Creative ways to prepare for sparring at home

[Wing Woo Gar]

Sure. Run-Fu should be an integral part of realistic self defense.

Yep, the mirror talk is better the next day.

 

[PK_Tricky]

When I punch on my heavy bag, I like to hear the sound of my leading foot landing and punching landing as one blast.

To coordinate "hand with foot" is the easiest part of the training. To coordinate "elbow with knee", and "shoulder with hip" are much harder.

I always assume that when I punch, I have to step forward. I'll never assume that when I punch, I am standing still. This will brain wash myself that I have to keep moving in a fight.

I thought there was a relationship there (elbow/knee, shoulder/hip)! Thank you for sharing this, that tip will help me out a ton!
-PK

 

[PK_Tricky]

Don't tie it to a hat. You want to be able to move around it, slip it, move off it's center line. Hang it lower and you can train kicks by kicking the gaps. Long slow swings will give you time to throw combo punches between the gaps. Follow the swing of the tennis ball to work on how to pressure your opponent. Retreat from the swing to work on evading and countering. You can do any of these things if the ball is tied to your head.
Treat the gaps of the swinging tennis ball like openings in an opponent's defense. This will greatly increase your punching and kicking speed.

Thanks JowGaWolf, fantastic input! I am so glad I decided to seek help in a forum, you guys are awesome!

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Also true, but I want to look good when I’m running away.

One of the long fist training is to kick the sand back at your opponent's face when you run away fom him. Unfortunately today we don't have much sand on the paved road.

 

[drop bear]

Sort of, if you're talking about competition. And you can get more out of training if you're not sucking air and trying not to just fall over. But real fights generally last seconds, not minutes.

Seconds is enough to physically loose fights.

 

[Dirty Dog]

Seconds is enough to physically loose fights.

Of course. That's why the fights only last seconds, obviously.
My point being that in a 10 second fight, cardio is not a huge issue.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Thanks JowGaWolf, fantastic input! I am so glad I decided to seek help in a forum, you guys are awesome!

This is an example of my tennis ball training. The goal is to develop speed. I use a bell here to simulate an incoming punch. I'm not blocking but attacking the bell. My targets then becomes the gaps of the swing bell that I must punch and move through. Then I have to strike around my last target which is a tennis ball in a sock. The last strike is a parry followed by a backfist. You have to be very quick to land the back fist before the ball escapes. With the last strike I focused on points of impact. For the final movement I must lower my stance as the tennis ball swings back. My footwork gets me through.

 

[Steve]

Sure. Run-Fu should be an integral part of realistic self defense.

So, like cardio?

 

[Gyakuto]

This is an example of my tennis ball training. The goal is to develop speed. I use a bell here to simulate an incoming punch. I'm not blocking but attacking the bell. My targets then becomes the gaps of the swing bell that I must punch and move through. Then I have to strike around my last target which is a tennis ball in a sock. The last strike is a parry followed by a backfist. You have to be very quick to land the back fist before the ball escapes. With the last strike I focused on points of impact. For the final movement I must lower my stance as the tennis ball swings back. My footwork gets me through.

How very inventive! Do you change the scenario? Shortening it , adding pauses etc for example?

 

[Gyakuto]

Cardiovascular fitness is very important in the martial arts. A fight may only last for a few seconds (it may not), but that assumes you haven’t, for example, attempted to run from the altercation before having to turn around and face your assailant or that you may have to deal with several attackers thus prolonging the duration of conflict. At the beginning of a fight, one‘s adrenaline kicks in, the heart rate shoots through the roof and the respiration rate increases and shallows -a cardiovascular in response to impending exertion. This can sap your energy long before you’ve even made contact with your would-be attacker.

Thus one should attend to cardiovascular fitness as seriously as one does to, say, flexibility training, as part of ones MA training. After all, would you buy a car who’s maximum speed is 64.37kmph (40mph) because “that’s the fastest you’re allowed to drive around town anyway”?

 

[PK_Tricky]

This is an example of my tennis ball training. The goal is to develop speed. I use a bell here to simulate an incoming punch. I'm not blocking but attacking the bell. My targets then becomes the gaps of the swing bell that I must punch and move through. Then I have to strike around my last target which is a tennis ball in a sock. The last strike is a parry followed by a backfist. You have to be very quick to land the back fist before the ball escapes. With the last strike I focused on points of impact. For the final movement I must lower my stance as the tennis ball swings back. My footwork gets me through.

Well thats impressive, thanks for slowing it down. I had to watch it a few times to understand what you ment. Honestly, that is a very smart way to hone your skills. Thats what I love about any art form (I include martial arts in that catigory), you can always find new creative ways to do things!

