Wim Demeere's Blog

Martial Arts and Self-Defense Blog by Wim Demeere | Techniques, Books, Podcasts

The big lie in martial arts

by 35 Comments

A while ago, I was doing a consulting call with a martial artist with 10 years of training under his belt. He’d contacted me a while ago to help him advance in his training because he felt stuck and didn’t know which way to go. So we analyzed what he had already done, what his goals and aspirations were, time constraints and much, much more. Long story short, he wanted to learn a new style because he had outgrown the reasons why he liked his current one.

That is a completely legitimate reason to change styles: sometimes, you come to a point in your training where what you learned before no longer applies to who you are now and what your goals are. So I said I agreed with him that if he was unhappy with his current art, it would be foolish to continue in it. The only caveat I added was that he needed to be sure of that before abandoning it altogether. He said he was.

Here’s the thing: he wanted to specialize in a style that would have meant starting from scratch.

The style was from a different country of origin than his current one, had a totally different structure, different techniques and strategy but most importantly a completely new set of body mechanics. At that point, I cautioned him to take a step back and think it through.

I’ll tell you something else first to illustrate the point I want to make about this: [Read more…]

Martial Arts Myths: High kicks don’t work in the street

by 18 Comments

“High kicks don’t work in the street” is another one of those blanket statements that has been making the rounds for decades on end now. Many people still say this today so I wanted to tackle it in this installment of my “Martial Arts Myths” series (if you haven’t read them already, here are article one and two.) As usual, I’ll try to explain my reasoning and back it up with examples. That’s why I included a lot of videos in this post, to make sure you can see all the factors involved.

Without further ado, let’s jump right in and get to it.

High kicks don't work in the street
High kicks don’t work in the street…

High kicks don’t work in the street

To avoid confusion, let’s start by clearing up our terms a bit concerning this statement. When people say that high kicks don’t work in the street, they usually mean the following:

  • The kick is aimed at the head of a standing opponent.
  • The kick is used in a non-competitive, self-defense context like a violent assault in the street or any type of physical altercation between two people.

So we’re not talking about kicking a downed opponent in the head. Nor are we talking about a muay Thai or MMA fight.

Now that we’re clear about what exactly is on the table, I’ll just cut to the chase and say it right away:

The statement that high kicks don’t work in the street is a myth.

I’ve done it.

Friends of mine have done it.

A truck load of other people I know in passing have done it.

Even more people I don’t know have done it too.

All of us have used this technique and it has worked for us. There is no denying this. Therefor by virtue of this fact alone, the “high kicks don’t work in the street” thing is a flat out myth. Now before you go thinking I am advocating everybody starts using high kicks extensively for self-defense, hold your horses. I said no such thing.  What I did say is that I (and a bunch of others) have done so, which doesn’t mean you have to try and do the same thing because there are conditions involved. Conditions that determine if you will be successful when throwing that high kick or not.

Let’s take a look at them. [Read more…]

Hand grip strength exercise for martial arts

by 12 Comments

A while ago, Thomas asked me a question on my Facebook page about something I mentioned on my latest DVD. It concerned a hand grip strength exercise for martial arts and self-defense I explained on there but didn’t show. Just to be clear, I didn’t show it because we needed to keep the amount of footage under control or else the video would be cut up into multiple discs and I wanted to avoid that (more discs is more expensive for both the publisher and the buyer, aka: you.)

I mentioned this exercise in a section about gripping techniques in which hand grip strength plays an important part. These are the tearing, ripping grasping and crushing techniques of the “tiger” mindset I showed.  Now back in the day, hand grip exercises were part and parcel of many traditional styles. There were tons of conditioning drills you needed to do religiously, including toughening the skin, muscle and tendons of your hands and fingers. If you do this kind of training correctly, you can get some scary results with it: I once saw my teacher rip a student’s t-shirt to shreds and draw blood by accident when he didn’t control his technique enough.  And that was when he wasn’t even trying.

You don’t need to get to that point but there is a minimum amount of training necessary to be able to pull off the techniques I showed in my video. That’s where this hand grip strength exercise comes in. All you need is an old newspaper and you’re good to go.

The video is a bit uneven in quality because the sunlight was playing tricks, but here goes:

 

Hand grip strength exercise for martial arts

A couple of things you should know about this hand grip strength exercise: [Read more…]

What I learned from Carl Sagan

by 13 Comments

As I young child, I watched the Cosmos series presented by Carl Sagan. In many ways, he was instrumental in my development as a martial artist but I wouldn’t realize that until decades later.

