Six or seven guys from my gym fought. I had a team in the locker room and the camaraderie helped to manage nerves. Watching 3 of them win prior to me coming out was a big plus.
5) Seriously, the CM kept me from being hit, I felt his punches on my forearms and elbows, but never even flinched. CM puts you light years ahead of your competition.
6) I didn't even hear my walkout music, I was so focused. Didn't hear my coaches, when I was in the cage, either.
7) I had a plan, but modified it on advise from one of my coaches. I knew this guy hit hard and was a brawler. He also out weighted me by 22 pounds (I ate and drank a gallon of water prior to weight in, got up to 207. He cut from about 222 to 214). I was planning to stick and move and leg kick. My coach told me to just stick and move. He believed leg kicks in the first round, when the fighters are fresh, are not the best. Susceptible to takedowns and then you have to fight from your guard.
8) It was nice for Mike and his lady to come out to the fight. Great seeing him and getting the moral support. I had a bunch of my guys there too, so I had plenty of support...Of course if I lost, I'd be banned from this board and would have to retire from the job.

This trip started right here. I came on this board as a Kali / Jun Fan guy. Knew I had no ground game and looked for a school, based on information I got here, from Cecil, SN, and others. Took a CM seminar from Cecil and will unequivocally state, If I didn't work CM, this could have ended differently. I'm kind of blabbering, cause I'm still JACKED. "

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This post was inspired by the post on CMD Forums by CMD Pro Trainer, Cecil Burch and it goes out to the guys who feel old and slow. Goes to show that when you hit 46 you can still be a shark in your ocean :) a nice, benevolent shark with big, sharp teeth
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Jab game @ CMD

There are a lot of similarities between the sword play (fencing) and CMD Jab sparring.
Attack angles, footwork, timing and skillful deployment of the punch, parries, body angling and shifting, etc. all come into play.

It's frustrating for the beginner to spot the subtleties that go into this drill/game but once they get the hang of it, the jab becomes a devastating weapon in their arsenal.

What does this mean?

It means that the athlete has to master the jab. The footwork that carries the punch to the target. The set up, the approach, the hips and timing. It's about mastery over the self.

What makes a sports car? The colour? The low, aggressive stance? The performance engine? All of the above! It's not just any one element that makes it what it is but the sum of the parts.

In developing the jab game within the CM program we deconstruct it in a way by building on what you can already do. Like a signpost, my role is to steer you towards a better, more effective jab (and other CM games). Counter-intuitive or not, your responsibility is now to play with the information provided and keep playing with it until you can use your jab at will.

In the sport of fencing the athlete is focused and active on one side of his body, in boxing, CM, all aspects of the body is used. For me this is what makes the CM program so intriguing and challenging at the same time.