 

[PK_Tricky]

Cardiovascular fitness is very important in the martial arts. A fight may only last for a few seconds (it may not), but that assumes you haven’t, for example, attempted to run from the altercation before having to turn around and face your assailant or that you may have to deal with several attackers thus prolonging the duration of conflict. At the beginning of a fight, one‘s adrenaline kicks in, the heart rate shoots through the roof and the respiration rate increases and shallows -a cardiovascular in response to impending exertion. This can sap your energy long before you’ve even made contact with your would-be attacker.

Thus one should attend to cardiovascular fitness as seriously as one does to, say, flexibility training, as part of ones MA training. After all, would you buy a car who’s maximum speed is 64.37kmph (40mph) because “that’s the fastest you’re allowed to drive around town anyway”?

Nicely put. In other words, don't sell yourself short (pardon the pun hahaha).

 

[Dirty Dog]

So, like cardio?

Sort of, but it's not likely you're going to need to run far.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

This is an example of my tennis ball training. The goal is to develop speed. I use a bell here to simulate an incoming punch. I'm not blocking but attacking the bell. My targets then becomes the gaps of the swing bell that I must punch and move through. Then I have to strike around my last target which is a tennis ball in a sock. The last strike is a parry followed by a backfist. You have to be very quick to land the back fist before the ball escapes. With the last strike I focused on points of impact. For the final movement I must lower my stance as the tennis ball swings back. My footwork gets me through.

You look like you are thinner, and moving a little different, been hitting it hard with the mma guy huh?

 

[JowGaWolf]

How very inventive! Do you change the scenario? Shortening it , adding pauses etc for example?

Yes. I change the length of the cord that it's tied to. Which changes the rate that it swings. Sometimes instead of passing through I will throw a combo into the gap then retreat. The bigger the swing the bigger the gaps. The smaller the swing the smaller the gaps and the faster I have to punch or kick.

The hardest thing is to strike the target without killing it. Front kick training would be to have it swing back and forth towards me with be wings. I then target the peak swing point away from me and I have to pull back my before the ball returns and sometimes I have to get out of the way. Certain punch drills work better than others. I've been trying to figure out a way to train power on it. I have a couple of ideas, I just need to test them out

 

[JowGaWolf]

Well thats impressive, thanks for slowing it down. I had to watch it a few times to understand what you ment. Honestly, that is a very smart way to hone your skills. Thats what I love about any art form (I include martial arts in that catigory), you can always find new creative ways to do things!

It can be creative but it has to be practical and apply directly to the skill you are training. For example, the down parry using the tennis ball is the same form and movement that I would use to apply it to a punch and then someone's face. I could do it vertical or horizontal (parry and backfist.) If there's a big difference between exercise and application then you'll have trouble.

The "creative drill" should be as close to application as possible. For examples, I punch the gaps so that I don't have to reduce power. I can punch as hard or as soft as I want so long as I can pull my punch or kick back before the string or the ball hits me.

You look like you are thinner, and moving a little different, been hitting it hard with the mma guy huh?

This was when I was going really hard at it about 3 years before the MMA guy and a couple of months before I had my car accident. After the car accident I had a jacked up hip for the longest and I gained a lot of weight during that period.at the moment I'm lighter now than I was in that picture and I move a lot better as well. If I had to guess I'm about 5 times better than I was in that video.

I will pick up that same training in the video when the weather gets warmer. I've been neglecting my speed training and overdoing my power training.

 

[drop bear]

Sort of, but it's not likely you're going to need to run far.

Well if everyone else is only prepared for ten seconds fights and short runs.

Then cardio becomes even more useful.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Well if everyone else is only prepared for ten seconds fights and short runs.

Then cardio becomes even more useful.

I live in the giant redwoods so hiking is really big here. My cardio is important to me so I can keep up with my wife on long hikes. Well, to be truthful 11-12 miles in the hills is long for me, but a breeze for her.

 

[Gyakuto]

There seems to be a glut of huge-bellied martial arts ‘masters’ around these days and I suspect they’re not fans of cardiovascular training. Do they sell plus-sized black and red and white belts in the US?

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

I live in the giant redwoods so hiking is really big here. My cardio is important to me so I can keep up with my wife on long hikes. Well, to be truthful 11-12 miles in the hills is long for me, but a breeze for her.

The maximum distance of one day hike that I did was 23 miles in Grand Teton National Park that include climbed to the peak and came down.

The most challenged hike can be the iron man test. You run down from the south rim of the grand canyon, you then run up to the north rim of the grand canyon. The distance is 25 miles with 5850 ft drop and climb.