I remember being glued to the screen, amazed at the things he showed and explained. He showed just how big a place the universe actually is and how infinitely small people are. We’re only here for a minuscule dot of time in the eternity that came before and will come after us. I remember being terrified by this thought as I lay in my bed trying to sleep and feel a gut wrenching fear at the thought of my own death. It took me decades to make peace with that, so to say that Mr. Sagan had an impact on me is putting it mildly.

I would watch an episode of Cosmos and be fascinated by the things he talked about. Then I would go to the library and look them up, reading as much as possible about that subject before moving on to the next one. When I couldn’t get to the library, I’d read in the 5-volume encyclopedia we had at home (remember, there was no internet or Wikipedia back then.) and look up even more things. But that wasn’t enough. Eventually, I just started reading page one of volume one and kept going until I finished the last page of volume five. And then start over. a few more times. Finally, I started reading in the big dictionaries we had at home. I’m sure my mother must have been worried about that.

In hindsight, Mr. Sagan’s TV show gave me a thirst for knowledge that I have been unable to quench. After more than four decades, I still can’t help myself but be interested in, well, pretty much everything. As a result, I still read a lot and thoroughly enjoy talking to experts in their field, regardless of which field that is. The downside of this personality trait is that it breeds arrogance because you start thinking you know so much more than other people so you must be better than them, right?  You’re not really, but it takes running your head into the wall a few times before that sinks in.

I’ve had my share of those moments (I wrote about that here) and it took me perhaps longer than it should have because I’m a stubborn bastard but I eventually got the point: I’ll never know as much as I’ll want to know and I’ll never be as good as some people are.

And that’s OK, it’s the way of things and the sooner you accept that, the better your life becomes. [Read more…]

Timing drill for explosive punching techniques

by 20 Comments

Explosive punching techniques are the Holy Grail for most martial arts and self-defense practitioners. And for good reason: the more you increase your explosive punching power, the more damage you can do when you hit your opponent or attacker. It’s a no-brainer.

But I believe many people make the mistake on overly focusing on the physical training to develop their fast-twitch muscle fiber through all sorts of strength training protocols. Just to be clear, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this. On the contrary, it’s an important part of the puzzle. That said, I believe there is another part that s equally important: pulling the trigger.

One of the most difficult things to do in a fight, both in the ring or in the street, is deciding when exactly to strike. As in: “Not yet, nope, too soon, not yet, no, no, NOW!” When exactly that “Now!” is depends on too many factors to list here and they also change all the time but just to give you an idea here are two examples:

  • A guy is in your face, blocking the exit of a bar you want to get out of and he’s increasingly agitated. He’s giving off all the pre-fight signals and your de-escalation techniques aren’t working. You realize that the only way to get out is to go through him. When exactly do you make your move? Which factors or actions on his part determine your choice of that particular moment in time?
  • You’re competing in the cage against a tough opponent. You’ve traded blows and he’s gotten the better of you a few times already. You need to do some damage quickly before he becomes even more confident and aggressive because you don’t know if you can keep on taking what he dishes out. When do you throw your technique? At which exact instant do you initiate that punch, kick or takedown and why then instead of before or after that moment?

There are multiple right answers to these scenarios, it’s not black or white. This is a field of study in and of itself and if you like, you can call it strategy and tactics. There are as many opinions on this as there are people so it’s up to you to figure out what works for you. But here’s the thing:

Knowing when to do a technique is one thing, having the ability to pull the trigger on your technique at that precise moment in time is another skill altogether.

It’s that skill you are primarily training with this drill.

You also train other things and I’ll point that out in a minute but I use the drill primarily for this reason. Here’s how it goes.

The drill

This is the nuts and bolts of the drill. You can do it differently but I like this version as a starting point.

  • You and your partner stand close to a wall. He’s in his fighting stance facing the wall and you are close to it, slightly to his side.
  • Hold up a focus mitt or a light boxing glove against the wall, well above head height of your partner.
  • Without advance warning, open your fingers and drop the glove.
  • As soon as he spots the glove falling, your partner throws a straight punch at the glove and tries to pin it to the wall.
  • Repeat ten times and then use your other arm for the punching technique.

Here’s what it looks like: [Read more…]

Popular posts

Recent Posts

Search this blog

Custom Search